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Full Transcript:

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

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous.

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

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

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If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

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

Hey guys. Today we are talking about a really important topic. It’s one that gets recommended or requested. Often it’s respect okay or the lack thereof right? Disrespect. So if you are feeling disrespected, we’re going to talk about four things that you can do today. All right. Um let’s talk about this for a second. Do you feel disrespected by your spouse?

Do you feel disrespected by your children?

Maybe when your kids are disobedient, you feel disrespect or your you hear them yelling or being mean to one another and you just feel like, man, there’s no respect in their relationships. Let me tell you, if you have said yes to any of these questions, I really want to encourage you to join us in the next Parenting Mentor program, where we are diving into six really crucial topics, and it is set up in an awesome way, where couples are sitting together or even going through the videos separately, but then coming together and going through some of the questions that we have, the date night questions that are in the parenting mentor packets, and we’re talking about topics like the heart. Do you have the heart of your child? We talk about sibling relationships in there. We talk about purity. We talk about theology, of parenting, all amazing topics. So if that’s something you’re interested in, we just want to invite you to find out more about that at Courageous Parenting.com.

And if you’re in the app, make sure you go through the Courageous Marriage series. It’s there and it’s so helpful. Uh, six hours of curriculum in there. It’s good. Oh, yeah.

I mean, we talk about oneness. We actually talk about this topic of respect and backing each other up. And so it’s free for.

Everybody that subscribes to the app. So you can get that free for a week. And maybe you could do the whole thing in a week and then cancel the app and boom, there you go. There you go.

Well you guys, let’s talk about this. Respect is a really big topic, but we are going to try to keep this succinct as we’re diving into the issue that a lot of parents have today with their kids being disrespectful. Um, I mentioned a few, um, ways that disrespect is shown to parents or ways that parents feel it. Let’s just go over that, you know, rolling eyes. You know, I think that even little kids, I’ve seen little kids at the park roll their eyes. And I know that our younger kids or our later children definitely picked it up earlier. And I think it’s because they saw it happening with their older siblings. Right. But generally speaking, I don’t think that we experienced that early on with our first few kids. It was more when they started getting older. And again, I wonder if it’s because they were exposed to things or other kids, right? Media, TV shows where that happened. Or maybe it’s just.

A lack of thank yous and things being left on the floor. And this, uh, disarray right after you clean things up, right?

I mean, that can feel disrespectful, for sure. Um, but then there’s other things, too, like say no specifically being, um, uh, deliberately, uh, in opposition against a parent that that can really feel as a parent, you can feel so disrespected when you hear a no. And I’m not talking about like, if you ask them a question, that’s a yes or no question. It’s when you ask tell them to do something and their responses. No, that can be a form of disrespect, but I think that all of those things we just mentioned, a whole lot of things we, you know, in the parenting Mentor program, in the heart section, we talk about how sin that kids are struggling with specifically or any, any, any human actually, um, are really symptoms of a deeper heart issue. And so, you know, as we’re diving into this, I just want to put that as the forefront thing as we’re talking about different things that people potentially struggle with or different, maybe as we’re discussing and sharing different things that we have either sensed or felt over the years, I just want to remind you that those are all symptoms of a heart problem. And really, at the base of this, what we would hope you would take away is a pursuit of your kids, of your spouse to have a stronger, deeper, more loving relationship because that truly is one of the the foundational things that’s going to fix this issue of disrespect.

Absolutely love each other. And the first thing we have, we have four things for you. But the first thing is to have some perspective about respect. First of all, in the world, authority doesn’t equal automatic respect. Just think about it. We don’t tend to respect things unless it’s earned in society. But what does the Bible actually say regarding parents? Right. It says it says we are to respect our parents. We’re to honor our parents. We’re to obey our parents. Right. So that is true 100%. And sometimes it can feel like, well, I have taught my children that I’ve taught them those scriptures, but yet they still disrespect me.

Well, you just brought something up. That’s really important too, because a lot of times people will start experiencing this like, um, frustration or feeling disrespected when their kids are really little. But I think having realistic expectations. Do my kids actually know what the Bible says? That’s the first thing for like moms and mommyhood, right? My encouragement like that is something that was huge for me in realizing, wait a second, do I have unrealistic expectations of my two year old and three year old in regards to how they treat me? Do they even know how they’re supposed to treat me? Have I explained it to them? Have I talked to them about how you know, how mommy talks to you with a calm voice? I would like for you to talk to me in a calm voice and realizing that sometimes we’ll take time to teach one kid and maybe even the next kid. But did we teach the third kid and.

Not additionally, you know, follies bound up in the heart of a child? The scripture says, so, you know, where is the maturity of our children? Yes. Are we expecting, uh, too much consistently? Well, we should don’t get me wrong. We should expect obedience. We should expect them to be respectful. But at the same time, on the other hand, we have to teach it, and we have to have an understanding of where they’re at, which is they’re in a maturing process and where to take them along that journey. And it can be frustrating as a parent, but having some perspective on that, I think is really important. It helps you not.

Be as frustrated because you’re actually able to go, oh, you know what? This is another opportunity, right? We talk about opportunity to teach them truth and to lead them and disciple them and point them to what the word says and what Jesus wants for them as a Christian. Right? Yeah. Um, but instead, a lot of times parents will get frustrated because they’re tired, exhausted, or they’ve dealt with the same issue over and over again throughout the day, and they’re just like, done, right. How many of you can relate to that?

So in the world, authority doesn’t earn respect unless, you know, just because someone has authority doesn’t mean we respect them. Right? But biblical truth is that we should respect our parents. So while that’s true, we should also lead in a way that makes it easier for children to respect us also. And so a lot of times, sometimes when you get frustrated, you lose your own self-awareness, you lose your own emotional self control. And then we’re expecting our children to have self-control. We’re expecting them to be respectful, but we’re losing our cool. And so we have to. We can’t be perfect. Of course not. But to the best of our ability, we have to realize that over time if we’re behaving poorly sometimes, but it’s consistently over a long period of time. As our children get older, we might be creating a wedge where it makes it hard for them to actually respect us and respect our wisdom and our words and so forth. And so you have to influence that teachable heart, right? We talked about that in the Parenting Mentor program, exactly how to do that. But you have to influence that. And part of that is actually we do need to I hate to say it this way, but we do need to influence their respect by good leadership, right? Even though it is true in the Bible, they should just respect us.

You know, one way you’ve put it in the past that I really like is that let’s make it easy for you, said gents. Let’s make it easy for our wives to respect us. Hey, parents, let’s make it easy for our kids to respect us. Yeah, and we we have a choice, right? In how we act and how we treat our kids. Um, having mutual respect, even with that scripture of having reverence for one another out of submission to the Lord. And like, as your kids get older, like recognizing they’re going to be brothers and sisters in Christ, and they are also it gives you a different perspective in how you’re communicating, and not just to be authoritatively communicating to your kids all the time, but also speaking to them in the way you would want to be spoken to. If we parent in a way that is biblical, we’re going to treat other people the way we would want to be treated. And that includes remembering back to when we were a kid sometimes and trying to go, okay, hold on a second. Did I appreciate being talked to or talked down to in such a way? And did it make me feel? How did that make me feel? I don’t want to do that to my children and like having that introspection and really like evaluating, okay, put myself in my kids shoes right now.

How might they be taking this as I’m talking to them? Yeah. And that’s that’s a hard thing for parents to do in the midst of it. But it’s an important thing for us to sit back for a second, go. You know what? Maybe I should probably try to do that more. Put myself in my kids shoes for a second just so I have some perspective and love them. Treat them the way that I would want to be treated. So that means as parents, when we’re even, when we’re disciplining or we’re correcting our children to have a calmness about us and to talk to them in a way that is respectable, right, and respectful and, and then also expecting them to speak to us respectfully. If we’re just if we’re yelling, then we shouldn’t ask, why are you yelling at me? You know what I mean?

And you might be that authoritarian kind of parent or have some of that if you respond really sharply because I said so. And that might be a sign once in a while. But if that’s a recurring thing, there might be a sign that you’re just feeling like. Your authority is there regardless of your behavior. And it is so. You’re right. Is there? Yes. You’re right. Yes. But when we’re dealing with sometimes foolish people, little people, we might be making it hard for them.

Mhm.

Well it’s interesting because you know, as biblical parents, of course we’re going to read scriptures like children obey your parents in the Lord. Right. For this is right. And we’ll get to that scripture a little bit later here. But when we, we read scriptures like even Leviticus 19 three, this is another good scripture. Like for those of you who maybe haven’t fully been discipling your children and been explaining to them, God’s Word says this. Actually, God does actually have a word for children. And it’s really simple. It says, every one of you shall Revere his mother and his father and keep my Sabbath. I am the Lord your God.

Tied it in with the Sabbath, boom, boom.

I mean, and that’s Leviticus 19 three. There’s one, one great scripture to memorize with your kids, to teach your kids. Another one would be Proverbs 13 one. It says, a wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. So how many times if you’re struggling with your kids actually listening when you’re correcting them, or they’re like, not remorseful, they’re not repentant, they’re not like at that heart posture yet, like in a good time to like when you’re not in the midst of the the dealing with the situation, it would be a good thing to be memorizing this scripture. So like maybe the next morning, read Proverbs 13 one and and talk about like, hey, do you want to be wise? Well, God’s Word has some wisdom for you on how to be wise. Here’s one example A wise son heeds his father’s instruction. Do you know what heed means? And you go through these like verse, verse by verse with your kids, and you explain it to them. And then when they’re struggling, you can even like reference back. Do you remember the verse that we read yesterday morning? Do you remember the verse we read this morning? Oh yeah.

Okay. I’m struggling with that now. So it helps when you have been purposefully discipling your children and what reverence, respect and honor looks like scripturally so that you can help them to recall. And guess what’s so beautiful about this? You guys, this is actually teaching your kids that in the midst of struggling with the temptation to sin or needing to be corrected, you’re teaching them how to recall scripture, and that’s a skill that you want your kids to have when they’re older, that when they’re in the midst of conflict that they would recall Scripture when they’re in the midst of, um, making a hard decision and trying to be wise, they would remember Scripture and then maybe they would go, oh, wait, you know what? My dad actually went through something like this. I wonder what he would say. And reaching out to him. Like, there’s so many ways that this one scripture could actually be an encouragement to kids as they grow up. So this.

Is discipleship. It’s woven into the fabric of your everyday life. It’s such an important thing. We talk about extensively in the Parenting Mentor program. Exactly how to do that, resources to use, and so forth. But the Bible is so powerful using it as a tool. And it’s not about that. One time you taught them that scripture that Angie’s talking about when you wrote that scripture down. I want you to realize that it’s about the 100th time that you taught them that Scripture or more. And so parenting is a repetitious thing that God has us doing. It is a long game thing. There’s nothing short game about it. It is all long game. It takes so long to train up God’s people. And he designed it that way. He designed it so that human beings, uh, amongst the species, takes the longest or one of the longest to grow into maturity and launch. That’s his plan. Cool. But you know what? We get to be parents that have children in our nest for the longest of any of the species. So let’s take.

Advantage of that time. Right? Like here’s another verse in first Thessalonians five, verse 12. It says, and we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves. This is another scripture that like obviously, it’s talking about even within the church body, right? And that there’s people who labor and who are spiritually over you. But isn’t this also describing the role of a parent in a child’s life? I think it beautifully does. Yeah. There we labor to provide for our children. So we labor among our kids. Right? And we are over them in the Lord. And we’re called to admonish them, and they are called to esteem us very highly in love. In love not because we’re the parents, not because we have a title, but there to esteem us in love. And it’s really wonderful because it says for their work’s sake. Why would it say for the work’s sake, let me just tell you something. Like, sometimes it can be really hard to do the same mundane thing over and over and over again. If you feel unappreciated, let’s just say it. But the truth is, is when you feel appreciated, when you feel respected, esteemed very highly in love from your spouse or your child because of the work that you did and they appreciate it, don’t you feel much more like you’re willing to do it again? God knows that that’s how we function as humans, and so we need to teach this and explain it to our kids and not have expectations of them without having taught them something, but not using that as an excuse not to discipline our children.

Like a lot of parents I see out there today, they’re like using the expectations thing as an excuse for why they wouldn’t necessarily hold a kid accountable. And that’s not what we’re saying here at all. We as parents are called to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. We have to teach our children. It’s our responsibility. It’s not their fault if we fail on our responsibility. And so we need to do our part in teaching them and holding them accountable and correcting them and pointing them to the word, discipling them, but also having expectations in the sense of not expecting from the three year old what we would from the 13 year old that’s had 13 years of discipleship.

We just want to take a second to share the Parenting Mentor program with you. Over 3000 parents have had their legacies forever impacted. I mean, it is incredible what God’s doing with the Parenting Mentor Program, the self-paced program at Courageous Parenting.com. Let’s just listen for a moment and then we’ll get back to the podcast episode.

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

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

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

This class has just really rocked my world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I do think, though, our word needs to be as good as gold to our children and to ourselves. I’ve said that so many times, but what I mean by that is when we say something, we follow through. And you were just talking about correction and discipline with parents who consistently follow through in correcting their children are respected and not in a fear based way, of course. I mean, sometimes that happens, right? People do it wrong and they create fear. I’m not talking about that at all. We would never prescribe to that. But what we’re talking about is a biblical approach to discipline, which includes pointing your children to Christ while also correcting them in an effective way. And that’s really, really important to do both of those in when you’re correcting your children. And that yields a respect. And the why that is, I don’t know fully why that is. We’ll have to ask God someday in heaven. But we do need to obey God and what he says to do with children. They need that. And in fact, in Hebrews 12 nine it says, furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect.

Shall we? Not much more readily being subject to the father of spirits and live like that’s huge. Like when our kids, when we’re expecting our kids or training our kids to be obedient to us. First time obedience. We’re all for first time obedience, right? But this is why it’s not because we want them to be good at quickly obeying humans. It’s because it’s actually training them. We are pointing our kids to Christ, to God, to His Word over and over again. And if they can’t obey you, the parent who the person who in this world, no one loves them more than the parent, right? And if they know that and they can’t obey you, think of how hard it’s going to be for them to obey God, who they maybe don’t have a deep relationship with, yet they can’t. Their God isn’t physically sitting in front of them in the same kind of context that you are, and we’re trying to teach them and train them up not to be obedient to us for the rest of their lives, but to be obedient to God for the rest of their lives.

This concept of having respect is exactly the same as obedience. Like if they if your kids cannot respect you, how in the world are they going to respect God? So as parents, when we are trying to teach our children the importance of honor and reverence and esteem and respect and submission to authority, it’s actually all for one main goal. It’s so that it’s easier for our kids to do all of those things in a loving motivation towards their Heavenly Father. And so when when our heart is not like, oh, if they would just obey me, this whole getting in the car thing would be so much faster and so much easier. Do you see how that’s so different than mommy wants you to obey her? Because I love you. I want what’s best for you. I want you to be safe. You need to have your seatbelt on, but you need to obey. Mom. Why? Because you need to get good at obeying so that you can also be obedient to God. And God tells you to obey mom and.

You get to it reveals where the heart is at. Yeah, it’s a heart indication of a heart issue. And so you get a tend their hearts in those moments of correcting them. And so that has to be done. Well. We explain it as a ten steps to biblical discipline. We do that in the parenting program. So but that’s a full thing that we can’t possibly do here on the podcast. Right? So it’s so important that you do that well in a loving way and you’re consistent. You know, if you follow through six or 7 or 8 times out of ten, you might be patting yourself on the back, hey, I’m better than the other gal, I’m better than the other guy. But you know what? You can’t compare to others, and that isn’t good enough. Actually. We need to follow through. Our word needs to be as good as gold. That time where you say something’s going to happen and then you don’t follow through on it. They seem to remember that more than everything else. So it’s really, really important that you follow through where. And so that’s our tip for you is where do you need to change. What do you need to change? Something needs to be changing. If you’re feeling exasperated yourself, if you’re feeling burned out as a parent, if you’re feeling disrespected and not even valued by your family, then maybe something needs to change within you, right?

Oh wow. So we had like a list of things in regards to this topic of something changing within you. And you just made me think of something else that we don’t even have on our list. That’s so important. Maybe what needs to change inside the mom or dad is that they’re listening to the lies of feeling unappreciated when they are actually appreciated and they’re just struggling, and their walk with the Lord and having a strong identity in him and, and and actually seeing that God does value what they do in the home that’s unseen by the world. Yeah. So, so incredibly it’s so incredibly valuable. And maybe they’re believing the lies that are within them. They’re they’re their own worst critic. All of us moms are our own worst critic. I think dads probably are their own worst critic, too.

Yeah, that’s hitting me right now. I’m like, whoa, wow. Yeah. That’s how.

Many times do we feel unvalued when that wasn’t our.

Child’s.

Expectation? How many times do we feel unappreciated when that wasn’t our spouse’s intention? Mhm. And this is the thing you say something all the time to me which um well you used to we both now say it to each other but that’s expected virtue. And I think sometimes as parents we especially when we’re dealing in the trenches and we’re dealing with correcting a lot of littles over and over and over again. And you can get exhausted with that, and you can feel like it’s just all so negative. Right? And I just want to encourage you to start looking for the blessings, start looking for the good things that you can affirm in your kids. Also, because our kids don’t just need discipline and correction, they need affirmation. They need us to point them to what good, godly character. Your qualities we do see in them, and that they should be practicing and to encourage them in those things as much as they like. It’s a teeter totter. There needs to be the same amount, and when one side’s too heavy, then it’s drudgery. And so. And when one side’s the too heavy and there’s only affirmation and never any correction, then you grow a bunch of prideful kids with an entitlement attitude that think that they’re they’re perfect and they’re not good at admitting when they’re wrong. And so it’s a teeter totter, you guys. And but but yeah, what needs to change in you. Do you believe lies or hey, maybe we need to ask ourselves if there’s any, um, patterns, habits that we have that need to change. Like if we lack self-control, then we certainly can’t expect our kids to have it. Otherwise we’re a hypocrite.

Maybe something needs to change in your marriage. Maybe there’s disrespect shown towards each other in front of the children. Maybe it’s just sarcasm, but children don’t quite understand how to do their own sarcasm and it just comes across as disrespect. And maybe for the parents, it’s joking with each other, but when the kids try it, they get in trouble for it, and you’re not realizing that they’re trying to mimic a version of what they’re seeing you do. And so we have to realize that they’re not as mature. And it it might not be appropriate to joke with you like your husband jokes with you. And maybe we need to look at that. Maybe some of that is not healthy in the first place in the couple relationship, and you need to talk to each other about it, because it is so important that they see a husband and a wife that respect each other, honor each other, encourage each other, lift each other up, build each other up, back each other up. And if any of those areas aren’t there, then you definitely need to pray about that. You definitely need to talk about that. And we encourage you to also take the Courageous Marriage series, because it really goes into that, uh, Sue too. So that’s super important. And then in Ephesians right here, six one through seven, it says, children, obey your parents in the Lord. For this is right. You want to get this one down. Remember this Ephesians six one, okay.

And then it goes on to say, honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise. And the promise is right here. It’s quoting the Old Testament. I believe that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth. Don’t forget the promise. Don’t say the first part to your children. Without the promise, that’s the why. And you know it’s like that. What I said before. When they ask why, and the parent goes, because I told you so. No, no, no, no, we don’t want to be like that. We human beings want to know the reason why they’re getting in trouble, or the reason why they’re being corrected, or the reason why something happens. And so children, obey your parents in the Lord. For this is right. Well, well, why? Why does God say that? It says it right here. It says that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth. This is for the abundance of your life. This is so that your life can glorify God in the future. This is so that you can be useful for your creator, right? This is so powerful. And then it goes on to say, and you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord. And you know, that’s not a permission for mothers to do that. No, no.

No, that word is for both mothers and fathers. Um, it kind of goes this is a very similar scripture to Colossians 321. You guys can go look that one up. But this is another thing that maybe someone needs to change in them. Maybe they are provoke their children to anger or provoke them to be discouraged and then their disrespect. The response comes across as disrespectful because they’re angry. And maybe that’s because parents are disobeying God’s word and they’re provoking their children. So that would be us as parents needing to see that and change our response or our leadership so that we’re not provoking our child to be disrespectful. And, you know, I think that it goes both ways, right? Like, so we just really held the parents accountable right there and said, hey, is there anything that you need to change? That was one of the things, one of the four things that they can do if they’re struggling with disrespect. The first thing that we talked about, just to remind you, is that the first thing you could do is you can disciple your kids about what respect and honor and reverence mean. What does the Bible say about these things? Make sure your kids are taught what the Bible says, that there’s clear expectations. This is how we are to be in relationship with one another.

Why? Because it’s loving. It’s. It’s what God’s Word says is love to be respectful of one another. And if if you’re respectful in the way you talk to me, it’s easy for me to be respectful in the way I talk to you and vice versa. Parents, it goes both ways. So there’s two of them. The third thing is to pursue relationship more. One of the things that for me as a mom, whenever I am seeing a pattern. So I’m not talking about a one instance, um, sin situation that is corrected, talked about, prayed through all the things, right? We go through the ten steps of biblical discipline, but I’m talking about a pattern. Of this same specific thing that I have, like when I do the sin diagnosis that we talk about in the Parenting Mentor program more when I go through the process and I’m really prayerful and I’m introspective and I’m examining like, what are the issues that this child is really struggling with, and it narrows down to disrespect or defiance, then I, I can easily go, okay, hold on a second. Now I need to go through this process. Have I discipled my kids? Do they know what the Word of God says? Are there clear expectations? Then? Am I doing something that needs to be changed that is causing them to lose respect for me? Like, am I provoking my kids? Or am I a hypocrite? Or am I believing a lie in their actually being respectful? But I’m messed up in my head for some reason, right? Okay.

But then I go, okay, so I already have discipled them. They. I know for sure that the ten year old knows what the Bible says. Check. I’ve already gone through this self-examination process. I’ve gone before the Lord. I have a clear conscience before him and my kiddo. Check. Then you go. Maybe it’s my relationship. Do I need to pursue my relationship? Have is there not a closeness in our relationship? And that’s really going to be the key to getting my child’s heart. Because remember what we said, all of the things are actually symptoms of a heart problem. And sometimes if there’s distance in a relationship and your kid doesn’t feel loved and all of the things, then it’s hard for them to reciprocate that, and then we start seeing them act out. So you go through this process, right? And then and you’re evaluating, is this their sin? Is this, is this my sin? Is this that they don’t know? Is this that I need to pursue relationship.

And that’s one of the best ways to know sometimes if you’re going through and you don’t really know, is there something I need to change? Maybe I need to ask them. Guess what? The best way to ask them is? When it’s one on one, you’re pursuing relationship and you go, hey, I’ve been noticing that we’re just like hitting, right? It’s like two heads butting up against each other. We’re not, like, communicating, right? And I don’t like that. I love you, and I want our communication to be better. And I miss having a close relationship with you and like, calling it out onto the table and going, I love you. Like, how can we get past this? Did I do something? Did you do something like, what’s going on here? When you pursue relationship with your kids, sometimes that’s where you hear the answer of what the breakthrough thing is, and then you find out they’re going through a hard time. Okay, I can have some compassion and understanding, but hey, you really shouldn’t be talking to mom that way. Oh yeah, I’m sorry, mom, blah blah blah. Or maybe they go, yeah, when you did this, it really offended me. And you, you can go, oh, there is something I need to change. And I didn’t even know it.

You can also coach them. You can coach them on how to handle that the next time they feel the way they feel. So you go, hey, you know, the next time you start to feel like disobeying and I want you to think back to like, what makes you feel that way. You just don’t want to do it, right. You just or you want to do the opposite when you feel that way. My encouragement to you is to pray to God real quick. You can be a silent prayer, but just God, help me to obey my mom and teach them what we have to do, right? Don’t we have to do that when we need to feel like need to be corrected? And we need to ask God for help, his strength and wisdom and so forth. And so teach them how to pray in those little moments where they feel like being disobedient and you go, hey, it’s a problem to disobey me. But the bigger issue is you’re actually disobeying God because the Bible says, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. So you may live long and prosper in the land, right? I think there’s a little more to that last part, but we read it earlier. So you remind them of that scripture and you go, so this is kind of a big deal, you know, and it, it, it it tears on our harmony and relationship.

Right. So the next thing you do that I want you to pray. And then I want you to think to yourself, what’s the right thing to do? Not what you feel. Because there’s going to be many times in life where we have to do the right thing, even though we don’t feel like it. In fact, a success principle and this depends on how old they are. A success principle is people that are the most successful are the people that can get themselves to do the things they don’t want to do most often that are needed to do to be successful. And so that’s really important. And this is where I want to help you when you’re doing that. And if you need help with this, make sure you ask me. And if you are in a moment of being disobedient, I you can you can stop at any moment. So realize that you’re getting beside yourself where it’s harder to recognize what’s happening. But I want you to take a pause to pray after the fact, too, and ask God to help you settle down and these kinds of things, because that God’s there for you. He’s always there. He hears your prayers and he wants to help you.

That’s right. So the last thing obviously we’ve been talking about prayer here. That’s the last thing that’s on our list of four things that you can do. Right. And so to really dig in with the Lord, come before his throne, plead, intercede for your child, for your relationship, for your heart with God, that God would point out anything in you that needs to change, that God would be very clear about what is going on in your child’s heart, so that you can pray specifically, and then teaching them how to pray for themselves and pray for their relationships also. Then the other aspect of prayer, which is when two or more are gathered, right? There is power in prayer and teaching your kids this gift of prayer and communication. Even just sitting one on one and saying, Lord, we love you and our relationship has really been struggling lately. Would you please heal and mend our relationship? Help me to speak more kindly. Help my child to be more respectful in their response. Give us a heart that wants to be obedient to you. Give my child a heart that wants to obey mom and Dad. Like you’re literally teaching them how to bring their problem, their sin, their struggle. That’s a spiritual battle before the throne of God and give it to him and ask him to help. That is one of the best gifts that we can give our kids is to teach them how to pray, how to communicate with the Lord and invite them into that space when we’re doing it, when we’re experiencing the Lord, and when we are able to then go through the rest of the day with more peace, with like a more purposefulness in relationship with there being less tension because we sat and we prayed together.

That speaks volumes to your child as far as the power of prayer and faith in relationships. And so we just really want to encourage you guys, um, this is something that, you know, we’re still in the trenches of it. We have seven kids at home. Right? And it’s just like, this is an ongoing sanctification of parenting is walking through these heart issues, whether it’s your heart issue, your kids heart issue, but recognizing that sin is sin and that it separates us in our relationship with God and with other people. But God, Jesus himself, came and died on the cross so that we could be reconciled to him, to God the Father, to one another and walk in true fellowship. Thank you so much for joining us, you guys. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement, go to be Courageous Ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

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

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

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

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If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome to the podcast. So glad you’re here. Hey guys, we’ve got an episode that is so important. A divided house falls, and this has to a lot to do with marriage. Um, and even good marriages. People that think they’re really, you know, doing strong can have places where there’s misalignment that could be growing in discord amongst the children and hurt your legacy.

That’s right. So obviously you can’t parent well if you have disagreements on things like discipline, for example. So I hope you stick around because we’re going to talk about that a little later in the podcast. But before we dive in, we want to say thank you.

Yeah, thanks for being part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. I’ll show notes, resources free and otherwise or be courageous Ministry. Org make sure you join the app. Angie is doing harder. The home in there live on Fridays. Also sharing play by play on her gardening this year, which last year she got over £3,000 of vegetables.

So play by play now I feel the pressure.

Well, you just did seeds. You talked about glassing eggs. You talked about soil already. It’s in the app. Uh, I’m looking forward to what’s the next step. I don’t even know what the step.

We are going to have to start sharing the process of bringing a cow on the property. That’s another big fun thing.

So there’s a lot going on there. And, uh, plus Wednesdays we do, um, a little bit of bonus footage from the week’s episode and then answer anybody’s questions. So what’s cool is you can listen to the podcast, and then you can literally talk with us and ask us questions on Wednesdays.

Yeah. So I love it because sometimes people ask questions. A lot of times the questions are things we’ve never thought of before or somebody hasn’t asked. And it just really brings up good discussion. So so.

Cool. Be courageous in your app store. And uh, it’s a free first week. So we’re talking about this. This is so important because, you know, we’ve often said things like if you’re if, uh, if your marriage is misaligned, your parenting will fall behind. And it’s so, so true. And sometimes this just happens incrementally over time. Little disagreements accumulate. But you really need to be a united team, especially during the times we’re living in. There is extra threats on the family, extra threats on your children as they get older and go out without you when they’re older, there’s going to be attacks on them, and so you have to be unified more than even previous generations were.

It’s interesting. We want to, um, just bring this back to the word of God, like we try to every single week. You guys, we love the Bible and we know you do too. And there’s two parts in the Gospels that actually use this terminology of warning us about a divided household and how it will fall. The first one that we see is in Mark chapter three. Verse 24 says, if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And then it talks again about Satan, and it just continues on. This is Jesus’s words again. We see it in Luke chapter 11 verse 17. It says, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. Desolation. That’s a big warning. And a house divided against a house falls. So obviously this is this is so important. Jesus himself was making a point in teaching this to people, um, because he wants us to be in unity. We see throughout the epistles where we have warning after warning about division. And we’re going to talk about that because this is truly one of the greatest dangers for a marriage and a family. And hey, gents, hey gents.

One of our main jobs is to foster unity and alignment in our marriage, to encourage our marriage relationship, to nourish it, to talk about things until we get resolved, until we get to a place where we’re in alignment. I think the intentionality of us dads and husbands have got to be strong, stronger than ever, and we’ve got to do some purposeful date nights and initiate these things. Sometimes it’s just like you’re tired and it’s like, okay, I don’t want any conflicts. So we’re not going to talk about this thing, but here it came up again. You need to face these things head on before the sun goes down, or at least before you go to sleep.

That’s right. So let’s talk about the first thing. We have four things that we’ve kind of identified that are some of the biggest threats, if you will. Right, Isaac to, um, marriage alignment, biggest threats to marriage alignment, or the biggest pitfalls that couples can get into where that creates a lack of unity division even. And then it affects their parenting as well as their marriage.

And we have a lot of extra Intel from doing the ministry because we get so much feedback. We do so many lives, especially in the app and lots of Q and A’s every single week for what, five years now? Uh, so it’s been such a process. So we have some Intel about really what’s happening across the Christian spectrum. Uh, even more so than just thinking about our experience. And so that’s what we’re thinking about here is what would be most helpful across the board. That marriages are dealing with, even if they don’t realize it. And the first one is threats on the family. A lot of times there’s kind of a silent misalignment that even rhymed with threats on the family, meaning that what are threats? Well, the challenge is one parent will think something’s a threat and they’re more conservative minded. Maybe. Maybe they’re reading their Bible more and another person doesn’t really see it as a threat. And so then there’s conflict about what kids are allowed to do, who they’re allowed to be around, and maybe what they’re exposed to.

Right. Like when I think of other influences, we’ve done podcast episodes on being careful to not let other people confuse your children, right, with wayward philosophies, for example. And, well, here’s the big one of the biggest things that comes to my mind is even who is teaching your children, right? Like if your kids are in a school setting, or if there is someone that has really, um, nurtured a relationship where your child is receiving respecting that person and wanting to have a life like their that theirs, then they’re going to actually be influenced by that person. And if that person starts talking about, I don’t even know, current events or, um, a different perspective on gender, for example, than what you believe that can actually be a potential threat. Right? And so, um, the truth is, is that sometimes within a marriage, there’s also a different, um, spiritual gifting. Right? Like I just think of the gift of spiritual discernment. Right. And if you don’t have a tight marriage and an understanding of what your spouse’s gifts are and what the person that maybe has more spiritual discernment comes to, the other parent comes to their spouse and says, hey, I’m just really concerned because I see this and I just I watch the kids, um, they are talking about this specific friend and how this friend was on video games and blah, blah, blah, blah. And maybe the one parent’s going, well, it’s not that big of a deal. I did video games when I was a kid.

Well, I think that’s one of the signs right there is if anybody in the marriage says, well, I turned out okay, and I did that, I turned out okay. And we did that when I was younger. They are completely misunderstanding the changing of the times and the threats and the greater threats and confusion that’s being perpetuated upon children.

That’s right. And so, to be really honest, sometimes, like if there is a parent, you you labeled that parent the more conservative one, right? Like in the sense of, um, maybe they are more I don’t know if conservative is. You could think of another word too, like more protective, right? Someone’s maybe more protective, or they have more Intel on the conversations happening with the friends. Like, I think a lot of moms are more aware of that kind of stuff. We kind of perk our ears up when we hear our kids talking about a conversation that they had with another kid, because we want to know what’s going on. Right. Um, but the reality is, is sometimes moms have more Intel than dads do. Absolutely. And so bringing that Intel to your spouse, guys, you know, it’s not that we’re worrywarts, it’s that sometimes we see things and we go, hey, red flag or yellow flag. And so we’re coming to you because we want wisdom, we want objectivity. We want to do make decisions as a team and not just jump in and be like, you can never spend time with that friend again, you know? Um, because we know that that might not be the right thing, the right approach. And so when we come to you with a concern to be able to talk and you hear us out and go, hmm, I never really thought about it that way, or let me look into that more, or let’s pray about it. If you have a strong sense I trust you. Like all of that is helpful.

Yeah, I’m praying together would be huge. Like, let’s pray about it. You don’t have to as a guy. You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to know exactly what the right decision is. You know, we’re never going to know everything, right? So it’s important to include God in that. And your wife’s trust of you skyrockets when she knows you’re yielded to God in the spirit, and you’re praying together and leading and initiating in that way. Uh, wow, it’s so good. But threats on the family are a big deal. You know where I think a lot we’ve gotten a lot of feedback on this, meaning questions and things. What about the extended family and things like that? And it is usually, uh, one part of the marriage is concerned and the other part is less concerned and the other part that’s less concerned. Usually it’s their family. And so I get that it’s hard. Right. And the goal is the genius of the and versus the tyranny of the Or. That’s a saying from a business book. But I love it because the goal is to show love, have relationship with family, while at the same time never jeopardizing or allowing anything to hurt or confuse our children. And so away from biblical truth and the right thinking. So that’s really, really important. So you have to pray and ask, okay, how do we. Navigate this. There’s all kinds of situations. Maybe you’re in a cul de sac and there’s neighbors and the kids. Neighbor kids want to come over and they want your kids to go to their house and things like that. And you’re like, not feeling good about it. Trust that. Not feeling good.

Yeah, I think that that encouragement is something that more parents need to hear. If you have what a lot of people would describe as a gut feeling that someone’s influence is not good for your child, it is better to err on the side of, um, protecting than to end up with regret later. Because the truth is, is we’re going to be held accountable as parents for what happens when our kids are under our watch. Your kids are going to be in your home for about 20% of their life. That’s actually a pretty small amount of time. And so to take ownership over the responsibility that we have as parents to love and and to protect and to provide for our children is important. And while you have legislatures out there and different governmental officials trying to take parental rights away from parents and say that they’re not important, that’s a lie from the devil. And we as parents need to stand up and own the jurisdiction that God has given us and not be afraid to say, you know what? These are my kids. God gave them to me to raise, and I would prefer that they are not learning that in the school system. And so I’m going to make this decision and this decision. And so I think that sometimes we as parents have to be encouraged. You got to hear that from somebody. So I hope you’re hearing that from Isaac and I today. Listen to your your instincts. But it’s more than that. If you’re walking strong with Jesus and you are in prayer and you’re in the Word of God and the Holy Spirit is indwelling in you, it’s really ask the Holy Spirit to give you the confidence and the courage to do what he is nudging you to do in protecting your kids. And I think that that that right there, it’s like now it’s a matter of obeying God and doing what? Walking in the spirit rather than like, oh, I just I don’t know if I like that, you know what I mean?

So you got to talk it out. You got to pray it out. You got to spend quality time together and quantity time sometimes late into the night, sometimes Angie and I. The reason we don’t get sleep some nights is because we’re talking to one in the morning. You’re like, wait a minute. One of us has got to get up at six, the kids get up and these kinds of things. Sometimes we sacrifice our sleep for the sake of clarity, for the sake of relationship, understanding, alignment. It’s so, so important. One thing I think has helped us too is our morning meetings. Some people do their meetings in the evening. But, you know, obviously Scripture is part of that. But there’s a lot of other things part of that too. It’s how we stay aligned as a whole family too, and talk about the day and make sure there’s clarity on who’s doing dishes and all the different things. So it’s it’s really important that there’s not chaos. You know, the bigger your family gets, the more chaotic it could get. But we haven’t really experienced chaos because we lead. It’s not perfect, but we lead. Yes, we lead this way. We. Iron sharpens iron with each other. And then we make sure we’re in alignment. And if we’re not, we talk it out, pray it out. And then we make sure we’re also making sure our families are aligned and we educate our children, especially the older they get on what’s happening, what’s coming. There are very few surprises to our children because we’re showing respect to them, and therefore they respect us and share about what’s going on in their lives too, without it being a last minute. Oh, this is happening.

Yeah. You know, I just, um, I shared a Bible verse on, um, Instagram that I was going to be sharing in this podcast, and I had to look it up to see which one it was again. And it’s Hebrews 13, verse 17. I just want to share this with you guys. It says, obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give an account, let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unproud profitable for you. And so here’s the thing. Obviously this is speaking. This is a good word for everyone. It’s in the Bible for all of us. We all are under some form of authority. Um, as a wife, I’m under the headship of my husband. In that sense, there’s our children are under our headship, both of us. Right. And so this is a good word for them. This is speaking to the church also, I think of being under elders, being under, uh, a shepherd, a pastor. Right. And so there is, um, a need though. So while this is speaking specifically to, let’s just say kids for a second, this would be a good word for them. Hey, obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls. Yeah. Do parents watch out for their kids souls? Hundred percent.

Does the Bible say children obey your parents in the Lord? For this is right. Ephesians six. Yes, that’s Scripture right? And so when it’s saying obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they. Watch out for your souls. Parents are watching out for their souls. They love their kids. We know you love your children more than anybody else. Loves your children. Yeah you do, and you’re watching out for their souls. And it says you’re going to be giving an account to God. And so that right there is a huge encouragement to us as parents to go, whoa, okay, we are going to give an account that’s not Isaac and Angie’s opinion. That’s God’s word. And recognizing that this con, this, um, threat to marriage, alignment of having, um, suspicions or a gut instinct is how it might turn out at first, when you are walking in the word every day, you are going to see, um, you are going to see people live out the doctrines of their lives as you are living out the doctrine of your life, as you’re living out walking in the word, you are going to see people walking out either the word or the world. And there’s going to be a very stark difference. There is light and there is darkness.

There’s no in between. There’s light and there’s darkness. We read about that in first John chapter one. Right. Walking in the light. As those who are in the light have fellowship with God and one another. When you are having a hard time having fellowship with someone, it’s usually because there’s darkness, meaning sin of some kind. And that’s not just a gut feeling, that is the spirit that dwells inside you. As you’ve been residing in the word, giving you discernment to go, something is off. Lord, would you reveal truth in this moment as the prayer that needs to be on the tip of your tongue reveal truth, expose lies, expose sin? May we have fellowship together and be walking strong? Here’s the thing when you have friends, family, coworkers, right that maybe you are concerned about with your kids, I want to ask you, is it because you just disagree on opinions? Or is it that there’s literal biblical truth that is being either, um, mocked and made fun of, or that there’s opposing worldviews? So opposing biblical worldview that is being purposefully taught to your children? If so, then there is a need for there to be some discussion about how are we going to go about setting some healthy boundaries to protect our children’s souls, because we know we’re going to give an account?

Here’s what happens to close this out, because we have three more points. Uh, is that let’s say there’s peer pressure, uh, happening to one of you, and the other person is kind of just not really taking a position. And you guys decide to allow your children to do something. Now, let’s say that decision, the cumulation of other decisions, maybe has grown as they get older for them to start veering in their faith and being a little more worldly. So even if you’re marriage is mostly aligned, but because there’s looseness in it and what you allow your children to do, as they get older, they start veering away from, you know, respecting you from, uh, you know, agreeing with the Bible and these kinds of things. Well, you know, what? There’s there is, um, a divided house because. Are your children in your house? Yes. And and when a house is divided, it gets harder and harder and harder as those children get older. I think that’s why people say, oh, wait, for the teenage years, we never experienced the tragedy of the teenage years. Of course, nothing’s perfect in our home. There’s challenges here and there. But you know what? Overall, it’s been amazing to have teenagers. And I think it’s because we take this seriously and we’re communicating often, and we’re not just allowing we don’t allow pressure on us to cause us to cave to do anything.

No, I think that parental peer pressure is a really big deal. We talk about that more in depth in the Parenting Mentor program. Um, because I even think about specific lifestyle choices that you might make, whether you’re going to do sleepovers or not. Right. Like there’s going to be pressure to do that. And I think that when you have set your when you as a married couple are in alignment and you make a decision and you move your family forward with that decision and you’re strong together, then it is it becomes the thing that is like not even a topic that comes up anymore. I can’t even remember the last time one of our kids asked if they could sleep over. It’s literally not a thing. It’s not a thing because the people that are in our lives know us well enough that they don’t try to persuade us into their own ways. Do you know what I mean? And that’s what you want. You want to have a community of people that have respect for where you are. That doesn’t mean that they necessarily agree with everything that you are as far as your opinions or your, um, your decisions on things. But for them to have respect to where they’re not trying to create division in your family, that’s the other thing, is that sometimes when you have relationships and you have loyalty and friendships, when someone else has. As an agenda because they want to do something or they disagree. Like I think of friends of kids, right? Like if they want the sleepover, let’s just use that as an example. Then they may try to influence because they want it, not because it’s what’s best for your kids, but because it’s what they want. Right? And so when you have a united front and your kids already know what that is, they can go, oh no, that’s just not happening, dude.

Like if anyone tries to cause discord in our family. It’s not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. Yeah. You know, we’re not going to allow that to happen. And so it’s really important you got to have that kind of resolve gents. You got to be resolute men unwavering in this. It’s super important.

No I love that you just said that. Because that is the one thing that really gets to you, right, is when people are, are are purposefully trying to push their I don’t know their opinion or belief or whatever. And it’s something that we are already opposed to. For example, specifically, um, it feels like they’re literally coming against you and trying to create division in your family, and that’s very dangerous. This is the thing, though, guys. It’s not just that Isaac is sitting here saying, I won’t allow that to happen and has this strength. And he’s he’s exhorting other men to be resolute. There’s actual biblical warnings all throughout Scripture about the dangers of division and avoiding people who try to come in and create division.

Real friends would never do that.

That’s right. So let’s just look at a couple of these, for example. Okay. We got Romans chapter 16, verse 17. It says, now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions. So take note of those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. Like he’s not he’s they’re not saying avoid the doctrines. They’re saying avoid those people that are literally trying to cause division and offenses in. And this is a warning for like divisive persons. It’s just in Romans. It continues on. It says for those who are such did not serve the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. Deceive the hearts of the simple. Are your children simple minded? The Bible also, somewhere I’m trying to think of where Paul talks about this. But children needing spiritual milk and then as they grow up needing meat, right? And that when we’re a baby Christian, it’s more of a spiritual milk. And the more mature that we grow, the more we are in the word, the more we are, um, practicing spiritual disciplines like prayer and worship and so forth. We’re getting to know God. We’re building a stronger relationship. We are not as naive as we once were to waywardness, and that is describing a child.

So as parents, we have been put in their lives to protect them because there is an innocence, especially when you’ve done a good job as a parent, then there’s an even more of an innocence, right? But as parents, Isaac and I have done this courageous parenting ministry not so that you raise a whole bunch of naive, innocent children. No, no, no. Do we want them to be innocent as doves? Yes, because God’s Word wants all adults who are walking in him to be as innocent as doves. But we are to be as smart and wise as a serpent. So that means we need to equip our children. Like Isaac was saying earlier in talking about the things that people believe that are different than us. You don’t just, like, put a blindfold over your kids and never want them to see it or hear it. No, no no, no. It’s that we need to equip them so that they’re prepared with an answer for why they believe what they believe. And it should always go back to the Bible. So if you’re living biblically, there should be less of an opportunity for division if your kids are safe.

I love that equipping your kids with answers on why they believe what they believe, or why the family stands for what they stand for, uh, so that they’re not left feeling foolish or not knowing to say or caving to peer pressure. So important. Hey, let’s go to step two. Uh, the next point here, we just want to take a second to share the Parenting Mentor program with you. Over 3000 parents have had their legacies forever impacted. I mean, it is incredible what God’s doing with the Parenting Mentor program, the self-paced program at courageous Parenting.com. Let’s just listen for a moment and then we’ll get back to the podcast episode.

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

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

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

This class has just really rocked my world.

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

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

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

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it. One of the.

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

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

The next one is is. Is simple. In some ways. People might think it’s simple, but it’s actually not.

It’s faith. It’s, uh, alignment in your faith, what you believe, and spiritually speaking. You know, most importantly, essential doctrines of the Bible, having agreement on those, you know, before you got married, you came from different backgrounds. Have you reconciled and come into an alignment about your faith? Of course, your faith is personal between you and Jesus. Absolutely. But also when you get married, the Bible says to become one flesh, and that is physical. But it’s also more than that. And so it’s really important that we are parenting from a place of alignment in our faith and what we believe about the Bible. And so it’s really important to study doctrine together. If there’s a place of disagreement, study it together and pray together and come to a place where you can agree. I think that’s really important. You know.

I think that there are probably couples that are listening that are able to pinpoint some of the things that maybe they disagree on. And there maybe there are some couples out there who have swept that topic under the rug simply so that there’s tranquility in their family. Um, it’s in their minds. They might have used a word like peace, but in reality it’s a fake peace because there’s still division on that specific topic. And we just want to encourage you guys that it’s super important that you dig into the Word of God. You take the time to study the word and come together in alignment in your decision, and that you stand firm in that truth together. Right. And the reason why it’s so important is because you’re all going to have friends. Like, the more the years go on, the more friends you’re potentially going to have in your life and and certain people. And if you want to have biblical friends, you’re going to talk about the Bible and you’re going to challenge one another and sharpen one another as iron sharpens iron to grow. Right. Well, here’s the thing. When you’re out with a girlfriend or say, your husband’s out with a boyfriend and they’re sharpening one another to grow, and maybe a scripture that has been overlooked or maybe read over a million times, but never fully understood to the same level, is now understood by one of the two of you, and you understand it in a different way, and it kind of changes some of your perspectives.

You need to go and share that with your spouse and process that together. So you’re on the same page. Otherwise what happens is that that can create a division, and you don’t even necessarily know that it’s going to challenge your marriage later, but it will. That oneness is so important, and the enemy will use anything he possibly can to try to come between you. And so protecting that oneness is incredibly important. We talk more about this in the app. We have a whole marriage series called the Courageous Marriage Series that we went through, where we did an entire one hour teaching just on oneness. And so I want to encourage you to go get a week free of that. You can find that in the App Store anywhere, right, Isaac? Um, but join us for that.

I think also, the Parenting Mentor program, the first session is on theology, and it’s an hour long. There’s 36 scriptures in that first session and lots of practical insights. Um, you got to remember, when we build a course, it’s very precise, meaning that it is it’s not like a podcast where we make an outline and we’re going back and forth as the spirit leads us. It is spirit led, but it’s well prepared because people are investing and they want exactly what they need, and they want to get it in a curriculum that builds and creates completion for understanding, really the foundations of parenting from a biblical perspective. And so that first session is so amazing when married couples go through it together, because at least around parenting, they can get in alignment with all the key scriptures about biblical parenting. Know it.

Is important. In fact, one of the things that we’ve heard the most over the last five years is we’ve been doing this every six weeks. So many testimonies of couples going, I didn’t even realize that we disagreed on this, or now we’re actually parenting as a team. And part of it is that we literally are bringing up topics that couples don’t necessarily communicate verbally about, and they just assume that they agree on and they are moving forward in their parenting. But but there is a need in marriage for there to be continual communication continually, um, reminding one another of the truths that are oneness in your marriage, you know.

Yeah. An example I just thought of is one of you might not believe that children are sinful and might not have really thought about it, but maybe they act like they don’t really believe that and that causes havoc without you guys talking about it.

Or maybe there’s a parent that doesn’t believe in, um, in discipline at all with kids. And then there’s another parent that is totally. For biblical parenting. Or maybe there’s a parent that doesn’t know how to do biblical parenting. They know they should be doing consequences, but they have no idea where to begin with it. See these? These are the things. This is actually one of the other points that we have, which is disagreements on discipline. This can be actually one of the biggest things that creates division in couples.

And so let’s go right into it.

Well I just want to encourage you guys that scripture is the only answer when it comes to things like discipline. And there is a need for both parents to recognize that they both are responsible for training their children. The Bible says train up a child in ways you go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. There are multiple scriptures. We see this in Proverbs all over the place where God is saying, hey parents, rise up, take your position. Deuteronomy six you will teach them my commandments when you stand, when you sit, when you rise, when you lay basically all the time. And the whole point is that we are called to be activated as parents and to be proactive. But discipline is something that is is a topic that a lot of times couples, because of their pasts, they have issues or they are struggling with trying to get on the same page. Or maybe they weren’t Christian and they just got saved. Or maybe they’re, um, maybe what they experienced growing up was a beautiful example, but their husband never experienced any kind of consequence in his life. And so there’s bridges that need to be gapped.

Right. But Jesus does that and so does his word. When there is a common faith between the two of you, which was the point we were just talking about. And it’s so important because when it comes to viewing the child’s nature. Right, which is what you’re talking about regarding sin, that’s human nature. What do we believe about human nature? Oh, do we have a biblical worldview? If we both agree that we want to have a biblical worldview, then let’s just see what God’s Word says about kids. Let’s just see what God’s Word says about sin. Let’s see what God’s Word says about Jesus and sin. Let’s see what God’s Word says about discipline. And when you start studying that together and you find, oh, this is what God’s telling us, then it’s not her opinion, his opinion, her past, his past. It’s a desire to obey God. And you meet on the solid rock of Jesus Christ and His sufficient word. And that’s what’s beautiful. There’s it’s a it’s objective in the sense that it’s not his way. It’s not her way, it’s God’s way.

Then, and only then can you actually be consistent and follow through on a biblical plan for discipline. Because if you don’t have that alignment and really rock solid understanding, one of you is going to fall through the other one’s, not one of you is going to fall through eight out of ten times, the other one is going to fall through three out of ten times. It actually takes more like ten out of ten times. It seems like children remember the one time you don’t follow through versus the eight times you do. So it’s really consistent. See and follow through. Your word needs to be as good as gold to your children and to yourself. When you say, I’m going to follow through from now on, that needs to happen. Regardless of the discomfort of, you know, shifting your agenda and getting disrupted and going and doing that. You know, we’re not absolutely perfect at that, but we do work hard at it, and we are in alignment. And we do see fruit from our parenting. Um, and mostly it’s because God is so good, right? But he’s called us to take care of our jurisdiction, which to love, protect, disciple, and equip our children in a world that’s completely fallen and wayward. And so it really does take that consistency and alignment. And if you don’t have what Angie’s talking about in your marriage and a plan that’s effective. It’s going to wreak some havoc. It’s going to be challenging. A divided.

Household will.

In your house.

Yeah, a divided household will fall. We read it in Luke. We read it in Mark. I want to read another scripture to you guys. It’s in first Corinthians chapter one, verse ten. It says, now I plead with you. Plead? What does plead mean? We just read something. Now I urge you, here we are now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, and that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. Now this part of Scripture, in Corinthians, Paul’s talking to the church of Corinthians, it continues talking about how Chloe’s household has has said that there are some contentions among you. So obviously he’s talking about a church, but how many times do we hear in Scripture how the relationship that Christ has with the church and being unified is an image bearer, or how marriage is an image bearer? The relationship between husband and wife is an image bearer of the relationship between Christ and the church. And here Christ in His Word is telling the church to not be divided. So we could we could take that and go, ah, that’s a big warning. We should not be divided. We need to speak the same thing, have no divisions among us, and be perfectly joined in the same mind in the judgment. But how do you do that? How you do that? It has to be founded on the same belief. It has to be in the same word of God. And so, you know, today we’ve talked about threats of the family. Obviously, there may be two people in your marriage that have a totally different opinion about if your kid should watch TV or not.

You and your husband may have a completely different idea of if you should homeschool or not, if you should do private school or not, if you should do public school or not. You and your husband may have totally different ideas on activities on your kids friends. But you know what it really actually comes down to is if you both have a biblical worldview because it’s formed by the Bible and you go to the Word of God and you are submitting to one another out of reverence, and there’s spiritual that where you come together in your commonality and your decisional parent making decisions is that you both love your child and you both love God, and you both are committed to doing even the hard things in parenting sometimes, which is like, oh no, I’m sorry, you can’t play with that kid anymore. That’s a hard thing for a parent to do sometimes, because then they’re going to feel like they’re the bad guy. But if you love your child, you’re going to help them to understand that you’re on their team and you want what’s best for them. And you’re not just going to do the thing to them. You’re not just going to take the friend away. The consequence, whatever it was, but instead you’re going to go. We believe that this is a very, very bad influence for you and that it’s going to cause division in your relationship with the Lord. And, you know, you go through the whole process. You have to explain it to them, but it needs to be mom and dad so that one parent isn’t the bad guy. Yeah, you.

Always have to back each other up and so forth. Let’s let’s jump into our final point, which is leadership, leadership in the home. And we’re not just talking about gender roles. Of course, we believe in biblical gender roles, but I believe we’re on a biblical road versus the ditches on the left side and the right side of that road, if you know what I mean. Um, when you go through the courageous marriage course in the app, you’ll see. Exactly. We don’t have time right now to cover that in depth, but there does need to be leadership in the home. And, um, maybe we could go back and forth and just speak to that. I really feel firmly that men should be spiritually leading in their homes. I believe wives should be too, because men aren’t always there, and they’re really important spiritual leaders in the home, too. But, um, but the husbands do need to spiritually lead and be in the word and to be listening to the spirit and to be in prayer and to open the Bible and teach it to their family. It’s literally that simple. On the resolute Man show Spiritual Leadership Simplified is one of the first episodes. Literally. I think it’s 8 minutes or 10 minutes, guys. Go listen to that, okay? But it is really, really important. I’m not talking about, you know, preparing a sermon. I’m not talking about most of it doesn’t take really very much preparation at all. You can open a proverb and it makes perfect sense. And it causes great discussion, that act of initiation, of opening the Bible and reading a sentence which is called one Scripture. Is profound because it’s you and your dad. It’s profound.

It is. And likewise for moms to step up when husband isn’t there, and to be studying the Bible with your kids, whether that’s, um, teaching them Bible timelines and history or memorizing scripture and teaching them, putting music, worship music on during the day and helping to lead them in their heart attitudes by way of inviting the Holy Spirit to help give them the strength they need to change their attitudes. Um, it’s it’s that daily, every moment to moment. Um, discipleship is I think both moms and dads definitely do discipleship, but moms get to be at home with their kids a lot more. Generally speaking, at least, that’s been our experience. And so it’s important that we are recognizing that that is a God given role in jurisdiction. Um, and we’re purposeful in it. And not just like letting the day own us, but we own the day, and that we’re taking advantage of every moment that we possibly can with our kids.

So where does the conflict come? Maybe there’s some rub on the gender roles. Yeah, there’s some, uh, wanting parts of each other’s roles. This kind of thing can happen, and you don’t even realize it. And you go, wow, I’m a little envious of this aspect of, you know, what they’re doing. That can definitely happen. There also can be like the baton passing, you know, like when dad gets home.

You know, that’s interesting. Where you. Yeah, I wasn’t listening. We were we were I was just recently talking about this and, um, you know, this is a big deal for, for women I think where, when especially for stay at home moms or women who maybe work from home. So, um, or women who don’t work out of the home, it can be a challenge too. I think all marriages struggle with that. Passing the baton, knowing when you’re in charge and when you’re not, and when you’re together, kind of both of you are in a lull going, are you going to discipline the kid or am I right? Like, and so here’s the deal. The biggest thing that this this is why it’s a threat to your marriage, is that you guys need to communicate. Because if you do communicate and you’re clear about, hey, I’m on the kids, you go ahead and get that thing done, right, like, okay, go ahead and change the dishwasher or, you know, you’re communicating so that there’s no, like, eyes at each other or annoyance or I.

Think assumption is the great killer of unity.

Oh, 100%. Let’s stop assuming so.

Totally.

Oh yes. You guys don’t know assumption.

Yeah. You know, just words like no, they should just no, they should just know because it’s so obvious to me.

Hey, I had two guys. I’m not throwing myself out there first under a bus for a second, because I just did this last night, and I had to apologize to Isaac. He was sitting and he was working and it was late, and he had asked me he or he had told me, I am going to have to work late. And so it was like 8:00 at night and I’m trying to put the boys to bed. And it had been a very long day of parenting, and one of the boys was having a hard time going to sleep and was just unconsolable, and I had to prepare a Bible study for for this morning. And I was just, like, frustrated and on the verge of frustration. And I kind of snapped at Isaac and I said, are you going to help me? And I just was like, mad at him. He’s like, oh, what? What? I didn’t even hear you because he was zoned out and he was working, which I knew he was working. But here I thought, there’s no way he doesn’t hear the kids screaming, and I’m trying to do all these other things. And so it was literally a matter of like, I had to realize, like, I’m so sorry that I assumed that you knew what was going on. I love those.

Apologies. Like when your wife apologizes to you, it’s like. It’s like it’s like your spaghetti last night. It’s so good.

Oh, I we had spaghetti for the first time with, uh, a new meat. And the boys all loved it. Incredible. Anyway, I, of course.

I apologize to.

Yeah. I mean, we both, you know, I think that there’s a need for you guys to have a talk about roles and about, you know, when which parent is going to be taking the baton of being in control, or at least leading the kids hearts and leading the atmosphere purposefully.

And you need to lead in unison. There needs to be a similar response to similar situations. You need to you need to be fluid in that where one child can’t exploit the weakness in your team leadership.

Oh, because they will, they will.

They’ll go to the parent that.

They think will just say yes because.

They yes and cave even if the other parent said no already. And that’s a huge, huge deal. You don’t allow your kids no, no, they’re causing a wedge in your marriage. And then you’re all of a sudden fighting because, you know, you said they could do something. The other person said they couldn’t. It’s just a mess. Don’t allow that stuff. That’s chaos. You don’t want chaos in your family. Stop it. Stop the chaos. You do have influence over stopping some of this stuff, but you have to be courageous and have tough conversations with each other.

Yeah, well, and I don’t think it’s a tough conversation to just say, hey, let’s talk about weekends, for example, right? Because weekdays are different than weekends in regards to who’s kind of jurisdiction over things like discipline or consequences. Right. Because if dad’s gone during the day, mom’s the only adult there. She knows she’s in charge. But as soon as the other parent gets there, sometimes there’s this like, okay, who’s who’s managing the schedule? What are we doing next on the weekends, you know? But that can all be avoided if you just communicate. And so I think that that would be our biggest solution, because we talked about four things that can create a divided household. And we know that the Bible says a divided household will fall. But your biggest solution is going to be in getting in alignment. But getting in alignment requires communication.

A lot of times what I’ll do is I go, hey, what’s important to you for this weekend? What does that what needs to get done? Like what’s on your like must do list? And then my job in our marriage is to rally everybody, create some vision and direction for how we’re going to get it done. Mhm. And you know she’s part of that too.

Sometimes I appreciate the rallying because I am constantly getting people to do things all throughout the week. So when dad steps in it’s like oh praise the Lord because I needed it by the weekend, you know what I mean? And not only that, but I think that he too brings in. I’m just going to say he’s the fun one. So I will oftentimes be thinking about what needs to be done on the homestead, what needs to be done with homeschool, what needs to be done, like, oh, grocery shopping, home management, all like, I have all the home stuff in my brain and Isaac’s like, yeah, but wouldn’t it be nice to go play Spikeball on the beach? And I’m like, but we have to garden or, you know, well, then we have a goal.

We get it all done and we go play Spikeball.

For 2 or 3 is super happy because everything got done. He and so I love that. I love that we can be a team in getting things done as a team and not being a divided.

God has a plan for your marriage, and he wants you to be a great team for the purpose of glorifying the father and launching confident Christian children into the world. To be a light and to have children and have them be a light and multi-generational legacy of fruitfulness. But little disagreements grow into bigger disagreements grow into a divided, front. Raised, divided children send out division in the community. And you know what? That’s not what anybody wants. And that’s not what God intends.

That’s right.

Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope that today’s podcast was an encouragement to you. We are praying for all your marriages because we know that a divided household will fall. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous History.org for more biblically based resources. Ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission, and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

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

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

If you’re interested in joining our next online Parenting Mentor program, secure your spot now at Be Courageous Ministry. Org that’s Be Courageous Ministry org.

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

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome back to the Courageous Parenting Podcast.

Hey guys. Thanks for joining us.

So good. We’re so glad you’re here. Wow. Last week was a little rough if you got that. But actually in title I’d say rough and title. But once people listen to it, they’re like, wow, that helped me to not fear about a nationwide blackout.

Yes, that’s true. That’s what it’s kind of funny how when you are limited to 2 to 6 words, potentially for a title for something, you’re like, okay, well what’s the most important words to put in there? It can leave people thinking that it’s something that it’s not and vice versa. Right. And so we obviously if you guys have been listening for any length of time, we’ve got over 285 podcast episodes. And, you know, we’re staying true to who we are, um, here at Courageous Parenting and Be Courageous Ministry. And we’re just so thankful that you guys are here, that you’re supporting us, whether that’s through sharing, commenting on that, the podcast areas or even on our YouTube channel, which, you know, that’s kind of fun today if you’re, uh, watching the YouTube video, you might be wondering about Isaac’s eye.

I got an extreme sports injury.

It’s true. What were you doing, babe? Spikeball with the teenage boys?

Yeah. I got punched in the face by one of my sons on accident. You know, we play intensely. I mean, they are so good. They’re getting trained by the experts in the area and just trying to keep up with them. It takes all of me. I was pretty sore today. Not only the the partial black eye, puffy eye, the.

Brain fog and headache that goes with it.

Hey, uh, you can check it out on YouTube if you want, but, uh, one of them just subscribe. I mean, my eyes naturally droop a little bit puffy up here, but now it’s a little extreme.

It’s like you have purple or pink.

It’s not. This isn’t about me. Let’s keep going. No, no. So. But, uh. But. Yeah, excited to do this. We’re talking about food supply crisis, but not in, uh, a fear based way. Instead a practical way like, hey, you know, this is obvious. This is not a conspiracy theory. They are saying that they don’t want people eating meat. They are saying that they want to restrict things there. They are putting things in the food supply on purpose. There are goals written down by powerful people that want to depopulate the Earth because they idolize, um, this climate crisis theory.

You just said something super controversial that there’s people purposefully trying to depopulate, but they’re unapologetic about it. It’s everywhere.

Whether they’re doing it or not. They’re saying that that’s a goal.

I mean, anyone who is like, I’m just going to be really honest. We are super unapologetically pro-life here. So anybody who is for abortion in our mind there is they are depopulating the earth, right? There’s murder is occurring. I’m just being very blunt. But the reality is, is you’ve got tons of lawmakers and people who are are not elected leaders. That that is their mentality is a less of a population. Of course, they, you know, claim that it affects climate control. There’s all kinds of things interesting enough that carbon dioxide is needed in order to produce good lush plants and food and so forth.

You know, some people think on that even though that’s not well, this is relevant. Yeah, there’s there’s scientists that are coming out really reputable ones and thinking that, you know, in the times of the Garden of Eden, there was way more carbon dioxide because there would have to be to have such lush vegetation.

The tropical rainforest type of environment, what we all envision. But it was perfect. Then Earth was perfect. We live in a fallen world now, and part of that fallen world is that there’s chemicals, there’s pollution in the air, which I’m sure that you guys agree. Yeah, there’s pollution in the air. That’s an obvious right. And so that affects the food that’s being grown. It affects the food that you buy at the grocery store. But then when you add in extra pollutants or teratogenic, if you will, like, when they’re doing genetically modified substances and trying to make things they’re basically doing like growth therapy on produce to make it bigger so they can sell it to you for more and so that it can go farther. And the truth is, is it’s not better for us. I mean, if we think about, you know, the fortified processed foods and the GMO and the processed. Yeah, in the produce. And then you think, now we’ve got the potential for lab grown meat.

Hey, you know what’s interesting?

That could equal health issues.

We’ll get into this in a sec. But what’s interesting is I love to play chess. I don’t very often, but the the children get a bounty if they beat me and they.

Don’t beat him very.

Often. I think to have two to the oldest two are the ones that have tied or beat me. Oh yeah.

There’s a challenge for the other.

Seven. Yeah, the ones at home haven’t yet, I don’t think. But anyways, you know, in business it’s a lot like playing a chess. The more moves you think ahead, the better you are in business. But you know what? Maybe it didn’t used to be the case. But now parenting is the same way. Parenting is like playing chess. You actually have to be thoughtful. You have to be thinking about what’s ahead. The more moves ahead you can think, the better decisions you can make today. Uh, parenting today takes courage because. And it takes foresight. And it takes vision more than ever, more than any previous generation. So no matter what you’ve experienced, you’ve got to be, let’s face it, you’ve got to be a little better. You got to be a little more resilient. You got to be a little more in tune with the Bible than previous generations.

Well, I think that previous generations needed it just as much, actually. I just think that they were fighting different challenges and they were, you know, because we’re in the situation we are now with. I’m just going to be I’m going to throw out a whole generation, millennials and their belief system alone. Right. So think of how like our parents.

Generation labeling all people.

No no no no no no no I’m not.

I just want to make sure because I love the millennials.

But I’m saying statistically, how many of them are okay with a communist society? Statistically, how many of them vote for those kinds of laws? Statistically, how many are pro-choice versus pro-life? Statistically, how many are I could go on and on and on with all of these statistics.

There’s any every generation has an increasing, uh, uh, lack of morality and increasing, um, uh, un appreciation of capitalism and these kinds of things.

Yeah, but but when you look at Scripture, which was thousands of years ago, you had churches like the Corinth Church that were completely morally depraved.

Go back and read the first and second Corinthians. You’re going to see or even one of the worst churches, uh, environments that ever existed. And Paul still loved them. And so I just really appreciated that.

Yeah, but you guys, like, this is the thing is that no, no, sin is new. We’re not saying that like, there’s new sin or worse, like the sin is sin. And it’s been around for as long as, you know, Adam, since Adam and Eve. So, so. But we’ve got the ramifications of that affecting food.

So let’s talk about some of these realities and we’ll dive in. Uh, you know, FDA approved lab grown meat. Uh, you never know where that might start existing. My understanding right now is it’s still too expensive. It costs more to do that. And so the cheap foods out there probably aren’t doing it yet because it’s it’s so expensive. But I’m not sure I don’t know. I’m not an expert on this. Hold on, hold.

On, hold on. So for the people that are listening for a second who maybe don’t know how lab grown meat is, can you describe that?

I mean, very basic, right. So, uh, they take cells from chicken. This is specifically what was approved as taking approved by the FDA and taking cells from chicken and then growing it in a lab versus chickens being grown through eggs in the normal God given process.

Perfect. So it’s not like they’re like growing a goat inside a incubator.

I don’t know what their process is, but they’re taking cells and doing that. There’s a lot of theories that the danger of this, I mean, I don’t think I just just a simple look at it. I don’t think humans can ever do things to the level. God can do things. So because of that premise, in my belief, I think anytime you take something away from God’s design and plan, it’s just going to be corrupted. When humans get involved trying to replicate what only God used to be able to do. Amen. It’s going to. Something’s going to happen. It’s going to cause cancer. Something that’s some of the thoughts out there.

That’s really what only God can do in a sense too. It’s not. Yeah. I just think that there’s an there’s an element where people need to realize that this is something that they’re unapologetically putting out, you know, um, materials saying, oh, yeah, FDA approved for chicken, for example, and things like that. And so what is that as a consumer, as a parent who is like, okay, well, if they’re doing this in a lab, I don’t really trust anybody in a lab. What are they going to potentially put in that meat is also a question in mom’s mind. Something else.

Is interesting. I don’t know. You never know what’s true on the internet. But there’s a lot of reels and things going around of the population in Russia. Uh, just people walking on the street. I don’t know if it’s real or not. Could be propaganda, but, uh, there’s everybody’s pretty fit, you know, there’s there’s people that are, you know, skinny everywhere. And, um, you also look at the videos from people walking on the streets, uh, back in the, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. Right. And everybody’s pretty skinny, pretty fit. And so what’s changed? You know, you can say a lot of things changed, but one of them is GMO, right. And that’s that’s kind of what people are talking about.

Yeah. And I think that’s a there’s a lot of different elements in Russia.

And Russia outlawed GMO, by the way, which makes which makes that point. But I don’t know if it’s real.

Yeah. Well we also know that, you know, 40s 50s. That’s when you see technology starting to come about. I remember my dad talking about when the first TV was invented, and he was a kid and watching TV for the first time. And. You know. And so that obviously becomes like a form of entertainment. Whereas kids used to be running around the backyard playing with sticks and rocks and, and playing baseball and so forth.

And so we got to do a whole episode on video games, by the way, that’s coming soon. Yeah. But anyways, let’s dive in.

Okay. So you guys today, you know, we get that there is a a need for this conversation because think back to 2020, what happened when Covid hit during that US election in 2020. Um, and in 2021 there was a shortage of eggs. We were limited to one carton of eggs per family, and there was nine of us living at home.

I don’t know about you. Do you have pivotal points? You listening? This is so. I’m glad you brought it up, Angie, because pivotal points make action. And one of the pivotal points was eggs for me, weirdly, the thing for us, it was the thing. It was like, I remember going to the store to get a dozen eggs, a major department store, and there was very few left. There was people kind of starting to huddle around the eggs and it said one dozen per family. And I remember thinking, yeah, that’s going to be half of one breakfast for our large family, right. And of course, a lot of people in the world will go, well, you shouldn’t have so many kids, right, in that kind of situation. And I would go, well, actually, the efficiency per person in our household is higher than other households because.

Like carbon footprint.

Well yeah, that but also, you know, when you make eggs there’s less waste because you’re making you’re making in a group and less fuel to cook it all. I could go into this. But anyways, on a per person level we’re very efficient. But we do need 24 eggs to eat breakfast. No it’s true. And I’m like, whoa, wait, hold the horses here. We got to create change. We’re living in a neighborhood at the time. We got to create change and we were living also where you couldn’t grow things.

Yeah.

So those so that was a big wake up call. It’s like, ah, I don’t want to be controlled like this. I got a big family. Yeah.

It was a big deal. And then there were other things that went out of stock. If you remember, I’m going to make you laugh. Toilet paper and paper towels. Right. But there were other things too, like vitamin C and ibuprofen. And people were getting sick and they were doing shelter in place. And you’re like, really? Vitamin C’s out of stock everywhere online. It’s not deliverable. Are you joking me? Like, that’s just the reality of what we experienced, right? And so it could happen again in the future. And what are we going to learn from what we experienced the first time, or are we just going to continue living the way we were? And I think that a lot of people who are listening today are remembering that and going, yeah, you know what, maybe it is wise. And I’m not saying hoard toilet paper. That’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is we need to we there is an element of like trying to be wise and not be so completely dependent upon the government or society or, um, or grocery outlets or, you know what I’m saying, like, so today I think that, you know, the first topic we want to talk to you guys about regarding this food supply is the importance of networking and bringing value yourself to your network. It’s not just who you know. So you can get the bacon from who you want and you know it’s going to be organic. No, no, no. It’s also like developing relationships with people where you can either barter or trade or be able to buy from one another, and you can trust where it’s coming from.

One of the reasons that’s so important when Angie just said, is because when challenge really happens, those people who grow the pigs and grow the cows and you get your milk from and these kinds of things, they’re going to ration down to the list that of people that are most devoted, closest to them, easiest to work with in their inner circle kind of people when they have difficulty getting feed or whatever it is in their situation. So if you want to be on the inner circle, you really do need to build that relationship. It can’t just be a transaction with these people and the better. What Angie said is, I just want to reiterate is what value can you bring? So you stay on their inner circle as a supply, uh, as someone that supplies to your family because you can also supply to their family, it might not even be in food. Maybe you’re supplying in other ways.

You know, it’s interesting when you’re talking about that. It kind of reminded me of my relationship with the farm that we get our raw milk from. Um, and one of the things that I have, I have tried to bring to that relationship with that farmer is to bring her more customers. And so I’ve referred so many people to start getting milk from her. And I know that like that matters hugely to local farmers. Is the personal reference, the personal recommendation of people who are going to follow through, that are going to pay, that are going to be there. And I think that that that is an easy way to bring value. If you can’t bring, you know, anything that’s physical, like a physical product. Being a something that helps them to make profit, helps them is I mean, I know this just as a business owner, right? Like there’s this element of like camaraderie and you really do. To give preference to the people who have helped you. And so that’s just the reality. So be wise. And if you don’t know your neighbors again, I mean, that was something we talked about in last week’s podcast in regards to like, what if a blackout happens, but know your neighbors, talk to them and and and share about like what kind of tools you have. And this isn’t for like if something happens, we do this now and borrow and help other people loan, um, different equipment to one another.

Generous. And that fosters generosity with the people around you. Yeah. If if there’s a record of you loaning things to people when you need something, they’re probably going to loan you things. And it’s cultivating a trust that when things are loaned, they come back good. And these kinds of things. And you want to build. So build your network. If you’re in a neighborhood, apartment complex, condo somewhere, um, you know, house in a neighborhood farm, whatever the situation is, you can do these things we’re talking about.

Yeah. So clearly networking is going to be huge for you, especially if you’re in an apartment or a townhouse or in a suburb area where you have a tiny yard. And I just want to encourage you guys, if you’re listening today and that’s you and you don’t live on land, you guys, we’re going to talk about a lot of different, um, projects and, and opportunities where you can actually grow and becoming more independent, um, than you were previously, which is a good thing to practice. But also these are like domestic skills that honestly are kind of like lost arts in a way. Um, canning, for example, is one of those things that I viewed as a lost art among women today, trying to find someone who knows how to can and who can pass down their wisdom and do it with you, because it’s kind of a hands on thing, is a hard thing.

You know, I just had a thought. As we go into this, I imagine there’s thoughts. How do you have time to can it feel like I’m so busy with my littles right now, or I’m so busy with my middles that are going to sports, or I’m so busy with this that I can’t imagine adding canning to my list. Not to mention growing what you’re canning and these kinds of things. And my challenge to you is you really need to be in the heart of the home in the app, because Angie is talking about concepts of how do you navigate this? And maybe we’re busy doing some of the things that are inferior to what’s best for the future right now. Like maybe there’s too much time driving in a car, and we need to start to be aware of decisions we make that cause us to constantly be driving. Or maybe it’s not decisions, but just a lack of desire in being in our home that we never want to admit those kinds of things and so much more. Angie is talking about in the mom, uh, group that’s private in the Be Courageous app, and all the recordings of those are there. And she’s live every Friday. So yeah, I encourage you to join me.

I think we’re starting the the this Friday is going to be building together the heart of the home. It’s talking about how to run a household and manage a household when you’re married. And I think that this is going to be a really helpful session. And they’re usually about an hour, and this is the 10th week in a row that we’ve done that or ten sessions that we’ve had so far. So there’s quite a lot of content there for you to binge watch. If you want to try the app out for for a week, I think you can get it for free for a week, right? App store. So go look in the App Store. I want to share something with you guys because obviously we try to keep our podcast, um, biblical. And one of the first verses that when we were talking about this, because a lot of what what we’re talking about today, like Isaac, has done a lot of the networking with the, the neighborhood guys, um, more so and I’d say you’ve done a lot too, and I’m, I’m, I feel like I’m trying to more with the women. Um, and but but the truth is like in our dynamics and our marriage. And it may be different in your marriage, and that’s totally fine. It’s not like a gender role thing. I tend to do more of the growing of the food, but I love gardening like it’s I, I think there’s like farmer in me or something. I just love being in the dirt and growing. When you were gone.

For a few days, I was in charge of the garden. Uh, by the way, I did a fantastic job. He did a great job. You know, the one thing that I failed at and is just a knack that she has, is finding these grubs. Finding bugs. Oh. The hornworms. Okay, it’s on my list to find these grubs. And I look around. I saw hardly any grubs while I was watching. The garden will.

Camouflage themselves on the leaf, and.

She goes in there and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I’m just like, feed.

Em to the chickens.

We all have different gifts.

That’s true. Um, so anyway, you know, a lot of what we’re talking about today is that. But you brought up a really important, um, topic which goes along with this Proverbs 3125 that I want to share with the women. So Proverbs um, 31 I was actually going through a huge portion of this in the very first, um, live that I did in the heart of the home. But verse 25 says, strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. So obviously this is talking about character, strength, dignity, spiritual maturity. Um, are what are helping her to have a confidence about what is coming in the future or what potentially could come in the future. Here’s the reality we know from scriptures like. The wise man who builds his house on the rock, and the foolish man who doesn’t write, which is actually about hearing what the Word of God says and doing it, applying it to your life versus hearing and not applying it. But we know from that scripture that hard times, winds, rains, floods, um, snow, sleet, all those things are potentially good. They are going to hit regardless of if you’re a wise man or you’re a foolish man. What happens is your house either stands or it falls based upon if you’re wise or foolish. And isn’t that true about life? Like hard times will potentially hit at any given time? It’s not necessarily dependent upon a world crisis happening.

Right? And so for the wise woman who’s building her home to understand the importance of being able to be somewhat of a visionary and go, you know what? Like, here’s a real basic one. Being more frugal, you see that mustard is on sale, like massively on sale, and you could buy six of them and it would last you six months. One mustard per month, and you could spend the same amount as you would if you were to just buy one mustard on a month when it’s not on sale. What do you do? Do you just take the discount and have a smaller bill? Or do you stock up on those mustards and have five in your pantry and not buy mustard and end up saving yourself? You know, six times the amount you would have spent in in the course of six months. For me, I would buy six mustards because I know it’s going to save me. Right. And so there are things that you can do regarding what you’re practically doing that would, in my mind, follow under being wise, having vision. Well, is the price going to potentially go up next year or on certain things based upon what’s happening in the world? We’ve had so much inflation the last three years regarding food.

So when you see things on sale, taking advantage of them versus not as good. But here’s the thing. Proverbs 3125 is just one verse in an entire chapter and an entire book, and that entire chapter actually gives accolades over and over and over again, making a point to show how hard the Proverbs 31 woman is working at growing her food, having food for she provides food for her household. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. Verse 15. She opens the her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. Verse 20. There’s I mean you could go through for all of her household is clothed and scarlet. She’s not afraid of the snow for her household. You guys, she is thinking about what is the next season that’s coming. And I’m going to make sure that we have warm mittens, because snow is a right around the corner. That is something that we need to do. So in regards to what is happened in the past, what could happen in the future, the reality that life gets hit sometimes we should be trying to become more independent and teach our children how to do these things, because these are going to be skills that are even more of a lost art in their generation. Well, let’s.

Dive into how to grow food. Uh, you may know how to grow food, but this might just be reminders. It might be encouragement since right now is the beginning of this process. And, um, you can go ahead and keep it, honey. Okay. Thank you. Um, beginning of the process and growing seeds, you know, and having seeds the next year you didn’t have to pay for and these kinds of things. And then what to grow and how to understand your soil and these kinds of things are really, really important. We just want to take a second to share the Parenting Mentor program with you. Over 3000 parents have had their legacies forever impacted. I mean, it is incredible what God’s doing with the Parenting Mentor Program, the self-paced program at Courageous Parenting.com. Let’s just listen for a moment, and then we’ll get back to the podcast episode.

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

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

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

This class has just really rocked my world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I think Angie’s going to talk about a little bit about the foundation of growing things for optimal success.

And hey, don’t get scared as I’m talking about growing things. We’re going to give you some, um, if you are just starting off, my perspective is to start small. Wherever you are, start small. And then over the years you can add a little bit and grow a little more. So it’s doable. Um, so we’re going to start super basic, but for those of you who maybe have already been growing your own seeds, that’s the first part of this growing your food, right. Um, you can go to places and purchase starter starts, right. Vegetable starts. And they’re, you know, between, uh, two inches tall. And I mean, you can get really big ones that are, you know, 12in tall. Um, but a lot of times people will go to Home Depot or they’ll go to these local garden centers and they’ll buy starts of different things, and they may not use an entire package. Right. Which can I just say, if that’s you and, you know, a neighbor that wants to also garden, I would recommend going to the garden center together and discussing and trying to make a plan to where it’s like, hey, I’ll buy this package and I’ll split it in half with you, and you buy that package and we’ll split that one in half. And you know, there are ways to make it cheaper so that you’re not wasting food and wasting money. Okay, that’s one little tip. Another tip is that if you really want to save, really starting your own seeds is not that hard and it’ll save you a lot of money.

A package of seeds is typically between 2 and $6, depending on how many seeds you’re buying. You can also buy bigger quantities, which makes the seeds per seed cheaper, but they’re more expensive for more, right? Um, and this is the deal. You could even divide up seeds among neighbors, which is something that I’ve just recently been talking to with. One of our neighbors is going, hey, I have this. Do you have this? And being able to share and trade seeds because the seed packets are typically around $3.69 for 100 seeds. So it’s like, hey, I’ll give you some tomatoes if you give me some peppers. And so there’s a way that you can go around this to where it doesn’t have to be hundreds of dollars in seeds. Um, this is the other thing. When you’re growing your seeds, one thing that is super important to know when you buy a package of seeds, it’s very few vegetables where the seeds are only going to last one year, meaning you need to plant them that year. I don’t know if you knew this, but the majority of seeds will on average last you three years, so like for me, I think I bought two tiny packages of seeds this year. That’s like $6, you guys. $6 is what I’m going to be spending on my garden, Lord willing.

And last year she got over £3,000 of vegetables from the gardens.

That’s right. But last year I did spend probably $90 on seeds because I hadn’t bought any yet. Right. However, what’s interesting is for those of you who have been following along for a while, you know, we harvested about £900 of potatoes. And, you know, it’s funny, I only bought $15 worth of seed potato because I had organic potatoes from the year before that we had cured and been using. And then some of them started to go to seed, and I saved them and kept them in a way that you can keep them with straw or sand. And then I planted those, and that was our entire seed potatoes for two 61ft by four foot rows. And we were able to harvest £900. And the majority, I would say 95% of that was just from the the potatoes that went to seed. So if you buy organic in the grocery store and you have your potatoes long enough, you’ll start seeing them have little eyes coming on, that’s them going to seed. And you could actually plant that potato, and it will give you between 7 and 20 little potatoes off of that potato. Isn’t that incredible? And so don’t ever throw a potato away. All you need is like a little, um, a even a put it in a hole, a basket. You don’t even. Yeah, you can do it in your ground, but you can also do it in any planter that you want, as long as it’s deep enough. And really, they only need to have like 12 to 16in deep. And so imagine if you weren’t buying potatoes, that was us this year. We didn’t have to buy any potatoes.

We did verify that Idaho has incredible potatoes.

It is true. Um, but you know, it’s the same thing with like, onions. You can cure them and have them all throughout the year. We had £266 of onions. But you guys, you know what that came from? That was from going to the local DMV, which is similar to a Tractor Supply Co and seen for $6.75. They had a bag of 100 onion bulbs, and I just put them in the ground and they all just grew great. I think I lost two total.

How do you make sure, uh, the they didn’t come from GMO? I guess they all do, don’t they.

Well, no they don’t all um, and when you go to places that are like D and B, for example, they’re much more conscientious about organic and not doing GMO. And so they’ll oftentimes carry only seed packets from companies that have heirloom varieties. And they’re really careful about that. But you’ve got to find your place that’s in your place. I think that that’s just in our place. That’s just in Idaho. But you can ask and you can look around. But hey, ordering online, online, there’s Eden Seeds. I love theirs territorial seeds. I’ve bought from them for probably 15, 16 years that I’ve gardened. Um, there’s so many online that are popping up. But here’s the really cool part. You can save money in the future by taking your fruit and harvesting the seeds out of them and drying them, letting them dry on paper towels. And after about a week, they’re dry, and then you just put them in a little plastic bag or a mason jar. If you have a whole bunch and you plant those seeds the next year and you’re good to go.

But there’s something really unique that Angie taught me that I think is fascinating, which is that that next year when you have your own seeds, they’re actually better seeds than the seeds you bought because they were grown in your soil within your environment. And so they have adapted a little bit to be even better for your environment because they came from your environment.

Well, what’s really cool about it is when you start gardening. I’m right. Right. I think so, yeah. I mean, I think that there’s an element of a hardiness depending on your zone. So, you know, I think that maybe I skipped a really important thing. So depending on where you live, the first step would be to find out what zone you live in. Um. Where five be six a um, and so we have snow, we have a bipolar march. And so I have to watch this one mountain and once it doesn’t have snow on it, then I know I can put my. Well, that.

Was another tip right there. Ask your local people what to watch for.

Network, because.

Multiple people told us people do it wrong. They just follow what’s online. But you got to follow the civic place. You’ve got to look at this mountain.

And once the snow is completely.

Gone, it seems to be.

Right. It’s interesting because I followed it the last two years and we’ve had phenomenal gardens. Now you learn every year, depending, like even within our property, there’s different areas that have different types of soil. So the second thing, after finding out your zone would be to test your soil, you can get a super simple $6 pH kit. In fact, this would be really interesting to teach your kids. Have your kids do. They could take a little kitchen spoon outside or if you don’t want them using your nice silverware, get them on a thrift store for $0.25. Have them go outside, dig up a tiny little soil and come in and do the pH and acidity test and see what minerals are in the soil. Send them out to a different part. Find out what part of your garden has the best or part of your property, has the best kind of soil for planting. And what’s really cool about this is it’s like homeschool science slash agriculture. This is a very essential part that I think a lot of people skip. Um, because most soil, um, especially if it’s been farmed before or if you live in a neighborhood, you’re going to need to amend your soil a little bit.

Um, but, you know, the the truth is, is that you can get a, um, a food for your soil for your starters and your seeds. That’s literally called starter seed soil amendment. And you’re going to be just fine. Um, it’s going to be good for your seeds. It’s super simple. Here’s the other thing. A lot of times people think about, um, planting seeds and they’re like, oh, what about all the equipment? That’s an investment. I don’t have a lot of money. Hey, why don’t you pick your 2 or 3 vegetables that you know you and your kids are going to love? Just pick 2 or 3. Maybe it’s green beans. Um, what’s another easy one? Peas. Well, carrots can be easy for some people. Depending on where they live. They can be harder. They can be harder. I’ve had a hard time with them. Last year was our first real good year. But I’m learning. Even though I’ve been gardening for 23 years.

Cucumbers are easy.

For you. Um, yeah, but they weren’t when we lived in Oregon, so it’s just it’s interesting where you live. So pick your three favorite vegetables, look up your zone and evaluate. You know what would be the the best three seeds to buy. And then just start simple. Just start with three things. And for those of you who have an apartment complex, um, or you’re in a townhouse or in a house that doesn’t have a backyard, I have the best solution for you ever. It’s called the Green Stalk Garter Gardener, and we have used this tiered planter for years and years and years. Um, I think we’ve had it for three years now. But before that I did like strawberry pots, which was very similar to that, and I had a different one, but this one is my favorite. Um, you can get them with five tiers or seven tiers, and then the very top, you just put water in the top, and then it trickles down through all the tiers and waters them all. So it’s an easy way to water many plants. Um, one year I think I had 37 different, um, vegetables or plants in my green stock.

Gardener took up like, you know, two square feet or three.

And then it just went up. And what was great about it is that I ended up getting the frost covering, um, insulator bag that you can put over it. So I was able to start my seeds early, put it outside, put this cover over it, and then on hot days take remove the cover. And it it made a huge difference before we had our big garden.

Just think about this too, from a parenting perspective too is we’re feeling the urge to do this right? Because what’s happening in the world? How much more important is it likely for your children to be good at doing this in their futures? That’s true. And so no matter how much space you have, you can learn with the garden stock. There’s a way to get that cheaper, right?

Oh yeah. I mean, we we’ve collaborated with them for years now. Um, I think the code is courageous. Mom, if you just put Courageous Mom in your checkout, it’s Greenstalk gardener. Com and you can find they have multiple different colors. They have all these different tools and things like that. But you could start small if you only have a patio. This is a way for you to grow some vegetables. Let’s say you just like strawberries and you get strawberry starts and you fill the whole thing with strawberries. Or you just want to start with an herb garden so that you’re not buying herbs at the grocery store, and you put herbs all throughout it. There are so many different ways that you can use it. You use lettuce, you can put broccoli in it, green beans, all kinds of things. Um, but the point of why I’m bringing it up is that there are easier ways. It doesn’t have to be like what we’re doing on our six acres where we have a quarter acre that we’re doing a huge pasture, um, area. Um, and it doesn’t have to be 1000 square foot garden or any size. You can use pots to start learning how to grow vegetables. And I guarantee you as you do it, it’s one of those things where once you try home grown veggies, you just have a hard time going back. It’s really a wonderful thing. And when you figure out what is good for you to grow in your area, then you can become that can be your thing, that can be your crop, that you then can share with other people or trade with if you need to in the future.

Angela say they pick the right soil. They understand their zone, they plant their seeds, they start watering it and these kinds of things. Still, even when they get those things right, there’s a lot of people out there that get discouraged because it doesn’t work out for them. And so what are the habits that you have that are lending towards success that you want to make sure they know about?

That’s a I’m really glad you asked that question, because I wouldn’t have thought to share that in today’s podcast. But you and I have had conversations about this and really, I think the biggest thing is, uh, being diligent and dedicated. Um, it takes daily time with your garden, actually, when your seeds are first planted, you don’t want the soil to dry out. You need to keep them moist but not soaked. Um, and so that takes daily going in and spritzing your seeds. Right. Um, it takes paying attention to the soil, maybe using a water thermometer to see if you’re not able to because you’re not able to put your finger in or whatever. Um, because maybe the pocket that you planted the seed in is too small for you to put your finger in. Um, for us, some of the plants that we plant are that way. Um, another thing that is really, um, important is that you are keeping your eye out for pests. You’re you’re you’re looking for the bugs, the beneficial ones. You’re look, taking time to look up the bugs and not just getting rid of every bug you see, because some are beneficial. I love seeing ladybugs. I love seeing praying mantis worms. I love seeing certain bugs. But now when I see a hornworm, that’s like enemy number one to me. I love seeing the spiders. I love like there’s certain bugs that you want to have in your garden, but there’s certain ones that will literally kill every tomato plant in a matter of like, well, if you have two tomato plants, they’d be gone in maybe two days.

So you’re a you’re tending daily. Yeah. So the you can.

See what’s happening.

That’s a gardener. Not just a.

Person who’s gardening interested. Interested.

You can’t just be interested. It’s just like anything. An interested gardener doesn’t usually follow through, but a gardener follows through.

So you have to you need to become. You just need to own that. And, um, it becomes part of your daily routine. And it’s if you have children, you do it with them. It’s not that you need to find more time away from them to do this. No, you bring them with you. You teach them how to be careful with weeding. You teach them the importance of watering and making sure you’re not over watering things. And, you know, it’s it’s really, you.

Know, there’s so much to this. We got some other things to talk about. And we have we have limited time. So one of the things I noticed you started doing in the homesteading group in the app is starting to literally because people asked you to do this, literally showing them through video while you’re doing your steps this year. Right?

So I just made soil for my seeds because stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s will sell a tiny £5 bag of this seed starter soil, and they’ll sell it for ten bucks. But if you buy ingredients like coconut coir, um, vermiculite and, um, perlite and and sphagnum peat moss, you can make your own in bulk quantities and it can last you years upon years, actually. And it’s way better. And it doesn’t have chemicals in it. And so it’s you’re organically gardening. So I taught that recipe.

And so she’s going to be doing that. By the way just a thought. Why the app. You know it’s 8.99 a month obviously a week free. But why do you guys do that when you could just create a Facebook group. Or you could just share this on Instagram and everybody free could enjoy this? Well, there’s lots of reasons, but one I want to share with you is there’s no promise. In fact, there’s a big warning on whether we’ll even be allowed to stay on Instagram in the future or Facebook in these different platforms. And so from a production standpoint and time and energy standpoint, it takes a massive amount of effort actually to put this stuff out on a consistent basis. So we it would be so devastating. Imagine you build libraries of content and all these things, and your heart is to just give it to people. It’s absolutely our heart. But then it’s just in a click of a button. Someone that doesn’t agree with us on something wipes it away.

I mean, that could happen to our podcast.

That could that could happen.

300 episodes would disappear, except.

They’re all in the app. So we created something where we know that our our investment of time, resource and energy and for the for the impact of it is secure. And so we’re doing a lot of special things in the Be Courageous app. Um, like the.

Homesteading also.

Helps support the ministry. Yeah. And we need that. We need the support. We can’t just do free things because it takes it’s way more than full time effort. Now we’re having other people help and so forth, and that’s expensive. So if you want to support the ministry and you want to learn along with Angie and you want to be part of heart of the home, all these things, join that.

So there’s another Bible verse that comes to mind is we’re talking about seeds. It’s Genesis 129 And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with a seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food, and to every beast of the earth, and just continues on. And you know, this is a verse that reminds us that we are tenders of what God has created here on earth, and teaching our kids some of the skills that go along with that are incredibly valuable. Yes, but it’s also part of God’s call for all mankind to be able to take care of the earth. And this is not being a environmentalist, it’s being a creationist, actually, and believing what God’s Word says. Here’s another one that comes to mind in Psalm 104 14. It says, you cause the grass to grow for the livestock and the plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man. And then just continues on, and it talks about oil and bread and other trees of the Lord. And anyway, it’s just really cool to see multiple areas of Scripture where God is talking about his creation and and why he created it was for us to use, but also to take care of so that it can keep growing.

Right? When God sent the flood, he had animals go on the ark so that they could produce and fill the earth again later. And and that is important to the Lord. And so when we’re taking care of livestock, when we’re taking care of the garden, we’re taking care of the earth, and we’re helping and we’re we’re harvesting seeds out of the fruit that we grow and saving them and planting them again, that is God’s work, actually. And there’s so much beauty to be learned from the Lord in that process, and so many opportunities to teach your kids more about biblical principles. Um, here’s one of them. Actually, Proverbs six six through eight says, go to the ant, O sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief officer or ruler. She prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest, which is the next topic. You know, preserving food can be a big topic. We’re not going to dive into too much, but when I say preserve food, people get go. Oh well, I could maybe put things in the freezer, but beyond that, that’s like way too hard to learn all of that. Um, and I’m not talking about just canning. There are other ways, and I want to share those other ways with you. Um, and so, yeah, do take advantage of the Be Courageous app because there’s things like you can freeze dry.

That’s not something that I’ve tried yet. I’ve also not tried smoking. Those are the two things I’m excited to try in the next year or two. But dehydrating. I love dehydrating. And guess what? Yes, I have a machine that I’ve had for like 16 years, but you can do this in your oven. You can get your cookie sheet out and use your oven and you can dehydrate things. Not only that, but you can make bulk foods like granola. You don’t have to buy granola at the grocery store. You can grow herbs that are perennials that you plant once, and they come back year after year after year, which might be one of the easiest ways to get started with gardening is picking a few things that you know are going to come back, like strawberries, rhubarb. Maybe you do peppermint. If you have kids that get stomach bugs in the wintertime and you do something that’s super simple, you use a hanger and you cut some peppermint in the summer, and you hang it with some twine in your closet and you let it dry. Or maybe you get out your clothes drying rack like I did, and you have peppermint and chamomile and echinacea and all these different tea, you know, leafy herbs drying. And you put them in mason jars and use them for tea, and then you don’t buy tea.

I love the industrious look in our house sometimes, because right now we lived in we’ve got these racks, metal racks in where a little nook is our kitchenette with grow lights and so forth. Because we don’t have a, um.

We have a greenhouse.

Greenhouse yet, you know, we haven’t been able to afford that yet. And, um, but, you know, it’s just great. It’s great. What does it show the kids that we’re not putting aesthetics ahead of industriousness and ahead of productiveness instead of ahead of provision? You know, it. I think it looks great. But, you know, some people might walk in and go, wow, I’m so really surprised you have that out in your main area. Well, well.

It’s the best place for it. It’s the best.

Place. We got good windows right there and it’s teaching the kids that, well, we’re using.

It every day.

Let’s not put aesthetics ahead of responsibility and provision and preparing and.

Well, and I do think, you know, one tip for the people who are having a hard time finding time to do it, here is the biggest tip. Have your seeds where you are going to be. When we did the seeds out here in the studio, I had to come out here every day to water those things. So it did take time of like, hey, can you watch your siblings for about 20 minutes so I can go water everything? And I’d bring another kid and we or sometimes there were three of us out here, and it would still take us 20 minutes just to water everything because we had so many seeds growing. But now that they’re in the house, it’s like, I can do it right there with the littles, and they’re doing it with me. And it’s really fun to start seeing stuff sprouting up. They get excited about their learning. Um, but you know, what is really kind of cool about that whole thing is that, you know, I’ve had to change and choose to look at my home differently. It’s a tool to be used for God’s glory, for providing for my family, nurturing their their minds and their tummies and all the things. And it is for hospitality. But guess what? Having that out has actually caused more conversations with people who’ve come over where they’ve been. Like curious. Oh, I didn’t know you did that. Can you teach me about that? And then I’m investing in that relationship. And then later I learn about something they’re into, and that’s part of building your community and your network, in a sense, in pouring into each other, which is super important during this time. And, you know, the last thing, as far as what we’re going to talk about today is livestock hunting, fishing, that sort of thing. That’s a food supply thing. Um, we don’t know how to hunt yet.

Yeah, we I just did hunting class with my boys, my older boys, and it was great. It was simple, but it was good to know. And we did it together. And it was a great experience. And we did it locally. And, you know, there’s another gentleman that has said that they would take us out. I’m hoping that works out, uh, because, you know, having never done it, I really want to go with another guy that’s really experienced at first with my boys. So I’m excited about that. So humility is part of it. If you weren’t raised in. In understanding some of things. I feel like I’m learning most things in my adult life. Then, you know, it’s then it’s about humbling yourself and going with somebody else that does know. And I don’t have to look like the answer to my boys for them to love and respect me in every way. Um, and I’m okay with that. You know.

I think it’s also good for them to see, to try new things even when you are older, without knowing for sure if you’re going to succeed at something or not. Right? Like, imagine a world where you’re not wanting to do something because you’re afraid of failure, and then you think it’s a waste of time. Well, aren’t the best lessons learned through failure. I mean, I’ve been gardening for 24 years. I remember when we had our apartment and I had our tiny little, um, strawberry pot, and I put herbs in it, and I had my little seed thing and I failed miserably. All those seeds did not come up at all. And I was I was really scared to continue doing seeds. And so for years I bought starts thinking I’m just not. I’m not diligent enough. I don’t remember to go out there every day. And it was a complicated thing. But then a year came along where I had a kid that was really interested in gardening, and we had that tiny greenhouse in the vineyard. Remember that? And we went out there every day together, and it became a really sweet time that drew and I had together. And now he’s 17 and he’s still the one that I asked him the other day. I was like, yeah, I’m so thankful to have you helping me. And he was like, well, it’s the best way to spend time with you, mom. Like. And it was just really sweet that, like, he has fond memories of us gardening together and that that’s part of why he enjoys it. And that just really, like, melted my heart. And so I share that with you because it can be something that is a deeper relationship building experience. It doesn’t have to be this busy work that pulls you away from the heart things. Um, so try to go about it with an eternal perspective. Have grace with yourself, and when you fail, it’s a lesson learned.

I’m so excited about that. That experience of getting an elk and being able to haul that out and learning how to do that and then being able to, you know, process the meat, potentially maybe we’ll have someone do it. But just that whole process and then knowing our freezer is full and all we had to do is buy a tag and go take initiative. And I just that’s got to be a good feeling. I know a lot of you guys that are listening could probably relate to that already. That’s not something I can, but I’m excited about that. I think that to this last one is could be a whole episode because there really is an agenda to, to rid, uh, our ability to eat meat. And it’s so bizarre. It is like the, you know, the enemy tries to turn everything upside down, right? What’s good? He turns into bad. He wants to make people believe it’s bad. Right? It’s a counterfeit. It’s a counterfeit. He’s a he’s a schemer, a liar. And so you see these things regarding meat. Meat is a good source of protein. The Bible says that, you know, we are to steward the land and the animals well, but but it is okay for us to hunt them for food. And it’s so important that we we embrace that. I think now if you don’t eat meat, it’s okay. We still love you. No problem. Uh, there’s you have your reasons and so forth, but it is a really important thing. And where your meat comes from is going to be a compelling thing. Like, right now, it’s kind of important.

I mean, I pay attention at the grocery.

Store, but it’s.

I’m pretty careful.

At some point. There is the potentiality that you literally can’t go to any grocery store because it’s illegal to sell meat unless it’s been something’s been done to it, like.

Vaccinated or.

Something. It could be a future with their motivations and agenda down the road, where you can’t find real meat in the grocery store because they want meat to come from places where animals aren’t. Farting, basically. That’s the thing, right? It’s so that’s it.

Isn’t that it for cows? Yes. But you know, I you know, there’s a lot there’s a bigger agenda behind it, for sure. I think that when it comes to livestock, knowing people who have skills and and wanting to learn is a good thing. But as long as you’re not making that a huge hurdle that prevents you from actually doing something, because doing it is actually going to teach you more than a class ever will. Um, and so while classes can be good and reading books, I’m very much into reading books. Books are kind of a I think it’s a lost art. Also to want to read books. Everybody’s into watching a short reel to learn a hack or whatever, and there is some fun in that. But books are really full of rich wisdom from people who have gone before that have been doing it for for decades, some of them. And there is serious knowledge in some of these gardening books and homesteading books that can just really be an advocate. It’s a huge asset to have those on the shelf in your house, especially if something was to go down, like we talked about last week with a blackout. Right.

So so our approach has been chickens first because we want eggs. And the next approach is how do we get some meat chickens. And our new approach is our first cow. Angie and Drew went and picked out our cow. Now what we’re doing, though is we’re partnering with a neighbor who has his first cow of his own for the first time. He’s had some cows on his property for someone else, but and we’re going to partner together and take care of them together so it’s less of a load and we can learn together. And the cows like being. And there’s another wonderful neighbor in the neighborhood who is a expert on cows, and in fact, me and this, the neighbor that are learning had him come over and the three of us met in our studio here, right here actually, and had a cow meeting, and it was like two hours. And I have such good notes on all of these details. Yeah. And it’s kind of exciting to learn something new and, uh, yeah. So we’re going to have our own.

It’s a new adventure. And I hope that you guys are encouraged as we’re like, you know, we’re grandparents and we’re learning new things and we’re trying new things. And it’s really been an awesome journey because the first like 14 years that we were married, we’ve married almost 25 years, first 14 years we had chickens. But beyond that we would have connections for getting fish and connections for getting the hog or the heifer and, and and getting it butchered and putting it in the freezer. And we’ve done that for years and years and years. But now it’s like we actually really personally know the people that we get our meat from. The boys walk down the road and go fishing, and you’re going to hopefully be hunting soon. And so as far as like the protein goes, it’s a different it’s a game changer. We have 60 chickens you know. And so there’s there’s this element in my mind where yeah I’m growing in strength as I’m doing these chores. I was literally talking to my neighbor about this. We work out. We’ve been working out together in the mornings a couple times a week. Yeah.

Giving you a hand. She’s she is being diligent for me. So good.

Um, doing this at anyways. But we, we were just talking about how our lifestyles that we are living, they do keep us physically active and that how good that is for our health. And I just I want to share that with you that there is something that yeah, it might be a little bit more work, but look long terme, this is better for your health. Long terme. It’ll help you to have more energy. It’s going to give you confidence. It does empower you. And I think.

It’s essential to teach your children, because again, they’re launching into a different world than today. So we can look at the signs and trends of what’s happening and predict a little bit about what the future might be like. And we need to take the initiative to train them and equip them and experientially show them how to do these things so they’re ready for a different future. And if you want your grandkids to be eating meat down the road and their kids to be eating meat, you might want to instill some of these things today.

That’s right. Or have friends who do and are willing to let your kids come along and learn. Yes, that’s another way you can go about it. So thanks so much for joining us today. I hope today was encouraging, not overwhelming. Our heart was that you would feel like there are some simple steps that you can start working in to learn how to garden, to learn how to start fixing the food supply problem in the future. Um, and we just our prayer is that you guys would be encouraged, that you would be encouraged in the Lord through the Scripture that we’re sharing, but that you would not have fear that you would be walking in reality and be encouraged to start taking more steps towards godliness.

Amen.

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome to the podcast. Hey guys, we’re so glad you’re here.

We are talking about a really interesting topic today. Last week our podcast episode was on the topic of hey proximity wise, evaluating where you live. Are you in the location that God wants you to be in? Right? And if not, here are some tips on that evaluation process.

Things to consider. And then this week we’re talking about the potentiality of a nationwide blackout. I know people listen from all over the world, but this has to do with anywhere really. Although we will speak to the US a little bit and this isn’t, um, any kind of, uh, you know, conspiracy theory or anything like that. What we’re more going to talk about is data points, uh, that we look at, I think, you know, if if we were talking about this ten years ago, we wouldn’t talk about this ten years ago, right? Because the data points wouldn’t be there. It would be more of a conspiracy because there isn’t real information there. Right.

But now you have many different people in, um, higher positions that have been talking about it. And I’m sure people have seen some things out there, even in the media or in the news with different, um, anchors, like I think of Tucker Carlson, for example, he’s talked about, um, the potentiality of this happening and interviewed interesting people on this topic, and we’ll talk about that in a few minutes. But before we get started, we are so thankful for you guys. And we wanted to just say thank you for joining us here on the podcast. We love being able to do this every week. This particular topic may seem a little, um, like, oh, why Isaac and Angie, why are you talking about this idea of a blackout? Well, this is a parenting podcast. And so as a as parents, courageous.

Parenting.

As parents. Yes. And it’s courageous parenting. So we’re going to talk about topics that maybe other people aren’t willing to talk about. That doesn’t mean that they don’t think about it and talk about it amongst their neighbors or their close friends. This is obviously a topic that I think a lot of people are considering and having conversations about when they get together for dinner, for example. Um, but as Christians and as parents, what is our jurisdiction? Right. And so we want to bring relevant topics to you guys to stir up good, lively conversations, to encourage you in the word, to encourage you in what you’re doing as you’re raising kids in these unprecedented times. And so thanks for joining us. Thanks for giving us reviews for, um, the stars on Apple or wherever you’re listening on the podcast. It means so much. It means.

So much. All show notes and resources at Be Courageous ministry.org. Don’t forget we’re on YouTube and when you subscribe, it helps the channel be able to unlock some other tools that’ll be important for expanding the ministry and double impact this year. So go to YouTube and subscribe. Also go to Be Courageous Ministry org and get the show notes and all the details. Courageous Parenting.com directly if you want the show notes for the show.

So guys okay, we’re going to start and open up with first Thessalonians chapter five so you can join me there. If you have your Bibles, we’re going to read verse one through ten. And you know, one of the reasons why we like this passage of Scripture. There are many passages of Scripture. We’ve shared a lot of them with you in previous podcasts when we’ve talked about like, when is civil disobedience biblical? And and when we talked about issues surrounding Covid and different things. Right.

The misunderstanding of Romans 13. A lot of Christians have.

Yeah. And Romans 14 and, I mean, there’s a lot of, um, scriptures that we have dove into over the last five years of as we’ve been doing this podcast. And obviously, this is just one of many where God’s Word exhorts us saying, hey, the days are evil and you don’t know necessarily when the end is coming, but be prepared.

Yeah. And we have a jurisdiction to equip our families, protect our families, provide for our families. So this is within our jurisdiction of parenting. This podcast episode now concerning the times and the seasons. Brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying there’s peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for the day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober, okay?

It’s an important passage of scripture.

Sober mindedness is important. We were talking about sober minded this morning, weren’t we? Yeah we were. It’s the clarity of thought based on being in the word. It’s it’s not letting our mind go off into ditches, into, uh, conspiracy theories and things like that. But to stay within a biblical road and to keep hold our thoughts captive seems to go with, you know, being sober minded.

Well, you know, I think that one of the jobs of all Christians, when we are taking responsibility for, um, for the actions. That we as Christians need to take in reading the word right. I think of do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be renewed by the transforming of your mind. Right? Romans 12 two, that very infamous passage. There’s also scriptures that, like you said, challenge us to take our thoughts captive under the obedience of Christ. So we have a responsibility as Christians to filter what kind of information we take in, whether that’s through conversations with other people, media, news, newspapers, whatever. Right? We have a responsibility to filter that through a biblical worldview and a biblical lens. And so this topic of a potential blackout happening that could lead a lot of people to have anxiety, to struggle with fear or overwhelm, um, there may be people out there going, I don’t have a bunch of extra money to to do things like get a solar panel, for example. Right? And that leaves people in a place, Isaac, especially moms of feeling a little helpless and going, hold on a second. I need to take that thought captive and be anchored in the word. That’s this is not a for sure thing that’s going to be happening right now. You know, to have perspective, to take those thoughts captive.

I think it is important. And just remember, I mean, how do you prepare for all these things? I mean, I don’t I mean, there might be a few people out there that are really prepared, but I think most of us, including us, do some what we can. And but I do believe awareness equals preparedness. And even if there’s no actions you’re able to take right now, having awareness in your mind have already thought through some of this. If this or something like this were to happen, you’re already more prepared because it’s not a surprise and that’s really important. It’s like we’re pre framing our minds for the potentiality of something that’s logical now unfortunately.

Yeah. Hey you know what? It reminds me of another really hard topic that parents should be aware of and think about. Um, I’m just going to say it sex trafficking. Child kidnapping is a real legitimate thing that happens in the world. I’m sure that you guys wouldn’t deny that, right? Like, I even think of Sound of Freedom as a documentary that was out there, put out by Tim Ballard and other organizations that rescue children from this. This is a true reality. This is the depravity of of humanity. These evil things happen. Now, does that mean it’s going to necessarily happen to your kids? No. I mean, most likely statistically your children will not experience that, right? However, is it wise as a parent to have a conversation ahead of time with your kids and teach them about stranger danger? Right. I remember having these conversations when we were in school when we were kids. Right. What do you do in a situation like that? What about preparing kids with fire drills? Stop, drop, roll? I remember like there’s there are things that as parents, we teach our kids.

If there’s a house fire, this is what we’re going to do. If there’s a flat tire, we get in a car accident. This is what we’re going to do. There’s a reason why you go through learning. For example, a DMV book, and you read it and you’re prepared and you take a test before you’re given the license to actually legally be driving. It’s so you’re prepared for things and so that you are able to kind of, you know, you’re driving as a citizen and obeying rules and regulations, and other people are too. And there’s not chaos like in countries where there aren’t rules, right, when it comes to driving. Right? Yeah. And so today, why am I using these as examples? Because talking about something like a blackout where you may be thinking, oh, I don’t know if this is going to happen even in my lifetime or not. Right. Is it a good, wise thing to at least have a conversation about, hey, if something happens and the electrical grid goes out, how are you going to get home if you’re not at home?

So we’ll get into these practical things in just a minute. And so good. Uh, fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I’ll help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. So we’re to operate in complete trust of God and not operate in fear. We’ve never been fear based and what we teach at all, but we are to also operate in wisdom. We’re living in a fallen world. We have an all powerful God. But there are things that happen in this world. We see it happening that are not. They’re not, uh, it’s not God. God doesn’t do anything evil. He’s only good. Right? So there’s challenges that happen in this world. And so as, as parents, we have an extra jurisdiction, actually to take care of those God has entrusted us with.

I even think of, like the fentanyl crisis that’s happening in the country. Right. Like we had this conversation with our kids. If you see something that looks like a piece of candy, do not touch it. Do not pick it up. Right? I mean, that’s that’s being a wise parent. And so here we are as parents, bringing up another topic that we think should be talked about as Christians.

On that one, a toddler just died from fentanyl. Somewhere just by touching it. So it’s so important they’re disguising it different things. It is warfare, by the way. Right. Uh, from what I can tell, China is helping or supplying to to Mexico. It’s getting smuggled up through our country, open borders by Biden. So Biden, Mexico, China complicit together. There, I said it. Okay.

Okay. So back to our main topic. I mean, obviously that verse in Isaiah, you guys, that was Isaiah 4110, the Isaac just read to you. Um, for those of you who are struggling with fear that for me, that verse is an incredibly encouraging verse. It brings it back to perspective. So obviously throughout this whole podcast, we want to be grounded in the word. We want to encourage you guys to have a biblical perspective on the world and on humanity. And what could happen. Yes, there are terrorists all over this world. There are people who want to see harm and destruction happen. And it’s an unfortunate thing, but it’s the reality of the human, of the human mind. When they have been tempted by selfish gain and deceived by the enemy.

And right here in Proverbs. And we’ll get into the practical here. 2826 whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. So we are to walk in wisdom, and so we’re to pay attention to what’s happening. But you know what? As we were just talking about evil, you know what’s starting to happen. And we’ll get into this in a second. But is when evil increases. The non-believers that used to not believe in evil, they can’t help but see evil. Now, therefore, if evil exists, if they come to that rationale, then there must be good that exists to or at least it leaves the opportunity more open than maybe it used to with them to understand if good exists, like a pure, good and almighty God kind of good. So evangelism can be so exciting right now actually on God’s the Redeemer. Right. And so as these challenges happen, as as the days grow darker in some senses, also the lights growing stronger and the contrast is greater, and non-believers will start to notice that even more fertile ground for you to share the gospel with them. So that’s kind of cool. I thought I would just pipe in a little. Yeah, good news right there.

Yeah, no, I love it because no matter what the topic is that you’re talking about, if you’re talking about a blackout or you’re talking about sex trafficking or you’re talking about drugs getting smuggled, any of those things, like I just even think of, you know, sending a teenage daughter. I mean, our girls are a little bit older, but, you know, as a young mom sending them to the grocery store and if it’s at night, like, what are the things that we taught them, right? We taught them, don’t ever park next to a van that has no windows. Never, you know, pay attention to your car. Look underneath your car as you’re walking towards it. Pay. Keep your eyes open. Don’t be looking at your phone when you’re walking in a parking lot. Um, make sure that no one is following you because we have experienced being followed. I have, along with a daughter before.

You’ve been an example, and having someone escort you to your car.

Right, insisting upon an escort when you have kind of that gut bad, funny feeling. And and I’m telling you, you guys, this is something these are this is just being wise and having a realistic biblical perspective on humanity in a fallen world, understanding that we’re here, not having just automatic trust in a and a kind of, um, a fluffy feeling when you’re walking through the world. But being eyes open, being sober minded about that and really owning, I need to train my kids so that they’re prepared for this world because it’s going to continue to get worse. And so I bring this up to you guys, because it’s actually what you just shared was the gospel. And we, as we’re talking about any of these topics, need to have an eternity perspective, right? Like we are only here for a short period of time. And really, in all of these things, our main concern should always, whether we have electricity or not, be sharing the gospel.

You know, it’s interesting and it’s so good. I had a thought while you’re doing that is that when we don’t have an eternal perspective, we hold on to our time on earth so tightly it turns into fear. It turns into anxiety. Kids, we.

Hang on to our kids.

It becomes so tightly it becomes hard to talk about these things. It becomes hard to think these things. I just can’t handle it. I want to put my head under the pillow. Well, maybe you’re holding too tightly to this world. See, I don’t I mean, in the span of of my existence, it’s like a blip in a span of eternity with God. The time on earth. I want to do it. Well, um. I’m motivated. But why? Because I want to glorify God. I don’t want to live in fear. I want to live in the power of of of God, right that he has and relying on his power, not my own strength. And I think the more we’re operating in our own strength, the more we’re holding tightly. Lee, our time in this world, the more anxiety we have. So let’s let’s let go so that we can we can fully be surrendered to God. And the more we’re in that posture, we can hear things like this. Be more prepared, be practical about it, but not overwhelmed.

By it, not overwhelmed. And I want to add something. Don’t make an idol out of it. I have seen some people who are so consumed with focusing on these different topics that they aren’t balanced, and it’s literally like what they live for every day where they’re, they’re they’re creating even a lifestyle. And listen, we have a homestead. Having a homestead is not a bad thing. That lifestyle is rad. I love it, but but there.

I’m gonna play that back to her in about two months when she’s got a big garden.

When I’m exhausted. No, but can I just say, I think we gotta really watch out for making an idol out of or finding our hope in being prepared. That’s not our heart. You guys, like. Our hope should always be in the Lord. I want to remind you of what Psalm 20 verse seven says. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. Guys, listen as we’re talking about like, oh yeah, there’s a pinch potentiality for this. Just as like there is an issue with drugs of fentanyl right now and where where we are. Right. These are realities that are happening. But you shouldn’t be thinking about them and dwelling on them, because that would mean that you have made it an idol or you’re operating in fear. Yeah, maybe you do a little bit of preparing. I mean, we we do. I would say we’re pretty conservative in that we’re not foolish. Like, I don’t I don’t like the idea of having to feed nine people or 11 people and only have enough for a week. That’s not wise, right? Like, I’ve never I’ve never five.

Months, but it’s mostly just oatmeal and beans.

Right? Like I just but we’ve never operated that way. It’s also too expensive to operate in a way where you’re buying food on a weekly basis. And so when we say things like, yeah, it might be a good idea to have a year’s worth of food, like that’s not actually that might overwhelm some people. Don’t let it overwhelm you. Pick a few things that you can do good at, but don’t put your trust in those things either. Like, if that just makes you feel better, then you’re like and you’re checking things off the list and you’re like, okay, I’m all good. I’m prepared well. And then you find out you have cancer. Like, hello, what lesson do we have to learn in this? Let’s not make life on earth an idol and find our hope in the things.

Now. The things you can do that are smart to do were in the last episode talking about church, proximity, relationships with neighbors. These kinds of things are so important. But let’s dive in to what is this nationwide blackout thing and the potential of this. You know, I was looking at this three years ago, uh, a little more closely, a little more closely. Two years ago, I saw that the WEF put something out about the potentiality of a blackout and so forth. So we’ll get into that in a second. So this has been a long time thinking about once in a while and paying attention to when I hear a little blurps out there from different talking heads and so forth and good ones, I didn’t mean that in a negative sense. Um, and so there’s something called this has been in the news recently, high altitude electromagnetic pulse. Okay. That is when a nuclear weapon is fired off 30km or higher in, in space above the Earth, or, you know, with a country below it, um, that causes all an EMP effectively to take out everything that uses electricity. So it’s not just the electricity doesn’t work anymore, it’s that anything that used it, for the most part will be wiped out and not capable of working, even if electricity comes back on.

So it’s because it breaks the device. So that is something that has been in the news recently. A certain actor in the world, uh, is said to have this new capabilities of this. I don’t really put a lot of stock in that because it’s mainstream news talking about it. But the person but the actual thing is something the technology, the technology is something that is becoming countries are becoming capable of. And you know what’s interesting about that? When you hear nuclear weapon, usually you think of this huge bomb going off and causing devastation. One of the challenges of that, see, if you’re really bad actor and you don’t care about human life, you say you don’t care about death, but what they do care about is their reputation. And what happens after that. Right? That’s one of the reasons bombs don’t go off like that is because they know retaliation is going to happen quickly. The uniqueness of this, though, to take out an adversary is that it doesn’t cause any loss of life. There is no explosion on the land. It is literally causing an EMP wave to take out the electrical grid. And then they could say we didn’t do it.

So to be fair, it does take out any life that’s dependent upon electricity. There is that element, right? Like.

I think you know what I meant, though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s not.

A bomb exploding.

Explosion. Yeah.

So that. So I think that’s interesting. I thought you might want to know that and that capability. It’s no wonder that Trump started Star Wars when he was in office. And people were laughing at him about it. But it is becoming an essential thing.

He probably literally just call it Star Wars.

It’s not Star Wars Space Force.

I love it. That’s pretty funny. Yeah, it is funny.

Space Force. It’s kind of like the same thing.

Where.

I have to let Solomon listen to the.

Podcast. Yeah. We will.

Uh, so or maybe just part of it.

Yeah.

Then there’s also so we’re talking about, you know, how this potentially could happen. Right. Because people are talking about this, this is there’s data points really showing this. Then there’s the deep state. There’s there’s evil, whoever they are. Right. Uh, you can see, uh, you know, pieces of it out there, potentially purposeful disruption. Right. They want to cause disruption, not because necessarily the United States or another country is an adversary, but because they need it nullified. And they need to make sure they keep their leaders in power to further the 2030 agenda or whatever their agenda is. Okay. So if if someone comes in like a conservative president in the United States, that would usurp all of their momentum, potentially in plans in the strongest nation in the world, they have to nullify the United States to further those plans. If you just look at the data points in these different motivations and things, they actually say. So let’s look back for a second. Do you want to talk about Covid for a second?

Yeah. I mean, think back to, um, before Covid hit, nobody saw it coming. First of all, none of us. The whole world was duped. I’m just gonna say it, um, and and there was ramifications of different things, consequences, if you will, from that pandemic that also took the world by storm. I think of how the whole world was schooling at home. Not to be confused with home schooling. The whole world was schooling at home during the shelter in place. That was not something that was on people’s radar. Right? Um, closures of multiple things, businesses completely being wiped out and having to close, um, thinking of storefronts and not, you know, not being able to actually have patrons come in and have that exchange of product. Right. Um, there there were so many aspects even think of the hospitals. Hospitals became I’m just going to say a lot of people stopped trusting the medical field and stopped trusting hospitals because there were so many people that were dying with the remdesivir and the different ventilators and all the different things. There was just the protocols. There was a whole lot of, um, distrust, and there was a force of compliance and obedience.

So and one of the things just if you look at history for a second, so you had Covid, then you had fear and you had enough fear to okay, changing the voting laws in America pretty fast. So mail in voting. Right. And people were distracted. And so they got voting laws in and then they suppressed free speech. Right. We now know this. It’s all come out now, right? Massively suppressed free speech. And then there was a US election okay. You can decide what you will about that. I have my opinion for sure. You probably know what it is, but it’s. But you see what happened right there a a a powerful disruption to cause the agenda to happen. Now, you could say there’s spiritual warfare happening. You could say these are demonic forces controlling people and situations to further the enemy’s, uh, end goal for Earth. Right. Um, you could say that, but there’s people making their own decisions causing these things to happen. Let’s just look at that same example for a second. The World Economic Forum or WEF in 2019 did a Covid. Uh, they predicted Covid would happen in 2019. And they did scenarios. And those scenarios they ran became a reality in 2020. And so it’s really interesting as you just go back and look at the information, some of it’s hard to find now. But back then three years ago I was looking at it and two years ago I was looking at it even more because then the next thing that WEF has predicted is a cyber pandemic and a cyber pandemic they believe is inevitable. Well, they use that same word for the 2019 Covid prediction that happened in 2020. So they say this thing is inevitable.

And a lot of their blogs recently are saying in the next two years, however, some of their information has been scrubbed that I saw two and a half years ago. It appears I can’t find the same information. But Candace Owens, when I was looking at this, Candace Owens did a great little discussion about this and she gave a warning to everybody. Props to her. And she said that the WEF has written on their site that they that this is inevitable, this cyber pandemic, and they’re going to need to sanitize the internet because there’s going to be a bug, a digital bug that goes and corrupts devices in the internet and spreads it, rapid fire throughout the whole world. And the only way to get rid of the bug to save the internet is to sanitize. Ties the internet. The only way you can do that is you have to shut down the internet. The only way you can shut down the internet is you have to shut down the power grid first. So these things have already happened out there in communist countries where they they want to control what’s happening in election. They shut down the the power to get control of the internet and to shut down the internet. So these things have happened out there. So to see that prediction, to see the trend, I’m not saying for sure it’s going to happen, but there is motivation and you have to put yourself in the shoes of these bad actors. As terrible as that sounds, it’s something I do sometimes I’m like, okay, if I was thinking all these ways, what would the timeline be? When would be good timing?

I mean, here we are in 2024. This is an election year again of one of the most powerful countries in the world, one of the strongest economies in the world. And it has been for many, many years. And they if they want their goal of a one world digital currency, for example, we know that they have to paralyze and disable the American economy. And part of that is this year, the election year. This is a big year for that, because if they get someone conservative in, it’s going to thwart and disable, potentially slow down their evil plans, which they view them as evil, which they.

Only have six more years for the agenda.

I mean, according to their goal, look it up.

And de-population all these goals they have.

Here’s the thing. You know, the other thing that I think is important is to realize that, like this 2030, you mentioned 2030. And I think that most people now realize that that’s not a conspiracy theory, because there have been so many world leaders, like, I think, of Trudeau and Canada, also the prime minister and Australia, there have been people that have spoken.

If somebody if somebody.

Called it a conspiracy theory, they would literally be lying. It’d be like having a blue crown, a crayon. And you’re saying it’s red, right? That’s that’s how, that’s how.

No, because it’s.

Completely unapologetic and very vocal about their desire for 2030. And so for people to like. But years ago, whenever people would talk about that, they would say it was a conspiracy theory. Then all of a sudden, you have world leaders saying from their microphone on television that they are a part of this, you know, and they’re working with the WEF, which you guys can look on their website, go to the it’s WEF forum org, and you can read their articles. They’re very unapologetic about a lot of this stuff.

And some of it.

Comes across now more than ever very polished and like, oh, we’re just trying to get world leaders, you know, thinking through these things because they potentially could happen. That’s more of the but some of the older stuff was very much. And if you really want to see some of the interviews on YouTube of Klaus Schwab, you can see him saying some outlandish things and he’s the leader of it. Okay. So we have we have the hemp, hemp, high altitude electromagnetic pulse potentiality from a bad actor. Nations. And then you have purposeful disruption by the deep state in cooperation with the WEF, potentially, whatever that is, and.

Motivation being an election year.

Here in an.

Election year. And that’s the that’s the one that I actually think might be most likely. And then there’s natural disasters. Interesting. Dennis Quaid was just on Tucker Carlson talking about.

Oh yeah, the sun flares.

Right. Yeah.

So he’s just been talking about this for a long time. And who knows when that would happen. But there’s this thing that is interesting he was talking about when the technology, the advanced technology was the telegram.

You guys can go and look up that interview. It’s a whole hour long interview.

So he was.

Talking about the telegram and how a solar flare actually knocked out that system in.

America. The Telegraph. Yeah, yeah. Telegraph abilities.

Yes. And so it did happen. It happened way back then. Um, and, you know, our electrical grid in the US, probably many parts of the world are just fraught with, you know, lack of being updated to the current level. I was doing a little research for this episode, and it looks like the US, it was mostly put in the 60s and 70s, and there’s been upgrades, of course, but then you have states, you know, and the states have to cooperate with each other. And just the way things are going with states and all the things, you know, to really trust the government to have a handle on this thing when they can’t even close the border.

And they don’t want to. Which, you know, I just also want to bring up I mean, obviously, there are people out there that are constantly bringing attention to what is happening with border crossing. But, I mean, there are people are fleeing Texas, actually, because of how unsafe it has become. Um, and other states as well. And come on.

Over to Idaho.

You know, it’s just a it’s a sad, sad situation. The the sheer amount of drugs that have come across. But it’s not just that it’s all the our taxpayer money is going to give illegal immigrants the right to be citizens and to be voting. I mean, they literally just change the demographics massively in the United States for this next election because, you know, obviously they’re not going to be able to take the. In the way that they did last time. So they’re going about it in an archaic way by bringing in a bunch of terrorists.

So like 7 million, they.

7.2 million is projected, right. Which, you know.

That have already come.

In. I saw it it was an interesting perspective someone had brought up that, you know, probably the smaller population states, but that could be even equivalent to 36 of the states in the Union, which is it’s a huge amount of people that have come in. Yeah, in just the last four years.

So, hey.

There’s ways that could happen. We hope it doesn’t happen, may not happen at all, but the motivation for it to happen in a in in recent time here is, is is high I would say. And there’s a lot of talk about it. So here’s if that ever happens things to have in your head. And there’s some things you can do that costs no money right now. It’s just using your tongue, communicating with your family. Uh, making a plan, right. Here’s some info. If a blackout happens in one day, if the if the electricity is off for 24 hours. By the way, think about the last time your electricity was off. It was for like, maybe max eight hours. Unless you’re in, like, a hurricane or earthquake situation. Uh, I think the longest I’ve ever remembered is, like eight hours. You know, in my life.

Actually, the.

Longest that we had, you were out of town, and it was the kids and I when the transformer exploded. And then, um, they couldn’t get to us.

Because hyper local situation.

Yeah. So we were out of electricity for three days.

Three days. Okay.

So but just it was just right here. So but one day the goal is everybody’s home safe, right? So if you have older kids driving around things like that, your your goal is everybody’s back home. If EMP went off though those cars wouldn’t work. So we’ve had conversations because we live out in the country and uh, our older kids drive 30 minutes in. You know, that 30 minute drive is now a whole day hike. So and potentially, if something really happened in the world, maybe a dangerous hike, and the goal would be is that they get home as fast as possible, because the more time goes on, the more desperate people get. So it’s really important. In fact, it’s even important depending on what’s going on. And you won’t be able to communicate with your kids, right? Phones won’t work, things like that. So if you haven’t talked about this in advance, you have no idea what they’re doing. They have no idea what they’re doing, and you both have no idea. And so you’re kind of frantic, right? So if you’re not all together and this happens, hopefully you’ve communicated a plan. We’ve communicated some plans. We need to do more. But to also have friends that maybe live closer in the city that your kids could go to that are trustworthy. In the meantime.

Until like a safe house, until.

Yeah, you know, me or me and another dad can go in, extract the kid in town and that kind of thing. So it’s it’s really important to think about that. So one day is pretty important. Be home safe. You know have a communication plan, things like that. Three days in a lot of places. I don’t know if you knew this. There’s no more food in the grocery stores. There’s no more water, bottled water anywhere to be found. Um, these kinds of things. So three days, you know, think about how many people don’t have access to water if they can’t turn their tap on or can’t buy it in the store.

Mhm.

Boom. That’s the big deal. The big deal is water. And so you have to think about that. You know how are you going to get your water. And then it becomes dangerous to get water because water becomes the most valuable resource that exists in the land. And so even going down to the river and then having a filter and things like that, you’re going to need to protect yourself to do that. Unfortunately, we have to talk about this. Right. So three days, you know, hard to get food, things like that. How many how much of the population now doesn’t have food and water three days in. And let’s say this thing goes a week, probably at least a week if they’re trying to sanitize the internet or something like that, who knows, right? I think it’s if it happens, it’s all going to come back on. Um, but there will be a goal in the process of doing it. Right. So let’s say one week. That’s a serious challenge. Water, food, food is an issue. And security becomes a really big issue because now people are looking for in nefarious ways the people that did not prepare in any way or are not Christians, they’re they’re going to go get it no matter what. And even if some of them are believers, it’s going to be challenging, right? So it’s really important to be thinking through those things. Um, now let’s lighten this up a little bit. Okay. So you have a scripture for us in Jeremiah, right?

Oh, we actually already read it.

Oh. Did you read it. Yes. Yep. We read it Jeremiah okay. Yeah. Okay.

Cool. Well, so here’s some fun thoughts. Let’s look at the positive side of this. I thought we would end it with something positive which is well, it doesn’t matter how much money you don’t have or have because none of our money works.

That’s true. Yeah. Good.

You’re like Isaac, that’s not funny.

Uh, of course, if you have.

Gold or silver or something like that, I suppose that could work. But how are you going to trade gold?

Are people going to want that, though?

I hear junk.

Silver is like the way to go on that, but I’m not sure. Yeah, I’ve had some of that before. Um, you know what other fun thoughts?

Well, kids would be like, woohoo! I’m at a school. Yeah, there’s more important things to do. We gotta, you.

Know, if you.

Listen to our last podcast and you made sure you’re going to church locally, this will applies to you. You’ll have candlelight church service every week.

I love candlelight church services. They’re my favorite.

You know what? Your neighbors will actually need each other.

That’s right.

You’ll get to know people.

That’s for sure.

You know, I think that there. Yeah, there is a real.

Light, light side to this.

The simplicity of life for sure. I think all of us will be kind of surprised in a good way, how much more time we have with our loved ones and I. It’s not going to be all like panic and mayhem. Like there can be some really sweet times. Like even when I think back to the three days when we didn’t have electricity and we actually kept doing school because we homeschooled and that was a benefit, right? My poor kids, they had to keep learning. Oh bum bum. But I say that though, because there was some special times where we sat around and we played board games, you know, there was no technology, so there was no like temptation to just sit and watch a movie or anything like that. It was more like, hey, we’re going to talk. Yeah, we’re going to hang out together, we’re going to play games. We’re going to find, um, other ways to be productive when it comes to, you know, making food and different things. You know, if you don’t have electricity, you better have some good tools on hand that are non-electric dependent. Right? So, you know, pull out the old potato masher and like, not the electric mixer, you know. And so then you’re gonna, you’re look at your task ahead of you and go, either I can stand here for two hours or we can work as a team. And then you find out that it’s actually really fun and not a hard thing to get some of those kids in the kitchen working with you. I mean, it could be good for a lot of people, actually to be living a little more simply. And I think that there is something we need to recognize, too. Guys, listen, our great grandpas and our great grandmas, they did a whole lot without electricity and they were just fine. And so even though we become dependent upon things, there’s an element of really recognizing how much of an idle or a dependency have I made out of things like electricity. And it’s it’s okay to be reminded that those things are not eternal.

Or driving somewhere. Yeah, right. If all.

Everything is.

Yeah, yeah. You know, Isaac, you were right here. Jeremiah 17 seven and eight is, um, a real encouragement. It says, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for it leaves its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. Guys, remember, at the end of the day, what are we here for? We’re here to know God and make him known. Yeah, we are here to. For the Great Commission is all about Jesus Christ. It is about discipling our kids, loving them well, leading their hearts and constantly going to the Lord for wisdom and guidance. And. We need to be like trees that are planted by the water. That when thing when there is a drought, when hard things happen, we still are bearing good godly fruit. That then is a light to the neighbors. It’s a light to other people. And they go, wow, that’s how much you love God. I want to know this God. Yeah. So at the end of the day, we need any opportunity. We need that we’re bad. Things happen, guys, when there is valleys, when there is things that change and maybe disrupt our normal life, they are all actually opportunities for us to glorify God. And it tests us and shows us where we have made idols out of things. It tests us and shows us where we need to depend on God more, where we need to have more faith and less dependency on ourselves. And, you know, I think that this is actually this could end up being something that is really sanctifying and refining for people in a in a godly way.

So we I so appreciate you joining us. If you love this episode, please share it. I think it’s good, solid information and biblical perspectives on something. We wouldn’t do it unless we felt like everybody needs to be aware, at least aware, not in fear, but aware in confidence in their Lord and trusting the Lord.

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

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome to the podcast. We’re talking about a pretty important episode about the times we’re living in, regarding having a family and leading our families. There are things we have to think about that sometimes are not so comfortable to think about.

Like moving. Yes.

Hi guys know today we’re going to talk about.

Four reasons why you might want to move. Um, and this is obviously a conversation that I think people have on a regular basis from what we hear out there. Um, and so we just wanted to really, um, encourage some of you who maybe are in this situation where you’re thinking about that and trying to discern what the Lord’s will is for you. We’re praying for you guys. We know it’s a hard decision. Um, and and just that I want you guys to know that even though we’re going to talk about some hard things today, our heart is that you would be, um, really seeking the Lord for his wisdom for your life. Um, God’s will is not the same for every single person. Um, but it is important that as people who love God, we are going to him with this very big kind of decision right along as the small decisions and recognizing that sometimes God stirs our heart for, for seasons, for, for specific journeys. Um, and they’re also there. Sometimes we feel a calling and we really need to ask ourselves a question. But is this God’s will for my kids? That’s a big question.

Yeah, we might have a calling that we feel prompted on, but then is that going to be best when the children get older, they start having children and so forth. And we’re going to talk about why proximity is so important in a second. You know, sometimes it takes actually re-orientating your life to have the most fruitful, thriving future possible for your legacy. So these are all things we’re going to be talking about. Everybody has a unique situation, so you can take some of it with a grain of salt. Maybe it doesn’t have to do with you, but some of it might be like, oh, that is relevant to our situation. And that’s our hope. Our hope is that this stirs a good critical thinking, good marriage conversations to really not just be thinking in the short terms, but be thinking about the long terme. Otherwise you will never break out of your comfort zone for the in the short terme unless you’re thinking long terme. So that’s really important. Yeah.

You know, I also think about this topic of moving right. And obviously there are certain seasons that are easier to move with kids than others. It’s just the truth. Um, there’s a lot to navigate, a lot to evaluate and think about for sure. Um, but right now, our world is in an interesting place. Um, we’ve done a podcast just last month on, what, 2024 predictions we’re going to be. That was an interesting podcast. We did 1 in 2023. Obviously in the 2024 one, we mentioned that this is an election year. And so obviously we’re anticipating some chaos here in the United States because it’s an election year. Um, and I think that there’s there’s some aftershocks, if you will, or vibrations that other nations experience whenever the US is having an election year as well, because they all impact each other. We’re all part of a world. And so how one administration is making decisions for different things like climate control, even, for example, right, that affects the whole world. And so, um, there’s it’s an important conversation. We’re not going to dive into a whole lot on what’s happening in the world. But but what is happening in the world right now is the reason why we are having this conversation with you guys today.

And, you know, us. We never, uh, have been people that parent in fear or fear based in any way. We do have the emotion of fear like we all do. It’s what we do after we start having that emotion of fear, do we funnel into trusting God or dwelling in fear? And we don’t prescribe to that at all? We’ve never preached that in any shape or form, but we are to operate in wisdom. We are to look at what’s around us. We are to look at circumstances. We are to look at what’s wise and trust in the Lord in those things. In fact, we have a Scripture in Ephesians, Ephesians 515. It’s in 16. It says, look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And you know, we get that sometimes the will of the Lord is to stay right where you are for all kinds of reasons. And sometimes, if we really are drawing close to the Lord and we’re keeping our will at bay listening to his will, sometimes we’re going to be prompted. You know what? Even though it’s tough, even though we have to reorientate our life, even though maybe provision needs to change how that happens, even though we have some really good friends. We need to move and we need to do.

What’s best for our families. We need to obey God, whatever that is. Right? Yeah. And so, um, obviously, I’m as I’m thinking about this, I really hope that people who are not considering moving do listen to today’s podcast as well, because we’re going to talk about a really important conversation regarding proximity. This is our first point that we’re going to start talking about here. Um, but proximity, wherever you are during I mean, God in his word, Jesus, what does he say? The second most important commandment is it’s to love your neighbor. So clearly, God Himself is aware of proximity and wants us to be aware of proximity of people, of hearts, of understanding that wherever he has placed us, we are on a mission for him, and that we’re supposed to be lights to be loving. And that takes intentionality. That takes being stirred up and going, hey, wait a second, do I even know my neighbors? Okay, it’s kind of a big deal. And in today’s conversation.

So we’ll dive into that in just a second. But first, I want to thank you for being part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. There’s lots of ways. There’s lots of free resources. The ministry offers tons, actually. Free workshops, free downloads, um, you know, uh, blog posts. I think we have 300 Christian Mama blog posts that Angie wrote, and they’re very, very practical and awesome. Uh, we have two podcasts, this one and the Resolute Man podcast, which now has guests on it, uh, that are getting raw and real about the issues of, of manhood, biblical manhood in a world that increasingly hates masculinity. So there’s so many things. And the only way we’re able to do that, because it’s more than full time work, is that we have people buying things, that we have people giving, that we have people subscribing to the coffee or the Be Courageous app, and getting the far more value than it costs with like the heart of the home and these kinds of things. So would you consider that? And if you can’t, it’s no big deal. Would you pray for us then? Because that really makes a huge difference. It makes it all work and we’re just completely committed. We’re thrilled about the Double Impact mission this year, but we do need to get on track a little bit. And so would you help us get on track by giving us a five star review, or liking something or sharing something on social media, maybe sharing the Parenting Mentor program, for example, with your church? Uh, that could be a massive impact. There’s a few churches right now, uh, experiencing the experiencing the fruit of having access to that.

All right. So let’s dive in in the day that we’re in today because obviously, like we’re all living in this generation. Yeah. If we were living 50 years earlier and had the ability to do a podcast, we’d be speaking to that generation. But right now, let’s be realists about what’s happening and recognize that the gospel hasn’t changed. Yeah. Where to go out and make disciples of all nations. But we do that first through loving the Lord our God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourself starts first in our marriage and our family overflows to neighbors and then into the church in different places. Right. Okay. Yeah. All right. So that being said, let’s talk about where you’re living right now. And we just want to stir up good works with where you are right now. This is not something to hold on to for once you’ve moved. This is about the proximity of where God has actually placed you. Are you loving your neighbor? Do you know who your neighbor is? Does your neighbor know who you are? If something crazy was to happen in this world and let’s say the the EMP hit or something like that, and there was no electricity and you needed something from from somewhere that you could walk. Okay. Are your neighbors going to actually recognize you as you’re walking to your home, or are they going to go stranger get the gun because they’re scared to I yeah, I just said that because this is a deal. Like if there was ever a wise statement or exhortation, if you knew something was potentially going to happen in the future, and you don’t necessarily have to even know when, none of us need to know when. The truth is, is that it would be wise, even non-believers, like if somebody’s not a believer, and listening to this, it would be wise and behoove you to introduce yourself to people who live in your general area so that they recognize you if there is a time of need.

That’s the practical aspect. Maybe ask yourself a question why did God place me where I am? I know God placed us where we are. It was kind of a radical thing, actually. Yeah, and it was beautiful.

Kind of. It was totally radical.

That whole story is amazing and it’s beautiful and we love it here, but we also love it here because we know God has placed us here. That helps us love it even more. And so as we’re thinking about these things, proximity, where you can walk to, um, you know, your local community becomes really. Really important. And in addition to proximity matters, it is more important than ever. We used to believe that, hey, you know. Our children will probably, you know, live all different places because they’ll get married and they’ll married people that live in different places and things like that. And that’s completely okay. And while it is okay, we now believe it is a preference that we live close near by each other because the most important people that can help each other are relatives, our family.

The deep trust.

It’s the deep trust is there with siblings. And if you’re cultivating that right, and these kinds of things, and in these times we really believe that’s more important than ever. We are instilling the value of living near each other with our children. And I think you should too. But then the question becomes, ah, would you recommend your children raise their kids where you live, in the state you live in, with the laws and all the things? Right. So these are things you as you start thinking longer terms and you start if you do believe the same thing we do, that it would be ideal if we did live in proximity with each other. I’m not saying on the same piece of property, I’m just saying in the same vicinity so we can get to each other and help each other when needed.

Yeah, it’s an interesting concept. This is something that definitely has to be, um, talked about, vision shared, if you will, with your kids. And that’s something that we’ve done for many, many years. It’s just even dreaming with our kids about things, whether that’s, um, dreaming with the girls, about them being at each other’s births or being able to support each other during postpartum. Um, me trying to share with them like, that’s my heart. That’s what I do. I love to do this for other people. Right? And like modeling that help for one another is incredibly important as well as far as setting culture. But this is the thing. Like a lot of people want their kids to be best friends with each other. I know that’s a desire that we have had over the years, and we’ve talked to our kids about investing in relationships with one another, um, building a relationship so that you have someone to rely on when you’re older. Right? And that takes time, actually. But here’s the thing. The reality is, is no matter how hard you try as a parent to try to do that, it’s not always going to look perfect. Mhm. It’s not. And your kids may not end up being actually best friends with each other forever, all the time in every season of life. Mhm. That’s just the truth. Think about your own life journey for a second. Was it harder for you to be best friends with your brother or sister that you might have been best friends with when you got married and they weren’t married? You were in totally different seasons of life.

There was an element of not being able to fully understand one another. Then there’s like, if you had kids and they still weren’t married or didn’t have kids, there’s there’s different seasons where God brings other people who are more relatable and you might feel a closeness to them. That’s true. But here’s the deal. When it comes to what we’re talking about today, which is when push comes to shove and you need someone to be there to help you. Family should be there for each other, for sure. But here’s the other deal is that when when it talks about proximity, when we’re talking about proximity, you could be as close as possible in a spiritual sense, in a mind sense with a sibling. But if you live states away from each other, then the practical elements of being able to be there for each other are definitely going to be hindered. That’s just a reality. Expectations of being able to help one another are also going to be different. So we need to understand that like this, like vision of like wanting to help one another is a it can be a beautiful thing, but it’s not always realistic in every relationship, in every family. And we get that. But it does start by having a vision and sharing that with your kids when they’re little and model trying to model it as much as you can, right? Yeah. Of being for each other.

And the other aspect is church, you know, it is really ideal that you’re going and committed to a church in close proximity to where you live. And so the question then becomes, if there isn’t a church in close proximity where you live, then maybe you need to consider actually moving near a good church, or you need to be part of creating a new church. Right? And I think that’s really important. And God hears our prayers. And do you think God wants new churches planted? Absolutely. So maybe you are not the person that would be the pastor or an elder or these kinds of things, but you could be praying for a biblical church to be in your community. And I think that’s good. If there isn’t one, you should do that. And maybe you’re looking for a perfect church, though, and there is no perfect church. Literally, they’re made up of humans who are imperfect. So how would we ever expect a church to be perfect? But it is the Bride of Christ, and God looks at the church with absolute admiration and importance. It is so important. And even the imperfect church in Corinthians, for example, just go back to Corinthians and and look at.

Or Romans.

The situation happening and God’s Bride of Christ just unbelievably horrible things happening. And still it’s the bride of Christ. So I’m not saying go to a bad church, I’m just saying that maybe we need to be a solution in the church near us. And if there isn’t, we need to we need to help plant one. And I would say this, these are things we’re thinking through right now because it’s so important and really, you know, so what are you going to do about church? Because when let’s say, you know, an EMP goes off or something like that, the blackout everybody’s talking about and so forth, the capabilities of other countries being able to do that from space. And I’m not trying to create fear at all. This is just a reality. Um, that is being talked about. Okay. So with those things in mind, maybe we’ll talk about that in the next podcast in more detail. But with these things in mind, how important then, is church in proximity? It’s everything because it can’t be just the thing you go to on Sunday. It’s got to be truly running the race with people. And if you’re not and if it’s not near you, it could cause some challenges when real challenge strikes.

It’s interesting because we were just talking about family. And when you talk about church, church is also always been family for us. Right. And I think a lot of people would probably agree with that, where they even would describe it as their church family. Right. And I think that that element of when you’re committed to other people and you’re in regular fellowship with other people and you’re in a community and you’re seeing one another at, um, the grocery store or at the post office or at the local restaurant or at the gas station, and you’re like, recognizing people and you’re being stopped and, and, and praying for somebody, or you have a neighbor that’s sick and you know that. And so you take them a meal or like there there is a need for people to be connected in the name of Jesus. There is a trust that goes deeper than even blood, right? Because it’s the blood of the lamb, the blood of Jesus that brings you to unity and in a way that is like what people experience as family. And we’ve experienced this and been so blessed by this throughout our entire marriage. We’ve experienced this. I remember experiencing this when I was growing up. And there is there is a need, people that we recognize that God has placed us where we are for a reason. Yes, that is true. Like think about your actual physical location in your neighborhood. Think about who your neighbors are that he’s placed you in your family, right? We don’t choose family, right? No more than we don’t choose who’s a part of the family of God.

Mhm. No human doesn’t get to do that. God, God. God’s the one who calls people and does that amazing work in someone’s life okay. And so here’s the deal. Where has God put you and who is that family that is around you? Who are those people that we are supposed to be linking arms with and being actually intentional in building relationships with? And that is really one of the most important things that you could ever figure out in life. It is one of the most important things. You know why? Because it’s in relationship with other people, where you experience rubbing up against each other and challenging each other to grow. And sometimes there’s opposition and there’s offense, and then you’re challenged to have to forgive and grow and grace. And then sometimes there’s challenges of where you need help, and you get challenged to grow in humility and receive help from someone, and that grows you also spiritually. Do you see all this good that comes from hard things at times? And then there’s the beauty of like when you experience something hard, or when you experience something joyful and a brother and sister rejoices with you, you guys listen. This is literally people who run the race alone, who are being independent in their spirit and thinking and in trying to build their own kingdom and pursuing so much, working so hard to pursue wealth and independence and safety for themselves, they’re missing out on one of the most important things of one of the most important reasons why we were even created, which is relationship with other people.

To be member of the body of Christ, to know people, to meet needs, to have needs met, to walk together and encourage one another and lift one another up. It is one of the main reasons why we are here as social beings. And so when you’re going through stuff in life and you’re looking at all the things that are potentially happening in the world, we should have no fear. Because if we’re living the way God has actually told us to live in the Bible, there’s not going to be fear for the future. You know why? Because you know that you’re experiencing the body of Christ on earth, within your family, within your marriage, within your neighborhood, within your church. Yeah. And there isn’t anything to fear when we have our self, when we understand that we have salvation in Jesus Christ, that we’re only here for a vapor, but we’re here. We’re here for a vapor for a reason. We are here. And part of that reason is the impact that we get to make on other people’s lives through Jesus Christ. That is an amazing, beautiful thing. So we need to consider our proximity and in in regards to all our relationships.

Absolutely.

You know, it’s interesting, I, Isaac and I were talking about the different verses that maybe we would want to share in this. And at first I was thinking, really, is there is there really any verses we’re going to talk about, like when you’re moving and stuff? Yeah. And I thought a two stories. I thought of Ruth and Naomi and the faithfulness that we see in Ruth to her mother in law, in going with her mother in law, to her mother in law’s land and to her mother in law’s people, and how faithful she was and the connection of family that was there. And the loyalty, even though it wasn’t her real mother. Right. It was her husband’s mother. And so I just want to challenge you on that for a second. That’s kind of a big one. And the other thing, you’re going to laugh when I tell you this is Proverbs 31. And I’m not going to read the entire thing. I’m going to challenge you to go read that. But this is actually something I think we’re going to reference in today’s podcast, but as well as next week’s, because we’re going to be talking about something even more, and we’re going to be talking more about this kind of stuff next week, too.

But listen to this for a second. I’m going to read a couple verses. Verse 15 of Proverbs 31 says, she rises while it’s yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens. So she’s taking care of the people that are working for her. Verse 20 she opens her hand to the poor, and she reaches out her hands to the needy. So can you do that if you don’t know the poor in your community, know. So clearly she knows who the poor is in her community, and she’s generous and she’s investing in them and she’s helping them. Okay, then. Then let’s move on. Her husband knows is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. So let me just ask you, from that statement alone, I’m literally thinking to myself, there are elders, there is a community, and he is known, and he’s known because of her, actually is what Proverbs 31 says. And so there is a proximity there. There’s a closeness, and people know them. Then if you skip, probably.

Because she’s so social.

Right? I mean, she’s helping the needy and she’s taking care of her servants and but she’s doing a lot strength and dignity or her clothing and she laughs at the time to come. Guys, there is a time to come. Tomorrow is a time to come. Two years from now is a time to come. Can you rejoice and not have fear, but be excited and laugh at the time to come? Another translation says she rejoices in the time to come. Why would someone rejoice in the time to come?

Because they’re prepared.

They are prepared. But this verse also talks about having the fear of the Lord. So it’s both having a confidence in who God is, and that she has nothing to fear because she understands that this life is like a vapor. Mhm. And she knows where she’s going. So she doesn’t have fear. But there’s also this I’ve been investing in my community and all the people around me to where they have honored my husband. Mhm. And she knows that when times get tough people are going to also reciprocate because she’s been investing in them.

Yeah.

She can laugh at the time to come. She looks well at the ways of her household and doesn’t eat the bread of idleness. She is a worker. Even her children rise up and call her blessed. Can her children rise up and call her blessed if they’re not in that community? I mean, they could, but there was no social media. Mhm. So clearly her children were even in the near community. There was proximity in her family. Her husband also, he praises her. And then the very last one, give her the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates. This is God’s word, people. Mhm. It is what she does that gets her the praise and the the knowing and the help and the it. You can’t deny it. That’s literally what the Bible is saying.

What if someone’s really overwhelmed right now. They’re like Ange, that’s beautiful. But I’ve got four little kids. Yeah right now. And I’m just trying to keep all this together. I’ve been listening to your podcasts. It’s been super helpful. Yeah, but this one’s a little weighty and it’s causing me some, some anxiety. Anxiety? Like, I just I’m trying to just take care of my jurisdiction here. Yes. And raise these four kids. Well, that’s why you’re married.

I mean, I do, and I say that with love and kindness. I think that that clearly a marriage couple should probably listen to this podcast episode together. Because you together as are one, okay? And you’re not going to be able to do this all on your own.

And there’s also seasons and.

There is seasons. And that’s the beautiful thing about Proverbs 31, right? Like she wasn’t nursing a baby while she was doing all this stuff. Mhm. Um, but there is a time in a place where you are you have to be humble to receive help from other people. Right. And so I just even think about our son and daughter in love. They just had our grandson.

So for those of.

You listening we have another grandbaby. We’re so.

Excited little.

Riggs.

And I was just messaging them and I said, hey guys, did your church make you a meal train? And they were like, yeah, mom, here’s the link. And I looked and it was all filled up. And I just love that. So great. I just love that. And that’s how it should be. But you know what it took it took a little bit of humility. It took a little bit of, yeah, we’d receive meals because that’s actually how it goes. Church, someone from the church is kind of assigned with the task of setting up the meal train, but they got to go, hey, when would you like those meals to start? And are you willing to receive meals from people? It takes humility to say, yeah, sure, sure.

And people stopping by all of that. Yes. Regardless, even if the house is messy because you’re in postpartum and these kinds of things, it does. We’ve gone through this many times and you’ve had to be in a humble posture. Yep.

Of receiving, of receiving. And and I think that there’s a time where you receive and you grow in that humility, and then your heart actually grows in more compassion for the other women when you’re not in that season and you have a more willingness to actually step in the gap and help. But it’s when you’ve been independent in your spirit and you’ve been doing it on your own, and it’s all about just you and your family that those are the women, that they try to do life on their own, and they don’t actually have a heart for reaching out to other women. And that’s super sad.

One thing that hit me about her is she’s got things shored up. She’s not perfect, but.

Oh, Proverbs 31.

Woman. She’s got things shored up, meaning she’s not letting neglect exist in areas of her life. She’s a diligent learning and then doing. And I think there’s a lot of learning in this world because we’re in the information age, right? There’s information at our fingertips about anything. But I think so much information can actually limit doing. We get so overwhelmed with information we do less. And I would and sometimes there’s people doing so well that we see out there that it causes us to be frustrated and not do at all. And I think it’s really, really important that we’re doers. She is a doer. She learns and she does. And so I want to encourage you to to shore things up. Does parenting need to be shored up? Does your marriage need to be shored up? If your marriage needs to be shored up, you need to be in the Be Courageous app and go through the marriage series. There’s free series right there. Six hours worth of content right there in the app. And so there’s so much resource. You can get resources elsewhere, too. It doesn’t just need to be through the be courageous ministry, but if you want your parenting shored up, then the Parenting Mentor program actually is one of the very best answers for that. I can say that not because I believe it, it’s because over 3000 parents believe it. It’s because of what God is doing with that program that is so incredible, even beyond what we could imagine. And so the impact is delightful to see. And I would encourage you to go to Courageous Parenting.com and go see that, because you need to shore things up. You need to get confident in areas so that more is possible. So your capacity grows and you can handle more things. Because we’re not in easy times, we are in uncertain times we are in, I would call unprecedented times in these modern times. And it’s exciting on one hand. But we also need to be more prepared, more intentional, more diligent than.

Than ever.

You know, it’s interesting because I think that today’s world has, um, you know, and of course, I’m speaking as an American here, but I think that technology and the advancements and all of the things, like I even think of the supply chain, right. Grocery stores. Life is so much easier than it was even just 102 hundred years ago where, like, we were talking about little House on the Prairie and it’s like, did those women like they still even if they just had a baby, they still were planting their gardens, like they were still having to, um, get smoke food and, and bake bread and all of those things. And their life was harder. And I think that for us women in today’s in the 21st century, you get to this place where life has been so easy as a kid. And there’s this lie out there of like, oh, let kids be kids. And oh, they’re playing Nintendo. They’re not actually being kids and being creative outside with sticks and mud and rocks. In fact, if your kid is bored outside. Then there’s a problem. Like there is a problem. They have become accustomed to being entertained. They’ve become accustomed to having to have things that play music or do noise or whatever, to be able to have fun and play. And that’s a problem. They’ve actually been indoctrinated by the Industrial Revolution.

It reminds me of this book called Rhinoceros Success. You probably can’t even buy the book anymore. It’s like more like a pamphlet. It’s a really old book, and it talks about how you need to have thick skin like a rhinoceros. And it has this whole analogy through the book. And I just think back in those days, they had thick skin. They were able to handle things. They were able they they were so reliant on the Lord. Life was tough. And with the modern age, life, as you’re saying, has become easy and it has made our skin not as thick, potentially.

Kind of reminds me.

Of that cartoon Wall-E or whatever that came out a long, long time ago. And they’re all.

Like, they’re all.

Cartoon circuit.

They’re literally like blubbery sitting there sitting in chairs all the time. So they lost all of their muscle mass and they do nothing.

It’s just like.

I is going to make our minds go mushy because they don’t write.

Anymore. That’s what this was about. So.

So these things are happening. You see it happening and you go, no, we’re not going to be that way. We’re going to be we’re going to have an unbreakable marriage. We’re going to work on it because it’s not about what’s happening now. It’s about being ready for the things coming and the attack on marriage. It’s I’m going to be more intentional than any parents have ever seen, even if I had great ones, because I don’t have to have seen it to do it. I can learn, right. And so you’re going to dive in and learn, and you’re going to implement and you’re going to have a you’re you’re going to be more unbreakable in terms of how you handle your parenting and preparing and equipping your kids. So they stand firm in an uncertain world. We can’t just have our heads under the pillow and go as normal, go a little bit better than past. That’s just not going to work. That’s like when the iPhone came out and everybody’s like, whoa, no buttons. And and Samsung or this other company was like, oh, we’re going to keep our buttons. And pretty soon they just had to copy Apple. But they were way behind in the game. Blackberry. That’s it. Right. So it’s so important. They’re like, oh no, we’re going to create we’re going to be proactive and create what people don’t even realize they need yet. Right? We need to be proactive as parents in marriages and start listening to the spirit and reading our word. So we’re proactive, not because it’s necessary today, but because it’s necessary maybe six months from now and we’re in an election year, it is important to be thinking with a sober mind. It is important to be in the word. It is important to get uncomfortable because in our discomfort, we’re more willing to do hard things that are best, things that help us to thrive and our families to thrive down the road. And I’m not even going to say way down the road. I’m talking about six months from now. When is November? It’s like six months from now.

I think it’s a little longer, but yeah, like eight months maybe. Yeah. I mean, guys, this is the thing. Disruption is their goal. We know that distraction is their goal. We know that compliance is their goal. We know that we all saw the the warm up run. We all saw the the the first thing that happened in 2020. Right. And we saw a hijacking of sorts I’m just going to say it. Yeah. And we’re going to see some really crazy stuff happening because they’ve let 7.2 million. Right. Is that the number that I saw. Yeah. Immigrants in and during the Biden administration. And don’t even get me started about how this is going to affect the election.

Well, this has happened.

In all your other countries too, or most of them, you know, especially in Europe. It’s happened all throughout Europe, too.

You’ve got people out there warning you against terrorist attacks and all kinds of things. Why? Because of what they’ve been allowing to cross the border. All of the money that we spent during the Trump administration to put up walls. Did you know Biden was selling portions of the wall? You guys, this is a ridiculous like, I literally look at the tax money at work right there.

So we need to go.

Into these last three tips. We’ll be shorter. But I think we should jump into them.

Yes okay. So number two number two this is one I’m really passionate about. You’re gonna have to watch me here. So don’t go too long. But laws and rights when you’re evaluating where you’re living and what your legacy, what legacy you want for your kids right now, you have a choice. Yeah, I just said that you have a choice right now, but your choice needs to be surrendered to what God’s will is for your life. And you need to be praying not just in in terms of like, what you’re excited about, what you think you’re called to, but you need to humbly come before the Lord and ask him, Lord, what is your will for my children? What is your will for their upbringing in their season of life right now? What influences do you want in their life? And then you look around you. You look at the school system. You look at the church. You look at your neighborhood, you look at the friends, you look at the peers. I’m not saying that you necessarily need to move out of state. Maybe it’s even. In a neighborhood over. I have no clue. My point is, evaluate people. We need to have our eyes open and hold where we are open handed to God, because he may be calling some people to be missionaries, but he also may go, actually, it’s for you in a different season of your life right now, you’re a missionary and you’re home with your kids, and you need to make decisions based upon what’s going to be best for them so that they are walking with the Lord later on. We don’t sacrifice our kids for any other relationship. God doesn’t call us to something at the sacrifice of the first mission that he gave us. That would be so. That’s paradoxical. Listen, we need to evaluate the laws of the land that we live in, the rights that we have as parents. What are the parental rights? What are going to be the first threats in in this next year? Because it’s an election year?

You said the right thing, parental rights. That really is the main thing. There’s other things for sure, like, you know.

But gun laws, parental.

Rights is is so important. We’re seeing that, you know, the story maybe in Montana recently where because of, uh, the parents not allowing the the gender change of a 14 year old, they’re losing custody of the 14 year old.

To the government.

To the government. Right.

And you probably saw.

You’re seeing these things in places you would never imagine. And then you’re like, why is it kannonji? Well, then if it’s happening everywhere, where should I move? Well, that is also kind of a scheme when people say that it.

Is not not happening everywhere.

Everywhere there are better places to be. And we should live in the very best place where we have parental rights. And if we’re going to, uh, want our kids to raise their kids, your grandkids somewhere, you should be thinking about that now. Will it erode everywhere? Absolutely. But don’t we think we should be in a place that’s going to enable us to have freedoms for as long as possible, when it comes to parental rights?

I mean, that was.

Why we moved. We wanted to preserve our child’s childhood for as long as possible. Regarding compliance. That was one of the biggest things, right? Like if they were to listen to strategic relocation, the other podcast we did a few years ago, it’s an important, important thing.

It is one of the.

Most popular episodes we always top five episodes we’ve ever done is strategic relocation. Definitely look at that. That’s what prompted us to move away from dear friends, uh, a church we helped plant and and to, to come to a new place where we didn’t know anybody. And it.

Was for our.

I guess we knew one one, one family. And so, um, yeah, it was for a legacy. It was a legacy move. It was short tum pain for long time gain. And God blessed it. It was unbelievable. And something I had been praying about for many, many years. A unique situation to be able to have land in a house that fits a large family and all these things, even.

Even though our.

Finances wouldn’t warrant it. And boom, uh, it happens. And I just we have to go by faith. Sometimes we have to have everything crossed and I’s dotted. We were willing to just rent as long as we needed to, uh, but to be in a place that we could establish, uh, more freedoms and to pursue a faithful legacy so.

Well.

And that’s the thing, too, is if you’re if you’re talking about wanting to have proximity long terme even with your family and different things, then you need to live somewhere where they would potentially want to live, and you need to teach them why you would want to live there in the first place. So that means you do need to actually talk about current events that are happening at a state level, at a local level, with your kids, so that they’re aware and they’re grateful. They’re actually thankful for what they have, but they also become activated when a threat happens near where they live. And they stand up and they fight when they are older. Right. Like this is an important, important thing. When I think of parental rights, I think of the Second Amendment also, because God made you as a family, especially men. I’m just going to exhort you men for a minute. God called you to be a protector of your family. Yeah he did. He called you to be a protector of your family. And it wouldn’t be the first time that war has happened in our country. And it’s the last war was certainly not going to be the last war. If you think it’s going to be the last, then you’re very gravely deceived.

I mean, the.

Democrats right now are talking about a group of them not approving, uh, Trump if he wins the presidential election and to rescind it based on January 6th. And so what would happen if that happened? I’m not going to say the words, but you just think about it. I think that it’s important. I hope for peace, I hope for unity, I hope for good things to happen. But I also know that, you know, we’re in the end times and there’s challenging things that are going to happen. So I think it’s important to really think through those with a sober mind.

Yeah. So what are the laws. Right. Like what are.

Your rights.

To say no to vaccinations. Do you have the right to or are you going to be forced to? I mean, I just mentioned Second Amendment for a second, and we saw we’ve been seeing all the stuff that’s going on in Hawaii, right, that they don’t allow people to have to bear and carry guns around. Right.

New York.

City is the same.

Way. Yeah.

I mean, it’s literally so obviously there is something that is been happening for a while here where there is an influence and that’s an important thing. Can are you. Actually being prevented because of laws to do what God called you to do to protect your family.

I love our.

Little town because there’s actually an ordinance. It’s very old, but to live here, you actually have to own a gun.

Yeah, it’s funny, we found that out the second.

Week we were here.

Nobody’s enforcing it, but I think everybody lives by it.

Yeah, it’s super awesome.

But, you know, I think that it’s important that we look at the rights, we look at the laws, we look at what is happening in our area, parental right wise, and we wise up. And if we’re going to stay there, we need to have support. Look, if you’re a homeschooler, look into Hslda, the Home School Legal Defense Association. You need to look at freedom fighters for homeschool advocacy. This is important. You need to be connected to them. Because if you especially if you live in one of the most dangerous states. I recently was listening to a podcast that was talking about the ten most dangerous states to live in parental right wise. You should know what those are. And guess what? If you’re an American, you should go. Oh, so there are at least 40 other states that are safer, so don’t live in the ten. Like if you’re a homeschool, I don’t know.

It’s James one five says if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given warning. But let him ask in faith with no doubting. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. We need to have such a strong faith that when we pray, when we ask God, we believe he can do it. We believe he loves us and loves our family. We believe he’s going to give us wisdom on the issue, and we pray with an absolute faith that otherwise, maybe your belief in who God is, the attributes of God. Maybe you don’t have that quite right in your mind. Maybe you are not feeling worthy for some reason. But you know what? Maybe you do need to repent in some area. Do that if that’s the case. But you know what? He looks at you as a saint. He looks what Jesus did on the cross did it all.

Yeah.

You know, and it’s not our works. He loves you. He views you as a saint. So now let’s pray with that in mind.

Um.

I love that. Let’s go into point three, resourcefulness. You know, as you’re evaluating where you’re at, I’m going to ask you some really hard questions here for a second. And I get Isaac asked me a question and then I think we got off track. You asked me about moms and feeling overwhelmed. Well, this one right here, this point, it could potentially overwhelm some people. And so I want to encourage you because it doesn’t have to it does not have to overwhelm you. That is actually a mindset. And I want to encourage you if you do get overwhelmed. One to do what Isaac just said in James one five, to go to God and ask for wisdom. Ask for God. Give God your cares. Give God your fears. Walk in power. Be honest and wise. You can’t be wise. If you have your eyes shut, you can’t. You can’t see a threat coming. You can’t see if you’re driving in a car and a and a semi truck starts crossing over that yellow line and it’s coming at you to hit you. You don’t close your eyes. You keep your eyes open, your hands on that steering wheel.

You start praying for. Yeah, for Jesus to take the wheel. But you keep praying, but you are trying your best to make the wisest maneuver that’s going to protect you and your family, am I right? That is life. That’s what we’re supposed to do as parents. I know that being a parent, being an adult is hard at times, but we need to get tougher. Rhino skin, as you put it earlier. So here’s point three resourcefulness where you live. How resourceful are you allowed to be where you live? You know, and this is not move to the country talk. I mean for some people they probably want to move to the country. And that’s great if you can do that. But the realistic point I’m trying to make is that probably 95% of people are not going to be able to move to country in order to be resourceful in a homesteading sense, which is what they probably think I’m talking about. But it’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is, are you going to be proactively resourceful? Are you allowed by your HOA to plant a garden in your backyard.

Or to have chickens or to.

Yeah, like this is the thing. Like if, if push comes to shove and you need to be growing some food and stuff. Can you?

Now, you might be going. Well, Isaac, we can do that. And we are doing that. But that’s not going to suffice for our family. And I would say 100% not going to. But now you have a contribution to make. You can now barter with other people if things happen because you’re doing chickens and you have carrots and you have these things, someone else might have some meat over here and these.

Some potatoes.

You can bring value and you have proof, proof that you can do things. And maybe you jump over to your parents property somewhere and you help guard them because you’ve already been working that muscle.

I just have to say something. I think that it would behoove people to know their neighbors and to be proactive in conversations about what’s going on in the world and talking about the things that they’re going to plant, if you will. For example, we do this with our neighbors. It’s not a crazy thing to do. We all help each other in our neighborhood. You know, we’re getting cows with the neighbor right in front of us. Yeah, yeah. That’s true. We’re getting meat cows with the neighbor right in front of us. They’re going to be on his land, and we’re going to be doing some of the labor and most of the labor. And there’s just like they’re you work together. Another thing is that I was talking to some older ladies who love to can, hey, I love canning, but I have a lot of kids. I have a busy life. Last year practically killed me during preserving season. I was burnt out. So I’m talking to this older, these older ladies at the Christmas party. And I tell them this and they go, well, let’s just do it together this next year. So guess what we’re doing? We’re canning together. We are going to get so much more done because there’s going to be three of us doing it instead of me doing it on my own, and them each doing it on their own. Nope, nope. I’m not into doing that anymore. It’s time to start acting like a community. It’s time to, like, truly get to know your neighbors and go, hey, I grew, um, £900 of potatoes last year. That’s actually the number of potatoes we grew last year. And to go, what did you grow last year? I’m thinking of cutting back. Yeah, but not on quantity. I’m thinking if I can grow some potatoes, maybe some of the ladies over there will grow the green beans and we can swap.

How much easier.

Is it to focus on 1 or 2 crops versus.

Every crop? Yeah.

Okay. So now I’m talking grand scale I get that. But what about if you live in a neighborhood and you were to start doing what Isaac’s been doing and hosting little meetings with some of the the neighbors to talk about this kind of stuff, what if you did that and you got some of the ladies together, or the guys got the guys together and you all decided, like, one person is doing onions, next neighbor’s doing carrots, the next neighbor’s doing lettuce, next neighbor’s doing a whole bunch of strawberries. And you come together and you swap. How much easier is that?

I think people go, wow, I just wish I didn’t have to think about all this because I’ve already so much to think about.

Oh, but this is way better.

This is I’m saying, you know, let’s rise up. Let’s rise to the occasion because there is an occasion. The world is changing. There’s some good aspects to it. There’s some challenging aspects to it. Our children are watching. Part of equipping your children is them seeing you do these harder things that even more so, they will likely have to do in their futures.

Okay, I also want to say something that is such a beautiful vision. Imagine getting together every once in a while with some of your neighbor ladies, and let’s say two of five of them are believers. And the other ones think they are, but maybe they’re not. And you’re all helping each other and you’re having conversations and you’re building relationship. Imagine what Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit can do in those women’s lives. And if he gets those women, or he gets those men through them, connecting with your husband, imagine what can happen to the entire household. We’re talking acts here, people. This is so exciting. Like I when I think of crisis, I think of revival. Yeah. Because that’s really when you get to see the Spirit of God move, you see him answer prayers, you see him move among his people. You see people come together in times when they never would have before and actually be in relationship with each other, which was what God’s design was from the beginning. In the first place. We all just got too busy with the non-important things.

The neighborhood revival.

That’s neighborhood revival.

I love it.

I love it so much. Okay, so the last thing we’ve kind of already mentioned it, the last point we want to talk to you guys about is legacy. Now obviously like legacy when you think of legacy you’re think faith first. Right. And there’s something so beautiful about being able to go to church together. There’s something so beautiful about being able to learn and worship and be like a one sound mind, and that’s a really beautiful thing. But there’s so there’s there’s other aspects of legacy too, right? It’s like relationships come by spending time together. It’s not just having the same blood run through your veins. Mhm. It’s time and it’s hard to spend time together when you don’t live in close proximity. I remember my grandparents lived in Colorado and I grew up in Oregon. I only remember a handful of times actually seeing them in my childhood, my entire first 20 years of my life. Yeah. And then. Then my grandpa died when Kelsey was nine months old. And so it just was like like I look at it and I, I love learning about him, but I didn’t know him.

So you’re either going to live where your children would want to live, and you’d want them to raise their grandchildren or way down the road. You’re probably going to move and follow your children, because they’re going to be wise and live where they can be more fruitful with young kids.

Or.

You’re going to be where you are and your kids are going to be in totally different places because they didn’t want to live where you lived. And then you’re feeling like, well, now where do I go? Do I go over here? Do I go over there? I love that family just as much as I love that family.

And, well, God’s got a plan.

He’s got it all. But we have decisions and free will to make. And I think that hard decisions, but good decisions need to be made. The best decisions are rarely easy. That’s usually the.

Hardest.

But I do want to encourage you guys that listen like I get that the thought of like, no electricity and and having to grow things. I’m tired right now. I’m going to be honest, I am tired. I and I think to myself, do I have the energy to do all we’ve done the last few years again? And but I also there’s this element of like really continuing to grow in my love for what we do on this land, and seeing that it was a blessing that God gave us to steward. And you need to remind yourself of your why. So what is your why? It could be as simple as I like providing nourishing food for my family, and I know where it came from because I grew the stuff. Like it could be that I love being able to be a place where kids come. Like when we were hosting Home Church, there were so many kids going through my garden and asking if they could eat strawberries or take their mama cucumber, or I love that. I loved blessing other people and like, there’s we need as people, we need to be more generous.

We need to be thinking bigger about our crops so that we have an avenue to be able to bless our neighbors and bless those who need things. And so during this time, if you have more property than somebody else, don’t just like, not plant it. Offer for somebody to come and work part of your land. We’ve done that so many years. When we lived in Damascus, we had families fully planting huge CSA gardens and making money off of it because they were in seminary and I was pregnant with Ethan and couldn’t work as hard in the garden, and I let a whole family take it over. And then they blessed us for letting us use the land, and then they were able to bless other families and get creative. It’s a blessing when you give God back the land that he’s given you. Even if it’s 5000ft², you can still have pots on your back porch and teach your kids how to grow so that for them, they’re getting connected with this process of creation and what God can grow, and that you can eat what you grow. And our kids need to see that.

Well, hey, thanks.

For joining us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome to the show. We’re so glad you’re here today. We’re talking about protect your family culture. So important.

You know, our top two ever podcast episodes are the first two which are on this topic of family culture. So we thought we would dive into it because right now there’s a need for people to understand that they have to proactively protect their family culture.

Yeah. And those were more about how to establish and identify and create your culture. This one is about really how to protect it. And it’s so important, more important than ever before. I don’t think previous generations in modern times at least, had to protect their culture at the lengths that we believe parents need to do today.

So, or maybe they should have been. That could be partially why we’re in the predicament we’re in today, right?

I know we were pretty odd, you know, 20 years ago in making the decisions we were doing, because it was kind of like the threats weren’t as overt. They were there, but they weren’t as seen.

Yeah, that’s for sure. Okay, guys. So thank you so much for joining us today. We just wanted to remind you of a couple things. One, we have something awesome going on in the app. I’ve been really enjoying the Fridays, which have been in the Courageous Mom group inside the Be Courageous app. I’ve been leading these heart of the home episodes or sessions, if you will, and the lives are about 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes depending. It’s been a fun time because I do Q&A in there as well. So if you’re interested in joining us, you can actually try out the app for free for a week and you can take advantage. You can even listen to all five of the first five sessions if you want. I mean, that would be bingeing for sure, but you’re welcome to do that. And we just want to make sure you know about that.

Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for being part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. All show notes, resources and so forth for the podcast are at Courageous Parenting.com and for the entire ministry at Be Courageous Ministry. Org. Also, the Resilient Man podcast is getting some steam. There’s some really incredible interviews coming down the pike here. Shot one yesterday. One more Friday. I am so excited about it. So gents head over there to. That’s right.

So also something that’s coming up. Be on the lookout. We’ve got homeschooling conference season coming up, and I’m super excited to be jumping on a plane and heading to Texas in April and in May. And so you’ll be we’ll be putting out more information when it gets closer. But I hope for those of you who are living in that area, you can you can connect with me there. That would be awesome.

So good. Well, let’s dive in to protecting your family culture. This is so important. And you know, we’ve often said things like, you know, you never want to, uh, you know, sacrifice your family for the sake of other relationships. But the goal is always to have good relationships. So how do we get both of those accomplished? And sometimes both can’t be. And what has to give? Well, you’re not going to sacrifice your family.

Um, it was interesting. Isaac and I were just talking about this. This as the concept of the cost of discipleship. Right. And when you have your jurisdictions right, and you actually do believe the truth, that there are seasons in your life and understanding that when your children live with you in your home, 95% of the the time you’re actually going to get with your child, you’re going to get with them before they turn age 18. So if you’re going to disciple them, you need to do it as much as possible when they’re living with you. So that really is your discipleship era with your family, right? Right. And so there’s a cost of other you can’t be best friends with 100 people, you know what I mean? Like, there’s a cost. You maybe have a few close confidant friends that can you guys can really minister to one another. But truly, it’s a season.

It is a.

Season. It’s a season. So today we’re talking about this awesome season of protecting your family culture while your kids are still living at home. Absolutely.

So we have four tips for you on this. And the first one is to embrace your calling. And I think that everybody’s like, yeah, of course I’m working hard. You know, we’re working hard over here. Yeah, I get it. But fully embrace your calling to protect your, your your children, to protect your legacy, to protect the culture of your home. And here’s a scripture for you in Deuteronomy six, uh, it says that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son, your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments with which I sorry, which I command you all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. And then it goes on to say, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise, and then it says, nine you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. You know, we’ve shared this scripture a few times before. You know the Scripture probably it really is a mandate to do what we’re talking about here.

Yeah, it is. I mean, we’ve used this scripture in context of a lot of things because it’s really there’s a lot there. But but doesn’t it just leave you first and foremost, foundationally going, God has called me because I. Believe in the Lord because I’m saved. I want my kids to know the Lord. And you think of verses like as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, right? Like what is the foundation of your family culture built on? And if it’s built on the cornerstone of Christ, if it’s built on the chief cornerstone, then there’s going to be a focus on the word, on the Lord’s commandments, right? Yeah. And it’s going to be something you’re going to passionately want your children and your children’s children to know and understand. So when we understand that this is something that God has called us to, when he chose us to be parents, he called us to rise up and go, okay, I’m in charge of the discipleship of these little people. Like, I get it, I understand the responsibility and I’m not going to shy away from that. But sometimes it can be hard in the midst of living in a fallen world to when you have this desire to have this strong, biblically based family culture, right? Where when someone offends another person, they forgive each other and they are reconciled when, um, there’s this pursuit of living a holy life, this pursuit of holiness, or the pursuit of living righteously. Right. Like there’s a pursuit there. And it’s something that you you want to live because you want to be more like Christ, right? To be a light to the world and to glorify him. You want all these things, but in the midst of living in a fallen world, you get tugged, you get tempted, your kids get tugged and tempted, and it can be hard for parents to stand firm, right?

Sometimes there’s this feeling of, you may not feel this, I don’t know, but it might be happening where there’s a little bit of wishy washiness where you stand for some principle, but then because it’s extended family or something like that, or pressure, there’s pressure on you and there’s situations you lax on that principle. Uh, maybe you’ve even communicated this principle to your children, and then you’re over there and you’re relaxed about it. And I just want to encourage you to be courageous, because it takes courage to equip confident Christian kids for a future world that’s different than they’re going to be launching into. It takes doing the right things, the hard things now, and that is embracing your calling. Part of your calling is that protector is that, you know, making sure that you’re not wishy washy, making sure that you have sound biblical principles that your parenting your children on, you’re making decisions based on you get in marriage alignment, and you execute those and you don’t get wishy washy because there’s pressure on you.

Yeah, it’s protecting family. Culture is a big thing. And if you’re not consistent, you can confuse your kids, especially if you haven’t shared the why. So I think that a huge part of like any anything that you would necessarily have as family rules or family expectations or even, um, you know, things you don’t do, I want to think about things you don’t do that maybe are protective of the family culture or protective of your children physically right, or protective of your children’s spiritually. Um, you may have certain, um, things that are like, we don’t do this in our family. Right? And the truth is, is if you don’t explain it and communicate clearly to your kids, especially once they start getting to be big kids and and tweens and teens, right? Yeah. They need to know the why. Otherwise, if you don’t teach them the why behind it, you’re likely to get asked over and over and over again, which would be potentially disrespectful also. So that would need to be a conversation with your kids. But if you are also showing them respect and teaching them the biblical why behind why you have such a strong conviction on, I don’t know what’s something we have a conviction on. Oh no sleepovers. Right. Like for for kids that are under adult age and like we don’t we don’t do that. Right. And so it’s it’s just one of those things where it’s always been a thing, and it’s not something that our kids ask us about because we stood firm in it. But we also taught them all the reasons why we choose that so that they could logically think about it and go, oh yeah, that makes sense. And so it I just want to encourage you guys that whatever the things are that you do, do or don’t do, there’s going to be a tug and there’s going to be parental peer pressure, peer pressure from your kids, friends to them to maybe participate in things that they know. You know what, we just don’t do that.

And one of you in the marriage relationship might start getting a little relaxed on something. Once you feel that pressure and you start, might rethinking it. And then the question is, do you go back to the Bible to discover if that’s a conviction, you should hold on. And the Bible doesn’t speak to every specific thing, but it does speak to godliness, right? And as we’re reading and we’re speaking and we’re and we’re saturating our minds with godliness, is that what we need to renew our mind to stay the course? And I think sometimes because we’re not in our Bibles, we start to veer a little bit and get a little wishy washy. You know, in Romans 12 two it says, do not be conformed to. This world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God and what is good and acceptable and perfect, and what’s good and acceptable and perfect is going to be unpopular in this world.

Yeah, that’s true, and I love that. It also says that you may be able to discern, because that’s part of a parent’s, um, role in embracing this calling to protect the family culture. I mean, ultimately, we, you know, in the other podcast episodes where we talk about family culture that is more about establishing family culture and it being established on the rock. And what does that look like and, and how you, as an individual need to understand that it’s important that you are going to God and you are seeking his face and asking for him to reveal what his will is for you and your family. And while every family may have a slightly different little wordage of mission or vision or different seasons in life, the role of the parents is to be going to God as their head and understanding that he has called us to rise up and take responsibility to really step into that responsibility, unapologetically, actually. And it’s interesting because we’re in a day and age where even state to state, we see parental rights being abused, um, by the government, right, or by the medical profession, which is government, you know, all fingered through there. And so I, I bring this up because there is a need for us as parents and for you as parents to be encouraged in the word, to understand, no, no, don’t listen to the lies of the government or that the doctor might be saying to you, you have the right to actually say, nope, we’re not going to vaccinate our child, or nope, we’re not going to put the teenager with acne and cramps on birth control. You can say no.

Hey, I look at all this stuff as a spiritual battle, right? The enemy’s trying to infiltrate the family. Destroy the family. That’s how the world can be changed. And the global reset, which I believe is orchestrated by evil. And all of these things really come down to all these small things to erode away a rodaway parental authority, a rodaway confidence in God erode away and capture and ensnare the next generation into sin and all of these things. And you know, are you going to go to battle? Are you going to wield your sword? Or are you the kind of soldier that you know, wakes up and thinks they’re going to battle every day and leaves their sword in the cupboard back in the closet? Yeah. You know, or do you actually are you actually battling because you’re actually using your weapon, which is the word of God, which is prayer, which is worshiping our Lord and drawing close to him so we can hear from him. These are our tools that we have to stand up and to not go wayward on even the smallest things, so that we can protect and preserve and then equip our children. And they look at us as the most important teachers in their lives, because we’ve not allowed wayward philosophies to entice them. So they develop itching ears to glean wisdom from wrong thinking.

Yeah, I mean, this even just reminds me of the podcast episode that we did on. Do not allow other people to confuse your children with wayward philosophies, which is a biblical concept. You can look that up in the New Testament as well. But you know, the last scripture that we want to share with you for this specific point, which is point one, embrace your calling is actually in Genesis 18 verse 19. Before I read that verse, I want to remind you, this is the chapter where the Lord comes to Abraham, and he’s telling him, while he and Sarah and their old age, he tells him, I’m going to return in about a year’s time, and Sarah will have a son. And she overhears. And so she laughs. And there’s a whole thing that happens here. And then you get to verse 19 and it says, for I have chosen him. So this is God, okay, talking about Abraham, for I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring Abraham what he has promised him, and then just continues on the very next verse he already goes into. Then the Lord said, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grave. So we know where the next part of the story goes. And this is such an encouraging verse, because though he’s speaking specifically about the father of the holy nation, right, Abraham? Um, and what a responsibility. Can you imagine if you think parenting one, two, five, eight kids is a big responsibility? Think of how Abraham felt knowing that he was going to be the father of nations, believing God’s promise. That’s huge.

Yeah, but here he is. God brings it down to the nitty gritty where the legacy begins. And this is what is so powerful in. My mind is that he goes, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. That’s where it begins. That’s where the legacy of faith begins, is with Isaac and then his grandkids. And that is you guys like that is the foundation. Like we as parents need to understand that if we have children, they are a gift from God. We know that from Psalm 127, behold, children are a reward, the fruit of the womb, a reward. This is a gift from God. When we’ve been given a gift from God, we’re to steward that gift well. We’re to raise it, step into our calling, be responsible. And he tells Abraham and gives us an example here as what is the most important you’re going to. Yeah. Command your children and your household after you to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice. That’s huge. That’s family culture. That’s. What are you doing is family culture when no one’s looking, living in righteousness, it’s all the things that other people don’t see. The waywardness of the heart. Like, is there righteousness? Yeah. That’s huge. And then justice is the actions and the doing that affect other people. And then he goes into Sodom and Gomorrah, which we know the story. We know what God does, his his story. And there’s an element there of wanting to preserve this seed and knowing that there’s a neighboring town that is corrupt and defiled and like so as parents like that goes into our next point, which is influences like protecting your family culture from influences.

So we’ll talk about that in just a moment. But I want to just take a moment and talk about the Parenting Mentor program. You know how cool it would be if Angie could sit down with the moms out there? Oh, I love it. And just, you know, answer any questions and then give, like, the exact like, here’s I thought all about this and here’s exactly what not to do and how to think about it. And the scriptures in this season of parenting and that season of parenting, regarding getting to their hearts, regarding obedience, regarding discipleship, regarding the courage that’s needed to equip your kids today and and the theology of parenting and so forth, all of these things. Imagine if you could do that, and if you both had the time to actually sit together for coffee with both of us and you bought. Yeah. And both both of us. And let’s say you bought us coffee, so it costs you like seven bucks, but you did that every day for 45 days. Wouldn’t that be cool? That’d be fun. We can’t do that. And you probably don’t have the time to drive to a coffee shop every single day and do that either. So we did something better where we created the Parenting Mentor program. The reason is, is because there’s a lack of Titus, two mentors in society today that are willing to invest in other people and are even qualified.

They might have the age, but a lot of people just aren’t qualified because they don’t have the fruit in their lives that you would want at Emily, in your children and your marriage and so forth. And so we really we experienced that. And I believe it’s gotten even worse. We hear it’s gotten even worse. And so but we need those things. And the most important area is that we need mentoring are marriage, parenting and home things. And so it’s so important that we get that. So that’s why we put together. That’s why we put this parenting mentor program together, because it’s recorded sessions in a curriculum that builds to really get a foundation that’s incredible and biblically based. So you know how to navigate parenting in these times from a biblical perspective, while also getting the lives and being able to get your questions answered in the community and so forth. And so that’s why we put this together. It’s a mix of both, but we can all be in our own homes, do it in our own timing because it is self-paced and have that freedom. And it costs a little less than $7 a day for 45 days, and you have it forever. Yeah.

Yeah. That’s amazing. So we’ve really enjoyed being able to do this for the last five years. Can you believe it? Yeah, five years. We’ve had thousands of parents go through and we love hearing the testimonies and different things, but we wanted to invite you to find out more about it by going to Courageous Parenting.com. There’s a video there you can watch and a whole bunch of information. So all.

Right, back into Dive.

In. So obviously, you know, influences are probably one of the biggest I don’t know if you would call it a threat to family culture, but let me just start off with listing the four that we kind of brainstormed. Right. So here’s the biggest one society. Society and its culture and its tolerance of sin and its overt indoctrination of the next generation of sin and persuasion of trying things. And, well, how do you know you’re not this way unless you’ve tried it? There’s just so much, um, persuasive manipulation. And I think of influences, right. Because obviously like the school system, if there’s teachers that are teaching this or coaches that are are teaching this stuff, that is an influence on the children of the next generation. Right? And then those children are growing up in the same generation. Your children are growing up, and then eventually they’re going to be potential co-workers, peers, what have you. And they’re I mean, that’s peer influences, which would be another one that we talked about. Um, what are some other obvious ones? There’s media. Obviously, media is a big deal. Kids are getting phones and access to media at a younger age than ever before. And it’s not just social media, although that is a really big impact on kids and influencing them. But also there’s the cartoons and all the hidden messages in these movies and even.

Even the things you take your children to that are have the Christian title in them. You just need to be as intentional and diligent as anywhere else, actually. Right?

Like you can’t trust. I’m just gonna say something really bold here. And some of you, I get that you probably love your homeschool co-op, but, I mean, I’ve been a part of homeschool co-ops that I’ve loved. But let me just tell you this just because something says homeschool on it or just because something says Christian on it, does not mean that the kids that are in there are living righteously. And you can just put your stamp stamp of approval on it and endorse it and say, hey, be best friends with these kids. Hey, listen to whatever the teacher is telling. You know, I have been homeschooling for 20 years. You guys and I see a even bigger movement now towards charter schools, hybrid schools, um, delegation of of different aspects of schooling. And I love it. I love that there is opportunities for kids to be able to connect with other kids and learn things that maybe they wouldn’t otherwise learn. That aspect of it can be good, but as a parent, if you are going to be embracing your biblical calling to be the protector of of the gatekeeper, of your home, of ideas, because ideas influence the family culture, then you need to be crazy involved and know what your kids are learning, and know your kids friends and know your kids friends parents. And if you can’t do that, then maybe you shouldn’t have them in that co-op.

I’m just going to say that because there are things like, if your kids are living a secretive life where they’re not fully themselves with their friends, or they’re not the same way with their friends, that they are with you, there’s a big problem. And this is something that I see a lot. Oh yeah, in fact, we’ve had conversations with our teenagers and about this and they’re like, oh yeah, most kids are like, they talk differently even when their parents aren’t around. And then we just flat out asked him, remember I asked all the kids, I was like, you, do you guys talk different than you talk when you’re around us? And they’re like, no, you guys know how we talk. And and we were all like laughing about it. But then they were giving examples and I was shocked. Like literally even the vocabulary is different with some of these kids. And their parents have no clue because their kid is living a secretive life. And a lot of it is largely on their phone, and the parents have no idea what is going on. And sin is taking root, and it’s going to affect their character and who they are as a person. And I it infests a family culture. So dangerous. Yeah.

And remember, if if you’re older, children are getting infected like this by the world and you don’t know it, that is going to lead the younger children in the wrong direction. So you really have to work hardest actually, with your oldest, whoever your oldest two are, you need to work the hardest with them, um, work hard with all the kids. But in terms of helping them understand their influence, helping them understand their leadership, helping them have a vision for their relationships with their younger siblings and how important that is, making sure they’re not part of too many things that are age segregated. So they become people that only want to spend time with their own age. Influences. Perhaps the most important influences are your oldest children, actually, because they are paving away and those younger children look up to them so much. Talk about powerful peer influences. If you think peer influences are powerful out there, well, big sibling, big sibling, peer influence is the massive influence, right? And so you have to make sure you’re getting that right. And if they are doing something that is influencing your family culture wrong, you need to be on it. You need to be handling it. You need to be long conversations, going to scripture, praying together. And it’s not just giving. It’s not just being tough with them. That’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying, well, how can.

You be caring about how can you.

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So the next verse we want to share with you guys is actually in regards to these influences. When I share this verse with you, it’s in first Timothy six verse three through five. It says, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, so anybody who’s teaching a different doctrine, anyone who doesn’t agree with the sound doctrine of Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness. He is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. Nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for a whole list of things. You ready for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and depraved in truth. Imagining that godliness is a means of gain and it just continues on. You guys listen. This is the deal. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and it can be like, look at all the fruit that comes from teaching a different doctrine. This is all bad fruit. This is not stuff we want in our family culture, right? Dissension, division, slander, evil suspicions, quarrels. Nobody here would be raising their hand saying, no, I want that part of my family culture. No. Rather, we need to be protectors, making sure that the influences are actually in agreement with the things like teaching the same doctrine, teaching doctrines of sound wisdom from God’s Word that are about godliness and righteousness. There is something so special when your kids find a believer who is actually a true believer in Christ, and they can have those deep biblical conversations where they can nudge each other to be better, like like being, hey, hey, good job. You just shot a three pointer and you’ve never made that before. Like that’s encouraging versus what’s going on and being competitive in a negative kind of way and making fun of somebody.

Like, there’s a biblical way where it says build one another up. It doesn’t ever say point out each other’s faults and make fun of each other. No, no, no, no, no. Scripture doesn’t say that. It says to stir up good works in one another. Build one another up just as you are doing. Like to have friends where you know that when when you’re one of your kids is struggling with something, or maybe they’re down or they’re sad or or something’s going on, they have friends that get it, have experienced that, and can give them Bible verses and text messages to encourage them. Like that’s the kind of friendships and peer influences that we should be praying for, first of all. Secondly, helping our kids to cultivate. What’s one way you can help your kids cultivate friendships that are going to be solid like that? Hey, be open to practicing hospitality as often as possible. Be the place that your kids feel comfortable inviting their friends to come and hang out. And in that way, it’s also helpful for you to help your like younger kids. If they start doing that, you can start teaching them how to discern. Is this a friend I want to have as a close friend? Or maybe not right now? You know what I mean? And so there’s so many aspects to this. Also, I don’t want to neglect this, but family and friends like your family and friends, are they people who teach sound biblical doctrine founded on the Lord Jesus Christ? If they don’t, then you need to be discerning and careful about how puffed up you put that person as an influential person in your kid’s life.

And as your children get older, they’re going to have times where they’re not with you and they’re out with people, they’re at friends house, these kinds of things. You want to have the kind of conversations and relationship with them where they share with you the good and the not so good, and where they have a discerning as discernment about them of discerning what’s good and not so good, and playing those out and talking about situational, you know, how could you do it better next time? What could you say next time? How could you behave next time? These kinds of conversations only happen if you’re getting real Intel. If you’re having real deep communication and conversations with your children.

So, you know, we also want to share this next verse with you guys. It’s in first Corinthians chapter five, verse 11. Um, and this is, this is a hard verse for some people, but I think that we would be not fully doing this topic justice biblically if we did not bring this verse to light. I think a lot of Christians are unaware that God’s Word even talks about this. So, Isaac, go ahead and share it.

All right. You ready? Here we go. But now I’m writing to you, not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother. If he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or as an idolater, reviler a drunkard or a swindler, not even eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? That’s a question. It is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

So yeah.

God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. So this is talking about believers who are behaving in really ungodly ways. We’re not to spend time with them because they’re claiming Christ and doing these things deliberately. There’s a big difference of sin and then deliberate sin of consistently doing these things. And so the reason is it’s kind of like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In terms of influence. Your children can be very confused by that because they’re claiming Christ.

It’s actually the most confusing. I would say the most dangerous would be someone who claims to be a Christian, but is living in ungodliness and sin and choosing to remain in it and not trying to grow and not trying to change. Right. And so I think that there’s a distinction to be made when someone has like the heart of repentance and they’re confessing sin and they’re moving towards godliness, that’s very different. Um, but the point here is that as parents, we have to again go back to number one, embrace our calling and understand that this is something that we have to be aware of. We cannot just drop our kids off at youth group or Sunday school and and have our kids fellowshipping and be learning from someone, if that someone who’s teaching that class or even a worship leader, like I don’t know how many like I just it makes me sick to my stomach to think that there could be people that are on stage leading worship or in Sunday school classrooms teaching little children and discipling them, quote unquote. But. Five days out of the week. They’re living in deliberate sin that they know God’s Word says not to do right. And so that’s where we as parents, this is why it’s important that we have to take responsibility and get to know the people that are potentially influencing our kids.

Yeah, it’s a big deal. So let’s talk about correcting sin within family. Matthew 1815 through 17. You might want to mark this down. Very helpful scripture. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take 1 or 2 others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of 2 or 3 witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. So the point is, there is a process for reconciliation. There’s a process for correcting and correction happening. And so the first step and we teach our children this, unless it’s something egregious that we need to know about, if it’s just the normal didn’t share things like that. They’re they’re instructed to talk to their brother first, talk to their sister first and try and fix that before just immediately yelling, mommy, mommy, right, right, right.

I think that this is an important thing that kids need to learn, because obviously this scripture is even talking about brothers and sisters in Christ. And like the functioning of the family of God and the body of Christ. Right. And so but where do people, adults who, you know, and even teens and, and children, how do people figure out how to operate within the body of Christ when there’s conflict, if they didn’t learn it first in their family? You see, the family is really God’s way of preparing and equipping children who are going to grow up and be brothers and sisters in Christ, Lord willing. Right. And so this, this ministry of reconciliation, which in another part of Corinthians, it talks about how God has given each of us the ministry of reconciliation. If we are saved in Jesus Christ, that is part of our ministry, just like the Great Commission is the ministry. In fact, those two go hand in hand because it’s really talking about reconciliation with God, which is coming to salvation, right? Yeah. And so there’s this, this, this is a huge part of family culture is this concept of correcting sin within family and in family relationships, but also discerning sin outside teaching your children how to discern, um, what is going on and if something is a healthy person, a healthy friend to be hanging out with, or if someone’s going to be leading them astray, um, there’s this need for us to even give our kids a bigger vision and go, hey, we got to get it right first here in our family before we’re able to do it well with other people. And and this is God’s design. Like, this is the image bearing of the family to the family of God. Right. And so this can really be an equipping time. Yeah. And we’re going to share another verse with you in second Timothy chapter three, verse 16 and 17.

Um, second Timothy three, verse 16 and 17, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Yeah.

So obviously, like if you guys are in this place where you’re thinking, man, it’s just so hard, like, how do I confront the sister in Christ whose kid is struggling? Like, I really like this family, but that child is really hard for my kids to play with. Or they’re a bad example or they’re a bad influence. How many of you guys felt that, like, God’s Word gives you all the wisdom that you need? And James, it says to seek God and search for all wisdom, and he will give it without a reproof. Right? But we have to ask God without doubting, and ask him to give us wisdom as we’re navigating relationships. But relationships really are the foundational. Like, if I was to think of like, what is the biggest thing that can affect family culture? It’s relationships. Yeah. Within the family, within sibling relationships, within the marriage, obviously, that our relationship makes a huge impact on family culture. But then relationships with other people, right. Extended family. So this is this.

Is where you have to be courageous because you might have to correct something with an extended family member. You have to talk about something that’s happening at their house that isn’t appropriate, like the TV always being on or whatever it is, uh, because you don’t want your children to see the commercials on these things if you do it in a loving way. A lot of times that’s going to go really well. You’d be surprised how well it goes, actually, if you are coming across in a loving but truthful way, I think that’s really important. I have to share this verse in Jude. I’m the one adding an extra verse this time. Look at you. Look at that. Okay, I just found it so, so important. It’s the book right before revelation, if you weren’t sure. And it says right here, it says beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Here’s the warning. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this. Condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now it’s giving a big warning that within the body of Christ there, snuck in there, snuck in, that are wayward, that are literally calling themselves believers and deliberately sinning in all kinds of ways.

I would say this is the progressive church.

This is the progressive church.

Yeah. I mean, there are many, but I see that within the it seeps in those ideologies, those teachings slowly attack many churches of all different denominations.

And this was happening back then. It’s happening now. It’s it’s a problem that’s always going to happen until Jesus returns. But we have a responsibility. But, you know, just think of instead of the church for a second. Think of your home. Is is there anything being crept into your home, whether physically, in your home or through your home, through influences to your children that then come into your home? So it’s really important to think about that.

You know, it’s interesting in Jude later on it says, but have mercy with those who doubt. And it continues on about like saving the one. And yeah, and I just want to bring that up because, you know, in the midst of this hard conversation that we’ve been having, um, a lot of parents might be thinking, well, what about the kid who’s doubting that there’s potentially going to is that infectious and going to make my other kids doubt? Let me just say something. So doubting not all kids have to experience that. First of all, um, but I think wrestling with your faith to make it your own like that is something that most people experience when they’re in the process of trying to truly understand truth and the gospel and the Lord. And so here’s the thing you cannot sweep it underneath the covers. You have to dig in with that kid more than anything and have mercy with them, which is what God’s Word is actually telling us in Jude and in the process, be praying with the other kids for that kid, because I’m sure that they likely hear the conversation. I just remember having one car ride many years ago where one of the kids, out of nowhere after a church service, what he we said, how was church today? And then that kid got brave enough to in front of all the siblings. I think we had seven at the time. He started crying and he just said, I’m really struggling with doubting some things. And he was honest and we as a family fully prayed for him. And now I look at where that kid is now, so strong. You know, I was very strong.

I was very thankful for that moment because he was actually leading something really good, which is vulnerability, which is openness, which is feeling comfortable in our family culture to be honest and share and to know that we’re going to love him no matter what and.

And walk with him through.

The only way a kid would share that is if he felt those things. And you have to be proactive to make sure your children feel those things. I was not concerned that that would be a negative thing on the rest of the children because, um, this is a normal thing and it’s a normal thing to wrestle with these things. And it was sincere. It wasn’t, uh, the kind of thing where he was trying to do anything. It was just sincere.

No, I love that you said that. I think that, you know, the fourth tip that we had for you guys, um, as far as protecting your family, is to disciple your children, obviously. And walking them through those conversations is part of the discipleship process, right? Like, um, and praying for them, teaching them how to pray, reading, letting the word be the light to your path as a family, being the foundation, reading the Bible with your kids on a regular basis. Um, because when your kids love Jesus, they’ll also want to live in a way that shows their love for Jesus, and they’ll understand how important it is that they’re they’re aware that there are lost people who don’t have the Lord. And that’ll be like something that really grips them where they want more people to know the Lord because they love him and they they want to see them have eternal life. Right. I think a.

Big part of discipleship, too, as they get older is hot button issues. What does the Bible say? Uh, regarding the abortion issue, what does the Bible say regarding gender? What does the Bible say regarding marriage? What does the Bible say regarding creation.

I.

Nation yeah, you know, all of these borders of nations, you know, what are what is all of these things. And it’s so important, I think, as we disciple one of the I think ways that the enemy ensnares children is, is the children who are raised in really religious homes where there’s a feeling of there’s us versus them and, and and what I lead is an elitism. But I think what’s true is all people are God. You know, God created all people, God’s people. They’re God’s people. But God’s God’s chosen people, right? If you use those words, uh, which are in the Bible, uh, are the believers, right. And so but does that mean a non-believer can’t become a believer? Yeah, they become a believer. And I believe then they were the chosen. Right? So. It’s. It’s God’s.

The one who.

Knows God, the one he has this foreknowledge. Right? So of who’s going to choose him. So it’s really amazing to think that, wow, all these other people could come to know the Lord. So having a heart for the lost while protecting your children at the same time is important versus building a us versus them, uh, theology, which shouldn’t be the case. It’s not true. And having a love for people and and sharing the gospel and evangelism is crucial. Because if that’s not there, then it’s very easy for the enemy to use somebody to ensnare them. Well, that’s really unloving to this group of people to believe that. Well, no, I can believe in God’s truth and still. Love other people well, while not moving in my belief and.

Encouraging them to walk in truth. Right? Yeah. And to acknowledge sin and to repent. I mean, that’s a good, humble thing to do. But the reality is, there’s so much pride in today’s world that people have a hard time with that. I think, too, you know, today we talked about the importance of, um, with the oldest kid helping to set the culture right and like really digging in with them and things like that. I do want to warn parents, though, that sometimes when you’re doing that, there can be too much pressure and expectations that parents put on the oldest. And what I mean by that is sometimes when you are always saying that, well, you’re the oldest or you’re the oldest, be careful not to say that too much. Yeah. Um, I think that there is a truth that kids need to hear. A realization that God chose them for the birth order that they’re in. And you can unapologetically teach your kids God chose you to be the firstborn, or God chose you to be the firstborn son, or God chose you to be the like. Those are good. That’s part of who they are. Actually, just like being a Christian is part of who they are. Being a daughter or a son is part of who they are. And and I think that it’s good for people to own where God has positioned them, understanding that it also comes with responsibility. Just like God chose you to be a parent, and that comes with responsibility. And it can be a very good thing for them, because it can help prepare them and equip them for the role that they’re going to have later in life.

And so it is a good thing. But you can’t just say, well, you’re the oldest, so and leave it at that. It’s kind of like saying, do as I say. Why? Because I said so. You need to give them the why over and over again so that like they, they understand the why behind it and they’re actually led to have a strong identity in who they are in Christ. Um, but also at the same time, make sure that you offer your oldest the opportunity to express their doubts and their challenges. Because if you do give them that like standard of, hey, you’re really good influence on your older on your younger siblings. And I just really want to thank you for that. They also need to hear you say, but you know what you can always share with me? If you’re struggling with anything, or if you have any doubts, I don’t want you to feel like you have to have it all together all the time. And I just think that there’s something that could be so powerful. I know as a firstborn, I could have benefited from that. Right. Um, and I’m sure that our firstborn probably could have benefited from me saying that more often. But I was really focused on, like, parenting many, many kids. And and so that just as an older mom, that’s just a good reminder to you to take those times to also like, go, hey, you’re human. I get your human, like, share with me, I want to help you. Um, and yeah. Hey.

So good. This episode probably stirred up some emotion. Probably there might be an area that you’re like, we really need to be more courageous in this relationship and how we talk about things, and it’s going to bring up a marriage conversation. It probably needs to happen. And I would just I would just encourage you to pray first. Just pray about it and God will give you wisdom. We’re here to stir up. And hopefully the spirit uses this to stir up whatever needs to be stirred up in you. And and then you and your wife or husband get to make those decisions. And that’s the beauty of it. Because you have a unique family. God made you, the parents and your children who they are and put you all together. And it’s God’s design and it’s beautiful. And so I just want to encourage you, you do have to be courageous, but you’re not alone. You have a all powerful God right there to help you. Thanks for joining us. That’s right.

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

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome to the podcast. So glad you’re here.

Hi, friends.

We’re just diving in, aren’t we, honey?

Oh, we are diving in. You guys were today where we have an important conversation. Some of our most popular podcast episodes are the ones that are like. Why your kids won’t obey you and dealing with disrespect and things like that. And and lying when we talked about lying. How to talk to your child who’s struggling with lying, right? Yeah. Um, another one that comes to mind is don’t be a parent that’s struggling with anger or how to deal with anger as a parent, right? Yeah. So today we’re we’re we’re doing a podcast episode that is on a topic just as relevant as those ones. Um, because if you have a child, that’s why you’d be listening to a parenting podcast. But if you have a child, they’re human, and humans are sinful and selfish at times. And so we are talking about the important conversation around pride and boasting and bragging and self-centeredness.

Really, selfishness and selfishness leads to fighting amongst siblings. It leads to not a peaceful home, and it also leads to a challenge in building friendships down the road. It leads to you know. Well, yeah, it can lead to loneliness too, because people don’t really love hanging out with boastful people.

That’s right. So if you want your child to grow up to be someone who is a part of the member of the body of Christ, for example, um, being a part of the body of Christ, it’s all about putting other people before yourself. That’s part of being a Christian, right? Love your neighbor. Um, treat other people as you would want to be treated. Not. Yeah. So anyway, we’re we’re really diving into this. This is a big topic.

One of the things I think is interesting is when children are really small and young, those things that you see also can be kind of cute and and and and sometimes like.

The self-centered like I’m the center of attention kind of.

Stuff or look at that little boss right there. He’s two years old and he’s like, so confident. Like you can almost it almost looks confident.

He’s talking to people with like, a command kind of voice. Yeah.

But if you just let these things go, they quickly are not cute. No.

Like, you actually just made me remember of an instance where, you know, every parent has seen there’s there’s a kid in every ballet class, there’s a kid on every soccer team, there’s a kid in every insert your experience right where they want to be the center of attention. And they think that they’re doing everything perfect and they’re like, look at me. I am the one in the group, right? And that like, little like, I remember sitting with all the other moms and everyone would be like, wow, she’s so confident and she’s so this, she’s so that. But but really that not discipled will turn into total pride, arrogance, meanness later in life if it’s not pointed in the right direction.

Absolutely. And it really actually comes across people that with experience it comes across as insecure and it comes across as challenging. And so we want our children to mature into being resilient, confident Christians that glorify God but are not. And if they’re resilient, well, pride and arrogance and boastfulness is kind of the opposite of being resilient, actually. Yeah. Because resiliency, which we believe is required in a greater sense in the future, the future they’re launching into resiliency requires a humble attitude, a learning attitude, ability to be flexible, to shift gears, to learn from other people younger, older and their same age to um, to base, base, basically make sure they keep getting the best information versus always thinking they have the best information. And you know, it reminds me of this quote I just in the Resilient Man podcast I shot earlier. But this somebody once said it’s like a bore, talks too much about themselves and a gossip talks about others. And an interesting person talks about ideas and asks questions. I adapted it a little bit. But you know, I think that’s so important. It has to do with this topic because a boastful, prideful person.

Is just going to talk about themselves, or they’re going to potentially talk about others with a prideful attitude of like making other people look bad to make themselves puffed up, which is that what it really is is insecurity and making other people look worse so that they can be puffed up. Right. And that’s so sad. You, you know, I don’t know if just describing these things, you’ve probably even thought of people in your own life that are they tend to be more of the harder people to be around. Right. And the truth is, is we want to learn from that, and we want to teach our kids to learn from that and to learn from the Word of God. And we have a bunch of awesome scriptures that we’re going to share with you today. But before we do, hey, thanks.

For being part of the 10 Million Legacies movement this year. We are excited about the idea of Double Impact vision and we need you to come alongside us. What does that mean? Pray for us that if you just prayed for the ministry and prayed for us and protection over us. And that more people would find the Courageous Parenting Podcast and the Be Courageous ministry site with all the resources. That would be amazing if you could specifically pray to. We feel like the ministry is perfectly positioned and has the biblical resources to plug right into churches to make a massive difference, because one of the places that’s hardest for churches to solve is parenting. It’s hard to have the bandwidth and resources to effectively teach biblical parenting with a lens towards uncertain times. And that’s the core of what this ministry does. Really the core, our passion is evangelism. Yeah. Is evangelism that more people come to know his name. But this ministry has been all about equipping the parents to evangelize their homes and disciple their children. So they send them out to make a difference in his name and then that happens again and again and again, many generations deep. That is the power of this. So less programs for kids, more parents equipping kids.

Amen I love it. I love it when you get fired up. Hey you guys, I just want to also say something. Um, if you didn’t know this, we have a YouTube channel and it’s be courageous right on YouTube. And we would just be so encouraged. It would be incredibly helpful to us if you would just pop over to YouTube and subscribe to our channel. Um, all the podcasts. We are moving them over, right? Isaac. And we’ve been doing some other fun things. They have a section for shorts, so we have some short videos. That’ll be a huge encouragement to you as well. And so please join us over there. We would love to be.

The Resolute Man podcast, courageous Parenting podcast, extra videos in the short videos. That’s right.

So let’s dive in. This is a big topic. But you know, you mentioned selfishness. And really every sin could be narrowed down to that one sin of selfishness. That’s true. Um, and really, you know, that would take us back to the Garden of Eden talking about sin, sin entering the world and this desire that humans have to be like God and to really that’s an arrogant thinking that they could even attain that. Right? Yeah. And the truth is, is that humanity, we live in a fallen world and inhumanity, people do still struggle with that temptation, whether they recognize it or not. So this is the thing is, like, most people can’t see themselves, right? Like when you’re in the midst of sin, unless it’s this, there’s a difference of the sin of omission and sin of commission, right? So there’s like the times where you purposefully intend to sin, where you are doing something you know is wrong and you do it anyway. And and then there’s the other kind of sin where it’s like, maybe you are unknowingly hurting somebody’s feelings by something that you said, right? And needing to. So there’s an offense there and you need to apologize for that or whatever.

And so there’s different types of sin in that regard as far as the person’s conscience. But this is why we need Jesus. This is why our kids need Jesus. Today, though, we want to talk about this aspect of selfishness narrowed down to really it’s it’s again, it’s pride. Um, but boasting, bragging, self-centeredness, thinking too highly of themselves is another like biblical terminology that we’re going to read that scripture in a few minutes. Um, self indulgence. I also think of, right, like, um, people who are just all about indulging the self and they’re not really thinking about other people. This is these are character qualities, actually, if you think about it like is a person giving or are they the type of person that just wants for themselves, like that’s a character issue, right? Um, or a good character quality if they’re servant hearted. And so there’s so many aspects that we could talk about this, but really it it does. It’s all centered around pride and thinking that you deserve the attention or you deserve the best thing, or you’re so deserving of everyone listening to you or getting your own way or not having to give up your thing, right?

I also think it’s a lack of self awareness that parents need to teach their children to lack of knowledge. They may not even understand if they’re little that they’re coming across this way. And so we really want to give you the practical how tos, how to talk to your kids about this in the scriptures to support it.

That’s right. So, um, the other thing we wanted to this is like the big motivator. So obviously like homes and dynamics between your kids. So like, siblings can get really difficult at times when selfishness is involved. Right? It gets loud. It gets loud. People have hurt feelings. Sometimes there’s grudges. Sometimes kids will label other siblings. They’re always this way. Um, we don’t want that sort of. Right. We want to cultivate a home where there is, um, honesty, sharpening one another to grow and become better people, become more like Christ, where we’re giving up ourselves, not pointing towards wanting to indulge ourselves. And so really like these, some of what we’re talking about here, you might be thinking, well, my two year old’s not going to understand that language. And you know, while self indulgence, for example, your child, your two year old might not understand that they’re going to understand if you’re always saying you’re not sharing, that’s selfish. You say that 1020 times. The two and a half year old is going to get it just like that, because they are so smart. And we just want to really encourage you guys to use a biblical vocabulary whenever you have the opportunity. And we talk more about that in the very first live that we do in the Parenting Mentor program, which you can find out more about that at Be Courageous Ministry. Org. You guys, it’s so important that we are are truly discipling our children biblically. And part of that is using a biblical vocabulary. Okay, so Isaac, let’s give these parents signs to watch for. So obviously we’ve talked about not sharing and it’s all about them and it’s theirs and that kind of selfishness. But what are some others.

Well they’re never wrong or they immediately. Um, if somebody says they’re wrong, they immediately defend themselves. That would be an arrogance. Uh, they’re bossy sometimes, you know, the older siblings bossing them around and thinks they’re all that forgets that they once were that age and had some folly in them, too. Um.

Which is really folly in the older sibling not.

Realizing they’re more mature version of folly. Yes. Um, you know, they always want to pick the show. They always want to have control over things. A high controlling attitude, center of attention. Think they’re better than others? Uh. Elitist attitude. Um, you know, look at me. Look at what I did. All these things. Um, this can lead into an overconfidence, in a way. And when they’re older, it’s like, hey, look at me. Oh, they’re looking at me, or I did this or.

Or even craving to be doing things where they’re going to get attention. I think that this is something that parents need to be aware of because we either, um, feed that or we by putting them in the activity or whatever it is, or we can actually teach them something different by pulling them away from that experience. Right. And so I think that there is a time where that might be appropriate if a specific child’s really struggling with pride in that way. Right. Um, there is a.

Balance though, because we do want to build children with self confidence. That’s in humility. It’s okay to be proud of an accomplishment without being prideful. Um, you know, these kinds of things and boasting and, and these. So there’s there’s a nuance there. So I think, I think as parents, we need to just be aware just after this episode, just start being aware of how a personalities are projecting around you. And even if it’s small, if you notice that boastful attitude, it’s good to address it because it’s easier when it’s small and easy rather than when it’s more ugly in their older.

You know, that’s the that’s the thing is that your kids are going to turn into teenagers and then your teenagers are going to grow into adults. And so that’s really like our heart is that it’s so much easier to pull weeds or deal with sin when it’s smaller, when it’s minor, it’s much harder to have those deep conversations with the 20 some year old that’s super prideful, used to being the center of attention, and talks over other people. It’s harder to confront that than it is with the four year old. That’s like, I know you have something important to say, but we want to ask what your brother’s opinion is. Can you be quiet and listen and give him your attention? And so it’s like takes extra effort for parents to really, especially with many children to instill this like care of wanting to hear other people and not always be the one talking. And I think that for big family, like for us, we are a big family, right. And so there’s always going to be a few personalities that are stronger than others, and those ones always have an opinion. And so to with those kids to challenge their strength to be a good leader and be able to listen hard, which is one of your terms that you use with us all the time with the kids and stuff is we want to be better at listening, hard listening, long listening, you know, and teaching those kids that are used to doing all the talking how to listen long because it is harder. It’s harder the older you get to practice. What maybe you were never challenged to practice when you were little on that.

I just have to teach this one thing about personalities. This is very important. There’s some people that believe three seconds is an eternity of a pause, of nobody talking. They physically three seconds a hard time. One. Two. Three. Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. Okay. They have to fill it. They have to fill it like, oh, what? Things are not right right now. I have to fill the silence. Some people it takes four seconds to say their next sentence because they’re thinking for a moment. And so it is really important to teach those people that like to fill the silence to take a break. This episode isn’t necessarily about that, but I thought it was a good point for that.

Yeah. No, it is. It’s it’s a selflessness of being aware of how other people are made differently than you. Yeah. And again, not being selfish and thinking everyone should be like me. Yeah. Why are they not talking? Or maybe they don’t have anything to say. I know that for myself, I tend to be pretty quick. And so especially being married to Isaac, he likes to think deep about things and have deep conversations. And sometimes I give too many details and then he forgets things. But I love that you.

Love to talk, too. I mean, when we’re in social circles, it’s really much nicer for me. I mean, I love to talk, but, you know. Give me some, you know, breaks.

Uh, we’re definitely we’re a good team. But I will say that it is one thing, though, where, like, one one thing I’ve learned as a wife is. And I think that every wife could probably benefit from this, even if they’re more introverted themselves, because women tend to have more words than men. If we’re talking about gender here, this is a true, proven social science thing that women have around 30,000 words a day. Men have around 10,000, right? And on average, that’s kind of what this the studies have shown.

And I always usually get my 10,000 out at work.

That’s right. So then you come home and I’d be like, so how’s your day? He’s like good. And I’m like, tell me everything. That’s not I know.

It’s not an excuse.

No, but you want to honor one another to.

Say the extra words.

But you want to honor one another. So while the man is thinking, use extra words. Try extra hard to describe things to your wife, your.

Best to your family. Not the last, right?

That’s awesome. For wives, my exhortation is have realistic expectations of your husband and don’t expect him to remember every conversation he had that day.

Okay, I thought we were talking about self-centered kids. Let’s get back. I know, I know, all right, so we’ll do that in a marriage episode. But, you.

Know, I do want to just point out why I think it was a really important conversation. Is that, like I just said, your children become teens and then they become adults, and Lord willing, they get married. And so this topic massively impacts their marriage in the future. And all of us want our kids to have a successful biblical marriage. And so truly teaching selflessness is at the heart of one of the main top things we want to disciple our kids in before they leave our home.

Let’s talk about what to teach, what to teach our kids. Okay? Okay. So, uh, one of the things is others before self. So a lot of times when a young child in our home is like, can I be first, can I do this first? Can I pick first all the first things? With all that energy, I remind them that the first shall be last.

Right? We use it all the time.

It is so good. And it’s just like their heart sinks because they know.

Oh, I’m going ninth. Our kids really learn the lesson.

And I just think, you know, little things like that that’s biblically based is the first shall be last. That’s the servant heart none of us should be vying for first. That is a heart posture that is out of whack.

You know, Romans 12 three says, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. And then it continues talking about the the body of Christ and how it’s many members, because this is the part where it’s talking about the different gifts, but our families are actually image bearers of the body of Christ, and our families are where our children learn, first and foremost, how to be a part of a family teaches them how to be a part of the body of Christ, the family of God. And so there is this element where this scripture is so incredibly important as we’re teaching our children to be sober in the judgment of themselves and to not think so highly of themselves, but to think highly of others and to care about others opinions. And really, truly, our families are the starting ground that help them to do that successfully in the church, in work, and in their marriage. Um, so you guys, this is a this is a hard thing. There’s going to be many opportunities as your kids are growing up where you’re going to feel like frustrated, right, where you’ve maybe confronted the exact same sin or the same selfishness a million times. And, and you’re thinking, I’ve been consistent and it’s not working. What would you say to that, Isaac?

I would say, first of all, usually you aren’t as consistent as you believe you are. You’re actually not following through every time. But let’s say you are. Let’s say you really believe you’re consistent and let’s say that’s the case. Then you have to try something different. Sometimes it’s not even just the words, it’s the way you’re saying them. We come across in a way that’s creating an outcome, and we need to think about who the person is we’re having it, who is having a difficult time or we’re having a difficult time with and go, how can I change my approach? I think that’s a valid leadership perspective. To always have is how can I think a little bit more, pray about it and come with a different approach? And sometimes it’s very close to the same words actually, but it’s from a different heart posture within you.

Yeah, sometimes it’s not just in the moment when you’re like, you are going to have the hard conversation with the kiddo and pull them aside. Yep. You have to stop playing. I know it’s so sad. That’s why you’re crying and you’re like, come with mom. You sit down and you go. This isn’t acceptable. How you’re treating your siblings when you’re playing. This isn’t kind. Being willing to take the time to have the conversation with them and go, how would you feel if your brothers were treating you this way? Would you want to keep playing with them? Like, sometimes we have to teach our kids how to have perspective, right? And whereas in the past, maybe you were always like, this is sinful, this is wrong. We don’t treat people this way. Now you’re bringing in a different aspect of like trying to put them in other people’s shoes and recognize how they would feel.

I know our next point is love thy neighbor, right? That principle and all of this just really goes back to the heart. It’s just a it’s a heart condition. So I just want to take a moment and share that. Session three in the Parenting Mentor program is all about the heart or session two, actually, it’s all about the heart. So theology then heart. And just that heart session I believe is transformative. Like the investment of the program is worth it. Just for that. But then you get everything else with it. And I just think it’s so important that we recalibrate and think about, are we really tending to the hearts of our children? Are we going heart deep in our conversations? Are we breaking through the surface level conversations that we might think are deep? But really, there’s a deeper level that needs to be gone? Are we getting to the core of the issue or just handling things with our in in a being annoyed and frustrated, maybe even anger? If we’re not tending the hearts, we have no business correcting our kids.

That’s really what the heart goes. That is. Yeah.

We must have a motivation to get their heart. There’s a heart issue happening, causing them to be boastful, causing them to be selfish, prideful, lying, disobeying whatever it is. And we all have that condition sometimes, don’t we? That’s why we need Jesus, and that’s why we have to wrap all that together in the way we approach our children in correcting them. It is so, so important. And that’s why you need to join us for the next Parenting Mentor program. You really do. There’s only 37 spots left and they’ll fill up, so I hope you get one. Okay. In Philippians, where are we at in Philippians.

Chapter two, verse three.

Verse three, love Philippians. 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.

This is one of the best verses to memorize with your kids, and to use over and over again. Because when a child is struggling with sharing, for example, or maybe they’re struggling, maybe they’re a little bit older and they have a debate partner and they’re working on assigning between the two of them who’s going to be doing what arguments. I’m just using this as an example, and they’ve just got their heart set on, like, I really want to fight this argument. I don’t want to do the rebuttal or whatever it is. They’re just thinking about what they’re passionate about or excited about because they already know something about it. What is the Scripture say? It says do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. Those are two different things. Selfish ambition is like striving to get somewhere and nothing out of selfish conceit, right? Which is that arrogance, that pride. And it literally can hurt other people. We need to teach our kids about that. And I think that when they’re really little, the easiest example is when they’re being selfish and they rip a toy away from another kid, or maybe they don’t want to do something that a sibling or a friend wants to do, and they’re always the leader, or they’re or they’re just never, um, they’re never going to listen to anybody else because they’re just kind of going about things and expecting everybody else to do what they do.

And I think that it’s important that we as parents recognize and we take the rose tinted glasses off because it it takes for parents, especially if it’s not to your other other children. I think that as moms, when we see our kids arguing, it’s easier to recognize the sin if one of our other kids is getting hurt. But if it’s somebody else’s child, sometimes those rose tinted glasses stay on a little too long, if you know what I mean. And I think that what we need to do is recognize how our child is impacting another child’s development, also by their sin. And so I want to stop for a second and put you in the mindset of having a child that maybe is more meek, timid, less likely to lead, and thinking about how maybe they don’t want to exert themselves. Maybe the parents of this child have also taught and and and shared scriptures and really taught them and discipled them on being selfless, on caring about what other people think. But then their best friend has never been.

And so while they’re being challenged to be selfless, the other one is taking advantage of that. Have you ever experienced that situation? I know I have that’s very uncomfortable and very difficult, but it requires us as parents, being bold and trying to encourage our child to also have confidence. And maybe that confidence is that they confront the other child and say, you know what? We’ve been playing what you want to play for the last two hours. Can we play something? I want to play, um, and like teaching them. How do you teach a child this? It’s role playing, having conversations with them, observing again, rose tinted glasses off and asking them, so how was your play time? Oh, I noticed this happened. How did that make you feel? This is going heart deep kinds of questions on your way home where you’re like, I noticed that you kind of looked sad, um, during part of the play date. Why was that? Was was Susie being nice? Were you guys able to play the thing that you, you wanted to play with or to or, you know, just asking good questions to where your child is thinking and they’re not just yes or no kinds of questions.

By the way. You’ve got to get our go heart deep. Uh, download it’s free be courageous ministry.org. Just get on our list. Get that download. It is how to ask three questions deep in the same direction to break through the surface and develop that really deeper conversation and relationship with your children.

Hey, will you guys flip with us to James for a second? Because here’s a couple more verses that we want to share with you, James. Um, chapter four, verse six through 16. I know it’s ten verses, but this is a you can take one verse out of it. Maybe you hear one verse that pertains to one of your kids and. One verse that pertains to another, and you guys just decide to memorize them.

Whenever you say the book of James, I perk up. I’m like, oh goody. Oh yes, I love the book of James. But he gives more grace. Therefore it says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. The wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

This is such a great passage, because if you think about it, it’s talking about, um, well, there’s a lot of things talked about here, but if you have different children, especially if one is struggling with being prideful and not humble, there’s something for them, right? Humble yourselves. Be for the Lord, and he will exalt you. Um, God opposes the proud. Here’s a warning in Scripture for you what will happen if you don’t? Okay, I understand it’s difficult to be humble. I understand it’s difficult to apologize. That’s why we need Jesus. It says right here, submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. This is literally our equation, if you will. If God was a God of equations, it’s giving us instructions to then pass on to our children to teach them what the steps are of how to do that hard thing, of being less selfish and it’s really beautiful because so many of us parents can sometimes feel like we don’t know what to do. What do I tell them, Lord, how do I handle this? Jesus, will you help me? Will you like help prepare their heart because I have a hard word for them, or I want to share this scripture with my child. God can do that work. But we need to be like prepared and we want to help equip you. We want to encourage you with the scriptures that we’ve seen here. This gives us what we should be teaching our kids so they can do it well. So it’s really important. So loving your neighbor, putting others before themselves or what we want to teach. What about encouraging others?

You just did a YouTube video that came out about encouraging others, creating a home that has encouragement in it and so forth, and I thought that was so good. It’s so important. I mean, you know, sometimes you want more of a peaceful home, right? Well, what are you doing to create a encouraging home where people encourage each other, where siblings literally encourage one another? Well, one thing I want to give you is when someone does that, you need to, uh, blow it up. Meaning you need to. You need to make it known. You need to recognize it. So anchor points and behavior anchor the good behavior. Acknowledge it, appreciate it. Let other people know it anytime. Be a good finder. We naturally are bad finders. Okay, so we see the bad. We try and correct it and things like other things. Yeah, you you need to do that. But I would say the the more peaceful homes are the parents that are good finders. Because when you’re a good finder, you see it and you acknowledge it and what gets acknowledged gets repeated. And then other people want to repeat it too, because it feels good and it’s good and it’s great and it’s making the home better. And people acknowledge that. But if a leader doesn’t acknowledge it, it doesn’t get repeated as much. And so be a good finder. Look for those times. They’re good. Also, the challenge of not being a good fighter and just seeing the problems and solving them is now you’re only giving them attention in a deeper way when they’re misbehaving. And so we want to give them a balanced view of themselves too. They’re not always making mistakes, right? And they’re not always good.

So having that balance is super important. We talk about this in parenting mentor program more right. Like where there’s it’s like a teeter totter of needing to be able to both be correcting and pointing out sin and not sweeping things under the carpet because then our kids won’t ever change. They won’t ever see a need for Jesus. They won’t have humility. They will have elitism. They will be center of attention. I’m amazing kind of perspective. And that’s not okay. It’s not biblical and God abhors it. Actually, he opposes the proud. And so instead like but having that balance because parents when they stay over here in the correcting side too long, their homes are just overwhelming. I can’t tell you how many moms come to me saying, I’m just so exhausted. I’m just so burnt out. I’m just so tired of this or that. And part of it is that there’s so much correcting happening and not any like looking for the good, which is so important. I’m really glad that you brought that up. Um, and I think that this is, you know, what you’re talking about too, is what you’re verbalizing, right? How we as parents use the tongue and leading our families and teaching our kids to use their tongues appropriately also, which is in James three verse five, it says, so also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire.

The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire. Listen to this. By hell, you guys. For every kind of beast and bird and reptile and sea creature can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and father, and we curse people who are made in the likeness. Listen, if people are cursing. Other people, it’s because they think too highly of themselves. The real root problem underneath that is like thinking too much of yourself and judging other people and being critical spirit and cursing other people. And so if we don’t want our kids to fall into this kind of sin where they’re struggling with their tongue, and this is a problem all humans have, that’s what the Bible is saying. The first thing is to teach our children to have self control over their tongues, yes, but not to view themselves so amazing and to to to view other people so poorly, but to have sober judgment of ourselves and other humans in a fallen world. Have grace, have love, have kindness, have mercy. That is what we need to be discipling our kids in.

It’s so true. I’ve read the beginning of that many times to the kids at a table, uh, that the tongue is small member that can create a fire and all these things. And that’s such a visual. I mean, children remember things when there’s a visual like that. God knows that. That was so many visuals in the Bible. So it’s such a good tool just to use and share with them. But also, I’ve done things around the table where I’m like, hey, there’s a verse somewhere that talks about walking in love. Oh, hey, hey, Ethan. How how did, uh, hey, everybody, how did Ethan walk in love today.

Mhm mhm.

And you’re getting people to think about how he was loving that day. And of course I would bring that up because I noticed some things and maybe I acknowledged it to him, but I wanted other people to notice too. And also it’s creating a culture. What we talk about career moves the culture in a good direction. There’s always a culture, but if you’re not moving in a direction, it’s just moving backwards. A culture never stays good. It never just stays bad. It’s either getting worse or better. And so really, your family culture is moved by your proactive words you use. So you have to be thoughtful if you’re just always reactive, just correcting. And then oh, here’s dinner and then oh, here’s the next thing. And then okay, it’s bedtime. But there isn’t real leadership of being thoughtful and thinking about how I need to move the culture forward in my home, uh, so that people, uh, are good finders, too. So you’re a good finder, and then you’re creating a bunch of little good finders.

It’s huge. Okay, so here’s another verse for you guys in Second Timothy chapter three. It starts out with but understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. So obviously we believe that end times or the days of end started when Jesus ascended to heaven. Okay. And so back in the disciples day, they thought the end was coming in their lifetime. Everyone who has ever lived thought the end was coming within their lifetime at some point. And so here we are, raising and equipping confident Christian kids for an uncertain world. We want them to be resilient. We want them to be prepared for the times where it’s difficult because it says it will be difficult. How is it going to be difficult? Listen to this for a second. Verse two and think of how every single one of these things in this list comes down to self indulgence. Indulging the flesh, living to satisfy the desires of the flesh. The old self, as God calls them. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Having an appearance of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such people. This is a really powerful word, because every single one of these things can be the root of it.

Could go back to self indulgence, selfishness, the self like. Think of sexual immorality. How selfish is pornography? How selfish, how prideful is living in sexual sin? How prideful is living arrogantly and loving money, and how prideful and like all of this, disobedient to parents being abusive? How prideful is an abuser like literally every single one of these things. So here’s the deal. This is the world that our children launch into, because it’s the world we launched into. There’s going to be continued difficulties throughout history. So how do we best prepare them? Eyes wide open, rose tinted glasses off, recognizing that we have to actually dig in with our kids and we have to confront them when they’re being selfish. We don’t want our kids to be ladies man’s and playing with girls hearts and being a player, as they call it. We don’t want girls to be, um, you know, the wayward woman that are that is flaunting things or being arrogant. Like, think about the way of the world among teenagers today. I’m sorry. Like that whole lie of kids will be kids. Nope, nope. Not having it. So while you see the little. Girl. That’s maybe being sassy to her mom and has her hand on her hip and got her finger up in the air. And it may look cute because she has A22 on and she’s three. Not cute, not laughable. Guys, it takes.

All the years consistently shaping the character of your children. If you make a big difference, you make a massive difference. You are incredibly important. Sometimes it feels like I know that wow, are my words even being heard? Is this going to work? And sometimes it’s just a long game. Sometimes you don’t see it in the short time you’re doing the right things, but you’re going to see it in the long terme, right? Which is so important. So Second Corinthians 1130 says, if I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness the God and Father of the Lord Jesus. He who is blessed forever knows that I am not lying.

This is a big deal. Think about social media for a second. Think about what we all see. We all see a lot of like really glamorous, uh, highlights and not so many realities often. Okay. And the truth is, is there’s boasting in highlights. There’s boasting in and versus like really showing truth. Right. And truth would be a little bit of both. Kind of like we were just talking about being a good finder, but also being honest about things that are a struggle. And I’d like to think that Courageous Parenting Our Ministries is founded on reality. Rose tinted glasses off, talking about hard topics, being honest about the things that we’ve struggled with in the past at times, or we’ve had to walk through, um, and learned sometimes the hard way. Sometimes God is just really gracious to us.

That’s what experience is, right? You’ve learned from your mistakes, right?

But this is the thing. Guys like this concept. Like how many of you guys have known a know it all? A little kid. Like I remember thinking years ago, one of the reasons why I didn’t want to homeschool Isaac is because I didn’t want my kids to become nodals, because I hated all the know it alls in school. It was just like, uh, are you kidding me? The one that’s always raising their hand. Eager, eager, eager Beaver always has the right answer. Changes the curve. All the things you know. And it was just. It was prideful, this incessant, I know everything kind of attitude. And I kind of thought that a lot of homeschoolers were that way. So I was opposed to homeschooling.

Because you were judging the whole I.

Was I know well, God. He he rebuked me, obviously, because I turned towards it. But I will say that when you’re when you’re focused on academics with your kids or you’re pushing your kids towards high standards and high, high standards are good, having good expectations for your kids, that’s good. They need to be striving for excellence. We need to all be doing our best in whatever God’s given us to do. Right? Work heartily as unto the Lord for his glory. Yes, Amen. However, is there an elitism in academia of knowing knowledge and things and thinking you’re better than other people because you do? Do you have an attitude? Or here’s the real question. Maybe you don’t have that attitude, but people perceive you that way because of how you come across. This is incredibly important for everybody to actually ask themselves. I’ve had to ask myself that question before, too, because I tend to love research and I love knowledge and stuff, but sometimes it can be overwhelming to people.

Well, hey, if you love this episode, please share it. It helps the Double Impact mission. Give it a review! We’d love to hear from you a comment on Apple or wherever you listen, and definitely subscribe to the YouTube channel that helps us with some important goals that we have that unlock some tools at YouTube. We need more people there, so we just appreciate you being part of the ministry and listening today.

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

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

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

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

If you’re interested in joining our next online Parenting Mentor program, secure your spot now at Be Courageous Ministry. Org that’s Be Courageous Ministry org.

 

• Private Group for Christian Moms with weekly lives with Angie tolpin
• Weekly podcast Q&A with episode behind the scenes content. Just type in your question!
• Exclusive biblical resources such as the Courageous Marriage and Redeeming Childbirth series.
• Exclusive access to the courageous kid’s podcast. Play it for your kids to stir up good discussions.
• Monthly LIVE Q&A with the Tolpins; ask the anything.
• Powerful Biblically minded community.
• Topic-based discussion groups.
• You get your own profile and can connect with others.
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All Ministry Resources: becourageousministry.org

Our Courses

• Parenting Mentor Program, self-paced online program that equips you to biblically parent during unprecedented times.
• The Homeschooling Blueprint, the online program to boost your effectiveness & help your kids thrive.
• Postpartum Course, The First-Ever Christian Postpartum Course.
• Cultivating Biblical Friendships  The course that helps women build lasting Godly friendships.

• Financial Giving, is important to support our family and expand the impact of the ministry. We aim to impact 10 million  legacies. We are in full-time ministry as a large family, so everything makes a difference. 

Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 10 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript:

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

• Private Group for Christian Moms with weekly lives with Angie tolpin
• Weekly podcast Q&A with episode behind the scenes content. Just type in your question!
• Exclusive biblical resources such as the Courageous Marriage and Redeeming Childbirth series.
• Exclusive access to the courageous kid’s podcast. Play it for your kids to stir up good discussions.
• Monthly LIVE Q&A with the Tolpins; ask the anything.
• Powerful Biblically minded community.
• Topic-based discussion groups.
• You get your own profile and can connect with others.
• Growing libraries of LIVE replays

All Ministry Resources: becourageousministry.org

Our Courses

• Parenting Mentor Program, self-paced online program that equips you to biblically parent during unprecedented times.
• The Homeschooling Blueprint, the online program to boost your effectiveness & help your kids thrive.
• Postpartum Course, The First-Ever Christian Postpartum Course.
• Cultivating Biblical Friendships  The course that helps women build lasting Godly friendships.

• Financial Giving, is important to support our family and expand the impact of the ministry. We aim to impact 10 million  legacies. We are in full-time ministry as a large family, so everything makes a difference. 

Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 10 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, welcome to the podcast everyone. We’re so glad to be here, especially after vacation. Right?

I know this is the first podcast back. Oh, I’m so excited for this new season that we’re in. Yeah.

Season six, can you believe it? Episode 281 crazy. Never missed a week since started. Praise the Lord. We hope that is what continues. Yeah that’s.

Right. So you guys today we’re talking about a really important topic influences in your kids lives. Um, we’re talking about equipping kids for bad peer influences. Um, I, you know, this is a big conversation we’re going to keep try to keep it succinct, right. We’re going to try to keep it to 30 minutes today or less. And we’re he laughs because none of them.

Are I told her, you know, if we’re going to be 30 minutes, it’s got to be three scriptures.

I have for for.

Okay, we’ll see. Miracles do happen.

That’s right. No, but we you guys we want to keep it, um, relevant to you. But we also, you know, us. We’re always trying to stay as biblical as possible. And sometimes there’s too many Bible verses to share.

I think there’s a certain group of people that appreciate that.

Yeah, probably the like minded moms like me.

And then there’s a really busy moms that are like, well, it was a little long.

Yeah, just get it out. Get it out. All right. So, you know, obviously bad influences are inevitable. Um, the Bible talks about that. Um, the very first verse we’re going to keep it real short is first Corinthians 1533, which is actually quoting the Old Testament says, do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Obviously, if God put that Bible verse in the Bible, it’s because it’s a it’s a warning because it happens. Bad company ruins good morals. That happens to people. We’re all influenceable.

I would say that’s happening more than parents having strong influence with their children that are Christians.

Yeah, like if you to evaluate bad influences having impact on what kids believe. I mean, it just parents having influence on what kids believe. I mean.

Let’s just be really honest. If you look at the stats, 70 to 80% of the Christian kids leaving the church by age 18, then what does that mean? Somebody is influencing children more than their parents are towards waywardness. And what is that someone? It is likely usually peer influences.

It has to.

Be.

Yes. Or even just uh, teacher influences also that. Right. Which, you know, this is the thing though is we were talking about this, this is the reason why this is such a big topic is because of what is being taught, even in schools, to other children who are then your kids peers. Right. So there’s also this peer influence of um, doc, false teaching, um, confusion of what to believe and what convictions to hold tight to or not to. Um, and the reality is, is that, you know, when kids go to school, for example, and they’re spending between 30 and 38 hours a week with peers and teachers and a curriculum that maybe is not as like minded as parents would like to think they are. Um, and a lot of parents send their kids to school thinking they’re just learning math and English and grammar and that sort of thing. But the truth is, they’re not just learning that. Um, and so recognizing like, okay, so if my kids are spending this many hours learning this, but then how many hours am I honestly teaching them doctrine, teaching them what the Bible says about how we’re supposed to live as Christians? You can’t even compare the two, right?

This is such an important topic, important topic, and it’s nuanced school, right? So we’re not going to answer every detailed question about it, but we will give you things that help you think about your situation. And let’s just talk about a few situations. You might be living in a neighborhood. There might be neighbor kids that always want to play with your kids and so forth. There might be, uh, you know, cousins in the family. There might be, uh, people at, um, at church, even at.

Church, not like minded or kids that are coming to youth group who are not from Christian homes, but they’re coming because they were invited or.

Education settings, even even homeschooling parents are a lot of times putting their kids into, um, hybrid situations where they homeschool, but they have they go one day a week or something like that, charter school and don’t, you know, don’t let your guard down just because something’s Christian and kids are getting together and it seems better than something else you chose, then it doesn’t mean it’s better. It doesn’t mean actually the peer influences are better when no one’s looking. So you have to be vigilant to do the things we’re talking about that equip your children, you know? And in business. What do they teach? They teach, uh, you know, teach a man to fish and he’ll be taken care of. I forget the saying, right. But I think parents that just isolate and don’t equip is like, is like not teaching a man to fish, instead just just giving him what he needs, giving him the fish. But then when you’re gone, he still doesn’t know how to fish. And I think that’s the children that are isolated and raised up in a way where they’re not truly discipled and equipped situationally, even with these situations. Then they watch from the home and they get swayed by peers.

They they flounder because they don’t know what to do. When someone is standing up for their belief that opposes their personal belief and they’re kind of at a crossroad, they’re like, well, I don’t really like conflict. Or is it really Jesus like to argue? They don’t really know quite how to handle things. Right. And so, you know, today we want to talk about like teaching your kids what it means to stand firm, having conversation, conversations with your children, um, and even sharing Scripture verses about what God actually wants of his people, what he has laid out in the Bible as exhortation and teaching regarding how to handle relationships, where people are walking in darkness and recognizing that, like, there’s a difference here between friendship and fellowship and evangelism.

And, you know, this is really cool because if you have some fears in this area, um, you will start to fear less the more you equip your children. Like, I’m not fearful in this area at all. No one is. God tells us not to fear. But the truth is, fear is a human emotion and we all feel sometimes. But so? So that’s God, but also decisions we’re making, like what we’re doing with our children, makes me not fear that.

Well, it’s because it’s like this, right? So we understand that our children are not ours and that they’re actually God’s. Yes. But we also recognize that he gave us a responsibility to raise them up in the way they should go. And believing God’s promise that when they’re old, they won’t turn away from it. Right. Like recognizing that that’s a promise from the Lord. If we’re faithful in the young years and teaching them the way they should go, and because we’re doing all we can to fulfill our responsibility, we like we work hard at it. Yes. Does that mean we’re perfect? No. I literally in the last few days have been evaluating different curriculums and different things I’ve come to. How many times have I come to you? It’s been awesome and I but I’ve come to Isaac going, I think I need the kids to stay home for ten more years. I have so much that I want to teach them. There’s so many cool books that I want to read and discuss with the with the boys who are teenagers. We’re not going to do that. We’re not going to do that. But I but do you get the point? Like there’s always more that we can do as parents, we are by far meeting all of even our own expectations or dreams or desires for what we’re equipping our kids with. However, we’re doing the most important part, which is discipleship and teaching them how to go to the word themselves and teaching them and facilitating and introducing them. More to this, to Jesus. And, you know, the boys, we have teenage boys right now, um, and one teenage daughter, and they all have personal relationships with God. And that is beautiful. That’s their responsibility. And, and but at the same time, as parents, we still have a jurisdiction. But also it’s a delight and a joy to have conversations with them about God. Right?

It is. It really is.

It really is. And when you do that, then it makes it easier for you to trust God because you know, well, I’ve done all I have the capacity to do. So the only thing left is to trust God when they launch, right? Yeah. But if you’re not doing your jurisdiction and you’re not equipping your children, you’re not having hard conversations with them and and talking about the realities of the world, then they’re not going to be prepared. And then you could struggle with anxiety and overwhelm as a parent, if you.

Did exit interviews with all the children that walked away from the church at age 18, I think you would find that parents were often oblivious of where, um, bad company ruined good morals.

Or the doubts that their kids had, and then left them floundering to figure it out on their own. And then they went to peers and got led astray. Yeah, right.

And, you know, it’s it’s over. Delegation of discipleship. It’s, uh, it’s did did you have their hearts in the teenage years because of, you know, really cultivating that? There’s other episodes about that, but it’s also important we’re going to dive in. We have four main points here. We’re going to do rapid fire okay. So but but before we do I got to say one thing is thanks so much for helping the ministry this year. We have a special vision of Double Impact, and there’s so many people that have raised their hand and said, I’m in, I’m praying for you and we thank you so much. We need the prayer. Uh, there’s targets on your back. Anytime you’re leaning in strongly and trying to impact people with the gospel and, um, you know, evangelism. And this is, uh, this ministry is all about evangelism because we’re helping parents evangelize their children. That’s the mission. And and the goal is 10 million legacies. So double impact vision this year is super. Exciting. And you know, we also appreciate all those that share when you share on social media. It makes a huge difference when you share anywhere, when you share with your church. If you’ve gone through the Parenting Mentor program and you share that with leaders in your church and you’re like, hey, let’s do this. It’s hard for a church to have a ministry to parents. It’s I’ve never seen it in a church. Uh, done.

Really seen them go through a book before.

But this is, like, amazing. And there’s a really streamlined way now for churches to do that and obviously individuals to do that. And a lot of times it takes individuals doing it first in the church, and then they spread that with the church. But raising your hand doing that, that helps so much. Uh, giving financially, um, is huge. We we did a fundraiser and we have a ways to go, but we’re so thankful for everybody that raised their hand and said, I’m in in this way. And if, if, if the spirit prompts you go to be courageous Ministry org and you can hit the give button there. Um, all resources to are free that we talk about, uh, you know, with regarding the podcast uh at courageous Parenting.com so you can get all the show notes, scriptures, and we’re on YouTube. So make sure, by the way, this episode, we would love to hear your thoughts. Youtube is such a cool place for us to share together, because you can write comments and we can like it, and we can write comments back, and our commitment is to do that on YouTube. Be courageous. Ministry on YouTube has both podcasts Resolute Man and Courageous Parenting.

Yes, that’s very different than like when people review the podcast on Apple, which we super appreciate. Super, very encouraging. But it’s not really a platform where you do like dialogue back and forth. And so that is the unique aspect of this podcast. Like, you know, we have all the show notes on the that are available at the courageous Parenting.com and Be Courageous ministry. Org. But also that’s a different place. It’s not really a dialogue place. Youtube is where that’s at. Yeah.

So go subscribe there. Hey let’s dive into this okay.

So we already mentioned that there’s a difference between fellowship and friendship right. So that’s one category. And then there’s evangelism. So there’s like different types of friends. And so I think that this is like number one thing that you know, if you when you start having kids and they’re starting to get like age six, age seven, age eight, where you start teaching them verbally, cognitively the importance of choosing wise friends. Obviously, when your kids are really little, you’re the main, um, chooser of the friends. I’m just gonna that’s the best way to say it. You’re the biggest influence you you know, usually people become friends with other parents, and then those kids become friends with your kids. That’s kind of how it works when your kids are really little under age five, six. And then as they start getting involved in more activities, they start getting introduced to more people. Maybe you live in a neighborhood and they start being able to play outside. Your kids are going to come across this, um, dilemma slash great experience called making friends, choosing Friends. And as Christian parents, we need to stand up, raise our hands, go. Okay. Yes to God. I’m gonna say yes to God, and I’m going to teach my kids that they have to choose good friends, that this is a responsibility, that they have to choose good friends.

And part of that is identifying and teaching your kids that there’s that. Some people believe in Jesus and some people don’t believe in Jesus. And I would say that’s like the most foundational way to put it with your younger children. There are people who believe in Jesus, who believe in the Bible like we do, and there are people who believe many different things, and we can love those people. But the purpose for being in their lives is actually something called evangelism, and that is the purpose of those relationships. The purpose is not friendship, the purpose is not fellowship. It’s not going to them for wisdom. It’s not building deep relationships where you’re best friends. It’s evangelism. That’s the purpose. And then you teach what evangelism is. It’s that the whole point that God put them in your life is that you would be a light to them, that you would teach them about God, that you would love them and show them God’s way. That’s the purpose.

And I think the caveat there is they’re building a relationship with them, but there’s a boundary around it where the child understands they’re not going to be a super close friend. They run the race with and fanning the flames, because really, their whole mindset is different when they’re not a believer, especially during these times where there’s a stark difference in lifestyles and what people believe in.

Oh, 100%. And so it’s like, this is a perfect conversation for many people regarding their neighbors, actually, because they may have kids that live next door, but maybe they have are are confused about different things. Right. And you’re trying to navigate okay, so how can we be loving? We can smile at them. We can ride bikes with them.

Hang on. I don’t know what happened.

So this conversation is super relevant for people who have neighbors who are not necessarily Christians. Um, because as parents, we want to be or as neighbors, we want to love our neighbor as ourselves. Absolutely. God’s word says that we’re to love our neighbors, but also when we look at what the collective purpose is for all Christians, we need to recognize we’re trying to teach that to our kids. And one way we do that is through what we model, right? So are we going to provide a meal for our neighbors if we find out that their family is sick? Yeah, that would be a loving thing to do. That would be very different than the world that is so busy and caught up in their own self that they don’t take time to love their neighbor. What about if you’re mowing your lawn and your neighbor hasn’t had a chance to? Or maybe they broke their ankle or something and you just mow their lawn too, or you bring their garbage cans in when you bring your garbage cans in. There are many servant oriented things that you can do that would be loving to show love to your neighbors, smiling, being kind, being nice. But there’s also this element of like as a parent being really realistic of how close you allow people in your inner circle, if you will, as far as their influence on your children. And you know, the Bible is really clear and gives us a lot of warnings. It’s not just about, um, bad morals. Isaac. You have one.

Yeah. It’s in, uh, second Corinthians 614. It says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Yeah. I mean, this verse too, like a lot of people will use the unequally yoked as talking about marriage, right? Relationships. And and it is that is applicable to that. But I also think this is applicable to like business partnerships. Yeah, it’s applicable to any kind of deep friendship or commitment to one another. Right. Like and so the reality is, is that God gives us real warnings. But he also says, hey, listen, you are human, you are influenceable. And as parents, we need to have realistic expectations on our kids, recognizing that they are very impressionable. The younger they are, the more impressionable they are. Their worldview is going to be formed somewhere by the time they’re 7 or 8 years old. So we definitely want to be careful about the influences that we allow in our child’s lives. But then beyond that, we want to also and during that time, we want to be training them to have a biblical perspective on the fallen world, be able to love people, but also know what the Bible says and what God calls his people to, so that they can stand firm and be a light. And the truth is, is you know what? What is the collective call that we all have as Christians to be missionaries wherever we are? That’s right. Right. The Great Commission. But in this, a lot of parents will say, hey, yeah, but my kids, you know, kids are little. Are they truly ready to be sharing the gospel? Are they equipped to be missionaries? So I think.

A good question to ask is how’s your discipleship going of your children? And if you expect them to be lights, but your discipleship of your children in your home, the stuff you’re doing, not somebody else, is not strong, how are they to be lights, you know, and are you having conversations? Take a step further. If do you have the kind of relationship with your children where they talk about their interactions with the peers and the real nature of them? And do you have situational coaching happening of how to approach that differently next time to stand firm? And what’s a biblical take on that and these kinds of things? And I would say if you’re not having situational conversations that are really real and you’re not, your discipleship of your children in your home is not strong, then how in the world could we expect our children to stand firm in the faith amongst peers?

Well, especially if they don’t know what they believe or they don’t know what the Bible says about certain topics that they’re going to get challenged on. Right. And so that’s that whole conversation about salt and light. Um, as far as like them being a missionary in the public schools, for example, that’s definitely an argument I hear a lot. And while we’re not going to dive into that too much, I think that it’s really important that we recognize as parents, we have a responsibility to evaluate and have realistic expectations on our kids based upon what we do know they know, first of all, and also like, are they a leader or a follower? Like being honest about that and going, hey, are they more prone to kind of hush up and and not not really defend?

I want to speak to that for a second because you’re talking about are they naturally in their normal, in their personality, in, in how God made them more of someone that is in the forefront and gregarious and leading and confident in that way, and someone that’s more laid back and maybe doesn’t talk as much. And it kind of allows people to lead them. And both are awesome. God made. Them the way they are. But what I will say is, regardless of which way they are. They can all become strong and lead in the situations where they need to.

That’s right when it comes to biblical truth.

But it takes a lot of discipleship and conversations about coaching. Really. Coaching?

Yeah, yeah. Teaching your kids and and like you were saying, role playing. Um, but you know, what does the Bible say about fellowship with darkness? We just talked about that for a second.

Ephesians five eight through one. Yeah. Ephesians five eight through one says, for, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

You know, it’s interesting we use that part of that verse last week in our conversation just because.

It’s an important.

Time. Well, it’s because of the times that we’re in. Right? Yeah. And like understanding that we need to be aware and alert. Well, as parents, part of our jurisdiction is also teaching our kids how to be aware and alert and be able to discern what is darkness and what is light. And that comes from having a biblical standard of righteousness.

Well, let me give you an example. How about swearing? Let’s just take swearing, for example, because, you know, there’s people out there. If you’ve ever listened to certain podcasts, especially guys, if you listen to some business podcasts and things like that, there’s people swearing sometimes and, you know, so you might not think it’s a big deal, but the Bible actually says it’s a big deal, says it’s a deal. Yeah, actually it’s a deal for believers. At least we’re not to have filthy filthy language.

Mhm. Well and it’s actually a fruit of what is inside.

And do we expect that. Is that a standard. And our, do our children know that, you know bullying and unfruitful language. And these kinds of things are worthy of talking to you about. They won’t know that unless you teach them that that’s actually wrong. And when they’re swearing, Isaac, they’re swearing everywhere. Yeah. But does that.

Mean it’s okay?

It doesn’t mean God loves it.

No, it actually he doesn’t. No he doesn’t. It’s not righteous. It’s. And he says be holy because I’m holy.

Now we we’re not in a position where we think we’re better because we don’t use filthy language. Not at all. We’re not like on some pedestal here, but we do need to teach our children. Otherwise they’re going to adopt ungodly ways of being. And all it takes is a few ungodly ways of being that further leads to more and more waywardness down the road. So why would you not teach your children that that small thing, it actually in comparison to other things is a small thing, but we should be teaching them those things so that they know to come talk to us when those things happen. And it’s not that we’re going to say you can’t hang out with somebody anymore because they do that. It’s it’s to not go along, to get along in those moments when they are doing that. Don’t laugh at the language that incorporated the swearing. Instead, make a point not to laugh.

You know, I just even think about like, what kinds of shows people are watching and different things like that. Like, do you have a standard? Do your kids have a standard? Do they understand why there’s a standard of wanting to protect themselves from watching things that are really of darkness, or are filled with filth and sin? And the important aspect to this is that you have to equip your kids when they’re young, so that when they’re older and they’re teenagers and they are desiring to be more independent and they’re practicing making decisions themselves, they have a conviction, right? Their faith has to be their own to where they have a conviction, and they understand the why behind why they were told not to do that. And they have that same belief in that conviction. Right. It’s the difference is, is the parent that says, don’t watch that. Why? Because I said so. And the parent that says, we’re not going to watch that because this is in it. And this is what the Bible says about that specific sin. And we don’t want to be supporting that. We don’t want to expose ourselves to that. We don’t want to be tempted into that. And and what we’re doing as Christians, you teach your kids what we’re doing is we’re going to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, and we’re going to try to fill ourselves up with goodness, not things that are of evil. And like modeling that over and over and over again with your kids is really important because they are going to be in situations where they’re tempted by peers to watch something that isn’t necessarily something that’s a family standard. And hey, give your kids permission to throw you under the bus and say, hey, my mom and dad just wouldn’t appreciate that, and I’m going to honor my parents if that they can. Our kids know they can do that, but what we would hope is that they get to the place where they have their own spiritual conviction, where they’re like, you know what? I just don’t want to do that because that’s just not fruitful.

Or hey, let’s.

Spiritually, like God’s Word says this, like you would hope that. They would get to the point where they know the Bible well enough, or they have a verse memorized where they can share that with a friend, where they have that kind of relationship, where they can stand firm in a biblical stance. But until they get to that place where they have that kind of confidence to be able to share that and look someone in the eye, they give them other things that they can do to.

Yeah, yeah. It’s so important if someone’s getting bullied, if they’re, you know, stealing something even treats that the parents at the friend’s house don’t, you know, didn’t want them to have anything that is off little things. Because once they get used to little things with those friends, it grows into bigger things.

Say, it’s like if they’re over at a friend’s house and they witness a kid appear being disrespectful to their parents or disobeying their parents over and over and over again, that can be influential in a kid’s life when they come home to your home. We all have experienced something like that before. Does that mean that you don’t let that kid your child play with that kid anymore? That’s what you’re all thinking, right? And most of you have probably made the decision based upon the age of your child. No, we don’t need that in our life. We can. We have plenty of other friends, you know, and I will say, I have made that decision many times in the past, and I still probably will in the future because I have young children. But there comes a it really depends on the age. And I think there comes a time where your kids, if they truly have a heart for God and they are seeing that they’re either going to confront the kid and then the kid’s going to change, or they’re not going to want to be friends with your child anymore. That’s one scenario. Or your own child might go, you know what? I just don’t really want to hang out with them anymore. The more your child gets discipled and experiences God and grows in their relationship with the Lord, the less they are going to desire the things that are of the world. And that includes peer influences. So really like the best thing that we could be doing as parents is discipling our children.

Yeah, hands down knowledge of God pointing them to God, sharing the miracles of God, even the small ones. When God shows up and does something. I just shared one this morning actually at the morning breakfast. It’s private. I’m not going to share it with you, but, uh, but yeah, very, very cool, uh, how God has showed up in something and I’m being obedient even in even kind of against my flesh.

Yeah. So we have another Bible verse that we want to talk to you about in regards to your kids. I kind of mentioned it earlier, but it’s Matthew chapter five, 13 and 14. It says you’re the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. Okay. That’s super.

That reminds me of a Reagan speech. Actually, a city on a hill. I’m talking about America. Well, he was.

Quoting scripture, but he was anyways. So 14 you are a light of the world. As a city on a hill cannot be hidden. There it is. And nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your father who is in heaven, not to you, to your father who is in heaven. And then it continues on. You guys, this is such a good passage of Scripture to be reading to your kids regularly. Like often I’m thinking, I’m going to go read this to Solomon and Eli right now, actually, as soon as we’re done with the podcast, because, um, it goes along with that song, um, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it. All right, all right. Well. But, like, listen, when the kids are little, you start out with that song. It’s a catchy tune, and it teaches your kids. Like, if you sing the song with them, that’s great, because they’ll help write the Word of God on their heart. But. But do you explain what that song is and teach your kids? Like, this is part of why we’re in the world to let our light shine. We’re not in the world to keep our light under a bushel. No, we don’t let Satan f it out. We, you know these. This is an exhortation for us as adults. If we’re not living our lives in such a way where we’re modeling this, where we’re standing firm in the faith, and we’re willing to say, you know what? I disagree with that. That’s not okay. Here’s, you know, I think that’s huge. It is.

Huge. I have a little warning for everybody. All of this is good. But if you don’t also teach that we are all fallen, that we all need a savior, though we all need Jesus because we all sin if we don’t teach that God, all people are God’s children. Um, if we don’t teach that perspective, then elitism can grow in your family and that you never want to have happen. Now, if you’re living righteously and training up your kids and you don’t have elitism in your family, some people will still think you do. Because naturally, when you don’t do something that’s happening over here, sometimes you persecute that. But my warning to you is make sure that they have a biblical perspective on human beings, which is that we all need Jesus, and Jesus came for all. This is such an important topic, but I just wanted to take a moment to share two compelling things that are happening. One is the Be Courageous app. It’s been around for a couple of years, but there’s something really radical and awesome happening. Just in the last few weeks, over 100 people have joined the app, and I think part of that is that there’s so much like minded community there and exclusive resources. One of the things that’s happening is the heart of the home series. That is Angie’s original content, mixed with biblical truth and backed by biblical truth and dialogue and engagement with other ladies that are in there. And it’s just so neat to hear about women posting pictures of snacking on the Bible in the midst of their busy day because of one of the sessions and so forth. And so I know that you’re doing this ongoing. We’ve already you’ve already picked out the ten sessions that we’re.

Starting with.

And all replays are available forever. And that’s just part of it, you know, including the marriage series. That’s six hours worth of content that Angie and I did together. That’s in the marriage group. Um, and it’s just such. So check that out and if you would like, um, if you need help with it, if you want a month for free instead of the week, it gives you a week free. But if you need a month to really check it out and the finances are tight, email me Isaac at Courageous Parenting.com. You know.

And while you’re in there too, one of the things that we’ve also loved is being able to do the Courageous Parenting Mentor program it’s in. We also have a group that’s there in the courageous app that’s private. And, you know, I don’t know if you guys know this, but every two weeks ish, because we do these programs, we have been doing these 90 minute lives where it’s 60 minutes of unique teaching on a specific topic that we’ve actually not done a podcast episode on, which is crazy, right? God is so good. But then we do these 30 minute Q and A’s at the end, and we every time there’s at least 1 to 2 questions that we’ve never gotten before, which has been really encouraging for us because it helps us with knowing what’s relevant, what people are dealing with today. And we get to dive into that even more. Sometimes we’ll we’ll use those questions as inspiration for these podcasts. So we just love that you guys are connecting with us. I want to say thank you to that and invite you guys to join us and find out more about that at Be Courageous Ministry. Org. So let’s.

Get back to the.

Episode. So our final word is in second Timothy chapter four. Verse two says preach the word. Preach the word. We are to preach the word, but we have to teach our kids how to preach the word so that they can do the evangelism part to the people who would be the considered the the peer influencers that we wouldn’t necessarily want them to be around. But it says be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but have itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. Listen. As for you, always be sober minded. Endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry.

I have a weird thought. You know, the first, uh, the first. I think this is true for my memory. The first book I’ve read to somebody else out loud was my Own Children. Pretty sure that’s true. You may.

Have quoted on stage two, other people have.

Quoted. I’ve given speeches and things like, but actually reading a book out loud and making it sound interesting, at least trying because it probably wasn’t very good at it at first, I remember. Yeah, but I think that that is I just bring that up because it said preach the Word. The Bible just told us to do something. And do you feel adequate and capable to preach the word? It’s not telling you you need to be a pastor. You need to be a bishop or an elder, which are the same thing or a, you know, some kind of leader in that capacity to be able to preach the word. The Bible was given to us, to all of us, to be able so we could preach the word most importantly to our children. And so what are you going to do with that now that you’re hearing that in this podcast? What if you’re somebody who doesn’t feel capable of that? Well, what? God ask us to do something. If some of his people weren’t capable of doing it.

No. He made us all capable to be able to preach the word. That’s why he told us all to do it. But I also think of the other part of that scripture that was talking about there would be a time when people will find doctrines that are itching to their ears, and they’ll they’ll find themselves wandering off into myths. That is totally we live in that day and age. That day has been here for thousands of years all over the world. It keeps happening over and over. It’s happening and it’s going to continue to happen. Which means we as parents have to be realistic about the fallen world we live in, recognizing that there are going to be peers that fall for those. Itching ear, wayward philosophies and teachings, and they’re going to potentially be introduced to our kids. They’re going to play soccer or they’re going to meet them rock climbing or whatever it is. And the truth is, though, is is your kid educated enough? Have they been preached to, taught, rebuked, exhorted, discipled to be able to discern and recognize when there’s an itching ear kind of doctrine, if you will? And are they also going to be willing to go, hey, I, I don’t agree with that. You know, I believe what the Bible says.

So let’s just do a quick review. I think that’s important. Right? So are the peer influences Christians? If they’re not? The goal is evangelism. Have you taught your children the difference between really running the race with other believers that you can trust and those that you’re building relationships with? But the purpose is to share the gospel with them, okay? And to love them and serve them. Do they know how to share the gospel and do they know how to share that? So the kinds of relationships they want to have, right. That’s really important. Are we do we have open communication with them and are we cultivating that where they’re sharing back with us Intel about the things happening in their peer relationships, so that you can coach them on how to do that? Even better. Have you opened that up? Have you talked about that? And the third thing is, are you discipling them, or are your expectations of them being a light because they they express faith in Jesus and they’ve been baptized, but there’s been no discipleship other than youth programs. What are you thinking. Mhm. Like they need to be taught over and over again. And there needs to be situational dialogue about situations. And they need to grow strong in their faith and these kinds of things. And if your children are not believers themselves then you’ve got to be careful because they can’t do some of those steps yet, right?

In which case then you need to step in and you need to say, hey, I don’t think this is a good friend for you and teaching them why biblically. And you know, this, that’s that’s the hard part in parenting is sometimes you have to set boundaries. Sometimes you have to say no to things. And so you need to be realistic about where your kid is at. You need to be praying for them. You need to pray for wisdom, but you also need to teach them the importance of choosing good friends and the distinction between when it’s a friend that they’re leading to the Lord, and when it’s a friend that they can trust who is like minded.

And a beautiful answer for this, by the way, just came to my mind is the Parent Team Mentor program. If you have not gone through that yet, that is such an essential thing for understanding it. Not so much for what we share, but for what the Bible shares. We’re literally obviously, we’re taking biblical truth. Our experience of, you know, 23 years of parenting, uh, nine kids, ages 2 to 23 right now, grandparents. So we don’t have every wisdom, but we do have some wisdom. And God has called us to put this thing together that has impacted thousands of parents to have a different legacy that are intentional Christians. If you’re listening and you consider yourself an intentional Christian, that’s who we made this for. It’s it’s to actually enable you to disciple and to do these things in and point your kids to Jesus in a really authentic, ongoing, daily way. You know.

I love that we call it mentor program because we really have said yes to being mentors, to these families, to these couples, as we’re going through and doing the lives and the Q and A’s, and they have access to messaging us in the app while they’re in there with us. But really, we’re discipling you and how to disciple your kids. Yeah, really. That’s like the heart. And I think that what’s really cool about it is the fruit that has come out of it in marriages, too. So I hope you guys will consider joining us. Find out more about it at Be Courageous Ministry. Org, thanks.

For joining us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

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

Hey guys.

An unusual episode. We do this once a year.

I know last year when we did the predictions for 2023, right. That was a really fun. We actually got a lot of people commenting that they really enjoyed that.

Yeah, and it’s not just about predictions. It’s like, okay, what’s happening? What are the trends of what’s happening and what’s how are we as Christians to respond to this and live in a quip or children or marriages? That’s right. How are we to live in these times of accelerated change, these unprecedented times where there’s challenges?

Well, and this is a parenting podcast. And so there is this for us, for Isaac and I, as parents of nine kids, we want to be realists. You know, I think that there’s it’s important that we are realistic and honest about the things that are happening in the world so that we can make wise decisions moving forward as we’re seeking guidance from the Lord based upon the reality that we’re living in.

I mean, if you’re teaching your kids how to play a game, for example, you want to know how the game works, right? And what the rules are and and what’s happening. Right. So if you’re teaching a game, then you know how to equip them for that game. But if the game is rapidly changing.

Or the rules are constantly changing.

As a parent, as their guidance person, you’re not understanding of the changes. You may not be preparing them to thrive.

To play well in.

The game and play well. That’s right. And while biblical truth never changes and with Bible says and what God has us to do and operate. The world is changing and we need to know how to equip our children for that world to.

Be able to navigate and thrive, right, while also continuing to live in a way that is glorifying to the Lord. Okay, so this is a unique year because it’s an election year. The last time we saw an election year was in 2020, and we definitely saw all kinds of things happening. That was the year of the pandemic, and there was a push for vaccinations that created division among the churches, among the body of Christ. People were choosing not to continue going to churches based upon political stance, all the things. Right. And it was a huge year. So here we are again in 2024. It’s an election year. Well, it’s a.

Big deal because, you know, if the liberals from from from the Democrat elite’s point of view is if they don’t win, then there could be a swing back against all of their momentum to change the world, all of their momentum to completely, yeah, transform America. And you see with the open borders, all the things you probably know about, but there’s this effort to completely transform the world and America, and you have to transform America to transform the world. So they have to.

Change the demographics they’ve been working on, that they’ve been changing the voter demographics through immigration and other things, um, here in America. So it’s obviously going to affect the election, the election.

And, you know, there’s no way to it looks like it’s a challenging proposition for the conservatives to fix how the election works, like voter machines, the mail in ballots, all these things are being addressed. But in from what I can see, it looks like that’s not likely to get resolved in time for this election. And so there’s a lot of things that are in play to cause the Democrats to win, even if the even if most people, you know, don’t want, say, Biden to win or something like that, whoever, you might not even be Biden, it might be Newsome. Or there’s even talk of Michelle Obama and some weird things like that that they put in place to run against what appears to be Trump. He’s by far and wide the front runner at this point. So and so because.

Of that, because he’s a forerunner. What do you think is what are we going to be seeing this next year as far as distractions? And.

Well, I just think whatever it takes, I mean, that’s what we need to be prepared for. I can’t think pinpoint it, but it’s going to be if you put yourself in their shoes, it’s going to be a whatever it takes kind of effort. And we know they’ll go beyond the boundaries of the law and all these kinds of things lacking integrity to, uh, you know, get rid of Trump and to make sure they win. Because this agenda is far beyond America. This is a whoever the deep state are or whatever. It’s this global agenda. So, you know, it’s really interesting year. We’re not to operate in fear, but it’s good to kind of know about these things and go, okay, they’re going to do whatever they can to take Trump out and win this thing, even though they have somebody in office that they literally have to hold up. So and I don’t mean that from a I’m not trying to be mean to somebody. I’m just that’s true. So yeah. Um, so the election year brings a lot of interesting things. And then and on top of that, um, oh, by the way, you know, you just look at the, the, the some of the elites out there and what’s happening with Epstein stuff and what’s happening and things that are coming to light. You know, if if Trump gets in office, there are people that are going to go to jail. There’s elite people that are so much is going to get exposed. And so that’s why I really believe there’s going to be a whatever it takes kind of mindset to.

Towards not letting him get in office. Then they know there’s going to be accountability for them. And so whoever. Yeah, yeah. And whoever I mean as far as like the Christian who’s sitting there in their home right now, maybe they’re listening. Their kids are in the background doing homeschool or they’re playing on the rug and moms are listening. They’re like, yeah, this is going to be kind of a weird year. I, we want to bring this up to you, not to cause any kind of anxiety or anything like that. It’s it’s kind of like what Isaac was describing previously about when you’re teaching your kids a game and you’re teaching them how to play the game, you’re teaching them what the rules are, what the instructions are, you’re teaching them strategy. You’re you’re kind of sitting beside them and you’re teaching them well, isn’t that what we’re doing as parents when we’re discipling our kids and equipping them to be ready for life? For in life is not a game. So how much more important is it? Right. And and so for us, when we’re looking at what’s happening politically in the world, that’s just one aspect. Then there’s this element of what’s happening spiritually in the world, right? Which we’ll talk about in just a second. But the two actually impact one another in a sense, because when there is a political when politics is like a highlight in the. Here, you definitely see people rising up and speaking biblical truth, but you also see people. You see the opposite, right? You see the spiritual, um, the the antagonist rising up, if you will, and the enemy spewing lies and different things like that. And sometimes it can be hard to, to discern what is actual truth, which is what I remember 20, 20 like. There was even Christians who were getting led astray by myths and different things. Right? And and we as Christians need we want to just exhort you guys to stand firm in biblical truth and not be led astray by wayward philosophies of the day.

So, you know, it really is it. You make a such a good point. It really is a spiritual battle that. But it’s more overt than we’ve ever seen. That’s why some people, you’re almost going to feel like it’s a little bit crazy. I think a word for this year, it might be, wow, things are getting really crazy. And I think that.

What’s accepted in today is crazy.

Yeah, even compared to what we’ve seen already. Uh, and so it’s because the spiritual battle there is the enemy is fully revealing himself and orchestrating. I don’t think there’s any you know, when we say deep state in these kinds of things, there are leaders trying to move things, but the level at which everything is happening is spiritual. Only, um, demonic forces could orchestrate that and connect the dots, because we.

Haven’t even, like, talked about how that was also, the year in 2020 was the year where we started realizing there was like an agenda for compliance, an agenda for this and for that. And then there’s an attack on children and, and this like, gender confusion agenda that’s being taught in schools. And there’s, there’s literally so many things that we could mention.

It’d be hard for one little group to, to orchestrate all of these things happening around the world. There is orchestration by humans, but it’s it’s working simultaneously together with others they’re not orchestrating with because there’s a spiritual force. The good news is, God is all powerful. You know that. And we can rest assured in his goodness and his power. But while we’re on earth, these things are happening. There’s pains, um, birth pains. Right? The Bible talks about birth pains during end times, uh, that we’re living through right now. So I actually think it’s fascinating times. I actually think it’s the greatest time to be alive, because this is when God has called us and your children to be alive. So we’re not to operate in fear, but we do need to kind of think about these things. And so we might see some weirdness, uh, during this election year. But also let’s talk about the economy this year. Um, you know, the economy is weirdly strong. And now I know, you know, the price of food, Isaac, is so high inflation and these kinds of things, when I say it’s so strong, I say it’s so strong because I think it actually is way worse than it’s demonstrating it to be. Um, meaning that, um, the real estate, for example, is holding so strong. Um, there’s a lot of things, but I think it this year there’s going to be an unraveling in many ways to think that there’s always opportunity in economies. But, um, it’s really interesting, but it’ll be propped up a bit because of election year again, because they’ll want to make Biden, um, look good. So probably we can anticipate some rate drops this year and help real estate do well. Anything they can do to prop up the economy and make it look good. But when they prop it up, it doesn’t mean it is good.

Yeah, I just even think of the other day I was noticing that gas prices had kind of gone down a they’ve gone down from where they were a few months after Biden took office. They skyrocketed into the fives here in Idaho. And now they’re like in the threes. Right. And so it’s still not as low as they were with the previous administration, but they’re lower the lowest that they’ve been with this administration. And I can’t help but think oh it’s an election year. They’re trying to win votes. Like I just I think of many different things. But there’s also this element of being aware that, you know, I’m sure that there is a fear that they’re going to lose office. Right. And so like what you’re saying is that they’re going to try anything to hold the economy and keep it looking strong. It could be a facade, but looking strong throughout the year. And what’s interesting about that is if the Democrats do lose office, then when the economy does crumble, who are they going to blame it on? They’re going to blame it on the next administration because it’s likely going you can only hold something up for so long, right? Yeah. And so it’s really sad. Yeah.

So the economy’s going to be interesting wars. You know let’s talk about that for a second. You know there’s when when this Israel thing started breaking out and you start seeing the countries involved, uh, and you look at who’s helping who. Russia, these alliances China, Syria, Syria, Iran, uh, Libya, I believe, uh, Turkey, you know, and then you read in Ezekiel 38 and other places in the Bible about the war of Gog and Magog. And you can’t help but notice that when you really look at what countries they’re talking about, there it is exactly. These countries that are forming an alliance against the people. Of God. Why do I say people of God? Because in the Bible, the Israelites are God’s chosen people, right? And and so here they are coming against. And I think that, you know, it’s very interesting if it is the biblical prophecy before our eyes materializing or just setting up the stage, we’re going to see more of this this year whenever the big thing happens. The war of Gog and Magog like, accelerates at some point. What’s really fascinating is God helps Israel win the war. I mean, fireballs come down from heaven. As I read in my Bible, I know it’s the same one as yours. So? So you know, that is wild. That is a wild thing to think about. So just to think that we may be living in times where the beginning of this is happening is kind of intriguing. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens this year. With that, of course, war is sad, uh, on all accounts, loss of life and the tragedy and so forth. But it is kind of fascinating to see what’s going on. I hope that boy, isn’t it remarkable what happened the last three years around the world in terms of wars and rumors of wars it talks about in Matthew. We’re going to live in times of wars and rumors of wars.

The thing is that this is not the first time that there have been wars or rumors. Rumors of wars, the birth pains, if you’ve ever I mean, obviously, if you’re a parent, you’ve gone through, well, maybe not if you’ve adopted, maybe you haven’t had birth pains, but they do come and go. The contractions come and grow, and then you get into a time of transition and then you move forward towards actually birthing the baby. There’s pushing all those things. It’s much more intense. And so birth pains, though, for one woman, could be a couple hours, birth pains for another could be days and days and days, you know, so equivalent as far as like what is happening in the world end times. Well, we know when Jesus left and he and he said, hey, lo, I’ll be with you always to the end of age, that was really the mark of when end times would begin. And none of us are going to know when the end end is coming. But we get to experience this season, like you said, that God put us in. And so for parents who are listening, I just want to my tender mama heart and knowing how it can be a challenge for people to feel overwhelmed, to feel anxious, um, and, you know, I’ve even had thoughts where it’s like, well, I have all these teenage boys and, you know, the threat of war in the future, um, just praying for God’s protection over them that they wouldn’t have to go to war and things like that.

It’s a very personal thing when you have older sons and you’re thinking about that. And I’ve already been prayerfully preparing my heart to give my boys back to the Lord, fully knowing that whatever God has for them to do, whether it be war or not, war, he’s got them and they’re his. And so I just I want to share Ephesians chapter six with you guys, um, briefly, because this is really what our response should be to the reality of all these things that we’re we’re sharing with you guys and just bringing up here that are going to be strange this year. Right. But what should our focus be on? Our focus should be on the Lord. It should be on equipping our children, not blindsiding and ignoring the reality. The reality is what actually humbles us to be on our knees crying out to God. So I just shared something that was really powerful with you that like I as a mom, don’t want to see my sons have to go to war. Does that reality of the future take me to a position of action though? 100%. So ignoring that that could be a possibility then would lead me to a place of inaction in my walk with God and in my prayer life. And so the realities that we’re bringing to you are not coming to you from a heart of like, we really hope that people are paying attention and leave it at that.

That’s not the point. The whole point is when we see the realities of what are happening in the world, we’re able to better teach our children a biblical perspective on a fallen world and their generation. Specifically, how else can you equip a generation to be prepared to launch into their generation, into the fallen world? You can’t do that if you’re not operating in reality with a biblical lens. Here’s the other aspect. We need to be people of action. And action does not always have to look the same as a brother or sister that we see on social media, picketing and doing the front lines. For the mom who has the little kids, you need to be on your knees praying for your brothers and sisters in Christ who are on the front lines. You need to be on your knees praying for your kids, because your kids might be the ones who are on the front lines, or you might be there in 20 years. Prayer is action. It is the best weapon that we have in this fallen world. And God gives us the armor. It says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual.

Forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand firm. Stand therefore fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and the shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace, I want peace. You guys, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith. It says in all circumstances take up the shield of faith, not just when you’re at war. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, not just when you’re in a trial, not just when inflation is high and all circumstances take up the shield of faith. And it just continues on the helmet of salvation, it says, take up the shield of faith, which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take on the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God. Here we are, verse 18, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that the words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. And then just last words for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

I just love her love of the Word of God, and it just comes through every time she shares Scripture. It’s so good! Thanks, honey. It’s so awesome.

But I just like when I read this, I literally go look at that. God’s saying, put on all these things in all circumstances. But then he wraps it up saying, pray. Yeah, that’s our action. Mom’s like, for those of us who are we? We go through this list and we’re sharing with people what to expect. Like pray about these things. Praise God that you know more now. Yeah, so that you can pray.

Absolutely. So good. So freedom of speech. You know, I think it’s interesting to see what happened to Twitter. Um, and just the exposure of how government was involved in suppressing speech, especially during the last election and these kinds of things. So that’s already been exposed. So it’ll be interesting to see how they try and suppress freedom of speech or collude with different platforms in this coming election. Or maybe it’s harder now because Elon bought Twitter or X and now he is very pro freedom of speech and I appreciate that. So you know what’s interesting I think that was a big move. And so there’s some bright spots right there. Uh wow. There’s there’s now a platform that’s the most popular platform for political discussion and things like that is X. And you know, it’s relatively free. Right? There’s probably the freest place that’s big like that to to talk about things. And so that’s really neat. And you know I think that’s helpful. But I think we’re going to see obviously they’re going to try and suppress freedom of speech. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I remember last time even our posts and things like that got more censored. And conservatives felt that across the board. So, you know, that could happen again potentially on the different platforms. Yeah.

Um, well, and I will say too, this is an invitation for you guys to join us in the Be Courageous app because I, I truly am just kind of I’ve been disappointed on being on other social media platforms, largely haven’t really felt the the need to put energy there simply because of the censorship. It’s so incredibly discouraging. And so when you know, when you’re trying to be a light, but then a couple hundred people see your post instead of the few thousand, it’s it’s discouraging.

30,000.

Yeah, yeah, 36,000. So I mean, it’s like an obvious shadow banning, if you will, or censorship. And so, you know, that’s one of the things we love about the Be Courageous app. There’s no algorithms, there’s no censorship.

And so somebody posts it, you see it. Everybody gets to see what people are posting and what’s happening. And it’s lift each other up in prayer believers. And yeah, it’s it’s becoming really, really effective. I’m glad you’re enjoying it, honey. It’s good to see you so involved.

It’s it’s better than what I have experienced in the past with other social media by the way.

I would just say, you know, with freedom of speech potentially being challenged this year, more on platforms and things like that, I think it’s important you’re on our email list, so make sure you get on it. There’s some free things you’ll get to like, otherwise.

You might not hear from.

Us. Go Heart deep that new download of how to communicate with your kids three questions deep. Make sure you get that at courageous Parenting.com or Be Courageous ministry.org.

So let’s talk about the next thing on the list, which.

Is artificial intelligence. This is a big deal. So this is a big deal. And at the beginning I said appreciate the good. Well there is some good meaning that there are some efficiencies that are created with artificial intelligence. The truth is, before it became widespread, popular in a big discussion the beginning of this year. And we did talk about it in this podcast a year ago, right at the beginning of the more awareness of it. Artificial intelligence has been around a little while and before this year, but this year really went mainstream, starting with ChatGPT and then others in Google and everybody that’s. On. Uh, even Elon Musk launched his. And there’s so much out there. The acceleration of it. So I was listening to this interview with Elon was interesting because his kids were climbing around him. I appreciate that he doesn’t care that there’s kid noises around him when he’s on an interview with the millions of people here. I think that’s anyways, that was one thing I noticed. Um, but the but the second thing I noticed, he was talking about AI in the future of it, and he said, I’ve never seen anything grow as fast as AI has grown, meaning the amount of money going into it and the adoption and these things, it’s unheard of compared to any other technology ever before it. And he was talking about, I forget what they’re called, but these rooms, these buildings, really, uh, server buildings that are just for AI and processing data and for AI machines and so forth. And he said that these mega, these mega infrastructure pieces, um, all, all it takes and he was talking about the ones already being built, were built around all over the world.

And he said, it just takes two of those two of those mega ones to enable AI to process all human data that ever existed. Okay. So I just want you to make sure you heard that. So basically pretty quickly and this is already happening, I can process every bit of knowledge, anything ever done in human history. And and so the challenge that was they brought up an interesting challenge, which is how do we give AI more data so that it can make progress. And I thought that was interesting. So then they started talking about synthetic data. And it’s really kind of fascinating to to think about this. But there’s something called um, I think it’s AGI. Uh, anyways, I can’t think of it. Uh, I think it’s AGI. It’s, it’s basically where, uh, AI turns into, like, human intelligence and it’s it’s where they can I can perceive things. I can make decisions more like humans can and these kinds of things. So, and make inferences and read between the lines and all these beautiful things that humans only can do, um, are potentially becoming possible with AI. Not quite yet, but that is where it’s going. And I don’t like that. I don’t know if you like that or not. Probably not, but I don’t think that’s good. I don’t think it’s good for humanity. While there’s some efficiencies with AI, we’ll never use AI to write content or anything like that. That’s our promise to you. But I think that what it was is interesting is the plagiarism. What is interesting is what’s going to happen. There’s already been lawsuits, um.

College students that have tried to or.

Though the AI, these AI companies have used knowledge from people that have written literary works, and then that’s caused plagiarism out in the road, somebody out there using things, and the AI writes out something that was someone else’s in these kinds of things, and there’s proof that, you know, they fed it at the beginning, these people’s works. So it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. Um, you know, what does plagiarism mean?

Well, I looked up the definition. It says the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own. Um, another definition was just plagiarism is the act of taking a person’s original work and presenting it as if it was your own idea. Um, it’s not it’s interesting because in the States, there’s definitely been lawsuits about plagiarism. It’s been a thing. Right? Um, I think for the Christian, though, this is really a moral issue. And I think that for homeschool parents, I want to just ping you guys for a moment. This is an important thing that we teach our kids. Um, I remember growing up in public school, it was definitely something that professors were a stickler on. They were very careful. Even if you were doing a report and you were sourcing, you were putting citing sources. You had to cite them correctly and give credit where credit was due. Which makes me think of the Hebrews verse giving honor where honors due, giving respect where respect is due, giving credit where credit is due. This is an integral issue among Christians. And it’s interesting because like, I’ll even like be perusing through some of the books that I’ve read many, many years ago. Right. And I’ll see like a, a chapter title of something where I’m literally like, oh my goodness, another person made their entire, like, platform based upon that chapter’s title and somebody else’s book, and they have a whole writing on it, and you’re like, wow, they teach almost verbatim from somebody else’s book. And this is really an important thing because this is a matter of integrity. And if we’re not living it accurately as Christians, then how are our kids going to act?

I think the lines definitely have been blurred and people’s beliefs about it have been blurred. You’re just looked up. What the definition. I just.

Literally looked up the.

Definition. You know, even integral people, uh, don’t always agree with those definitions. I know that I’ve heard those conversations and. And it’s like, because it’s talking about ideas to somebody’s ideas and then bringing forth that idea as your own.

Well, what’s interesting about it is it, you know, I think now people get there’s so much information, right? We’re we’re past the age of information now. It’s like information overload or something. Right. But to the point where, like, people will be learning things and they can’t remember where they learned it from, right? So then they just like change a few of the words and they go, they call it good, right? Oh no, it’s my idea. I changed the words. I didn’t say it exactly. I changed the prepositions. And it’s like, no, that is lacking integrity. So as Christians, you know, using I, there’s an element there where we really need to evaluate, is this an integral thing depending on what you’re using it for?

And even if I came up with original content that wasn’t you, you’re like, wait a minute, you can’t put your fed at the prompts. I came up with the thought process to give the technology the prompts, and the prompts wrote it and I put my name on it. I go, I don’t know. I mean, I’m just giving you an example of how the lines have been blurred and how strange this is. And we’re going to go in. The other thing with AI that’s interesting is we’re going to go into a future, and this has to do with equipping your children right now. Would you say what you see online, like on social media and stuff, is people’s real lives for the most part or or just maybe the highlights? Usually it’s just the highlights, right? Yeah. And so now with with AI it’s going to become more fake. You’re going to what we see out there online. It’s not just the digital space. Yes is going because literally it’s going to get so good. I mean it is already so good where one of the biggest problems right now, I don’t know if you knew this is fake boyfriends and fake girlfriends, uh, that are AI and they’re communicating and adapting. The AI is adapting communication based on the preferences of this person and all these things, which is.

The data that’s been accumulated from watching someone social.

This is a major issue. And the repercussions of just that or any of these other things. The issues with it are huge. Now we is AI going to slow down or stop? No, no. So so we need to understand this is a reality of where things are going.

And as a parent, we need to have this conversation with our teenage kids, with our older kids, so that they don’t fall prey or victim to something like this. Right? Yeah. Where it’s like a fake person on the internet trying to get information from them. Well scam.

Them. Yeah. And there’s the deep fake problem which will grow, which is, you know, they can create videos of anybody’s image that looks perfectly real, saying things in their voice that looks perfectly real. And so I don’t fear that. And we’re out there, right? Yeah. But I don’t fear it because, you know, I believe we’re building, you know, your reputation could get tarnished by somebody. But let your life tarnish. They’re tarnishing.

Yeah, I love it. Yes.

Okay. So if you are living rightly and if people know you and you have a reputation that is different than somebody talking bad about you or I talking bad about you in the future or these kinds of things, then people are going to go, what? So let your real life tarnish the bad speaker about you without you even having to do anything. That’s how we’re to live our lives. That’s how we’re to do things online. That’s how ministry should be done. That’s how business should be done, is let your life speak for itself.

That’s right. And don’t listen to gossips, because that would be the other side of it. Yeah.

Also, it’s such a divisive thing. But this episode isn’t about gossip.

No, but.

You know, eventually I might be the worst gossips.

I know that’s what got me thinking about it. So, you know, I think that, you know, how does this relate to us as parents? Obviously, as your kids are getting older and they’re potentially, you know, dating for the purpose of marriage, there’s really no other way for me to put it. I hate that terminology of dating, but I’m also not in the courtship ring of things either. But you guys get where I’m saying, like, it’s important that we teach our kids what’s happening with AI because it could actually affect them, especially if they are on social media. So how do you raise your kids equipped to be able to navigate this world? Well guess what? The social world is not going anywhere. Ai is not going anywhere. And so preparing yourself a little bit ahead of time is not a bad thing right now. What are you going to do when you get off this podcast? You’re probably going to go, I need to pray. I really need to pray about these things. Awesome. If this podcast gets you to pray more, then we’ve done our job.

Yeah, and we don’t want AI to do too much for our kids. So the way they stop thinking and they stop making connections in the brain that, you know, that happen when people actually write their own works and speak their own things and do their own things in that way. Yeah, we don’t want to lose our brains and feed AI with synthetic data that becomes smarter than humans, and we’re becoming dumber. That doesn’t sound great, but I do believe I can create efficiencies and helpful, but it also can replace jobs and the integrity of work, and to where socialism has to come in and people have to be given money by the government. These are all thoughts they’ve already thought of and are already talking about and planning for. So this isn’t off the wall.

They’re indoctrinating the next generation in as well, just so you know.

So so we okay, so the next point is we have to be.

Woo hoo! I’m so happy to be alive.

No, but we do. We need to be optimistic and have joy in our hearts and understand this. So we have to get good at not just stuffing our head under the pillow, but understanding reality so we can equip our children, make good decisions preemptively. Because the faster things change, the earlier you need to make decisions to respond to that change so your family thrive. So we need to be proactive thinkers. We have to be visionaries. If you’re a parent, you have to have vision. It’s very important to think ahead and things like that. But we often also need to be optimistic. I do think these are fascinating times. This is an exciting time to be alive because we get to navigate this as Christians. We get to dive in. There’s going to be an increase in reading the Bible because we’re going to need it more than ever. I think that’s a positive. There’s going to be an increase in people being in real local community because they understand they need it more than ever. Things have been so easy in America compared to the history of the world and the rest of the world, that in in America, we’re going to be forced into a reality that has some good outcomes of it, which is real godliness, real community, real discipleship of our children versus just delegating it and, and to, to more surface level things.

It’s super, super important. So we need to deal in reality but be optimistic at the same time. How do you do that? Use cling to God. You grow your relationship with God. You grow your marriage relationship. So where it’s battle tested and it’s ready to withstand anything that comes your way, you operate in wisdom. You get wisdom. You equip your children. Take the parenting mentor program. It’s essential you get, uh, you get local. You start. If there’s a blackout, that means there’s no electricity. You can’t go anywhere. Uh, most likely, then, uh, certain kind of blackout. Right? Then, um, you know what matters to you all of a sudden? The people you can walk to. Right? And so think about that. Are you in a place where you would want to walk to people, where you are building community, or you could.

Write, like I just even think about, would they recognize you? Or would they think that you’re just some average Joe on the road and be like, why are they coming here and be scared, right? Like, I think that there’s a need. It’s a necessity to be familiar with your neighbors.

And the reason I mentioned this is because, you know, the World Economic Forum prophesied about the Covid thing happening before it happened.

You mean they leaked it? Just kidding.

And, uh, the other thing that hasn’t happened yet that they said that is going to likely happen is a virus on the Internet of Things, which would include, you know, a blackout of the internet, likely, and an electrical grid blackout and these kinds of things. Um, the reason this is not to stoke fear, these are literally things that they’ve said have happened. We might need to listen to things they think are going to happen because they maybe there’s elements of them that are creating these things, but it’s it’s important to think about, you know, okay, what if that does happen? Well, the more you’ve thought about it and done a little prep work and thought about this a little bit, the more confident you are. And so I think that as accelerated change happens, it’s important that we’re not living in a way where everything that changes becomes a surprise to us. We do need to think ahead because then we understand how to make good decisions. In Matthew 633 it says, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all things. All these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. And so we are to trust God. We’re to operate in his strength and his wisdom. He is an Almighty God that loves us and loves your children and loves your spouse, loves the family, loves marriage, he created marriage. And so all of this is good and we can rest in that. But at the same time, he gave us responsibilities and those responsibilities we need to take action on. And part of it is to be aware so we can make good decisions.

Well, yeah, I mean, even just reading in Ephesians six it said, be aware. That was literally the verbiage. Be aware. Another part of Scripture says be alert, right. Um, you can’t expose the evil like we were reading about if you don’t know about the evil. So we have to have our eyes wide open so that we can be discerning so that we can be wise and recognize that there are schemes by the enemy, and to pray and to trust the Lord. And I know it’s easy to say, but harder to do at times. But, you know, as this next year rolls around, we’re really excited also about 2024, because it’s going to be a year of growth. Whenever there is any kind of challenge, whenever there’s any kind of like needing to discern things, if you run towards God and you run towards His Word, you’re going to grow in knowledge of His Word. You’re going to grow in spiritual maturity. You’re going to grow. Interest of him. Imagine if this year’s if you were to pick a word and your word was just growth, meaning growing in all ways possible in your relationship with God, then it’d be a really rad year.

It’s gonna be it’s a good year, great year. It’s going to be a good year. Let’s grow stronger in the Lord and let’s equip our children, uh, by discipling them most importantly, and loving them and building stronger relationships with them as well.

That’s right. See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening. And being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement, go to Be Courageous Ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

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

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

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