
The Father Difference
This podcast is about helping dads become better fathers.
It’s for dads who want to make a big difference in their kids’ lives (and be the best dads they can be) and want their children to have a loving and present father to help them.
It’s the reason we call it The Father Difference.
When God the Father makes a difference in us, we can make the same difference in our children's lives.
Imagine being the father God desires you to be, actively contributing to your children's dreams and future. Being a dad in their life story is crucial, and I believe it’s your most important role in life.
It only takes one Loving Father to change the course of a family for generations - and one perfect heavenly Father to begin the process in us.
We will post new podcast shows weekly.
It is our hope that The Father Difference will equip you to become the father you were meant to be.
I have coached and equipped men for 34 years in 14 countries.
Will you Join Me?
Praying for you - Ed McGlasson
The Father Difference
Finding Strength When You Can’t Fix Your Family
What if the strongest thing a father can say is, “I can’t fix myself or my kids—but God can!” We lean into that risky honesty and discover how humility, confession, and grace reshape families facing addiction, secrecy, and shame. Guided by the story of the withered hand, we unpack why we hide our wounds, how stigma isolates sons and daughters, and what happens when dads go first and stretch out what they’ve been hiding.
• Naming addiction as a family reality, not just a child’s issue
• The withered hand as a picture of hidden shame
• Why powerlessness is the start of spiritual change
• Modeling confession and forgiveness to children
• Swapping lectures for listening and safety
• Boundaries that protect without enabling
• Prayer that admits limits and invites God in
• Creating a home where kids tell on themselves
• Practical next step: Acknowledge your hurt to God
Visit www.thefatherdifference.com/links for a free book download and information about personal coaching.
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Ready to be the parent or grandparent you’ve always dreamed of becoming? Subscribe and tune into this podcast each week, and check out our resources, heartfelt encouragement, and practical tools to help you make a lasting impact on the ones you love most. Click this link below:
https://www.thefatherdifference.com/links
What kind of father do you want to be? What kind of man do you want to become for your family and for yourself? If you've ever wondered how to step into the fullness of your role as a father, husband, and man of God, then you're in the right place. Here at the Father Difference, our mission is to inspire and equip men to be the best fathers they can be. It's a powerful mission. And today, we're going to explore exactly how you can take steps toward that calling. Whether you're a father, a son, a husband, grandfather, single dad, stepfather, or just looking to grow, I believe God has something powerful for you in today's message. Whether you're tuning in live or watching this later, we are so excited to have you here. If this is what you're looking for, then subscribe so you can tune in each week to the Father Difference Live. You can sign up below. And now your host, a husband, father, grandfather, author, and former NFL player, Pastor Ed McGlassen.
SPEAKER_01:Well, welcome. I'm I'm your host, Ed Tenny McGlassen, and I am uh grateful to be with you on uh Tuesday night here, Tuesday night live. And we have people coming in from Instagram and Rumble and Facebook, both pages, and a lot of things going on in the world today. And tonight, kind of topic and show that I'm working on, I'm gonna turn off my phone ringer because I want to stay focused in on what's going on here. Is a dad dealing with, and maybe your mom dealing with childhood addiction in your family? There's how many of you have had a child or or even yourself in a battle? You get in this battle for their very soul, their their heart, they keep going back and forth and kind of stuck in this place of incredible pain and and things that they're kind of broken in. And you're not sure what to do. You've you've tried everything. You've sent them to rehab, you've taken them to church, you've tried to cast demons out of them. You've, you know, you've done everything you know to do as a parent, and yet they keep getting worse and worse, and in some cases they uh cut their life short. Because there's one thing that's true is that the enemy is going to do a lot of things to try to not only knock you out of the game, dad, or if you're a mom watching, he wants to get your kids. He wants to give them a lifetime of misery and sorrow and and in a place of really being you know overwhelmed, unable to really do their life because the drugs or whatever they're the alcohol or whatever those things is they're using to kind of connect to their own selves kind of takes over. And so it's a it's a typical uh strategy of the enemy. And so we're gonna we're gonna get right into it and talk about uh things that you can do to help them and at the same time get hope that it's not all on you, dad or mom, to make your kid sober. Matter of fact, we can't even do that with our own lives. How are we gonna do that with with a child that we love? And so I want to start out, and I want to start out with a story that's in the Bible that's just incredibly powerful. It's one of those people that Jesus healed that didn't ask for healing, he didn't raise his hand for healing. He was somebody who was in a crowd, who was always in crowds, but hidden because he had a problem. He had a withered hand that marked him most of his life. And so let's look at this story in Matthew. You know, Jesus went on from there and and and entered a synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? It doesn't it doesn't seem to indicate that they're talking about the man with a withered hand. Because in their culture, if you had some kind of deformity or you had some kind of issue, you get you you had a stigma put on you. And uh some believed in some of the the the teaching in the old testament and and that that withered hand could be was a part maybe of the father's sin or the or the life you know they had before that uh somehow God's not blessing them. There was a there was a uh identifying mark upon this man every time he's in public. It reminds me of a you know being in Bandoon, Indonesia, and I was in a crowd of you know mostly Muslim people, and a girl uh invited me into the uh and came over to me and asked me if I would pray for her school. And and I said, Well, what's the school? And she told me, she said that, you know, in our country here in Indonesia, if a child has a deformity, many times the the parents kind of give them up and and they put them in these special schools, but they live in these schools, they're separated from their families because they don't want other people to think that Allah is angry with them and His punishing their children as a result with the deformity. Much like the man with a withered hand in the story of Jesus. People are looking at him, and and so she brings all these kids to me, and they had different issues. They had deafness, they had uh physical issues, they there was a boy kind of in the middle with a turned-in ankle. He was actually walking on his ankle bone, and he was drooling out of his mouth, and it looked as though he had you know some level of mental handicap. And then there were different kids with different deformities in this school, and so I'm standing here going, God, who do I pray for? And this boy stook out. The one that stood out was a boy that was walking on his foot sideways and almost on his ankle bone, and he he was drooling out of his mouth, and I and I asked her, I said, What uh what's wrong with him? And he said, uh, and she said to me, Well, he uh he's never spoken, he's uh mute, and we're not sure if he's got some mental kind of handicap, but he hasn't he's he doesn't speak and he doesn't hear, so he's deaf and he's mute, and so I can tell that he's never been prayed for. So I, you know, I'm really gentle with him, and I, you know, I lean in really close and I'm going, God, show me how to pray. Because this is like, see, this is a Muslim boy from a Muslim school that is put in a school because of his handicap. If you're just tuning in, a number of jumping on right now, and so I'm going, Lord, show me what to do. And scripture's kind of flowing through my brain of the way Jesus you know prayed for people that were deaf. And and so I leaned in really close and I put my hands on them gently, because in that culture, you know, and as a Muslim, you you know, a Muslim man or woman, they don't want somebody to put their hands on them that maybe you're not, you know, of their faith. And so, especially a gentile, you know, a big white guy. And so I I leaned in and very gently on his face, I leaned in to his ear, and I said, I love Jesus. And I gotta tell you, friends, it was it was unbelievable what happened. And it took it took about 10 or 15 seconds, and he just started batting his eyes, and he looks at me and he says, I love Jesus. In one moment, I mean, just in a supernatural moment, where I didn't say be healed in the name of Jesus, I just spoke the name of Jesus, you know, into this little boy's ear. And he was about, I would say, 14 or 15 years old. I love Jesus. And he kept screaming it, I love Jesus, I love Jesus. Now in a Muslim community, they're all like, what in the heck is going on? And I prayed for him and he started weeping as this supernatural miracle, miracle power of God just fell on him. And he's just completely, completely being restored. And that just then, all of the, and the and the gal, the the Muslim teacher is just weeping. She's never seen her students healed before. She started bringing other students forward, and we began to pray. And the ministry team started seeing deafness healed and one blind eye open, and just amazing things happening in this group of kids that were marked with the stigma and thrown away in culture where people go, Well, I know what's going on with them. It's interesting how we do that to people. Sometimes we see homeless people and we go, oh yeah, we know their story. You know, we were so quick to you know, put a stigma on somebody and and make and they just feel kind of invisible. You know, you you see them driving on the freeway, standing there with a sign. And it's so easy to not stop and and to bless them in in some way, and and just keep on. They feel invisible. And I mean, it was it was incredible. And I had an altar call at the end. It was uh extraordinary, it's not the word that I could use, because so many people stood up and gave their life to Christ at the display of Jesus' love and power over this Muslim school. Imagine the parents getting their son back who now speaks. And I I didn't finish the healing of this kid. He he's on his ankle bone. And these girls, these Christian girls who went to serve there at this Muslim school, you know, they go in there to serve, and they're down on the ground with their hands on his ankle, and they begin to. I mean, faith just is going through the room is that like the Bible says, there was power there to heal the sick, where Jesus would go into a town and start praying, and you know, everybody was being healed. There were times when he'd go into a town, and a few people came in and they weren't. And these and these girls were just laying hands on the ankle bone, and all of a sudden, he starts groaning because it's painful to him. And his foot starts to rotate. I mean, right in the hands of these girls that are on their floor, they're weeping, they're crying, they're praising God. And I'm just watching how God can heal this little boy who could not heal himself in a moment. You might go, wow, I've you might say, Well, I've never seen anything like that. Maybe you have. Well, matter of fact, if you love Jesus today, you've had the same miracle at some level. Maybe not a physical healing, maybe, but he's healed that stigma that you had broken without God on your own. And put and part of the story here in the Bible that I wanted to start out with tonight is that you know, Jesus goes and he meets a guy with a withered hand. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? So they might accuse him. They're setting him up because they they want to frame him. I mean, we see that today. I mean, it's uh it's it's and it's just so, you know, it's doggy dog in the political world. They're trying, you know, many times setting one another up to try to trap them, try to accuse them. They they and many of these people didn't know how to handle Jesus because he didn't do church the same way. You know, he he said that he, you know, he revealed who he was. And then if there were sick there, you know, if the father was leading him, he would pray for people and they would be healed. But now he was he was coming against something that they all believed that on the Sabbath you don't heal anybody, right? You don't work. They they their belief system is that if you keep the Sabbath pure to God, then God will bless your life. And so here's Jesus doing the opposite. And he said to them, which of them who has a sheep and falls into a pit on the Sabbath will not take hold of it? How much more value is this man here than a sheep? So is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? So Jesus, because he is the Lord of the Sabbath, he's confronting them. And and imagine, uh imagine this guy now who's in the shadows, he's got a withered hand, that's probably in his shirt, hidden. He's learned to do everything with his other hand, and now Jesus is calling forward. He's looking at this guy, and his stigma, his his brokenness that he hides, it's it's it's interesting. Well, in cycles of addiction that we all deal with in our lives, is that we we uh we we hide that stigma. We don't want anybody else to see it, because we at the core of who we are, we're gonna look at this in a minute as we're thinking about how to father our children in the midst of that, is that we believe that we can handle it. We believe that we can heal ourselves, we believe that we can stop drinking too much, we can believe that we can stop eating so much, spending so much. I mean, the truth of the matter, beloved, is that we're all addicted to something. Not all addictions have the same cost on your life or on your children, and when your kids are doing drugs, and that physical part of that addiction begins kicking in to where their body now does, you know, is is constantly drawing them into more and more and more. And if you've ever, you know, if you're a child of the 60s, I was I was too busy playing football, you know. So when you know all the kids were trying to get me to to smoke dope and all that kind of stuff, I you know, I tried to stay away it just because I I I heard that it was is bad, but I will tell something of myself. This will probably make this uh video viral, by the way. But my friends in college, they were trying to everything to get me to smoke a doobie, you know, and I was just I was like a brand new Christian. I had just given my life to Christ, and they're they're doing everything to get me, and I'm saying, no, that's sinful, I'm not gonna do it. And so I'm there, and and I live, you gotta picture my dorm. Um I'm in a dorm in on the in Kilcauley dormitory in Young Sound State University, and they're and after football games, we come back and just kind of crash in our room. And all my friends on the football team and all the kids in the hall, they're out smoking, drinking. It's a part, it's you know, college, just party time. And so I would take wet paper, you know, uh wet towels and lock my door and put it at the threshold at the bottom of my door because my friends, you know, so wanted me to be a party man like them, they would bring their bungs and start blowing smoke underneath my door to try to get me, you know. So I was resisting and and everything. And then finally, you know, one night I, you know, I just said, okay, I'll take a couple of puffs. And to try to get them off my back. Well, I gotta tell you, it was it was not a pleasurable experience for me because I was already hungry being a football player, and I got such an insatiable hunger that I went to the 7-Eleven right on the edge of the campus. I took all of my football per diem money for food for that next 30 days to go out and get snacks and stuff and spend it on Fritos and Bean dip and sausage links and popcorn and and I don't think they had Cheetos back then. And I mean, I you know, I I couldn't eat enough. It's like it kicked in this this hunger inside of me. And I and I woke, I woke up the next morning with like a salt lick on my face. I mean, I was just, oh, I was just miserable, dehydrated, just had a terrible headache. And I didn't have a good reaction. And I and so I tell people, you know, they go, Well, hey, yeah, did you ever smoke dope? I'm not gonna hide it like Bill Clinton did. Well, you know, I had to give up marijuana because I couldn't afford the munchies. Oh man, that was that was my last time. That was just that was just you know craziness. And so when we lean into those places with our bodies, you know, those those things, they they, you know, when we lean into something to party with or to do that in in kind of innocent fun can end up owning you. The same thing that happens with your kids. And yet the drugs today, methamphetamies and crystal meth and and all of the oxycontin that's just flowing around. Children are are are just uh I mean, they're getting hit with hard stuff right away. And so, how do they deal with it? Let's get back to that story I was reading before. And so then he said to them, Stretch out your hand. So he takes this guy who's got this hidden thing that that he's kept that hand hidden. And he said to the man, stretch out your hand in the in just imagine this moment where he had to do something that he did not want to do, he didn't want to be seen. There's no record that he knew about Jesus' miracle power. And Jesus says, Stretch out your hand, and as he did, it was restored and healthy like the other. And the Pharisees, the Bible says, went out and conspired against Jesus on how to destroy him. And this story has so many major implications about you know how you how someone really does change. And how uh does one of your children you know come out of a place where addiction is grab them? Or how do you come out of a place where addiction or the things that you're doing that you're still hiding, like the man with a withered hand, comparing yourself, well, at least I'm not like this person. You know, I remember when I was growing up, if you're older like me, you know, when someone's saying you're drinking too much, and you'd go, Well, I'm not like Otis De Drunk from Mayberry. Remember that guy in the show? And he would every night he would drink himself stupid and show up at the jail, take the key and go in and lock himself in and sleep it off. And so we go, well, at least I'm not like that person. And sometimes it's really hard as a parent when our children are entering into something that you can't believe they're doing. And yet there's there's principalities and powers and and wickedness. The devil's gonna throw everything at our children in his generation and our grandchildren. And so, so how do we kind of move out of that? Well, we started out talking about this story. Well, here's the the first thing I want to share with you. I'm reading an incredible book by John Arpert called Steps. If you've not read it, it's it's one of the most powerful books on recovery that I've ever read. And it and I'm reading it for a couple of reasons. Number one, I'm reading it as a grandpa and as a father. So that if there's, you know, if those areas that I I have issues where I'm addicted to, God can bring a healing to me and my life in a real way for my children and my grandchildren and my friends and people that I minister to can be an example of how God can take a broken guy like me and heal him. Now, every time you know a man or a woman goes to an AA meeting and stands up and introduces themselves. Hi, I'm Ed, I'm an alcoholic or whatever the name is. And they acknowledge that they're powerless to stop drinking or to do things that are in their story. They're just like that guy with a withered hand when Jesus said, Stretch out your hand. Because as long as that hand is hidden, as long as that addiction or that place in you is hidden, you're gonna be a prisoner to whatever that is. And the shame of that will grab your life and will grab your heart. And and the result of that is that you won't pray the same when you're constantly dealing with stuff and hiding from God. You won't you know how to to minister to your kids if they're struggling. Because you're you're it's it's so I mean I've talked to parents, you know, a lot of parents whose children are you know in the midst of addiction issues, and their response many times is I can't believe I my child is doing this. I raised them in a Christian home, they went to church, they did all these things, and so you know, somehow you can keep our children from ever being under spiritual warfare. So, one of my questions that I've asked, and I ask of myself, is my life, and I want you to ask yourself, is my life a roadmap so that my children not only know how bad I blew it and how much uh how broken I am without Christ, do am I modeling to them how you get free? See, one of the most powerful people to help a child is a is a dad and a mom. And I'm not saying you do it just right, it'll happen every time. Because we're we're fighting against demonic powers and and rulers of the darkness, too. I mean, the the devil wants to destroy our children. But the the the the coming in your own life to your own story, it's it's just crucial. And John writes on, he says, I've experienced powerlessness in the areas of life that are most important to me. I've experienced deeply painful failure as a parent. I've done the same. I've experienced deeply painful failure in my calling as a pastor, man, right along with you. This has left brokenness around me within me that I cannot solve and I cannot fix. I mean, that's one of the things of getting healed, is realize that we can't fix those things. The self-made Marlborough man, I think he died of lung cancer. We can't conquer those things. Uh, we can start our new leaf, is why New Year's resolutions last for a few days every year at the turn of the year. But we need help. He goes on. He says, This has left a brokenness around me within me that I cannot solve, I cannot fix. This is my reality. My life must incorporate this painful, broken weakness if it's to be a life at all. Because when we avoid it, or we just, you know, quote a scripture over ourselves and say, I'm under the blood, everything's great, but we're never really honest about who we are when nobody is looking. That's why I think when James wrote that, you know, to men, if you confess your sins to one another, you're gonna you can be healed. Or if you're a gal, there's something that's incredibly freeing when you learn how to make yourself vulnerable. And where you learn to, it's like there's this cathartic thing that happens inside of you when you finally talk to a friend and say, Man, I'm in trouble. I need help. At that moment of declaring I can't do this, and I'm stuck, what you're gonna find is that you won't see most of us as men, we don't do that because we don't want other people, we don't want anybody to think that we're weak. Oh man, I mean, people have called me big ed since I've been a young kid. And man, I I've tried to big ed stuff. And I gotta tell you, man, it doesn't work. I've tried to big ed people in church. You know, I've tried to super encourage them, I've tried to do a lot of things. I've learned as I've gotten older that I can only do what the father's doing with somebody. I can't make it happen for them. But more than anything, I've learned that. I need to, you know, you know, allow the Lord into those places that nobody sees clearly. So that that those that that shame doesn't get root in me. And I start hiding my hand, like the man with a withered hand story, so that nobody sees it. And his healing happened when he responded. I mean, he could have said no to Jesus. No. I've learned how to use my other hand. Thank you very much. I don't need to bring out that hand. Because everyone will know then that, you know, that I can't handle my life with one hand. I've proven my life that I can be a one-handed man. I've gotten really good with one hand. And what am I going to do? I mean, people kind of live, you know, kind of in that reality to where they're they they stand away from the healing of God because they've they've built something that they think they can manage. I was in um, you know, in Germany, in uh Heidelberg, and I was in a church, and I saw a worship leader on the stage, and I was behind the stage with our prayer team as we were getting ready to go speak at this church, it's a big Lutheran church. And uh and I was watching and I noticed that the worship leader was blind. And so I'm saying, Lord, you want to heal this guy? And I walked up there and I put my hand on his back at the end of worship, and I started to pray for him, and his eyes started to open. And as they did, he yelled, Stop it! I don't want this, and I guess his eyes went dark again. And I I I came around in front of him and I said, Well, why? He said, I I have wonderful relationships with people that help me. And if and if I get my sight back, they might not they might not want to be around me anymore. I said, Oh friend, that's not the way the people of God are. But he said, Thank you, but don't pray for ever pray for me again for healing. See, I he had a withered hand, and it's like I've been able to play the piano with one hand, and and you coming in and interrupting. That's why in those days I didn't, I didn't know what I know now, that in a real way that I can only do what I see the Father doing. Back then, I thought I'd just go and pray for people and just be bold, and then God will heal some of them. And he struggled. And so, not only that, you know, in you know, this my life in my reality, but I must incorporate this painful broken weakness to be a life at all. Next slide here. And so paradoxically, he writes, and if you haven't gotten this book from John Orberg, man, I'd go right now in Kindle and get it. It's called Steps. It's the most powerful book on covery. And the subtitle is A Guide to Transforming Your Life When Willpower Isn't Enough. So good, so brilliant. I'd love to have him on a podcast. He's just a brilliant guy. And he writes paradoxically, the true spiritual journey with God depends on your sincere, desperate recognition that we are not in control. Now we might go, amen, brother, amen. But there's it's one thing to agree with it, it's another thing to live in such a dependency on God speaking and leading and doing things in your life that you don't sort of take the reins and deal with it. So God will send us people, places, and things we cannot control. Have you noticed that? That's what the way parents that I'm coaching right now that children are in addiction, and we just are overwhelmed. I have a dear family member that a couple of family members that I had in my family that were alcoholics, and it was just really hard for them to admit it. I mean, I prayed, I fasted, I encouraged, I confronted, I did interventions, I tried all these kind of things. And what I've come to know is that I can't fix them. It's one of the hardest things for us as a mom or dad with our children to admit that we can't fix them. But God can. Matter of fact, we can't fix ourselves. See, here are here, I want you to think about what that means. Here are three things you might consider for a moment. Uh, you can't can control your birth, your death, and everywhere in between. John, you're sneaky. You're such a great writer. So here's so here's the truth about this first section here is that I can't fix myself or my family, but God can. Just I want you to say that out loud with me. No matter what you're going through, no matter what places that you're in as a mom or a dad, to be able to say, I can't fix myself or my family, but God can. See, that's that's the incredible news. God can. And the way we we enter into that healing process is really crucial to how they might receive from us. And it's it's it's one of those things that's so easy for us as human beings to get a superior attitude with a child that's not acting right. And so our conversations towards them is all about creating a safe place around them. And in a lot of ways, we browbeat them because they're not living up to the level. And, you know, I found that when I did that with my children, they they got afraid to talk to me and they stopped sharing intimate stuff with me. They stopped telling on themselves. And so it's like, you know, I became big ad to my kids. Ex-pro-football player. Boy, dad can do anything. But when I started to share that, I couldn't, and and I invited them into my brokenness. One of the things I started doing with my kids is, you know, I realized that I never taught them how to ask for forgiveness. I never I never taught them how to be weak and say, I can't do this, I need help. Because even in their young lives, they they they push themselves so that they can impress me somehow. You've seen this, I know you have as a parent. They're pushing themselves. They're, you know, they're they're the they're the hallelujah, I love Jesus, yes, I do, I love Jesus, how about you at youth group and and everything. And and yet when it, you know, down the road they're behaving, a youth group, they're behaving with your rules at home. But when they're with their friends, they have their own set of rules. And the secret of helping them is them being willing to share what those rules are with you, expecting you to judge them or to browbeat them or to do what I did so many times. That's not being a McGlassan. Oh, is that the dumbest thing you've ever heard? You can even respond in the chat. Yeah, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Like my genetic, you know, pool is any more superior than anybody else. No, I'm I'm broken. I can't fix myself. So when I communicate that, it's like the standard is living up to the family legacy. And it's not, it's not the heart that God wants to give us. I mean, think about the prodigal son story. When the father sees a son who wished him dead and wanted his inheritance and ran away, lived in crazy living, he smelled like sin, looked like sin, came home to just even eat the pig pods that the pigs left behind because he was starving. His father didn't lecture him. He ran out and ordered the fatted pig to be killed and a new robe and a ring, and he restored his son because he was lost. And him turning home, where he came, I can't do this. I'm gonna go back to my dad's house. When he turned home, healing began for that young man. It's why God meets us. Didn't he meet you there? He met me there. You know, the slide goes on that here's our new reality. There's a God, and it's not me. That seems like such a simple thing to say, but it is the healthiest thing you can say, because that really is true. And the quicker you embrace that, the quicker you'll connect to God's presence and the power. So I'm gonna give you a few more things, and probably gonna I'm gonna continue this in part two next week, because this is such a big subject, and I don't I want to give you guys opportunities to respond. I'd love some comments or maybe prayer requests of somebody in your family, because you might be dealing with this in yourself or with one of your kids today. And so here's you know, here's a truth that John writes about, and I wholeheartedly agree. Our spiritual life always starts with the recognition of powerlessness. And why is that? What Jesus said, he didn't come for the healthy, but for people who were sick, I would go on to say who knew they were sick. People who had a stigma, people who were marked by a community, people were outcasts, women who had the letter A sewn on their garments. You know, people who were accused, people who were marginalized. That's what Jesus chose. I mean, I mean, look at his band of disciples. He had a he had an IRS agent, some fishermen, you know, the sons of thunder, you know, like a camel jockey gang. They, you know, they wanted, they're the ones bringing fire down from heaven. You know, they, you know, he had all kinds of disciples that didn't come from the status quo of the rabbis. And Jesus turned them all into these incredible, laid-down lovers of Jesus. And they they failed for all of us to read about all the mistakes they made, and yet God used them profoundly to establish this church. It's still going on. And so, you know, part of what you and I gotta realize is that when we, you know, admit that we're powerless over anything, and we we we draw other people into that thing. There's incredible healing there. And let me say this. When's the last time you've confessed your own brokenness to your children? Now, I'm not talking about little tiny kids, but as they're growing up, who in your family teaches your kids how to admit that they're powerless over their stuff that they can't fix themselves? Because we model we model as parents, and I think we err on the side of performance and follow-through and good manners and family tradition and obeying God and going to church and you know, uh being faithful. There's all some great family values that we have. But uh the most important family value that Jesus wants you and I to have is when we go, I can't do, I'm broken. And without Jesus in my life, I I can't fix it, but He can. And see, when you teach your children how to come back from the abyss, your grandchildren are gonna learn it too, one day. Because the truth of the matter is the the spear of the point of the spear in spiritual assault on and most of Christendom, it's not just pastors on stages. And there's there's a lot of them we've seen fall who God is exposed. And and when they confess it, there's incredible, it's an incredible message to the church. But it's our children. He's after our kids. And so one of the best defenses for that and in how you help them get out of the abyss, is they they need a model of how that happens. They're not going to learn if they if they think that your life was perfect. And I and I got a lot of fun stories about how God has done a lot of things, and I'm so grateful because I really believe that I can't, but he really can. But I wasn't very good in the beginning at all, and I still struggle with sharing weakness. That I need prayer for this. Because I want to be big ed, you know, and have the answers. How about you? And the more you're like that, the more your children will believe, well, you can't relate to me. You can't relate to how broken I am, Dad. I was with a young man this week, and he could never tell his father his mistakes because his dad was so brutal in the way he treated him. And so he just figured out that I'm just gonna have to do this completely by myself. And I met with him a few weeks ago and and I said, So how's it going? He says, Really bad. It's really bad. I I'm stuck. I'm drinking too much, I'm smoking dope, I'm I'm ruining my family, and I know I shouldn't. I'm afraid to go to church, you know, because I I haven't made my life right yet with God. And I looked at him in a Zoom coaching call and I said, I got some really good news for you. You don't get in with Jesus because you get it together first. You get in with Jesus when you bring the worst of you to him so that he can give you the best that he has. We had a teary powerful prayer time. Because in his family, all military, to show weakness, not that you were a girly man or a sissy. And yet uh you're the most powerful that you are, when you live in that in that humility that is the fruit of you regularly not only going to the Lord and saying, Father, I am broken in this, forgive my sin. But when you're willing to share that brokenness with a brother, and then when appropriate, to share that with your children on how God has forgiven you. And I gotta tell you, I I've talked to a lot of a lot of pastors' kids who left the church because they never thought they were ever good enough. And that they left and went into the world because they didn't want what they were doing to destroy their dad's ministry, because to my father, that was the most important thing in their mind. Not actually, but you know, we you know, we had things with our own kids. And there's a real temptation. Oh, we don't want to share this with anybody, but as soon as you do that, you've you cease to be a real part of that community. And so I'm gonna I want to stop here. I I have a lot more with this, and we're gonna continue part two next week. But I just I just want to leave you with I think one more kind of picture here. And and this is really it's kind of the first step after you say I can't fix myself. And we're gonna share four more next week, but here's the first one, and that is you've got to really acknowledge your hurt to God, because he wants to heal you. And when you when you're hurting, and and when you're stuck, if you've been hurt, God God really says, I want to heal you. But he can't really heal us if we don't bring it to him. So when you let go of the pretense and the and the positioning that you think you need to do, and you bring him those those broken-hearted things, like the Bible says, he he heals the brokenhearted and he binds up their wounds. I mean, God the Father loves doing that with you and I. But we we could so easily get into this, you know, name it and claim it and believe in God, our heartache over stuff. Because we think that when we have heartache, that's not faith. But the truth of the matter is the best thing you can do is pour out to the Lord how broken you feel. Because he knows it already. But you go to him and say, Lord, I I my heart is just so overwhelmed. I I can't believe my daughter's in this place, or my son is in this place, or my grandchild is in this place. And so, Lord, it just breaks my heart. I mean, heart is completely broken, and I I bring this to you, or you know, issues related to your own failure and things. And so you got to sort of clean up your act before you come to God. That the truth of the matter is that as soon as we do that, we're we're without saying this directly but indirectly, I'm saying, uh, Jesus, you know, I I don't need what you did for me on the cross. I can fix myself. Or I can fix this person in my family. And uh man, I my our family learned this uh years ago. I'll just kind of close with this. Is that we had an opportunity to because this person that we knew was their daughter was really stuck in she you know, she was an alcoholic and an addict and and drugs and putting herself in harm's way and you know, passing out, and I mean just you know, just a horrible addiction. And um really thought, you know, we just we'd move them into our family and uh we're just gonna love her into a new place. You ever try to do that? But we didn't know the what the heck we were doing, and uh and in the midst of it, I mean it uh I mean we we we had a we had a it's like the God's uh God's uh mercy on us exposed that you you can't fix her. We loved her to death, still love her. And I guess she's uh she's sober today, she's doing great and walking with Jesus. And but man, it was it was a mess, and and it did us in because we felt like we just didn't do enough. Maybe we should have tried something different, or you know, we we just we just didn't do enough. We we thought that we could be part of the cure. And boy, that's a slippery slope. And when you're in that place, you can if you lose a child or go through something horrible like that, you're gonna you're gonna feel guilty, or you'll you'll blame God in the midst of that. And and it's so easy for us to write ourselves into the healing of people that we love. It's very subtle. We get a few victories and we think we can fix them. I I call it when I big ed people. I mean, I I've I've seen incredible miracles in my life, and I'm so grateful. People saved and all over the world. But God did all that. Ed didn't do that. But when you start dealing with people that are really close to you and you love them, you you have this uh place in you where you're you you you have this belief, well I I can fix them. It's very subtle. And uh and it doesn't work, and and boy, we uh we gave all that we had as a family, and and we we were all in serious trauma trying to save this girl, and and she wasn't ready. She wasn't we I mean we went out and rescued her from a gang of wicked men. We you know, I put myself in jeopardy. Almost got arrested by the police and going to a drug house and I mean all all these things. I was so involved in making this happen. And you know the lesson that came out of that was that I it's like from the Lord, he said, You can't fix yourself. How are you gonna fix somebody else? And I remember just uh coming to him and saying, God, I can't do it. I can't fix myself, I can't fix her, I can't fix anybody. I mean, I had people in my church that I absolutely loved and cared for, led many of them to Christ, and they would start going sideways and commit adultery on their wife, and I'd call them in and help them try to bring them back, and they would just destroy their marriage in front of me. And I would take it so personal, like what's wrong with me? Uh is highlighted beyond of what God thinks about you because he loves you, knows how fully broken you are, but his requirement for enduing you with his power is that you let go of yours. And that's my point tonight. And the more you let go of your personal power and you're trying to will something to happen, and the more you lean in to what he's doing, there's incredible lessons for you, and that'll be the best way for you to begin to transition and help your children. Because when they see the model in you, dad or mom, if you're watching, it's going to give them incredible hope. And so I'm going to pray for those that are watching. And I actually have an online men's group. If you're not part of our academy, I have an online men's group that starts actually in two minutes. Been long-winded night. Thanks for hanging with me, all you that are here on all the platforms. I'm so grateful to be here. But I want to end in prayer, and uh we have a little offer at the end of this. And next week we're going to get to part two about this. But um, I just want to pray with you right now. Father, I just want to lead you in a prayer. Would you just pray this with me to say, Jesus, right now, I can't fix myself, I can't fix my kids, but you can. And Father, I invite you into that place in me, those places I've hidden, so that I can learn, I can become a roadmap when my children watch how I interact with you. Father, I just give you my families. We give you our families, we give you those impossible people we deal with, we give you our friends, and we say, Lord, we can't fix them, but you can. And we ask you to heal us in the name of Jesus and to make us yours completely to where our boast at the end of the day is whatever you see is because he God has blessed me by forgiving me and giving his son. And he can do the same for you. And August people said, Amen. Love you, gotta bounce. Check us out at thefatherdifference.com. Watch this uh little video before we close. If you need coaching or something, go to my website, thefatherdifference.com. We'd love to help you and your family. And the Lord bless you, my friends. Never too late for a new beginning. God bless.
SPEAKER_00:Dear friends, imagine a world where every father feels equipped to lead with faith, love, and purpose. A world where families thrive and communities grow stronger because of devoted, Christ-centered fathers.
SPEAKER_01:You know, beloved, that is the vision that God's put in my heart for every single family. You know, he is on the move, I believe. He promises in Malachi that before the great and coming day of the Lord, he's going to do something profound. He's going to turn the hearts of fathers back towards their children. So the hearts of their children will turn back to their father. That's what God is doing. I meet dads daily who want to learn to be better fathers. Yet many have never been shown how. Too many families are being fractured through bitterness and with parents and grandparents even being canceled. That's why we're launching an online community to equip men to be the fathers that God has called them to be. It's more than a program, it's a part of a movement that God is already doing to reshape fatherhood as a sacred calling rooted in the teachings of Christ. And we're calling this the Fatherhood Academy, where men will embark on a journey of healing and spiritual restoration that helps them transform their family relationship. And to make this vision a reality, would you consider partnering with us financially as we continue to reach and disciple every man, dad, and grandpa that comes our way? Your donation will help create a ripple across the neighborhoods, communities, you know, and ultimately our nation, anchoring each child here's a vision in the unwavering love and guidance of a devoted dad.
SPEAKER_00:Will you partner with us? Your gift, whether a one-time donation or ongoing monthly support, will help to transform lives. Together, we can equip fathers and grandfathers to lead with faith and create a brighter, hope-filled future for generations to come. Click the link to donate today. Thank you for believing in this mission and joining us on this transformative journey.