Modeling Faith Through Life's Storms

Ed explores how fathers can effectively model faith during challenging times and become the spiritual leaders their families need. He shares personal insights about the powerful impact of vulnerability and authenticity in parent-child relationships.

• Children are always watching how we handle struggles and stress
• The danger of presenting a "perfect dad" façade that creates unrealistic expectations
• How asking your children for prayer creates powerful connection points
• Moving beyond performance-based parenting that ties love to achievement
• The breakthrough moment when Ed's son asked if he would still be loved without playing football
• Biblical examples of Jesus modeling vulnerability and dependence on the Father
• The importance of letting children witness conflict resolution and forgiveness
• How admitting weakness actually builds stronger family bonds
• Breaking generational patterns by modeling authentic faith

Visit www.thefatherdifference.com/links for a free book download and information about personal coaching.

Chapters

• 0:00 Modeling Faith During Crazy Times
• 5:10 The Power of Parental Presence
• 9:36 Being Real With Your Children
• 16:03 Moving Beyond Performance Mentality
• 22:28 Building Identity Beyond Achievement
• 29:50 Final Thoughts and Ministry Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Well, welcome, I'm your host, Ed Janney-McLassen, and welcome to the Father Difference Live. Today we're going to talk about that place of how do you model faith during crazy times for your family. How do you really stand and model to them something that really teaches them how to navigate crazy times in their life. Now, if you've been around anywhere, you've been watching this incredible Olympics. There are some infamous times about the Olympics and we won't go into all those things kind of what the programmers kind of put in place. But the image that strikes me everywhere in watching the athletes, whether they be swimmers or equestrian or you know all the different things in Paris, the image that just keeps being played over and over and over again, are moms and dads in the stands watching, praying. There's a number of medals given out to moms and dads who were in ministry. You could tell me we're praying and calling on the Lord, and just the image of dads being there and giving his baby I'm with you, you know praying moms there and just the image of how powerful it is when you are a part of the story of your children in a profound way and you know that's something that's got to be navigated, that's got to be something that could be nurtured, and so I want to talk to you today, just for a few minutes, about what are some things that you can do that you know out, what are some things that you can do that you know. How do you model faith during times, kind of challenging times, what's kind of your style, your how do you kind of connect to God, how do you navigate those times? Because the truth of the matter is, your kids are always watching, they're always looking. Remember, years ago, shaq trying to work on his free throws in the national basketball league, and he looked at the stands and there there was his, his dad. You know, just you know, showing dad, just showing the motion, and there's just something incredibly powerful, dad and I'm not discounting moms at all, but speaking to you dads right now that's incredibly powerful when you are present and you're in the life of your son and daughter, and there's nothing as powerful, you know, on the earth for your kids than when dads are present and are there and they're watching you, especially when you're struggling during hard times. So what do you do? Well, one of the things that you probably don't do is how many of you were raising a home where, when the pressure was on, your dad was turned into a crazy man. Hey, buddy, you can hit me in the in the chat and the comments. You know where you know there's. We've all seen that the best and the worst of our fathers, if they were present. So what do you do that really would make a difference in the life of your sons and daughters. Thank you there, justin, in Montana responding, he raised his hand there.

Speaker 1: 4:28

And how many of you as dads have blown it and not been a very good model. When the pressure's on, I mean you just kind of buckle down, try harder, push yourself. And yet, in the midst of doing all that, I forget many times I'm communicating a way for my children to learn how to get out of those same same places in my life. And when they, when they struggle, what do they turn to? Because you don't want to pass on a way that turns them into you know, hurts their future story. So how do you do it? How did he do it? And we're going to look at and we've been looking at for the last couple of weeks how did Jesus do it in his own life, living out the story that God called him to be as a man. And what are lessons there for you and me that enables us to really break through when we blow it? Because I think all of us would raise our hands and say, man, I've totally blown it as a dad. And if you're a mom watching you can raise your hand as well. I've definitely totally blown it as a mom. You can adjust in flight and even after flight with your kids and really change the course of things by letting them in on what's going on.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Let me give you a first little secret that I learned about my kids. Number one when I'm going through a hard time they already know it they come up to you and go how you doing? Dad, worst thing you can do is put on the fake face and go I'm good son, I got you Not a problem, everything's going to be okay. That kind of bravado was my style for years and I didn't mean to do this, but I sort of built into my children the sense that boy dad's got it together. I must be really screwed up when I don't have it together. So I didn't model to them how to adjust course and get out of what I'm going on.

Speaker 1: 7:10

I remember a specific time when I began to really learn this. Where, you know, my son came to me and my daughter and said Dad, are you doing okay? And I decided in that moment that I was not going to be big ed. I'm not going to, you know kind of big ed things. Everything in my life that's been a big ed has been broken. You know, when you think you got it together, when you're trying to, you know you, you kind of you're trying to show your kids not to be weak.

Speaker 1: 7:45

The problem is, all of our children are tempted, just the way we are, and they are weak. They do have places where they fail, but what they need to learn more than anything is how to get back on course. Here's the first little key I want to share with you and I want to get into a few scriptures. Well, here's the first little key I want to share with you and I'm going to get into a few scriptures. Well, here's the first key when your children, when you go to your children and you ask them for prayer, when you're struggling, there's probably nothing more powerful that I could say to you tonight than modeling what you do when you feel weak. Nothing more powerful that I could say to you tonight than modeling what you do when you feel weak. Most of us want to get with God, pray, have it together, have an answer and then kind of exude this confidence that I have everything together. The truth of the matter all of us know that we don't. Our children know that we don't, and the more we kind of stand and act like we have it together, the more they learn that it's not okay to have a bad day, it's not okay to be weak, and how we deal with that. We create this persona.

Speaker 1: 9:12

I remember my children. Before I get to that story, I was going to tell you and they thought there was nothing that was impossible for me as their dad I was, you know, ex-nfl football player, did all this stuff. You know, big weightlifter, all this stuff, and I was trying to model an example of what a strong man was all the time and I didn't want to show them that I was weak and that made them really feel as though they could never do what I do. And I mean it was having the opposite effect. It wasn't exuding faith in them, it was exuding this resistance, because they felt like if I really found out what was really going on with them, that I would push them away.

Speaker 1: 10:11

You know when the Bible says when you are weak, then you are strong. He who boasts of himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself from my state will be exalted. Well, that's a principle of the kingdom that's incredibly powerful, because everybody knows that everybody is weak and nobody's a superhero. Disney has been lying to us. There is no Superman, aquaman, batman. There is no superpower that we have outside of the presence of God in our life. But to kind of exude anything other than living out the humanity that we've got to deal with.

Speaker 1: 10:59

For instance, jesus on the night before he was crucified. For instance, jesus on the night before he was crucified kind of pleaded with the disciples to stay up with him and pray. He was going through getting ready to face the greatest test that ever done on the face of the earth. He was getting ready to be crucified for everybody else's sin but his. And he needed disciples to stay up with him and tried to draw them in and they all fell asleep. Couldn't you just carry just one arrow with me? And they all fell asleep all overwhelmed. And they all fell asleep all overwhelmed.

Speaker 1: 11:51

And you know, so often we've made superstars out of people that are just mere men who really don't teach us those secrets of how to really live the life that we need to live. And so my children? They're getting the wrong picture about me. And I didn't just have this moment of oh boy. I got to share another breakthrough story with my children, and that I was doing it all wrong, that I was doing it all wrong. The breakthrough came when I I took a risk and I shared with my son something that I was struggling with, and I'll never forget his reaction. He was just about 10 years old and he looked at me and said you, dad, I struggle with the same things. I said, son, would you pray for me? And I'll pray for you and I'll never forget that moment. He, you know, came and he was in my office and he put his hands on me and prayed for me. It was a powerful prayer. It was simple that, you know, god bless my dad and I, in turn, prayed for my son and blessed him, and I realized in that moment that that and me being real with my children, opened them up to a way to get back to God when they're broken.

Speaker 1: 13:36

So what do you do? How good are you at telling a story on yourself that really helps connect your kids to those times when you were really broken and how Jesus came through in your own story. So the first thing is that you've got to be really real and you've got to be willing to open your heart up, because when you let your kids into your private life, where you really live, you know, probably the worst response in history that we can have when there's pressure on and everything's going on is oh God's got it all, don't worry about it, sign, everything's going to be great. And so that somehow alleviates their fear, because they're watching you, dad, and know that you're struggling. Or maybe mom, and the most powerful thing is when they realize I struggle just like dad or mom does. But there's a way to take that fear and give it to God. You know, in Philippians it says don't worry about anything, but by prayer and supplication, let your requests be known to God, and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Jesus Christ. There's a process that we have in the Bible of, you know, confessing that to God, going that to God.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Thank you, waseem Raza, for sharing that. God bless you too, my friend. Sharing that. God bless you too, my friend. But you know, it's when we're real and touchable that we can multiply. Matter of fact, what's seen is watching tonight from I hope I said that right from Pakistan. Bless you, my brother, the Lord bless you and use you in powerful ways. But we're most real when we are connected and we're not. We're not plugging into our own superpower or that kind of role of having together the dad, but we become I mean my, my, my.

Speaker 1: 16:02

The image that I want to portray to my children is how a flawed man, me, was touched by an extraordinary God. Him and Jesus died in my place so that I could learn to do life his way. And at the end of my life, if I communicate that in an impassable and real with my children, it gives them a roadmap when they go through hard times. Here's a scripture, here's something to think about. Imagine when you're going through a hard time, being able to see what the Father is doing all around you every day, and doing it with him.

Speaker 1: 16:52

We've been talking about this incredible truth that Jesus talked about when he said the Son of man can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees his Father doing. The Son does likewise sees his father doing, the son does likewise. But God made us in such a way and Jesus modeled that to us that when we learn to, to follow God and go to him, and and the very first step of following God is not this triumphant claiming it, naming it and and doing that, but it's coming to him in weakness, going, hey, father, I just don't have it today which, by the way, that's a best prayer you can prayer every morning. Hey, I don't have it today, but you do and I need what you have. And you know what his response is. His response is the same as he was to Jesus, because Jesus went to his father every day so that he could model the same kind of life we need. He needed the love of his father. He needed to know what his father was doing. Matter of fact, the scripture says, you know, in John 5, 20, the father loves the son and shows him all that he's done. You know that's God's promise to you as well, if you're in Christ, and even greater works than these that you may marvel, god's plan is to show you every day what he's doing around you.

Speaker 1: 18:31

And here's where we get stuck. We get stuck because when we go through a hard time, our immediate assumption is there must be something wrong with me, that God is not blessing me. We've learned to equate blessing with performance, as though if I do it just right, god will bless me. The problem with that is what did we do for Jesus to die on the cross? For us, nothing. He just chose to. And when we get into that performance mentality, we're looking for the cause of why we're not having breakthrough, although there's times when we might be in sin somewhere in our life, we're not trusting the Lord. But part of the way we connect into the source and to how God changes us is when we come to him in absolute humility and say I just don't have it today, I'm not feeling it, I'm struggling right now.

Speaker 1: 19:40

And when you have children around you and they see that's going on, the most powerful thing you can do is let them in and say, hey, can we pray about this together? It might be an issue at their school, it might be an issue that they've seen on TV. It might be them feeling like they can never make a difference. It could be all kinds of things going on. And the issue is that how are you modeling to your children, you know what the difference is that God can make in their life. And here's one of the kind of a little coaching point just to think about. And I share all of my coaching points because I broke every one of these.

Speaker 1: 20:34

I didn't understand about that and that is, I thought I had to be a perfect dad in driving my kids toward performance and that was my job, until I began to realize that I was losing their heart because they were equating my love for them with how well they were performing. And guess what they felt about me if they weren't doing so well? They didn't think I loved them. And I remember Lucas, my favorite middle son. He came to me one day and he asked me a question just out of the blue, because I was kind of hoping that one of my kids were to play football maybe. And he asked me a question just out of the blue I was kind of hoping that one of my kids were to play football, maybe, because they were all really gifted. And Lucas came to me and he was in high school, his sophomore year, and he goes hey, dad, will you still love me if I don't play football? Oh, my goodness, what a question that was. That's such a powerful moment for me because it revealed to me how I was framing my love for my son, and it was in performance and, in that case, trying to make him the best football player I could.

Speaker 1: 22:12

You ever made that mistake. You ever pushed your kids to be something better than you, but you don't share that internal struggle that they need to learn how to develop in their own life. Because you're pushing them to this moment that you promise that when they arrive, they're going to be fulfilled. I can tell you right now, in the National Football League, playing American football for those of you that are outside America, that's a football that's shaped more like this and like a soccer ball Is that when our love towards our kids are shaped like performance, they're never going to feel loved consistently by us and they're going to struggle. They're not going to love themselves, they're going to drive themselves to get to this place, even if you're not looking. It's what they believe. You believe about them.

Speaker 1: 23:17

One of the ways you can find out how they've learned about that is I want you to think about the places when you've introduced your son to your friends or you've talked about your son to somebody else and they hear about. It is what they get back from their friends is how proud you are of them because of their grades, because of their performance, because they're a good boy, because they're, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Because all those, it's helpful in some ways to celebrate your son's victories. What he really cares about and I shared this with you two weeks ago is what does my dad really think about me? What does he think about me when I'm not doing well? And how you model going to God can make all the difference in the world, and when you get that honest with your children, it will completely help to reframe their own understanding of what you think about them as a dad, or if you're a mom watching right now is how much of their own identity is shaped by that audience of man. You're amazing on the football field or basketball or in the Olympics now gold medals what an incredible thing. And that's a beautiful moment of incredible sacrifice over a lifetime for people. So you should hang it on the wall and celebrate it on the wall and celebrate it. But who is that child when he doesn't have the stands full? What are those things that you most love about them? Because that is what's going to make all the difference in the world for your kids.

Speaker 1: 25:26

And so when they're going through hard times, when they're struggling in their own story, they're paying attention to a couple things we talked about tonight. Number one is what does dad do when he gets under stress? Does he just have a glass of wine and check out how does he deal with his stress? Because they're learning how to deal with those stress factors based on what they see in you and if you're trying to be perfect. I remember in the early days my wife and I we sort of made this commitment that if we had an argument or something, we wouldn't fight in front of the kids. And then I realized you're not going to learn how to reconcile, and so we had a couple of doozies and I had to ask for forgiveness in front of my children. That did more for their future marriages and relationships than all of the conflict resolution seminars they could go through in their whole life, because they want somebody with skin to teach them how to do life, and that's you, mom and dad.

Speaker 1: 26:44

So we talked about you sharing your weaknesses and asking for prayer, modeling what it means to go and let them know that dad struggles or mom struggles Because they already know that they would do it. You might be separated, you might be divorced from your wife, but you'll always be the father of that child and they're asking over and over, day to day. They need to handle this life, they need to be able to deal with the divorce and the pain of that, the separation of that, and we're going to get into that a little bit next week and talk about how do you really help your children navigate going through a relationship that breaks up in your family, because there's a lot of that going on and it's not the end of the world. There's ways for you to model and to help them process some of those things. It's really, really painful for them or they can carry that their whole life and they never learn how to ask for forgiveness. And so we talked about going to your children and asking them for prayer Powerful.

Speaker 1: 28:05

We talked about going to your children if you blow it and ask them to forgive you. We dealt with that a lot last week and the power of that, and we talked about also dispelling the illusion of you trying to perform in front of them so they don't think you've got problems. So if you create the standard high enough for performance, that will be enough for your children. But the truth is they're human beings whose awareness of their own identity gets formed from the way you treat them, love them, speak life into them and modelize. And if they know that they're just like you and they learn how to take their hurt to God and ask for forgiveness, that could be one of the most powerful things that you can teach them, especially in a day where bitterness has become the most sold fruit on the internet and people have become experts at nuking other people online, social media, etc. Etc. Etc. But Jesus gave us a different way. He gave us the way of modeling weakness so that we become strong in him. And when our children learn how to be strong in him because they've watched, dad or mom, if you're watching, that's a powerful thing indeed.

Speaker 1: 29:40

Well, that's what I got for you today. You know it's a pleasure to share with you. After you, today, you know it's a pleasure to share with you. I've got a friend from Pakistan who's watching right now. Our book now is in 124 countries. I'm so grateful to whoever invented the internet. We can distribute as far and wide. I appreciate your prayers for me and the Father Difference Ministry and everything that we're doing. Keep that coming and a couple of things before we get off.

Speaker 1: 30:17

If you've not gotten a copy of the Difference a Father Makes, or you know somebody that really needs, that maybe had a really you know horrible relationship with his dad or is really broken, grab this link right here thefatherdifferencecom slash free book and that'll give your friends access. We're giving that away absolutely for free for you. Also, we have an online master course and it's a live coaching group that meets on Tuesday nights right now at 6 pm Pacific Standard Time, and if you click on that link on our website as well, you're going to get access, and right now it's free access and if it blesses you. My only thing is would you help us continue to reach men all over the world and probably one of the most powerful things that you can be a part of, and that's helping men connect to the love and blessing of God, the Father, in their lives and to really learn how to be the fathers their children need them to be. To do that, we're going to need resources, we're going to need partners, and I just want to encourage you, if you're in a position, to be able to help us in a small or big way. Would you go to our website and make a donation and help us really, you can click that link if you've got a phone, or just go to thefatherofdifferencecom and you can do that. And so it's been my honor tonight to be with you online and share some of these things with you.

Speaker 1: 32:15

We're going to be here next week, same time, same station. I'd love to hear from you more. I'd love to get your comments and tell me how this would bless you. There's Howard. Bless you, howard. God bless the gift of this book. I've given it to many incarcerated men. All of that just blesses my heart. Just keep giving it away. There are so many guys right now who matter of fact a couple of the prisons. It's the most passed around book in the prison. It's kind of like gold. It answers the question of why they're even behind bars. So thank you, howard, for that. Bless you.

Speaker 1: 32:58

With seeing Pakistan and all those that have joined us tonight, I'd like to pray with you as I close. And so, father, I pray for my friends that are here and I ask you that you would visit them in such a profound way that they would learn that the most powerful version of the kind of man and example they need to be is a man who knows how to repent and model it to their children and receive everything you want them to have a father's men. I pray, lord, that you would equip them in ways, lord, that maybe their dads didn't have. And I pray, lord, that you would, you would heal their families and they would. You would equip them in ways, lord, that maybe their dads didn't have. And I pray, lord, that you would heal their families and you would use these guys that are watching tonight to become fathers of their families in profound ways, grandfathers and also spiritual fathers and grandfathers to their community around the world. In the name of Jesus, father, we pray before the great and coming day of the Lord, your promise that you would send out Elijah and his ministry would be turning the hearts of fathers back to children. Father, I pray that you would do that. What we're trying to do, lord, that we're just one of those of many incredible ministries worldwide which you would help turn the hearts of fathers back to kids, so the hearts of children can come back home to the Father. In the name of Jesus, and all God's men and women said amen. Thank you for watching. Thank you for being there. May the Lord bless you.

Speaker 1: 34:51

Go to thefatherdifferencecom if you want. There's a number of things. There's a free download for our book and we even have a daily devotional. If you want a little encouraging word every day in your mailbox, a free devotion that we've been sending out for a number of years, and you can join that list as well. And if you're interested in checking out our MentorVonner coaching group, you can go there. You can follow that link. It's a long link. We're going to get it shorter here soon, but you can grab that and become part of that. And lastly but not least, got to show this we're looking for a friend who said I'm in and I want to help you financially, but at the same time I want to be one of those spiritual fathers Remember it's never too late for God to do a miracle in your story make you the man, husband, father and grandpa one day, if you don't have a dad who are looking for a grandpa like you. God bless you. Have an awesome night.