The NXR Podcast - CONFERENCE - Children As Artillery - Pastor C.R. Wiley

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00:00:16 and gospel of Jesus Christ. Help us press forward the crown rights of King Jesus by leaving us a

00:00:23 five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks. That's why I named my book

00:00:29 after this conference. Anyway, it's really marvelous to be here. It's great to be with

00:00:36 Joel and Jared and to be with you too. And, you know, I was actually given the title for this

00:00:43 talk. That's often the way it works. I did a talk at the University of Idaho entitled Toxic

00:00:50 Matriarchy, and people thought that was my idea. I actually said, we want you to do a talk, but it

00:00:54 must be called Toxic Matriarchy. So I said, okay, I'll roll with it. Children as Artillery is the 1.00

00:01:02 title of this talk. And, you know, honestly, when I heard the title, immediately what came to my

00:01:10 mind was Circus Tense, you know, and the guy who gets in the cannon, you know, the human cannonball,

00:01:15 you know, and a shot across, you know, all three rings of the circus and lands in a net.

00:01:20 I also thought of what brought this, another thing that came to mind was Super Dave Osborne.

00:01:25 Does anybody remember Super Dave?

00:01:27 You know, the ne'er-do-well daredevil who dies in every stunt, you know, and just somehow

00:01:33 comes back next week for another show.

00:01:35 And then I thought about my time at Harvard Divinity School and the quest to expunge from

00:01:42 the hymnal anything that sounds militaristic.

00:01:45 I don't know if you were aware of this, but once upon a time in the good old days, before they got to pronouns, they were trying to get out hymns about Christian soldiers and stuff like that.

00:02:00 So those were the things that came to mind.

00:02:01 But above all, I thought about Immanuel Kant and the Categorical Imperative.

00:02:07 Now, I know that the rest of you probably also thought about Immanuel Kant and the Categorical Imperative.

00:02:11 so I should probably explain why this came to mind. Now, this isn't a course in modern philosophy

00:02:18 or deontological ethics, but aren't you glad? But anyway, it's good to be acquainted with what's

00:02:26 gone on in modern philosophy because it has influenced our world in ways that are hard

00:02:34 to appreciate. I know it's a lot of fun to make fun of ivory tower academics because it's easy

00:02:41 for us to more or less write them off as irrelevant and out of touch with the real world. The problem

00:02:46 with that is they're not interested in the world as it is now. They have an influence on the world

00:02:54 far after they're dead, and the influence that Immanuel Kant has exercised on our world is hard

00:03:02 to, I think, for many people to appreciate. Here's an easy, I think, illustration of the point.

00:03:09 Karl Marx. Karl Marx has made a difference in your life. He really has. A bad one, but he has

00:03:18 influenced your life. And first came Immanuel Kant, then came Marx. You could say that there is a

00:03:28 thread of influence there, but I'm not going to explore that. But when it comes to the categorical

00:03:33 imperative, it's been formulated in three ways. So the categorical imperative is something that

00:03:39 Kant developed in order to have a framework for talking about living well and living ethically.

00:03:49 And there are three formulations of the imperative, but the one that I think applies to children as

00:03:55 artillery is this one. Treat humanity in every case as an end in themselves, never as a means

00:04:04 only. Children as artillery seems to violate this. The idea that, you know, we're using our children

00:04:13 as a means to an end would seem to be something that Immanuel Kant would have a problem with.

00:04:20 But the thing to keep in mind is even Kant qualified his statement with the word only.

00:04:27 We're never ends exclusively.

00:04:30 We are also means.

00:04:33 Ends and means.

00:04:34 And when we think about ends and means, when we talk about means, many times we're referring

00:04:40 to the ordinary means of grace, preaching, sacraments, so forth, when it comes to proclaiming

00:04:48 the gospel and encouraging people to grow in grace. But the end, of course, is something that

00:04:54 we're aiming at. That's the target. The end is the target. It's the purpose. It's the telos. It's the

00:05:00 goal. It's perfection. Now, one of the things, though, that we see in our world today is that

00:05:06 when it comes to thinking about children and ends and means, there's a lot of confusion.

00:05:14 and one of the things that I think we see happening with particularly with parents is that

00:05:20 parents have come to see the objective of parenting as being the happiness of the child

00:05:27 that's the end that's the thing that we're all supposed to be shooting for when we think about

00:05:34 children and you know how it goes if you watch you know some daytime television you know you'll

00:05:39 hear parents when they're talking about their children say, I just want him or her or it or

00:05:46 whatever to be happy. Happy is the goal. Then if you were to ask the follow-up question, which I

00:05:53 think is a good thing to do but never seems to happen, and ask those folks to define happiness,

00:05:59 they have no clue. Basically, happiness, if they kind of sum it up in any way at all,

00:06:05 sounds like something Oprah Winfrey would say. I just want, you know, kind of a general feeling

00:06:11 of sort of self-satisfaction and pleasure to kind of characterize the life of my child. And that's

00:06:18 it. Whatever makes that happen is what I want for him or her or it or whatever. Now, what these

00:06:27 folks fail to appreciate is that very often people need to feel useful to be happy. Have you ever

00:06:35 noticed that about yourself? If you felt useless, was that like an epiphany? Wow, I'm useless.

00:06:43 I feel great. No. Often you need to be able to do something for others and even for yourself 0.84

00:06:52 if you're going to have a sense that your life has purpose. And that, of course, is pretty important

00:07:00 when it comes to the subject of happiness. Now, what I want to think about with you at this point

00:07:04 is this theme, children as artillery, and how that's actually a good way to make your children

00:07:10 feel happy, to help them see themselves and think of themselves as artillery. Now one of my favorite

00:07:17 psalms, it's already been quoted, Jared mentioned it, the 127th psalm, where we're told that children

00:07:25 are a heritage from the Lord, that's important, but we're also told that children are like arrows

00:07:30 in the hands of a warrior. That's the fourth verse. So you quoted the third verse, that's the

00:07:34 fourth verse. This is where we get, you know, the term quiverful. The quiverful movement is something

00:07:41 that swept through certain, you know, sort of parts of the evangelical world a little while

00:07:50 back. Now, when we think about arrows, of course, arrows are for shooting. That's what they're made

00:07:57 for. Arrows have no choice in the matter. We don't ask arrows about their thoughts on the subject.

00:08:05 We just shoot them. Arrows are for shooting. And I know that sounds militaristic, and it is.

00:08:13 But I think at this point, bringing back Immanuel Kant, a common objection to the matter of a given

00:08:24 purpose for anything, really, is that all given purposes are illegitimate. The only purposes that

00:08:31 we should give ourselves to are the ones that we freely choose. And because of that, we live in a

00:08:40 world today where people can't think about given purposes any other way. Given purposes are

00:08:47 oppressive. Even when those given purposes are hardwired into your body, we shouldn't submit to

00:08:56 those. We should exercise the power to choose, even when it means denying our own physical

00:09:03 constitutions. Male, female, he made them, right? One of the things that I think animates and is 0.59

00:09:12 the source of a great deal of the animus behind the transgender movement is the hostility to given 1.00

00:09:19 purposes, even those purposes woven into the very fabric of creation by the creator himself.

00:09:26 People look at that as oppressive. What we want is to choose our own purposes.

00:09:35 But what is our given purpose? I'd like to think about that with you a little bit,

00:09:40 Not just in battle, but overall.

00:09:42 What is the given purpose?

00:09:44 We're told in Romans that we all fall short of the glory of God.

00:09:51 We fall short of the glory of God.

00:09:52 And by the way, this relates to the Greek word for sin, I think, in a marvelous way.

00:09:59 Hermitia, if you're not familiar with the term, literally means to miss the mark.

00:10:05 So let's say you're an archer in the first century.

00:10:10 and you spoke Koine Greek, and you were at a competition with other archers,

00:10:14 and you fired your arrow at a target, and you missed, what would the judge say?

00:10:24 Harmatia! You've missed the mark.

00:10:27 That's the word that we translate into the English word sin, the Greek word harmatia.

00:10:32 So we fall short of the glory of God, implying that the glory of God is his target.

00:10:40 that's what we're shooting for, God's glory.

00:10:43 Now, the Westminster Shorter Catechism turns this into a positive principle

00:10:48 or reformulates it, and we see it expressed as a positive principle there

00:10:52 with the first question in the Shorter Catechism,

00:10:55 what is the chief end of man?

00:10:58 In other words, the given end.

00:10:59 The given end is to glorify God, but it doesn't stop there.

00:11:05 To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

00:11:09 And with that, we see ends and means reconciled in a beautiful way.

00:11:15 It's not as though you have to choose between your duty and your joy.

00:11:21 Your joy is your duty, and your duty is your joy.

00:11:27 I know this is very difficult for us to fully appreciate,

00:11:33 because we tend to think, as I noted, that these things are somehow mutually exclusive.

00:11:37 but in God, they're reconciled. So we're creatures. We don't create ourselves, and because of that,

00:11:44 we don't give ourselves our purposes. Those purposes are given to us by the fact that we

00:11:51 are created for a purpose. And really, this is what it means to be a creature. When you're a

00:12:00 creature, everything is derived. In other words, everything is given. What do you have, Paul says,

00:12:05 that you were not given. Everything that we have is given, and we work with what we've received.

00:12:13 Here's a little exercise I like to use to illustrate just how difficult it is to create

00:12:19 something out of nothing. We, as human beings, create things in a way that, you know, depends

00:12:26 upon the things that we're given. Everything that we create is, in some sense, a mixture of given

00:12:31 things. We rework things and we don't create things out of nothing. We create things out of

00:12:39 other things combined in novel ways. But to illustrate why that is the only choice we have,

00:12:48 try to imagine a primary color that is absolutely new, totally novel, not something that you've

00:12:56 received. I'm not talking about some kind of blending of primary colors like chartreuse or

00:13:05 olive or something like that. I mean something as primary as yellow, red, and blue. Something

00:13:13 totally new. Can you do it? Even if you could, you couldn't describe it to the rest of us because

00:13:21 none of us could imagine it. You get what I'm getting at. We can't create things out of nothing,

00:13:26 And yet that's what we as a society have given ourselves over to.

00:13:31 We think we can create something out of nothing, but that's not something given to us to do.

00:13:38 It's not something that's possible for us to do.

00:13:41 We are given things, and because we're given things, we can give things.

00:13:48 We are loved by God.

00:13:51 That's why we love God.

00:13:53 God is our source.

00:13:55 He's also our end. He's also the means. With all of these things in mind, one of the things that

00:14:02 you need to tell your kids, one of the things that you need to demonstrate for them is what it means

00:14:08 or what it looks like to love God and to love other people and to demonstrate that, you know,

00:14:16 you are living your life to the glory of God and that you intend to raise your children in a way

00:14:25 that glorifies God as well. Your objective, in other words, is to use your children as a means

00:14:33 of glorifying God and that you have a target in mind, which is the glory of God. 0.99

00:14:39 And one of the ways that we're told to do that here in the 127th Psalm is that you love your kids by shooting them.

00:14:50 Not with the way I just think maybe that came to mind, but you use your kids as the artillery to shoot their lives toward the goal that I've been describing, which is the glory of God.

00:15:07 Now, I'd like to reflect with you a little bit on the matter, first of all, of having a quiver full of kids.

00:15:14 Now, obviously, the more arrows you have, the more you have to shoot.

00:15:20 Kind of follows, right?

00:15:22 But obviously, the number you have is not entirely up to you.

00:15:26 Think about Abram and Sarah.

00:15:29 They had one.

00:15:31 Would they have liked more?

00:15:32 Well, as you know, there was another, and that was a problem.

00:15:36 but there had to be something that God could only do in order for this to come about.

00:15:44 Now, I have three, and they're all grown and have spouses of their own and children of their own.

00:15:50 I've got five grandchildren, so I'm at that point in life,

00:15:54 and I'm happy to report that they're all on target.

00:15:58 If they weren't, I would feel very different about this talk.

00:16:02 I'm happy to announce that they are. I'd like to review, you know, the situation as it stands

00:16:11 currently with you so that you have some sense of the context of my life. So I have two sons and a

00:16:16 daughter. Now, we began having our children back in the bad old days, the 1990s, and this was before

00:16:25 there was a lot of emphasis that we see, you know, sort of all around today on the importance of

00:16:30 having children and having children early in life. So we were already 30 years old when our first was

00:16:36 born. So the window of opportunity for us had narrowed quite a bit by the time our first child

00:16:42 was born. But our oldest son, Caleb, has two daughters of his own. He's married to a lovely

00:16:48 girl from Texas, from Houston, in fact, our oldest daughter-in-law. And they live in Nashville,

00:16:54 and he's involved in the music industry. He's an audio engineer and is actually on staff at

00:17:00 Covenant Presbyterian Church. You probably know about that church because it was in the news not

00:17:04 too long ago. He was in the building when the shooting occurred. So we got the text and the

00:17:09 description long before anybody else knew what was going on. So I've got sort of an insider's

00:17:15 sort of perspective on all of that. But anyways, he's fine. They're fine. And the church actually

00:17:21 is doing pretty well, all things considered. So that's my oldest son. My second son,

00:17:26 He is married as well.

00:17:29 And by the way, my oldest son, he and his wife own their house.

00:17:32 So they own real estate.

00:17:36 They own a house in Nashville, and he's gainfully employed and works for himself.

00:17:40 My second son is a welder and a steel fabricator and a blacksmith and lives in Hartford, Connecticut.

00:17:47 He's 26 years old.

00:17:49 He's a foreman in a large steel firm, the largest steel firm in New England.

00:17:54 and he has 30 men who report to him at 26.

00:17:59 So he's doing pretty well.

00:17:59 They own their own house.

00:18:01 They have a baby and another one on the way.

00:18:04 I'll be here in January.

00:18:06 And he's doing great.

00:18:08 Again, they're believers.

00:18:09 They love the Lord.

00:18:09 Then my daughter just was married here not too long back

00:18:13 and already has a child.

00:18:15 And they live in the Hartford area in Connecticut as well.

00:18:18 So the children are all doing well and flourishing.

00:18:21 and I'd like to reflect a little bit on, you know, what sort of contributed to that state of affairs

00:18:30 and I'll get to that in a minute. Well, when it comes to this question of how many to have,

00:18:36 I think one question people have is how many can I afford? And I was in a conversation with Kevin

00:18:42 DeYoung not too long ago who has, I believe, nine kids and Kevin's thought was more than you think

00:18:48 you can. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. Now, in the church I serve right now,

00:18:54 the median age in the church, our church is around 250 people. The median age is about,

00:18:58 I'm not exaggerating, about 13 to 14. We've got that many kids. And so my elders, one has 13,

00:19:08 another has 12, another has nine, and two have six. And that makes up a tiny fraction of the

00:19:13 total child population in the church. Now, something to think about when it comes to this

00:19:19 matter of how many you can afford. One of the things that I learned reading a book years ago

00:19:24 that has been a marvelous book to reflect on over the years is a book entitled The Millionaire Next

00:19:27 Door. Folks familiar with that book? The Millionaire Next Door. It's a great book.

00:19:31 So it's a book about self-made millionaires, 95% of whom are men who are married and have more than

00:19:39 three kids, three or more, which was an interesting thing to learn, because I think that for many of

00:19:45 us, we assume, more or less, the more kids you have, the poorer you are. But the way men think,

00:19:52 and this is something to keep in mind, the way men think, is that if a man doesn't have someone

00:19:56 to take care of and be responsible for, what does he do with himself? He watches television.

00:20:03 You know, he wastes money on cars and things that depreciate rapidly.

00:20:09 He doesn't think about the future very much.

00:20:11 He's just simply kind of looking for pleasure in the moment.

00:20:14 And that's where I'd be if I didn't have kids.

00:20:16 And that's where most men would be when they don't have kids.

00:20:19 It's when a man has the responsibility of caring for a wife and children that he starts

00:20:25 to think about other people for a change and thinks about the long term and thinks about

00:20:29 the welfare of those people in the long term.

00:20:32 And what that does is it creates a kind of, well, necessity is the mother of invention.

00:20:39 When you have that kind of necessity kind of looking at you all the time and expecting things from you,

00:20:45 it has a way of getting you thinking and making sacrifices and making plans and taking risks.

00:20:51 Now, they don't always work out.

00:20:53 But when they do, they can work out very, very well.

00:20:56 And that's why 95% of the self-made millionaires in the world are men with children to take care of.

00:21:07 The other thing is that when you have a lot of kids, they don't sit around and just take.

00:21:11 They are required to help as early as they can.

00:21:14 So that's another valuable thing to keep in mind.

00:21:17 Children join in the work early.

00:21:20 Now, returning to the theme of war, I want to reflect on that a little bit

00:21:24 before I get into some of the practical things I want to talk about.

00:21:27 First thing to note is we are in a war.

00:21:30 No matter what the Neville Chamberlains of the winsome world would like you to think,

00:21:36 this is a world in which we have some adversaries.

00:21:41 We have to keep that in mind.

00:21:44 Right at the beginning of the Bible, we have that episode with the serpent,

00:21:49 and we're told that there would be enmity between the children of the serpent

00:21:55 and the woman's seed. Genesis, of course, chapter 3, verse 15. And we're told in James,

00:22:03 friendship with the world is enmity toward God. In other words, if you try to make friends with

00:22:07 the world, you make God your adversary. You've got to choose. You can't play Switzerland in this

00:22:14 whole thing. You're on one side or the other. Remember that song by Bob Dylan, You Gotta Serve 0.78

00:22:19 somebody? Some of you remember it. Some of you, like, who's Bob Dylan? But anyway, Bob Dylan,

00:22:25 you know, there's this great song, you know, you got to serve somebody. That was the refrain. And

00:22:29 then, you know, the black choir would come in, you know, you got to serve somebody. And he'd say,

00:22:34 you know, in that way that only Bob Dylan can speak, you may serve the devil or you may serve

00:22:40 the Lord, but you got to serve somebody. And that's the thing we have to keep in mind. We've

00:22:46 got to serve somebody. And if you think you're only serving yourself, guess which team you're on?

00:22:52 Finally, we're not the only ones with arrows. It's not as though the devil is just sitting

00:22:59 over their mind in his own business and we go and pick a fight. No, there are fiery darts that he's

00:23:05 firing all the time, and we're the target. That's something that we shouldn't forget.

00:23:13 Ephesians, you know, chapter 6, verses 12 and 16, we're told that there are these fiery darts and

00:23:20 we have a shield that is the shield of faith. We're told it's a shield that is constituted

00:23:26 by faith. And I want to reflect on that with you a little bit. But unilateral disarmament

00:23:31 is just simply foolish. If you just lay down your arms and say, that's it, I want to have 0.73

00:23:37 peace with you, you join the other side, because as I noted before, that's what we're presented

00:23:45 with. We either are with the Lord and serving him, or we are in league with his adversaries.

00:23:52 Now these fiery darts, these arrows, how should we understand the nature of these arrows? One of

00:24:00 the things I think that is important to keep in mind is that in scripture, the devil is referred

00:24:04 to as the accuser, the accuser of the brethren. Are you familiar with that allusion? But

00:24:10 we're also told that the devil is diabolical. Now, the word diabolical has an interesting

00:24:19 provenance. It's a compound word in Greek, dia, meaning through, and balo, where we get the word

00:24:27 ballistic, means to throw. So in other words, the objective is to throw something at you and

00:24:34 through you, you know, to take you out. What is it that is being directed toward us? Well,

00:24:41 accusations. Now, I know that sometimes when people note this, they more or less, as, you know,

00:24:49 I think it's understandable that reformed people would do this. The way they think of this is that,

00:24:54 you know, these accusations that are being directed toward us are based in some fact.

00:25:01 we are sinful, and they're intended to undermine our confidence in our salvation. And I think

00:25:05 that's a fair interpretation. But if we look at Scripture and think about this particular

00:25:11 mode of attack, I think we can see some subtleties that perhaps we overlook. One of those is that

00:25:19 in the garden, the temptation that we see described for us in that dialogue between Eve

00:25:26 and the serpent, the accusations were directed toward whom? God. In other words, they were

00:25:36 intended to impugn God's character and undermine the confidence of Adam and Eve in God and his

00:25:45 promises. And that's why a shield of faith is something that extinguishes those things.

00:25:52 If you look at Job, if you remember, you know, we have a set of accusations in the book of Job.

00:25:57 Remember the opening to Job?

00:26:00 You know, here we have the high court, the Lord upon the throne, the, you know, the courtiers all around.

00:26:07 And who saunters into the court at this point?

00:26:10 None other than the accuser.

00:26:12 And the Lord says, well, what have you been up to?

00:26:15 Oh, this and that, been here and there.

00:26:19 And then the Lord does what?

00:26:21 he brings up Job. Now, I wish, you know, if I were Job, I'd say, why did you bring me into this?

00:26:29 Right? But, you know, he says, have you considered Job? And then the accuser accuses Job and accuses

00:26:35 the Lord, right, of wrongdoing. Well, the only reason why this guy, you know, is so devoted to

00:26:42 you is because you treat him with kit gloves. You're nice to him all the time. I mean, look at

00:26:47 the guy. He's got it all. He's got it made. He's got big families. He's got wealth. He's got all

00:26:51 this stuff going for him. If you just simply let me get at him for a little bit, he will curse you

00:26:57 to your face. And that's the bet. And what's interesting about how the story ends is that 0.97

00:27:03 even at the end of the story, Job has never let in on what this was all about. But he was God's

00:27:09 champion in this conflict. And the accusations took the form of, eventually, other things in

00:27:19 Job's case. And this is why we need a shield of faith. Now, we live in a world that believes the

00:27:25 lies. We live in a world that is characterized by a kind of miasma. The atmosphere is just

00:27:34 poisonous, and the prince of the power of the air is the reason for that. But because of that,

00:27:41 falsehood fills the air, and people believe what they've been told. I really do believe that there

00:27:47 is a direct connection, and this is scriptural, between what we believe and how we behave.

00:27:54 If you want to know what a person really believes, just watch how they behave.

00:27:58 That demonstrates what they really, that's what James was getting at, right?

00:28:04 Now, getting back to the matter of children as artillery, what are we aiming at? As I noted,

00:28:12 the glory of God. The target for our arrows is the glory of God, and our arrows are our children.

00:28:21 Now, what I have to present to you at this time is a brief series of suggestions. I hesitate to

00:28:28 call them instructions. They're based on Scripture, but they're also based on observation and personal

00:28:34 experience. So with those things in mind, I'm going to run through a few things with you,

00:28:38 and hopefully they'll be helpful. These things will be helpful. So when we think about our

00:28:42 children, and if we think about them as arrows that we are using to direct toward the glory of

00:28:51 God and aim at the glory of God, I think we need to sharpen them. We need to sharpen them.

00:28:56 we need to hone them and what we're looking to do is to develop them and develop their virtues

00:29:06 now the virtue when we think of the term virtue I think that there are a number of things that

00:29:12 we associate with that term that I'd like to reflect on with you a little bit about but one

00:29:17 of the things that I want you to know is that when the in antiquity when the term virtue was

00:29:24 used, it wasn't used in some of the ways that we tend to use it today. For example, in Aristotle,

00:29:32 we're told that the virtue of the knife is in the cutting. In other words, a dull knife is a

00:29:39 non-virtuous knife. A sharp knife is a virtuous knife. So in other words, there's a sense in which

00:29:47 virtue is associated with the effect and its ability to accomplish its intended purpose.

00:29:56 Another word that is used in association with virtue is arete, which is excellence. But another

00:30:03 thing to keep in mind is the very word virtue itself. Are you aware that it is derived from

00:30:09 the Latin vir for man. So virtue originally was associated with manliness, particularly

00:30:18 with martial sort of understandings of manliness. So kind of give you kind of the background

00:30:27 to help you understand how virtue has come to mean, what we mean when we use the term today.

00:30:33 a virtuous man would be a warrior who was effective at fighting. So if you were to list

00:30:44 the things that you would associate with an effective warrior, there would be a set of

00:30:51 characteristics that come to mind. Strength, for example. Strength would be something that we would

00:30:56 say helps is constitutive when it comes to effectiveness in combat. And if you just simply

00:31:04 play this out, you can make a list of things that you would look for if you were a recruiter

00:31:08 looking for men who could fight, including things that we might not associate with virtue. For

00:31:17 example, shrewdness. A shrewd warrior is a more effective warrior than a naive and clumsy one,

00:31:25 right? So therefore, shrewdness is virtuous in a warrior. Now, after a while, people realize you

00:31:35 can make lists for just about anything. So what do you want? We want a good potter. So what do

00:31:40 you want in a potter? You want somebody who's good with his hands. You want somebody who has a good

00:31:42 eye. You want somebody who has a good taste. And you can make a list of things that you say

00:31:46 characterize a good potter. Housewife, what do you look for in a housewife? What are the things 1.00

00:31:52 that would characterize a good housewife. 1.00

00:31:55 You can make a list.

00:31:56 You can just kind of go through, you know,

00:31:59 the set of things that people do

00:32:01 or a list of things that people do

00:32:02 and create lists for each of them.

00:32:04 And then suddenly somebody had the bright idea

00:32:06 of identifying things that you'd want to have

00:32:09 characterize everyone.

00:32:11 These were the moral virtues.

00:32:14 And Socrates is the one who's attributed with that move.

00:32:17 So what do we want everyone to be good at?

00:32:19 these are the things that we universally apply to everyone and those are moral virtues and those

00:32:27 are tremendously important and so we want to develop moral virtue in our children but

00:32:34 that kind of thing does not exhaust what we're up to when we're looking to sharpen or hone

00:32:43 our children for this task of glorifying God. There are other lists or other categories.

00:32:51 For example, practical virtue. If you've ever met somebody who was just really honest,

00:32:57 really nice, really good-hearted, and an absolute dolt when it came to social graces, 0.63

00:33:04 I can think of a lot of them. Well, you don't want that. In other words, you've got a well-developed 0.89

00:33:12 moral sense and zero practical sense. Moral virtue without practical virtue. We don't want that.

00:33:20 We want both. Intellectual virtue. That's another category that was examined and

00:33:28 thought deeply about in antiquity. That's just the kid who aces all the tests, who is able to

00:33:38 memorize things quickly and well, who can diagram a sentence like nobody's business,

00:33:45 you know, that kind of thing. Intellectual virtues are important. And martial virtue

00:33:50 is important as well. The ability to stand up for yourself and stand up for others and stand up for

00:33:58 the truth. These things tend to go together. A person who is cowardly in one sphere might be

00:34:05 able to demonstrate some virtue, martial virtue in another, but often these things can be found

00:34:11 together in the same person. Now, I want to address something that I think we all

00:34:18 more or less know, and that is when it comes to the virtues, mothers tend to focus on the moral

00:34:25 and intellectual virtues. This is why they make great, you know, homeschool teachers. 0.96

00:34:31 They're concerned with, you know, children being honest, doing what they're told.

00:34:37 They're concerned with the performance of their children on tests and so forth.

00:34:42 You remember the tiger mom phenomenon?

00:34:44 You know, the tiger mom phenomenon was something that had been observed by people who were not from, you know, the Orient,

00:34:51 but were looking on the sort of the achievements of children who are from China or even India.

00:34:59 and there's just sort of this astonishment that we all have because we're outsiders looking in.

00:35:04 Why do these kids, you know, finish at the top of their class?

00:35:07 Well, it's Tiger Mom. It's Tiger Mom's why.

00:35:10 And by the way, my wife teaches piano and she's taught hundreds of students over the years 0.80

00:35:15 and many of them are from the East, China, Korea, India.

00:35:21 And let me tell you something, those kids really do perform at a pretty high level.

00:35:25 And you want to know why?

00:35:26 It's because not only is Tiger Mom, but Lion Dad.

00:35:29 is on them all the time. I remember this one particular episode with my wife. She was teaching

00:35:35 a girl from Kerala, which is a province in India. And the father would just stand there the entire

00:35:43 time while the lesson was being conducted. And you knew that he was listening very closely to

00:35:50 every instruction my wife gave to that child. And you knew that that guy was remembering everything

00:35:55 she said, and that that would be repeated every day while she practiced over the course of the

00:36:01 week. He knew what she was supposed to do, and he was going to make sure that she did it.

00:36:06 And that's one of the big reasons why Indian kids and Chinese kids and Korean kids do so well,

00:36:12 is they have high expectations for the kids, and tiger mom and lion dad are on the job.

00:36:20 Something to learn there.

00:36:23 But there are important things that are left out when we think about these things.

00:36:29 And I often think that fathers are the appropriate schoolmasters in households when it comes to these matters.

00:36:36 Practical and martial virtues, I think, are the areas where fathers should step in.

00:36:42 One of the things that's been really fascinating to see demonstrated through the application of social science on Christian life and home life in particular is the causal relationship that's been identified between the faith of the father and the faith of the children.

00:37:03 This is one of those things that I don't think gets out as well as it should get out.

00:37:10 There's a very strong correlation between the faith of a father and the faith of his children.

00:37:15 A far greater impact than the mother has on the faith of children.

00:37:20 I don't want to discourage moms in this regard.

00:37:23 What I'm trying to do is put the pressure on you, Dad.

00:37:26 I mean, the numbers are skewed in such a way as to almost seem unbelievable.

00:37:32 There is a marvelous article.

00:37:35 And this is what happens when you're trying to operate from, you know, sort of off the top of your head, trying to remember things.

00:37:42 But there's a marvelous article in Touchstone magazine on this particular subject.

00:37:45 And I encourage you to look it up because it gets into the numbers.

00:37:48 There was a study done in Switzerland, of all places, in the early 1990s.

00:37:53 And what it was able to ascertain is that when a mother, a believing mother, takes a child to church consistently over the early years of a child's life, the likelihood of that child becoming a believing member of that church is like less than 20%.

00:38:14 But if the father does it, even without the presence of the mother, it goes up to like 80%.

00:38:20 that kind of difference in impact.

00:38:24 And I think it's because, dads, our children look at us

00:38:29 when it comes to how to conduct yourself in the world at large.

00:38:36 Mom may run the daily affairs of the house and be loved for that and respected for that,

00:38:43 but children generally don't look to their mothers to know how to behave at work

00:38:48 or how to conduct yourself when you are negotiating with a used car salesman,

00:38:55 that kind of stuff.

00:38:56 They tend to look at us whether we feel up to the task or not.

00:39:02 They associate adulthood and life in the world with us.

00:39:08 And that's why we have to take the time and invest the energy,

00:39:15 particularly on these practical matters.

00:39:17 This is how you do this. This is how you do that. Have you seen that YouTube channel with that guy

00:39:23 who didn't grow up with a father who decided he was going to teach other people everything that

00:39:27 he wasn't taught? He's got like millions of people who watch him every episode. He's like the most

00:39:34 honest, he's like Mr. Rogers of dadness. You know, just about as just bland and just as everyday as

00:39:41 you could possibly be. Today we're going to learn how to change oil. Oh boy. We're going to learn

00:39:47 how to get into the car and get ourselves completely covered with greasy stuff. Great.

00:39:53 And then he shows you how to do it. That's what our kids need from us. They need us to take them

00:39:59 along with us when we're doing stuff. Not necessarily just to kind of get the lesson.

00:40:03 Let me tell you what I just did, Junior, but to actually watch us in action. That kind of

00:40:08 practical instruction is really important, not just for sons, but daughters as well.

00:40:14 So let me give you a list of things that I think are virtues that a father should work on

00:40:21 that are practical and martial in character. One of those is tolerance of pain.

00:40:31 Tolerance of pain. It's hard to get anything done in this world without a lot of frustration and

00:40:37 pain. And that doesn't mean that you're unfeeling. It doesn't mean that you're a jerk. It doesn't

00:40:43 mean that you inflict pain in other people unnecessarily. It doesn't mean any of that

00:40:46 stuff. It just means that you can put up with a lot. You need to be able to demonstrate it,

00:40:51 that you can put up with a lot, and that you don't get squeamish, and you're not afraid,

00:40:59 that this is something that should characterize any capable, competent person, an ability to

00:41:05 endure pain because we live in a world full of thorns and thistles. There's a lot of stuff out

00:41:10 there that hurts, and you need to be able to deal with it. This is not, you know, stoic. This is

00:41:17 just simply real. You got to be able to deal with pain, and we need to be able to help our kids with

00:41:23 that, which means that we don't coddle them. Like when I was a kid and I fell down and hurt myself,

00:41:32 The question I was asked is, how's the floor doing?

00:41:36 It was like no interest in whether, I mean, I remember being mad.

00:41:41 What about me?

00:41:43 Yeah, what about you?

00:41:44 Get over it.

00:41:46 Let's move on.

00:41:48 Let's not just fixate on this stuff.

00:41:51 You need to move on.

00:41:53 Connected to this, but different in important ways, is good judgment.

00:41:58 we need to help children exercise good judgment in the course of our lives there's no getting

00:42:06 away from judgment this idea that we can live a non-judgmental life is just foolishness

00:42:11 every day I make judgments about what I should eat how long I should sleep how much I should drink

00:42:17 who I should spend time with how fast I should drive on the highway I make judgments every

00:42:21 single day of my life. When it comes to judgment, there is no way, I'll put it this way. I remember

00:42:28 Richard John, who asked the editor at First Things, he said it this way. He said, a life without

00:42:33 judgment is a life without meaning. When you judge, you are saying, this is better than that.

00:42:43 Now, when it comes to the matter of, you know, Jesus saying, judge not so that you won't be

00:42:50 judged, well, there's something to note that I think is obvious there. If you're a judgmental

00:42:57 person, you will be judged harshly yourself. So the thing to keep in mind is that mercy

00:43:05 is also a form of judgment. So there are times when you're merciful because that is the best

00:43:14 thing to do at that particular moment. You're exercising judgment as you are demonstrating

00:43:20 mercy. Mercy is not like, you know, okay, judgment is off. We're in the judgment-free zone.

00:43:27 You know, right? You know, you see that. You've seen those commercials for gyms, you know,

00:43:33 judgment-free zone. Like, right, yeah. Why are you going to the gym in the first place? Because

00:43:37 you made the judgment, you're out of shape. That's why you went, you know, you don't like

00:43:40 push weights and run on treadmills because you like that sort of thing, which brings me back to

00:43:46 my earlier point about enduring pain. But anyway, so and related to this is risk assessment. We live

00:43:53 in a world right now that is risk averse, but there is no such thing as a risk-free life. In fact,

00:44:01 the riskiest way to live is to avoid all risk. It's stupid. You're going to fail for sure. 1.00

00:44:10 If you don't make calculated risks in the course of your life, just because you don't do something doesn't mean you've done nothing. 0.82

00:44:21 You've done something which is nothing, and that is a foolish thing to do.

00:44:27 You've taken a bad risk.

00:44:29 You need to assess risks, exercise judgment, and as best you can, make good judgments.

00:44:37 so helping your kids assess things and courses of action and exercise good judgment is part of what

00:44:46 i think we need to focus on as fathers mastery mastery we should simply be good at certain

00:44:53 things and we should strive for excellence uh in certain now you can't be good at everything

00:44:58 and basically i think the the best way to approach things is you put things into three categories

00:45:04 There are the sort of, you know, whatever stuff.

00:45:08 You know, I don't think I'll ever learn how to hand-churn ice cream.

00:45:13 I think people who hand-churn ice cream are awesome, but I'm just not going to do that.

00:45:17 You know, whatever.

00:45:19 Then there are things that you're passably good at, passably good at.

00:45:24 I can wire a room, but don't ask me to wire a breaker box, right?

00:45:31 but you know there are things that I can do passively and then there are a few things that I

00:45:37 strive to be a master of and those are the things that people pay me the bucks for you get my drift

00:45:46 those are the things that people turn to me for help with those things the passable stuff those

00:45:51 are the things that I can do for myself when I'm not in a position to pay somebody else to do them

00:45:55 And really, that's probably more often the case than I think we tend to think.

00:46:01 And then there are things that we can just say, whatever, I'm glad for somebody else

00:46:05 to be good at that.

00:46:06 But we should at least get our kids to think about, what do you want to master?

00:46:13 What do you want to focus on being really good at?

00:46:16 And work with our kids on that.

00:46:19 I remember my oldest son, who's a really accomplished musician, he was also an athlete.

00:46:25 So he was one of these marvelous anomalies.

00:46:27 He was an athlete and a musician at the same time.

00:46:30 And he decided that he probably wasn't going to be a major league baseball player.

00:46:36 So it would be probably better to actually be able to play some music because at least there would be some places where he could do that.

00:46:42 And now he makes his living in that industry.

00:46:46 But I remember early on, it was during the days of Guitar Hero.

00:46:50 Do you remember Guitar Hero?

00:46:52 It's where you could pretend that you were a great guitarist.

00:46:55 Basically, you were playing air guitar, but you sounded like you were in Aerosmith or something.

00:47:03 Well, he told me one day, he said, I don't know why all my friends are into that thing.

00:47:07 Why don't they just learn to play guitar?

00:47:10 So he did.

00:47:11 Learned how to play guitar.

00:47:12 Anything with strings, he can play it now.

00:47:16 So mastery.

00:47:18 Courage.

00:47:19 Courage is another thing that I think we need to work with our kids on.

00:47:22 By the way, we're all afraid of something.

00:47:24 We're all afraid of stuff.

00:47:27 What we're not looking at, we're not looking for people who are reckless

00:47:31 and willing to do anything at any time.

00:47:34 What we want to develop is good judgment so that our children can know

00:47:41 when it's appropriate to exercise some courage and take that risk,

00:47:46 that think doing something that's courageous in character. So we're not looking for, as I noted,

00:47:54 recklessness. With boys, and I think any father here understands what I'm getting at when I say

00:48:02 this. With boys, we want to develop manliness. It's just kind of a thing, you know, when you

00:48:09 come across another man as a man, you kind of assess, is this a guy that I can respect? And

00:48:16 then there are some things that you can do that are nonverbal in nature to demonstrate that you

00:48:21 are trustworthy as a man. And those are things that we want to help our sons with. You know,

00:48:27 there are subtle nonverbal clues. There are other things, being able to look people in the eye,

00:48:32 firm handshake, that kind of stuff. Forthrightness, being able to just say things the way they should

00:48:39 be said, when they should be said, being able to be direct without being caustic or offensive,

00:48:48 but just simply direct, that kind of forthrightness I think we want to develop. Magnanimity,

00:48:53 great souledness, this sense of plentitude that we as men should be able to, in some sense,

00:49:04 exemplify, where we have it within ourselves not to be petty, not to be vindictive, not to be

00:49:12 small-minded and vengeful, magnanimity. Protectiveness. I think that a man should be

00:49:21 protective of the people who are around him that are not in a position to protect themselves.

00:49:26 There's nothing shameful about finding yourself in a position where you're not able to protect

00:49:30 yourself. But if you're in a position to protect somebody else because you have the resources to

00:49:37 do so, you have a moral obligation to do it if other people nearby are threatened. It's something

00:49:45 that we should develop in our sons, but our daughters as well. And then wisdom. Wisdom

00:49:53 and intelligence aren't necessarily found in the same person. I don't know if you've noticed this.

00:49:58 Basically, what you have with the story of Forrest Gump is a guy who wasn't very intelligent,

00:50:03 but who was very wise. Wisdom and intelligence, different things, but we ought to be able to

00:50:11 develop and grow in wisdom. Have you ever thought about, you know, when you think about the Lord of

00:50:18 the Rings, who's the hero? Who's the hero? I think our minds immediately go to Frodo, you know,

00:50:25 or to Gandalf or to Aragorn. But I propose to you that Sam is the hero, the Lord of the Rings.

00:50:33 A man who was wise but simple. In fact, his simplicity was the source of wisdom for him.

00:50:40 It was like a reality check. Remember when he had the ring briefly and he had this fantasy of

00:50:46 becoming Sam the Great, the Sam the Great warrior? And then he corrects himself, says, Sam, what are

00:50:51 you doing? You're just Sam the Gardener. But in that moment, he was great. He demonstrated

00:50:58 great wisdom, more wisdom than many others who were far more powerful than he was,

00:51:04 who didn't possess that wisdom. Now, so that's the first thing. I think we should sharpen our

00:51:12 children and prepare them to be launched. But I think a couple of other things to note as I wrap

00:51:19 up. One is that you need to know your weapons, which means you have to think about what is this

00:51:26 child made for? What is this child made for? Yeah, I mean, we have this very large target called the

00:51:33 glory of God. But this particular child is going to glorify God in a particular way, and you need

00:51:41 to be able to work with that child and help that child understand his or her purpose and how that's

00:51:48 going to be accomplished. Now, in order for this to happen, you need to have a small measure of

00:51:54 knowledge about a wide range of things so that you have some sense of what may be in store for

00:52:03 your son or daughter. And at the same time, you'll need to study your own child in depth.

00:52:09 Make your child an object of study, not just somebody to like boss around and tolerate.

00:52:19 What is this child made for? What are the talents this child possesses? How might those talents be

00:52:27 encouraged and developed. I remember my second son, who's very bright, but is not academically

00:52:33 sort of, I guess, oriented. We're all into orientation these days. I'm not academically

00:52:43 oriented. But anyway, he wasn't. But when he was small, so he looked like the spitting image of

00:52:54 his older brother. In fact, if they had been born at the same time, you would have thought

00:53:00 they were identical twins when they were small. But my older son, he became the tall, thin one

00:53:04 and excelled in baseball and basketball and things like that. My second son, he had zero interest in

00:53:11 sports, none. He liked knocking things over. He liked building things. And I noticed early on that

00:53:19 even though he didn't have macro-coordination, he had micro-coordination. He was able to make

00:53:25 things that were really astonishing at an early age. And I saved some of them to his embarrassment.

00:53:34 But I would give him tasks. And one of the things I saw is that when I would give him a task, he

00:53:39 would step back and he would look at the job. I'm talking about physical work. Figure out the

00:53:44 quickest way and most efficient use of his time and energy to get it done. And then he'd get

00:53:49 it done in no time at all, right? I was not like that. I was a framer, a deck builder, and my boss

00:53:56 would always complain about how inefficient my movements were because I was a ditherer. You know,

00:54:02 I'd work on something, I'd stand back and think about it for a little bit, then I'd correct myself

00:54:06 in the middle of it and I'd start over again. You know, I was definitely a, you know, a money sink.

00:54:13 one of my one of my bosses he said I wish I had like a gauge on your forehead that I could see

00:54:20 how much money I'm losing on you every minute you know that was that was me when I saw my son in

00:54:25 action I said this kid is made for the trades this kid is made for the trades and when he got

00:54:31 out of high school we went out to we would go out to you know breakfast like once a month eat too

00:54:36 many pancakes that kind of thing and he said dad you know what do you think I should do I said well

00:54:41 you need to go to trade school. I said, why don't you take a gap year, go to trade school,

00:54:46 learn something, and then go to college to see how that goes. He says, what do you think I

00:54:51 should study? I said, welding. Something dangerous. Because if you study something that's not

00:54:57 dangerous, other people think they can do it, and then if they ever bring you into the job,

00:55:02 it's like you're kind of fixing a mess. But if they're afraid to try it themselves,

00:55:06 then they just call you. So you want to learn something dangerous. And so he said, okay. So

00:55:11 that's what he did. So now he's very good at his work. As I noted before, he's a foreman.

00:55:18 But so you study your children. Now it's nice when your children have the same interests as you.

00:55:24 It's great. And I'm happy to say that in each case, there's an interest that I share with my

00:55:30 children. But not all of the things that they're interested in, I have a great deal of interest in.

00:55:37 But I try to be informed. I try to be supportive. I try to, you know, encourage their development in

00:55:44 those areas. At this point, you know, they're adults and they don't need that from me anymore.

00:55:48 Basically, I need them. I'm the one who's calling them up for advice now. It's a nice place to be

00:55:52 in life where your children are giving you advice. And that's where I'm at. But if they do choose the

00:55:59 same occupation as you. Pray that they surpass you. I can't tell you the number of guys I've

00:56:08 met over the years who are threatened by their boys. Threatened that their boys will be better

00:56:14 than them. You know what? If you are that small, you should be ashamed of yourself.

00:56:21 Get over yourself. Delight in the achievements of your children and pray that they will go

00:56:28 further than you. That's a legacy. Something that we should all hope for. Which brings me to my

00:56:39 final point, prayer. Once the arrow is launched, it's launched, baby. It's not like going, running

00:56:46 after it like Bugs Bunny and blowing on it and trying to redirect it at that point. It's gone.

00:56:51 the child is launched. At that point, though, you can continue to have an influence in their lives,

00:56:59 but that influence is largely spiritual in character, and prayer is what should have

00:57:05 characterized your entire work as a father or a mother all the way along. But ultimately,

00:57:11 you're not in charge. You're a middleman. Embrace the middleman concept. You are a middleman.

00:57:18 There is upper management, and then there's you.

00:57:23 Upper management is up, and it's managing stuff.

00:57:28 And your job as the middleman is to represent upper management to the people on the line,

00:57:36 the kids, the wife, whatever, and to intercede for them seeking favor,

00:57:43 seeking favor from upper management in the interest of your subjects in the interest of

00:57:49 your kids this is what we saw job doing right he knew his kids and that's why he thought maybe they

00:57:58 sinned i don't know i wasn't at the party they never invite me but knowing those kids

00:58:06 I think some sacrifices ought to be made right now.

00:58:12 I'm going to be praying for these kids.

00:58:15 And that's something that we should do on an ongoing basis.

00:58:17 And obviously, we should seek, you know, things in their proper order, salvation, growth and grace.

00:58:24 These are things that we should be praying for for our kids.

00:58:26 We should be asking God to make the callings of our children clear.

00:58:32 We're reformed.

00:58:33 We believe that every vocation, that's what vocation means, calling, is a calling.

00:58:39 You know, so my son is serving the Lord as a foreman at United Steel.

00:58:45 That's his calling.

00:58:47 What's fun is that his brother-in-law now works for him, reports to him every day.

00:58:54 But anyway, then we should be praying that they establish households of their own.

00:59:00 This is something that we need to relearn in the West.

00:59:03 In other parts of the world, the formation of households is primarily a father's responsibility.

00:59:10 The father is involved with making sure his sons and daughters form new households.

00:59:18 Now, I'm not saying we need to bring back arranged marriage or anything like that,

00:59:22 but we need to be more proactive.

00:59:25 Let me give you a couple of stories as I conclude.

00:59:28 My daughter, very bright, scored in the top 1% in the SAT on both the math and the language.

00:59:33 She could have gone to school anywhere. 0.91

00:59:36 And she didn't want to go to college. 0.99

00:59:38 Her aspiration was to be, you know, a mom and to have a family of her own.

00:59:44 And I said, sweetie, you are so smart.

00:59:47 There's nobody in your Sunday school class that makes a good match.

00:59:51 Where do you think you're going to find this super smart guy that you're going to be able to respect?

00:59:56 She said, probably college.

00:59:59 I said, that's right.

01:00:01 You're going to go to college. 0.99

01:00:02 So I sent her to college not because I wanted her to be a career woman and be a success. 1.00

01:00:07 Because I sent her to college because I wanted her to get married and be a success. 0.99

01:00:11 And I knew that's where the pool of bright young men was likely to be found.

01:00:16 So she asked me, what should I study?

01:00:18 I said, physics.

01:00:20 You'll be the only girl in the entire program. 0.99

01:00:25 I did. This is my advice for her. And it'd be surrounded by a lot of socially inept men

01:00:30 who will love you and are going to make a lot of money. That was my suggestion to her.

01:00:40 So my daughter looked back at me and said, no, I don't want to do that. I said, well,

01:00:43 what do you want to do? I said, I want to study Jane Austen. I said, well, of course.

01:00:47 you and every smart girl in America want to study Jane Austen and you know the guys who

01:00:56 were in the Jane Austen program are not guys that I'm going to approve of

01:00:59 so I actually had to turn one of them away I said no baby that's that's not going to work

01:01:05 sweetie that guy goes home back to go starting over but anyway she did find the right guy

01:01:11 And after she found the right guy, she was in her senior year,

01:01:15 and there was no good prospects, and she said,

01:01:18 I think I'm going to have to settle for being an academic.

01:01:25 Think about that.

01:01:27 That was the consolation prize in her mind.

01:01:31 So I just started praying and praying and praying,

01:01:35 and next thing you know, there was this guy.

01:01:37 And now they're married.

01:01:39 My daughter asked me, Dad, were you praying for me?

01:01:42 I said, yeah, I was praying for you.

01:01:46 So I pray for my kids all the time, and they know it, and they want it.

01:01:51 You know, you don't want to be that parent who says, I'm praying for you,

01:01:55 like when the kid is being disobedient.

01:01:56 Oh, Mom, stop praying.

01:01:58 Don't do it!

01:01:59 You know, that's the kind of thing you get if it's all about correction, right?

01:02:03 Sometimes when kids hear, I'm praying for you, that's what they're hearing.

01:02:06 This is kind of a, this is like a, what's that term?

01:02:13 Passive-aggressive. 1.00

01:02:16 It's a passive-aggressive way for moms to control their kids. 0.98

01:02:19 I'm praying for you. 0.98

01:02:22 Guilt trip time, right?

01:02:26 Pray for them and pray in such a way as they want you to be praying for them.

01:02:31 Praying for their success.

01:02:33 Praying for their futures.

01:02:35 praying for their vocations, praying for their future spouse,

01:02:40 pray for those things, and then check in with them every once in a while.

01:02:44 How's it going? What's going on?

01:02:46 I need to know what's going on so I have a better sense of how they should be praying.

01:02:50 And fast and pray.

01:02:52 That's, I think, the most important thing of all.

01:02:55 If we invest ourselves and our kids in these ways,

01:02:59 then I think the prospects of hitting the target improve immensely.

01:03:04 Thank you.

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The NXR Podcast - December 12, 2023

CONFERENCE - Children As Artillery - Pastor C.R. Wiley

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