Fathering Our Future

Our values establish our passions and our priorities. Our kids should be very high on our list of values which should create a subsequent effect; a value of ourselves as fathers. We cannot claim to have a value of our kids if we do not choose to value ourselves because our kids need us. I want you to know your worth and I want you to start investing in yourself.

If you have ever dealt with stress and anxiety you know what it is like to not know what day it is or what happened last week. Time flies and we do not remember it. Gratitude is the remedy to that side-effect of anxiety. Gratitude frames our perspective for the day and prepares us for whatever might come our way. I want to share some of the benefits of gratitude and what it will do for you.

Being a man of your word is an idea that has been branded into us. We strive for that and we certainly should. However, we often struggle to do this in our homes, specifically with our children. You might not think that is the case, but I believe there are two areas we often jeopardize our word with our children. Let's think about what we say, be in control of ourselves, and truly be men of our word with the ones we love most.

One of the greatest things we can focus on as dads is our personal integrity. Are we being the dads we need to be? Are we committed to our family above everything else? Are we consistent in our character? These are questions we should strive to live out a "yes" for. If we do, then we have no excuses when it comes to being who God has designed us to be as dads. Let's stop trying to find excuses for why we can't and start putting in the work to fulfill the call.

We all mess up, make mistakes, and fail. As much as we try not to, it is inevitable. Knowing that we are going to make mistakes, the most important thing for us is to know what to do with those mistakes. Recently, I had a bad day as a dad. I want to share some details from that day and what I do with failures. We cannot run from them. We must face them because when we face them, we have an opportunity to learn and grow.

As a dad, I understand how easy it is to get tied up in your kids. Our kids are dependent upon us and they require our focused attention. We can have the tendency to get so caught up in being a dad that we forget about the other person in our family, our wife. As leaders in our home, we cannot allow our kids to get in the way of our marriage. If we understand God's design for marriage, we will become better men and better fathers, but we have to make sure we value our wives above our kids.

Communication is vital in life. It is a means of building trust and trust gives us a foundation for relationship. Lenora Edwards, a Speech Language Pathologist, joins me to talk about addressing issues in our children's speech, as well as providing some insight on how we can improve our own.

Everyone loves a good story of hope, but those stories usually start out pretty rough. Doug Norvell grew up not knowing his biological father. He struggled with feelings of abandonment and the idea that he was not loved. However, he still felt the need to find his dad. Doug shares his story on the podcast and how reuniting with his dad was one of the greatest things that happened to him.

We function in a world of societal norms. Too many people see the things they are supposed to do or supposed to become and then fixate on those things. We chase the outcome with no context or understanding of the process. When people pursue the outcome, circumventing the process, they never arrive at the outcome. 

Just because you are "technically" a dad does not mean you get to bypass the process. The process we need to obsess over is relationship. Without a relationship with your kids, you aren't truly a dad. It is time for us to stop chasing the outcome, the status quo, and to start focusing on relationship.

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God is the greatest example we as dads can follow. I recently realized that God is an initiator. He does things first and so should we. I want to encourage you to be an initiator and give you a few areas you need to make sure you are making the first steps in.