CC Podcast

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello there, pray dot com listener. I'm Terry and it's
great to have you here with us on Ccpodcasts. We're
here to share the truth of God's word and proclaim
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Please visit our profile and
click that follow button to keep up with us right
here at pray dot com, or jump over to our
website Ccpodcasts dot com to download our freemobile app. There

(00:27):
you can access thousands of episodes of our Christ centered
Bible based content. On today's episode, you'll be hearing a
selection from each of our three types of content. First,
you'll hear Matt Research share one of our brief daily
dose emotions where we're working through an overview of the
entire Bible. Second, Pastor Tim Budger will share a sixteen

(00:47):
to eighteen minute sermon from the CC Broadcast, which has
been airing on the radio weekly since nineteen thirty six.
And Third, you'll hear an inspiring interview with an interesting
Christian from our ccpodcast Conversation. Before we get going, why
don't I say a quick prayer, God, thank you for
loving us enough to send your son Jesus Christ to

(01:08):
save us. I pray that you would speak through the
content wind up for today so that people would be
encouraged and inspired by you and your word. Amen. Okay,
here's Matt Reeser, executive director of CC Podcast, with our
daily dose devotion.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Today.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
We're going to be a John chapter nine, verses one
through seven. This is where Jesus heals a man who
was born blind and it raises lots of interesting issues
that we get to discuss briefly today. Before we jump
into the text, I want to thank the Family Leader
for being our twenty twenty three Daily Dose devotion sponsor.
You can learn more about them and the announcements at
the end of this devotion, and as always, thank you
to the Family Leader for their support. So Jesus has

(01:48):
just spent chapter eight sparring with the Pharisees. He left
his most controversial and audacious statement for the end of
that chapter. We covered it in our previous text when
he told them before Abraham was I am. If you
haven't heard him yet, you should go back and listen
to those chapter eight devotions because there's a lot of
great stuff there. And now as we go into chapter nine,
he's going to return to the Jesus that we are

(02:09):
more familiar with that we're more taught about in our
Christian culture. The healer working miracles Verse one. As he
passed by, he saw a man blind from birth, and
his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned this man or
his parents that he was born blind. Now, this is
an interesting question by the disciples, kind of a theological question,
and it reveals an assumption that they had, which is

(02:30):
that somebody must have done something wrong. You're not just
born this way without somebody having sinned in this being
the consequences or even the punishment for their sin. That
was a common viewpoint toward people with significant disabilities back then.
But Jesus sets the record straight on this verse three.
Jesus answered it was not that this man's sinned or
his parents, but that the works of God might be

(02:52):
displayed in him. So there's actually quite a bit here
that I want to unpack. There's the obvious point which
I already alluded to, Jesus making the point that just
because somebody has a significant disability doesn't mean it is
the result of someone's sin. At the same time, Jesus
isn't saying that no disability, ever, is not the result
of somebody's sin. I was trying to think of an
example of this. You can imagine a woman who's pregnant

(03:14):
and she's abusing alcohol or drugs. When her baby is born,
the baby might be a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome,
which is a direct result of sin, if you want
to categorize alcohol abuse as sin. And obviously there are
numerous circumstances where somebody might have a disability that's the
result of someone's sin. Off the top of my head,
I'm thinking of somebody who gets shot or stabbed. The

(03:36):
resulting disability could be because the person who shot them
or stabbed them was sinning. But in general, the maladies
that people have are not a direct result of theirs
or somebody else's sin, but they are the result of
general sin in the world. I mean, if Adam and
Eve had never sinned, if sin had never entered the world,
and if we were still living in the garden of Eden,

(03:57):
there wouldn't be people born blind. And all that is
a fine in good discussion we could have for a
lot longer. But more important than all that, Jesus makes
it clear that the reason that this man was born
blind was so that the works of God might be
displayed in him. Well, we're about to see Jesus heal him,
which is obviously going to put the works of God
on display. It's going to help people to put their
faith in Christ. It's going to glorify God. And there

(04:19):
are many, many cases of people who face disabilities or
hardships of many kinds, trials, tribulations, and one of the
key reasons that God allows all that stuff to happen
is so that through them people might see the works
of God on display. And that doesn't necessarily mean that
somebody who's in a wheelchair is going to walk, or
somebody with cancer is going to be healed, or that

(04:39):
somebody who's facing a hardship will have that hardship reversed.
Sometimes the works of God don't manifest themselves that way.
Sometimes the works of God manifest themselves in such a
way that a person facing terrible hardship or sickness or
difficulty is able to experience joy, is able to display
faith and strength in the midst of trials carrying a
heavy burden. It might be good for each of us

(05:01):
to reflect on hardships that we're facing right now, or
that we have faced, and to think about the many
ways that God has blessed us or used those hardships
to shape us, or to inspire us or inspire others.
The works of God are on display all the time
in and through people, during some of the toughest times
of our lives. Jesus continues in verse four, we must
work the works of Him who sent me while it

(05:23):
is day. Night is coming when no one can work
as long as I am in the world. I am
the light of the world. So this reminds me of
the saying we need to make hay while the sun shines.
Jesus is saying, while I am here the light of
the world, it's daytime. And when it's daytime, we need
to do the works of Him who sent me, because
night time is coming. And when Jesus says night is coming,
he's referring to his death and then his subsequent departure

(05:46):
from Earth. He's very aware that he needs to fulfill
and complete the things that his father has given him
to do. And you and I, if we're followers of
Christ ambassadors for him during this journey on earth, we
ought to have the same kind of urgency and determination,
the same kind of an awareness that our time is
short here, we should spend it on Kingdom impact for
all it's worth. Verse six. Having said these things, he

(06:07):
spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva.
Then he anointed the man's eyes with mud, and said
to him, go wash in the pool of siloam, which
means scent. So he went and washed and came back seeing.
We're going to go ahead and continue this lengthy text
in our next devotion, but before I sign off, a
couple things about those verses. First of all, there was
one commentator who suggested that Jesus, in making mud was

(06:30):
kind of alluding back to the creation when God formed
Adam out of the dirt. Here the creator, Jesus, who
was there at creation creating the universe and the world
with God, is here on earth and he's recreating again,
creating sight out of blindness. And of course this isn't
all just about physical sight. Jesus, the light of the world,

(06:52):
is not just bringing light into a man's eyes who's
never seen it before, But in doing so, he's shining
the light the truth about who He is and who
God is, to the disciples and to those who are watching,
and even to us who read this account two thousand
years later. Come back to find out what happens after
this in the next portion of this text.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 5 (07:12):
Every Hi, I'm Andrew Nordstrom, technical director for the CC Podcast.
Thanks for listening here on pray dot com.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Please visit our.

Speaker 5 (07:21):
Profile and follow us right here, or head over to
ccpodcast dot com, where we've archived thousands of episodes worth
of content and you can access our free mobile app. Next,
we're going to hear a sermon from Pastor Tim Bucker,
who preaches on our weekly radio program, the CCED Broadcast,
which has been on the air since nineteen thirty six.

(07:41):
Thanks for tuning in, and may God.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Richly bless you.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
What we are talking about today is one of my
favorite topics. We're talking about the strengthening of our faith.
The strengthening of our faith. You know, we measure the
worth of something in our world by what we're willing
to pay for something or what we're willing to give
in exchange for something. And everything has a relative value
according to how much a person wants something or how

(08:13):
much they're willing to give up for something. And we
value things differently in our world. All of us do
And the question we have is when we need something
and want it, what will we pay for? For instance,
right now, I happen to have a missing tooth. I
bit into a Hamburger a number of months ago and
cracked my tooth down the middle.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
And now I'm.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
Having to pay a price to get a new tooth.
And I'm willing to pay quite a bit to get
a tooth put in my mouth because teeth are important.
They're something I want to use the rest of my life.
I want to have my teeth, and so I'm paying
a price for my teeth to have one put back
in there. And what is our faith worth? The question

(08:57):
today is what is our faith worth? Is it worth strengthening,
is it worth building? And I want to ask you
the question, what would you give in exchange for your faith?
How important is your faith to you? Peter wrote this,
our faith in God and in Christ is of greater
worth than gold or riches, than anything this world values.

(09:19):
That's just a measure of worldly value. And Peter said,
for Peter one seven, our faith in God, our faith
in Christ, is of greater worth than gold. It's something
to be cherished, something to be nurtured, something to be
growing and cultivating in our lives. And as we're walking
through Paul's letter to the Believers in Rome, we encounter Abraham,

(09:41):
this man that God chose out of the world to
be the father of many nations, through whom he would
bless the entire world. All the families of the world
will be blessed through Abraham. He gave him the land
of Israel, which is why Israel is always.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
In our news.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
Yet today it is God's chosen location there, and abraha
him when God came and called him, he told him
he was going to set out to go to a place.
He didn't know where he was going. He trusted God.
He believed God, and God counted that to him as
pleasing to him to satisfy his demands. You know, the

(10:16):
Bible tells us our faith is the only way. It
is through faith, trusting in an unseen God and what
He's revealed to us in his word and what He's
given us through his son. Trusting in this is the
only way we can please God. Without faith. Hebrews eleven
six says we cannot please God. Anyone who comes to

(10:37):
God must believe that he is God and that he
rewards those who earnestly seek him. So we need faith
to be pleasing to God. And what is faith? Faith
is the assurance of things we hope for, the conviction,
a belief in things we cannot see. And this is

(10:58):
what the ancients were commended for. And here we read
about this in Paul's letter when he says about Abraham,
he did not weaken in faith when he considered his
own body, which was as good as dead, ninety nine
years old, and God told him You're going to have
a child through whom I'm going to bless the whole world.
He did not weaken in faith when he considered his

(11:18):
body or considered the barrenness of his wife Sarah's womb.
No unbelief made him waver concerning this promise of God.
He grew strong in his faith, and he gave glory
to God, fully convinced that God was able to do
what he had promised. I want to ask you today,

(11:39):
what would it be like for you to live with
a super strong faith fully convinced that God was able
to do everything He's promised for you to do? Would
you live differently than your living right now? Would it
change your demeanor? Would it change your behavior. Would it
change your outlook? Would it change your countenance? If your

(12:01):
faith in God was stronger? Well, I believe it is
God's will for you and I to have ever strengthening,
ever growing faith. Paul would write to the believers in Colossians,
and he said this to them. They'd already opened their
heart to the gift of Christ through faith. And he
said to them, just as you received Christ Jesus as

(12:22):
Lord by faith, continue to live your lives in Him,
rooted and built up in Him, strengthened into faith as
you were taught overflowing with thankfulness. Faith is the doorway,
the lever that opens up God's power to us. Jesus
said this. If you have faith so little as a

(12:44):
mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here,
and you will move it. Nothing will be impossible for you.
There is some power in our faith in God, when
it's nurtured and aligned with what He's revealed to us,
continually changes our our lives and lifts us in a
new way. So strengthening your faith, friends, strengthening our faith?

(13:06):
What's involved with that?

Speaker 2 (13:07):
First of all, I.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Want to suggest to you that the most important thing
in strengthening our faith is to understand and live into
the fact that God.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Has told us our.

Speaker 4 (13:18):
Faith is a supernatural gift from Him. And then we
want to see how He imparts.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
This to us.

Speaker 4 (13:27):
By the work of his spirit. We understand through his word.
Here's what Paul will write later in his letter to
the Believers in Rome and Romans ten. What we know
of is verse seventeen. He says faith comes to us
by hearing. We hear something, we believe it, and then
we start to trust in it and base our life

(13:47):
on it. And as Paul is writing this, the supernatural
faith in God, somehow God has wired this into the
way this works comes to us by hearing his word.
His word is alive and powerful. There's something supernatural about it.
We know from Genesis when God said let there be light,

(14:08):
there was light. And we know that Jesus is the
embodiment of God's word.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
He's alive.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
And then this written word is inspired for us. And
when we look into it and we have our hearts
and minds prayerfully opened for the supernatural gift of faith,
and we say, God, guide us into what's true, help
us believe what's true. His word can come to us
and produce greater faith in us. It's a supernatural gift

(14:37):
that comes when we lean into the powerful word of God,
receive it and believe it. And God is trying to
work this in us so we might be a people
of great faith. Now, if you are hearing this today
and you sense a weakness in your faith or a
lack of confidence in it, I want to remind you
of something that happened when Jesus was here. It's recorded

(14:59):
for us in Mark chapter nine, when a man came
to Jesus and one of his sons was struggling with
their health, and he came to Jesus and he said,
if you can do anything, take pity on us and
help us if you can. Jesus said, everything is possible
for the one who believes. Immediately, the boy's father exclaimed,

(15:20):
I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief. Friend, if
you want more faith, I want to encourage you today
start asking God for it.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Lord. I have some faith. It's weak.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
Could you help me make it stronger? Could you make
it stronger in me? I understand that faith is a
gift from you. You open my eyes to believe, to see.
So I'm asking you for a strengthened faith. And I
want to encourage you to get specific in this prayer.
If there's an area in your life where you need
more faith. Maybe you need more faith as a mother

(15:56):
surrounding your children, or a grandmother or grandfather or father.
I remember when children were first born into my wife
and i lives. I did not have the faith to
be raising children, and I started crying out to God
for more confidence, more faith in him to be the
man he wanted me to be, and to trust him
with all I needed to trust him with. Faith is

(16:19):
a supernatural gift that God can impart to us to
strengthen us in any area of life where we're feeling
anxious or weak or vulnerable. And it is wise to
be asking God for more faith in any area we
need it. And then I would say, go beyond that
and start to study the scriptures for what He said

(16:41):
about that area. If you're worried about money, study what
God has said to us about seeking Him and providing
for us and money and the use of money and
how we use money and how He sees money, and
all of a sudden, your faith will start to be
informed with knowledge and power, and your faith will grow.

(17:02):
If you're needing more faith about what it means to
fulfill a certain role in life and be a follower
of Christ and handle a business or lead a family,
or nurture children or whatever it is, study what the
scripture has to say and somehow, if you're open and
prayerful in this, God will work in us and through

(17:23):
us to strengthen our faith, build us up as individuals,
make us stronger in Him and will start to live
differently in that area with more confidence, less of the
wishy washy nature of the world. God wants to strengthen
our faith. Friends, It's a supernatural gift that he wants
to impart to us. We should be asking him for

(17:45):
it in specific areas as we mature and grow. And
then I want you to understand this. As we do this,
God can continue to move us and direct us, but
we have to move with him. Our faith can be
strengthened only as we were to exercise it. It could
be clearly said that faith is like a muscle. God

(18:09):
in trust to us muscles, I mean he created them.
He wired humanity to have strength in its body, muscles
attached to the bones, and we're given these muscles they're
a gift to us. But when we're born, if we
don't mature and grow and learn and use those muscles,
they'll atrophy, they'll be useless. But the more we use them,

(18:31):
the more we put resistance against them, the more we
exercise them, the stronger they become. I mean, this is
just true of faith. Friends. If you want a strong faith,
you have to start using the faith you have, Stepping
out with the faith you have, confessing the faith you have,
articulating the faith you have. It's in speaking and operating

(18:54):
and obeying and doing things based on faith that our
faith continues to grow. And James highlighted this so well
when he said, what good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone claims to have faith but then they have
no actions behind it. What good is that someone will
say you have faith, I have deeds. Well show me

(19:16):
your faith by what you do. Show me your faith
by your deeds. Little children get this when it's in
reference to muscles. They'll show you their muscles, but then
they'll also demonstrate their use of the muscles by trying
to pick up something and demonstrate their strength by what
they're picking up. Just last night, I was out cutting
down a tree with my grandson. And he's a four

(19:39):
year old, just turning four, and we had a bunch
of these tree limbs cut up, and he went over
to a big one and he groan real loud and
tried to pick it up in front of me, and
he wanted to show me how strong he was. He
was exercising his muscles, demonstrating for me the strength of
his muscles. Friends, how do you know you have faith
when you look at your Is there any actions that

(20:01):
demonstrate that you have faith? Real faith, strong faith. This
is what God is wanting us to have. He's wanting
us to live a life of confidence and joy and
peace and hope in Him. An insurance of things that
are hoped for, a conviction of things we cannot see,

(20:23):
an assurance of hope in the days ahead, because we
trust in Almighty God and we're trusting in His power,
and so we can sit in any situation with great
strength and great peace and great confidence, looking ahead with
a great hope. This is what God wants for you
and for me to be grounded and rooted in Him,

(20:45):
built up, strengthened in the faith, so we are unshaken
by the many winds and different philosophies and ideologies of
this world. But we're grounded in the revelation of the
truth and grounded in our creator and his work in
salvation for us through Christ. We want this faith strengthened

(21:06):
so that overflows in us and pours out to the
world around us. This only comes when we decrease and
He increases, and our faith in Him increases in our lives.
Do you want more of this, friends, More of this
faith that is worth far more than gold or silver
or anything this world has to offer. This faith is

(21:27):
the doorway to the sustaining power and the saving work
of God and Jesus our Lord in our lives. If
you want more of it, here it is, friends, God
wants to give it to you. Pray to Him for it,
ask him for it, Expose yourself to the scriptures, be
open to what God wants to say to you through them,

(21:48):
and any topic of your life, any area of your life.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
And then when you hear something, start to act in
faith on it, believe it, live in to it, trust it.
Exercised those muscles, and as you do God will supernaturally
grow your faith.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
A few years back, I heard about.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
A gentleman who was flying a single engine airplane out
of a city in Alaska, and he got eleven miles
south and he flew over a lake, and then he
had engine trouble and went down out in the woods
there in Alaska, and he knew his night was coming.
It was cold, he wouldn't survive the night. And so
he survived, and he started to make the truck back

(22:28):
north to the city, and he came to the lake
he'd flown over, and he didn't know how thick the
ice was, but he knew he had to try and
cross it. He couldn't go around it. So he stepped
out on the ice and tiptoed out there, just very carefully,
and he made three or four steps, and then all
of a sudden he heard the ice buckle and crack,

(22:50):
and he got all nervous, so he went down on
all fours and he started to crawl across the lake.
And then he got about to the middle of the lake,
and nervous as he could be, he starts to hear
a rumbling sound and he looks down a couple hundred
yards down the lake, and there's a farmer leading an
eight horse hitch with a wagon load behind him across

(23:14):
this frozen lake. The lake was so deep and so solid,
so frozen, that it would hold horses and loads of grain.
And all of a sudden he realized that the object
of his faith was so secure and so firm under
his feet that he stood up, and he began to

(23:35):
brush himself off and walk confidently across the rest of
the way. Friend, if you and I want to live
with a great assurance and a great confidence through our
journey in life, no matter what's been the past, how
shaky we felt in all that, then we need to
ask God to strengthen our faith, give us a sense

(23:57):
of the depth and strength, and how trustworthy He is,
how solid the foundation of He and the gift of
Christ is, so that we can live into it and
live entirely different lives because of it. Father in Heaven,
thank you for encouraging us in our faith journeys. Help
us have ears to hear, eyes to see an ability

(24:20):
to receive your word into our life, that it would
supernaturally work faith in us so we could live as
confident people, confident in you, trustworthy as you are praising
you and moving with great peace and joy and hope.
We pray this in Christ's name.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Amen.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
That was Pastor Tim Buker, the radio preacher for the
CC Broadcast, one of our four podcasts. If you enjoyed
Pastor Tim's message, you might want to check out our
newest podcast, Homer Larsen Live. This new podcast features a
series of passionate biblically based messages delivered by Pastor Homer
Larson between nineteen fifty three and two thousand and six

(25:02):
live from the pulpit at Nazarethludleran Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Bestor Larsen also preached until twenty fourteen here at the
CC Broadcast, and you can hear many of those episodes
on our website or wherever you listen to podcasts by
searching for the CC Broadcast before it gets you to
more great content. I want to remind you about our
profile here on pray dot com.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
If you haven't already, go.

Speaker 5 (25:24):
Check it out and follow us. You can also visit
our website Ccpodcasts dot com, where we've archived thousands of
episodes of content, and where you can find a link
to our free mobile app that's Ccpodcasts dot com, c
C P O, D C A S t S dot com. Next,
we'll be listening to our executive director, Matt Rester as

(25:44):
he conducts an interview on another of our podcasts, the
Ccpodcast Conversations Inspiring Interviews with Interesting Christians.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
Hey guys, it's the Buckers. How are we doing today?

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Ben?

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Good to have you guys here. For people who've never
tuned in before, I'm Matt Reester and I'm with the
CC podcast. This is the Ccpodcast Conversations. Tim knows that
Tim and Ike have been on it before, and Tim
Bucker is actually our radio preacher for Christian Crusaders Broadcast,
which has been on the air since nineteen thirty six.
Going to take a little bit bigger role in twenty

(26:19):
twenty four because we got a guy retiring. How you doing, Timbo?

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Doing great?

Speaker 4 (26:22):
Looking forward to that and just fun to be a
part of this here today again.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
So we've been talking about this topic of youth sports
for a while, just amongst ourselves. Notice that there are
some things I've got kids in youth sports. You guys
have played youth sports. You guys know what's going on.
And I feel like it's just going crazy and it's
going off the rails and kind of the thing that
I'm actually just leaving from a basketball tournament today and

(26:48):
seed the rapids to come back and do this interview.
I'm going back after we're done, and you just get
in the gym and you start to watch some of
these coaches and these parents and these players, and it's
kind of crazy. I mean, things are off the rails
a little bit.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
And it is the emotional energy, the time investment, the
money investment. It's I mean, I don't even know how
you'd quantify it. I mean, it's it is crazy. But
you know, there's so much good in sports, but it's
talking about perspective on it. It's a great topic we're
on today.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
For sure, And speaking of I don't know how you
quantify it. I've thought, man, we've got a shortage of
gyms in this area, and if I had a couple
million dollars, I'd probably build a few of them and
start printing money. I mean, because parents aren't going to
stop spending money.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
On this stuff, right right. Yeah. We just well I
just hosted ny with me Chris, Let's go. They just
hosted a.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
Youth football camp, I mean, and it doubled in one year.
And I stand on the sidelines and just listen to parents,
you know, coming in and attention, the nervousness, the excitement,
all of this around performance, you know what I mean.
And there's just some great things to be an under
pressure and performance, and there's can be some hard things.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
And so a couple things before we dive headlong into
this topic. Number one. If you don't know this, Ike
plays for the Buffalo Bills by way of the Iowa Hawkeyes.
I think you're wearing a Hawkeye football shirt there.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
I like to see that.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
And we actually did a podcast interview with you. Can
you believe it's been three years ago?

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah? That was fun though.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
It was you and your dad and I and Ike's
story of how he got to Iowa and the NFL
is one of the coolest stories of God directing someone's path.
If you have not heard that podcast interview, you need
to go and listen. It's episode two. We did it
way back and I think April or May of twenty twenty,
and we still I got to tell you. Actually, you

(28:41):
guys know Nate Wheaton. He's a classmate of mine, good friend.
He coaches football down at Fairfield, And shortly after we
recorded that, he called me up. He said, Reester a
huge Hawkye fan. He's got the fry bus with me.
Oh okay, and Reaster that that interview you did with
Tim and Ike was awesome. I had his entire team
sit down during like fall camp and listen to the

(29:03):
whole thing because he's trying to build those kind of
values into his kids. So anyway, a great interview, and
we're not going to spend a ton of time on
Ike's story right now because we've already got that pretty
much documented in that podcast. Adrian, but you're sorry? Can
I sorry? That was a that was a sports kind of.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
I'm sitting here watching.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, I get to I get to work with Adrian
at Waterloo Christian School. Adrian is our development and advancement director.
Why don't you tell people what you do over there?

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (29:39):
I work at Waterloo Christian School. I went in four
years ago as the high school math teacher and then
I've kind of transitioned my role throughout and now I'm
the development director in Advancement, which is all things fundraising, marketing, admissions.
And then I get to teach two super fun elective classes,
a Life Ready elective which just meets once a week
and is kind of random life skills. So Dad came

(30:01):
in and talked about listening to the Holy Spirit. I
came in and talked about sports and the impact of that.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
My daughter Jillian said one of her favorites was you
had someone come and show them how to change oil
in their car.

Speaker 6 (30:12):
Yeah, we did some general car maintenance. Mom talked about
some business stuff. It's nice to have the family who
can come in and speak for you. That keeps it cheap.
And then some other different topics along, and then I'm
starting this year an entrepreneurship class which is going to
be brand new with hopes of getting a little business
rolling out of the back of a trailer.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
And where we crosspaths the most is during basketball season.
Adrian is the assistant girls basketball coach. I'm the head
boys basketball coach, and we get to travel around Eastern
and I are together all winter long and watch these
one day. Do kids try to play basketball.

Speaker 6 (30:47):
Right the school bus?

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Yes? Good times. So people don't know your story as
well as they will know ikes if they listen to
episode number two that podcast I referred to, you were
quite the basketball player at Wartburg College, a Division three
school in Waverley, Iowa. I believe your first team All
American Division three. There's some debate as to whether or

(31:09):
not you were the player of the year, but you were.
You were high up there at some level. So because
we're gonna be talking about sports and youth sports, I mean,
it's kind of I think I want to establish your
credibility to speak about this from a high.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Level, best athlete in the family.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, seriously, get do you really believe that.

Speaker 6 (31:33):
I'll take it. I'll take it.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
I was just weigh in real quick on this. She
when she first started in basketball, Chris asked her if
she would when family came to watch. This is when
she was really young, if she would go ahead and
acknowledge that they were there and wave at him. So
she took that to heart, and instead of actually playing basketball,
she just ran up and down the court, waving at
the relatives. So to make it to be a D one,

(32:01):
you know, a Division three All American, you know, which
is top ten in the country basically at that level.
From that, chewing gum and waving at relatives, I mean,
that is a development.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Process that's awesome and fun to watch.

Speaker 4 (32:16):
And I would say this Adrian when Ike was getting recruited,
he was getting recruited to play basketball, and we were
burdened by you know, what.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Level should we help, what should we do to help?

Speaker 4 (32:30):
And there's just some stress kind of at that point
when you're late in high school and that's a possibility.

Speaker 7 (32:35):
And the reason there's stress is because from probably eighth
or for sure ninth grade on, a number of his
peers were traveling around the country to combines and camps
and trying to be seen by colleges, and we never
felt led to do any of that, so we didn't.
We never wanted to hinder our kids's development and opportunities

(32:59):
for down the road, but that felt to our family
very excessive. Also, how kids develop is so different physically.
I mean, in eighth grade, some kids were completely through
puberty and I don't know if I could even spell puberty.
I mean, we're just a late blooming family. So that's

(33:21):
a big deal in sports, especially for strength and speed,
and so just knowing and watching your kid's physical development,
their emotional health, I mean, so many things play into athletics, right,
So we were feeling a little bit like, we better
be praying about this because God knows our kiddos better

(33:41):
than we do, and he wants them to win more
than we do. And we never had a piece about
the Coast to coast deal until it was coming around
to up junior year and he said, I really think
I'd like to play basketball. That was when we felt
like maybe we could make this happen anyway. But he
was a junior, so and then that's bucking a lot

(34:03):
of peer and parent pressure for sure to hop on
these all star teams and go do your thing.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
And what year would that have been?

Speaker 2 (34:10):
What was your junior year twenty twelve?

Speaker 3 (34:13):
So I mean we're eleven years removed from that, and
I would say it's only escalated since then.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Oh, it just keeps escalating.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
And the battle in the middle of it for us
as parents was, you know, Christ is Lord of all,
and how do you keep him lord of your family
and lord of the sports, because it's just constantly jockeying
to take first place over Christ. And so I was
on a run praying about Ike and his journey and

(34:41):
what we should do and should we how much video
should we get together? And you know, all those things
that are a part of it. And literally, I mean,
you know you talk about being led by the Holy Spirit.
Adrian mentioned it sometimes you just you can hear things
from God in your own spirit. And I came in
and said it to Chris. I felt like, as clear
as I could hear in my spirit, the Lord communicated

(35:04):
to me, your son will not play basketball, but your
daughter will.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
And it was just that phrase.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
Did you share that?

Speaker 6 (35:14):
I wish she would have to decide.

Speaker 4 (35:16):
I eventually did after she decided, but I didn't share
it with either. The only one I shared it with
was Chris, and she wrote it down.

Speaker 7 (35:24):
You only told Adrian after she said she was going
to go play at war.

Speaker 6 (35:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (35:27):
Yeah, because we didn't want it to influence.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
Pressure her and we want to, you know, you test
the spirits to see if it was from God. Now
was that summer I got recruited to play football and
we watched Adrian. You're talking about Adrian's journey, her journey
unfold to become the highest percentage. She was in the
Hall of Fame for hanging her jersey was hanging in
there for for a year because of her shot percentage

(35:53):
as a post down there. I mean, I just want
to say that it was chewing gum and you get
the relatives.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Hangs you know down there.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
I can tell you I was in Cedar Rapids for
one game at our team camp today and layups are
harder to make this than you think. But I do remember,
I do remember you tell me Adrian, and you're really
humble about this. You don't want a lot of and
the same with Ike. I mean, they don't want a
lot of glory for this, but it is incredible, and
I was I was kind of talking to you about
it one time we were in a bus ride somewhere,

(36:24):
and you're just like, I mean, if you just stand
under the basket and they throw it and you lay
it off the glass, it's not that hard. But I
mean there must be something to it. I mean, because
there's a lot of.

Speaker 4 (36:34):
Girls, I mean, and you're also you know, you're doing
that with other gals hanging on you.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Not all those gals are little.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
No, So let's finish up with kind of your story
and then.

Speaker 6 (36:46):
Yeah, so I wasn't sure that I wanted to play basketball.
I wasn't sure that I wanted to do a sport.
I even dabbled it rowing in Iowa a little bit.
I remember that I went to one camp, came back
just my pants is dripping, blood throwing. I'm like, I'm
all right, I go basketball. And then I was really
late to decide where it was gonna go. And finally

(37:06):
it didn't feel you know, you'll get this feeling when
you're on campus and you'll know when it's the right college,
and I was like, I never had that. I just
felt like I just picked. I liked the coaches, and
I was like, let's just go with us. And so
I walked into Wartburg. It's D three. I went to
a big high school, so I'm thinking it's gonna be similar,
and the girls were so good, way better than they

(37:29):
thought I thought I was anticipating. And I walked onto
a really good team who ended up making a big
run in the NCAA Tournament a couple of times, so
it was a high caliber team. But I was still thinking, Wow.
So I kind of got humbled that first year and
really sat on the bench, and I ended up Initially
it was a little bit of a shock, and then

(37:50):
I ended up having it. Besides my senior year, my
freshman year might have been my favorite year. I had
a blast. Once I embraced my role.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
That's so.

Speaker 6 (38:00):
And once I was like, Okay, this is this is
where I'm at. This year, we were doing cheers, I
was having fun with the coaches, we were leading different
more of a galloping. So then anything after that year
kind of felt like this is fun to play too.

(38:23):
And then all the way up to my senior year
where I had a pretty good year. But to go
from really not playing to being pretty good, it was
a journey of all the stages and all the roles
that you can get to on a team. And I
look back and have like such fond memories of playing basketball,
and not everyone does that with their college sports. But
there was a lot of hard There was hard games,

(38:46):
there was hard seasons. There was you know, you're discourage,
you feel like you should be getting more than you're not.
And then my time came my senior year and I
didn't know if it ever was, and I was gonna
be fine with it, and then when it did, it
was just like I could not believe what was happening.
It had to be really from the Lord, yeah, because
I mean I practiced some, but.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
I'm gonna.

Speaker 7 (39:11):
You're eighty grand. We would be in the summer, and
she would do a little pickup basketball, not much. She
was getting a little tired. There's a lot of basketball
from like fourth grade on. And I said, do you
want to just go out and kind of pop in
some free throws just for the you know, just for
the home team. She goes, I think it's going to
be mental reps today.

Speaker 6 (39:32):
But here's the truth. Here is the truth. From junior
year to senior year. Junior year, I was good, but
I wasn't like best in the conference, best in the
country good. And I don't know if my coach is
I did not practice. Junior year to senior year, I'm like,
I'm just going to change the way I think about basketball.
And I started reading some things. I kind of grew

(39:53):
in my relationship with the Lord, and the only thing
that changed was my mind. And my mind was like,
I'm going to dominate this year. WO graduated a lot
of really good players and really no one expected a
ton And every time before I'm sitting before a game,
I'm like, I'm gonna dominate. Follow me, I'm making my layups,
I'm doing everything, and then I'd miss a shot and

(40:14):
I'd be like, that's weird. I'm going to make the
next one. I mean, I'm thinking these things versus in
the past it had been, but I not take another one.
I just missed it.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
And that position insecurity versus the position of confidence.

Speaker 6 (40:27):
And a confidence where it's like my teammates didn't know
I was doing, you know, it was just more internal
like this is oh, I'm playing this year. And that
was the only change, and it was to the Elite eight. Yeah,
we had we went to the Elite eight that year
and we had graduated like force three and.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
That was the year you shot the highest percentage that was. Yeah,
And just think of that in terms of what sports
can do. What it taught her there to think positive,
to believe, to have hope, to have a short memory
of mistakes. I mean, and it's hard to learn that
in something besides sport where it's happening so fast.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
We're gonna get to listing several positives from sports here
in a second. That's really good stuff. I was just
remembering when you went to the Lead eight. At some
point during that, we came up and watched a couple
of games during the tournament, and we actually have a
picture of you and Jillian in maybe eighth grade or
something or whatever, maybe even younger than that, and now

(41:23):
you coach her. Yeah, I mean that's cool. How the
look the other I'm gonna write notes down from time
to time to remind myself of what I want to say.
But Ike's story and your story, when I hear more
about it, are like, if the Lord's gonna do it,
it's gonna happen, and if he's not, it's not. And

(41:44):
with this whole youth sports craze, I see a bunch
of people trying to force and scheme and kind of
orchestrate this perfect scenario so that their son can go
play professional sports or so their daughter can be all American,
and it's just it's just not how it works.

Speaker 7 (42:02):
So you might have something to say about that, because
I've heard you talk about that. It's sort of this tension,
a cooperative effort. It's like you don't get to the
NFL because you spent your summers on the couch. Yeah,
but if God didn't have it in mind for you
as hard as you worked, I mean, isn't it kind
of a hand in hand?

Speaker 2 (42:22):
Yeah? I mean, at the very least, it's just genetics.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Number one.

Speaker 8 (42:28):
You have to have a certain genetic makeup, so that
and I see that a lot.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
You know, like what can my kid do to go
professional in a sport?

Speaker 8 (42:40):
It's like nothing, you know, like there's not so you
got to have a certain level, and then if you
have a certain level, then you have to put in
work and then there's levels to that. And you can
make up a lot of ground working working and taking
care of your body and doing the things. But yeah,

(43:02):
like Adri said, it's you know, if the Lord wants
it to happen, it's going to happen. He's going to
make a path for you to get to wherever he
wants to get you, to use you however he wants
to use you.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
And even like I'm not a professional athlete, but there
are things that I've had some success at in my life.
And even when I evaluate that, yeah I worked hard,
Yeah I did. I took advantage of opportunities. But I
even think that the Lord gives me the motivation to
work hard. Yeah you know what I mean. So, I
mean it is hand in hand, but even the hand
that you're playing is inspired by the Lord, right.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah, yeah, interesting that. You know.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
When I got recruited by the Hawkeyes, we were driving home,
and this just kind of exemplifies that. I was just
looking at it fully from the perspective of the sovereignty
of God, like can you And I said this to
him in the car just when we were near home.
I said, man, can you believe how the Lord arranged
that for you to be recruited and sitting in the.

Speaker 7 (44:00):
Carpet like five times? And I just like, yeah, he did.
Yeah about the fifth time.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
What did you say you piped in you remember? He said? Yeah, Dad,
he said, but I've worked pretty hard to And I
stood there.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
I just sat there in checked saying it's totally right,
Yeah it is. And that's that's you know, out of Philippians.
I just gave a message on it work out your
salvation with fear and trembling. Ford is God who works
in you. It's just our whole life is that way,
and parents need to embrace that reality and try to
involve God far more than so many of them are.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
I mean I remember parents are jockey like you said,
And I remember when Ike was on All Star team
and the Lord literally sat me down in the living
room and said it's time for him to be done.
I mean, it made no sense whatsoever. But the dynamics
of the team, Eve and such were there. Basketball, yeah, basketball.

Speaker 7 (45:02):
In elementary, late elementary, and.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
It was so clear the Holy Spirit like a travel team.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
One team.

Speaker 7 (45:09):
Yeah, it was very local. It was in Iowa. They
did a Bible study at the beginning. The coaches were great.
There was not a negative thing. I was starting every
game learning a lot. There was nothing to make you
think we should get him off this team. It was
literally in.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Fact, if you were thinking superficially as Christians, well they
have a Bible study, so he needs to be on
this team.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
Yeah, right, or just for advance, you know, excelling as
good as he can. But God cares about far more
than just sports. He cares about the development of children,
the family dynamic, what the cost is on the family, emotion,
emotional life, maturity in all of life. And when it
becomes an idol, all lot of that stuff goes out

(45:53):
the window.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
So you guys are here for basically two reasons, maybe more,
but two that I can identify. One is your sports
family at the highest level. I mean, this is not
Caitlin Clark and Josh Allen, but it's the closest thing
that we're going to get to it's way beyond where
ninety nine point five two point nine percent of us
are ever going to be, and so there's some credibility there.
The second reason is just because y'all need to keep

(46:15):
me in check on this topic, because I could go
off on a tirade that might not end up being
helpful because I just see this youth sports be a myth,
you know, in an increasingly critical way, and I know
that you guys will provide some balance to that to
mitigate the chance of us being terribly critical or me

(46:38):
being terribly critical. I want to start with what are
the positives from being involved in sports? What are the
positives that you see as parents who are trying to
develop your kids to be ambassadors for Christ? What are
the positives for athletes who are trying to become ambassadors
for Christ? Or however you want to say that, There
are a lot of positives.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
I'll start.

Speaker 8 (46:59):
We've talked about it, but just the work that it
takes to you know, set a goal, write goals down,
and then work towards that. I mean, that's applicable to
anything in life. So you're gonna do that in sport,
whether it's your off season, training, or you know how
many points you're trying to score, trying to win the game,
obviously trying to win every game, but personal goals.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Team goals.

Speaker 8 (47:23):
I mean, I'm still obviously playing football, but you look
around the world and that's really what's happening in the
world is people are setting goals trying to accomplish them.
So getting a routine that works for you to accomplish
that goal. You know, whenever I'm done playing football, I'm
going to have the blueprint for that to do that.
You know, you see a lot of former athletes be

(47:45):
successful in business because they know how to do that.
They've done that their whole life. I guess I won't
steal anything else.

Speaker 4 (47:53):
I would just jump on that I can. I wrote
down these words. You know, the vision sports provides auto
vision because you have goal, you want to accomplish something,
you want to be good at it, you want to
reach a certain level, which leads to discipline. I mean,
people with no vision, they don't restrain themselves, but a vision,
you restrain yourselves in a certain direction. And then that

(48:14):
discipline ultimately leads to confidence. And what I've seen the
confidence in the two of you in all of life
because of vision and discipline and development and growth and
the confidence that comes out of it. I mean that
is huge and that we were looking forward to. We
wanted sports to do that for you guys, and it has.

(48:36):
And it's not just confidence in sports, it's in all
of life. And that goes into letting them handle the
challenges in the sports that they encounter instead of parents
getting in there and trying to manipulate it for them,
because then the kids miss out on the possibility to grow.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
And I want to tell a story about that.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Is that right? Yeah? To jump in.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Mason Reester late Bloomer, Gosh, you grew like six just
after his senior year, and I could assure he's a
much better basketball player than he ever was in high
school because he just kept playing. But anyway, he's like
in junior high, seventh or eighth grade, I mean, just
a pip squeak and just skinny and short. And of

(49:19):
course we're r. Lou Christian pipsqueak. Is that funny? I
mean he was, And and uh, we're playing Homes Junior High,
the one of the big public junior highs in town,
and literally they have like forty kids out on their
seventh grade team, and our seventh and eighth grade team
is playing their seventh grade team, and it's just like
they're putting. It's like a line change in hockey. I mean,

(49:41):
it's just five in five out, boom boom boom. And
we played like six quarters and we got like seven
guys and Mason's in the top five somehow. And uh,
he's out there and he knows a bunch of these
kids from church and from around town, and it's a
little humiliating, I mean just even being in the gym
with them, you know what I mean, Because this is
these kids are good basketball player for their age. Our
kids are just the most ragtag patch together group of kids.

Speaker 6 (50:04):
You know.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
I don't even jerseys didn't even match. Maybe I'm not
sure we've got that fixed. And uh and he's playing
defense on one of his buddies. The gym's full, you know,
all the girlfriends of the eighth grade boys and all
this stupid stuff. And it's at homes and Mason's playing
defense on this kid. I can picture it just like it,

(50:25):
just like it happened yesterday. And I'm I'm not coaching,
I'm in the stands as a parent. And Mason gets
juked and they call it he got his ankles broke, right,
so he falls down and the entire gym's like, oh,
because now breaking a kid's ankles matters more than making
a layup, which boggles my mind. But you know, these
kids go absolutely nuts about this. Mason looks pretty foolish,

(50:47):
it's embarrassing, it's very you know, these kids who are
his peers are like yelling, it's publicly humiliating, and you know,
my first reaction is like I want to just protect
him from that, like, oh gosh, I wish that wouldn't
have happened. But literally about two seconds after that feeling
rose up in me. It was like, you know what,
I'm so glad that happened because where else in today's culture,

(51:08):
which is increasingly kind of like marshmallowy and protective and insulating. Yeah,
where else in today's culture can you can you take
the training wheels off when it comes to public humiliation
and just kind of being embarrassed and failing. And the
thing is is, if our kids are going to have

(51:30):
an impact for Christ, if they're going to stay faithful
to the word of God, I mean, Tim, we know this.
I mean we all know this, but we've been walking
this path a little bit. You are going to take
shots and it's going to be way worse than getting
yelled at by a crowd full eighth graders. It's going
to be painful, right, and it's going to be hard.
And you had a chance to start to learn that

(51:52):
it's okay to fail and be humiliated in eighth grade
basket That's a huge for me. That's one of the
top benefits of sports learning to fail.

Speaker 4 (52:01):
I would add onto that too, is if parents will
be parents and coach their kids in a sense in
life versus in the sport. Then I remember when Adrian
was in at Orburg and it was maybe her second
year and she wanted a little more playing time and
she didn't know where she was at the bubble and

(52:22):
she was talking to us about it and we said, hey,
you know, even at the college level, parents can be
out of control. We said to her, you got to
go have a meeting. It's not it's time for you
to go have a meeting. Do you remember this, Adrian,
and you took your first meeting in with the coaching
staff at the college level, and that was a huge

(52:45):
maturing growth step. For you forced into that because you
were in this place where you were irritated and you
didn't know what to do, and you had to figure
out how to handle it relationally with authority in your life.
And I remember when I got recruited. They do a
home visit and Reese, Morgan and Kirk we're at our
house and I said, what's I asked him, what's Kirk Farence,

(53:07):
what's the biggest challenge in sports and at your position
right now? He didn't blink an eye. He said, the parents,
really the parents at the college level. I mean, so
it's it starts in that little youth level and it
doesn't end. I mean, this idolatry of sports from parents
who it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
So, but we're staying on the positive in.

Speaker 6 (53:31):
The middle of that all backup.

Speaker 7 (53:33):
So I remember, Adrian, the kind of do you remember
that meeting? You basically went in and said, what can
I do to get better? I'd like to see a
few more minutes. It wasn't I'm really mad. I feel
like I should play more. What's wrong with you? It's like,
what's wrong with what's wrong with me?

Speaker 6 (53:48):
Like?

Speaker 7 (53:48):
How can I grow? And we didn't tell you you
came up with that, and Dad and I were like,
we were so proud of that, you know, and they
told you a few things you could work on, and
then you did.

Speaker 6 (54:01):
Yeah, And it didn't change right after the meeting, and
I didn't really expect it to, but they gave me
something to work towards, and then okay, they know how
I'm feeling. Now I got some work to do, and
then you do it, and then I played more right.
So it wasn't like I wasn't pouting during practice. I

(54:23):
wasn't like no one on the team knew I had
this meeting because my team and how I felt about
my teammates and how I encouraged them didn't change. But after,
you know, I knew what I needed to do on
the inside, and Mom and Dad didn't act any differently.
I mean, it's just it depends how you approach it.
You can't just and I approached my coaches. I think

(54:45):
once in my life, like of all of that and
that way, that was the one time because it felt
like I was I felt like I was being maybe
overlooked because I had been such a good team player,
and now, you know, they saw things that I didn't see.
But if I would have gone in every other week.
That doesn't help.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
What other positives?

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Well, I want to I want to point this out.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
You know, you talk about Adrian maturing in that way,
I ache has had to go through some real dips
in sports, and you know, the crashing of dreams teaches
you things. You know, how quickly can a dream get
taken away? Not very many places like it can in sports.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
You talk about injuries, primary injury.

Speaker 4 (55:29):
Yeah, those kind of things, and so I mean the
things that have developed in him, I mean you can
comment on that.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Yeah, I mean that's probably you look at just my career.

Speaker 8 (55:40):
I've had my two biggest years of my career in
terms of like career furthering, contract year, my two contract years,
I'd have the worst possible injury that you can have.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
So and a lot of people look at that, like,
you know.

Speaker 8 (55:58):
That's brutal, But you know, most people don't really feel
bad for you because you're in the NFL. I definitely
don't feel bad for myself ever, But to some people
it's like, how do you handle that? Blah blah blah,
And it's just I just appreciate the lessons that I've
learned from it.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
So it's been probably two years ago.

Speaker 8 (56:19):
I was fully healthy going into camp and I got sick,
got some heat exhaustion, had a pretty rough year just
getting started. And it started like I think ten or
eleven games right in a row that I did my
Achilles that I missed all of last year, and then
obviously my.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Senior year at Iowa the other Achilles.

Speaker 8 (56:37):
So two biggest years for my career and just the
stuff that I've learned about myself and the person, the man,
the dad, the husband that I am now compared to
looking back two years ago, I'm like ten twenty times
better in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
I think about David, King David in the Bible, that
whole account of him killing Goliath, and you remember there's
that part where it says he learned the faithfulness of
God when he was protecting sheep and when a bear
or a lion came, the Lord allowed him to just
kill off a sheep. So so David learned on a
smaller scale, in a smaller venue to learn to trust

(57:18):
the Lord, so that when his time to shine with
Goliath was there, he's like, Lord's got this. So one
of my questions for you is because you had an
ankle injury too in college, right, Yeah, they kind of
plagued you. I don't remember what season that was.

Speaker 8 (57:31):
It was a fifth when we went undefeated halfway through
that defeated season, so that was gonna be Yeah, that
was a year, but I missed the second half because
I had an ankle injury.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
So, and do you have any injuries like that in
high school that were.

Speaker 8 (57:45):
I had a little back thing that I mean, I
missed probably a quarter of my junior season when I
was playing quarterback, but I came back for the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
It was nothing serious. How would you say that those injuries,
even back at IOWA or early on, equipped you to
deal with what might be viewed as higher magnitude injuries
just because you're in the NFL now and now we're
talking about a paycheck now, we're talking about higher profile.

Speaker 8 (58:11):
Yeah, I mean football is one hundred percent injury rate,
so you know you're gonna have something.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
But I've you know, been able to play through a
lot of stuff.

Speaker 8 (58:21):
You can always play through a lot of stuff, but
when you have a season ending injury and you have
to learn how to walk and you know, do all
that again. And then I had some hiccups with the
first surgery this last time, and had to basically restart
that whole process.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
I mean that was tough, especially.

Speaker 8 (58:39):
When I was you know, singler. If it was just
me and Katie, you know, it'd been much easier. But
you know, having two young kids, you don't get to
spend as much time with them and do all the
stuff that you'd like to do with them, just because
you're you can't walk around. You know, you're on a
scooter and you're really focused on rehab, and then you're
stuck in the training room all year, so you got

(59:01):
a lot of alone time. And I think that just
that alone.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
Really strengthened my relationship with the Lord, and that's, you know,
obviously what he wanted.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
And so I mean that's not positive going through the
ups and downs that come with being in sports, because
when you're twenty years down the road and whatever the
crisis is it's not sports related, comes into your life,
it's bigger than anything you dealt with before. You know, maybe, yeah,
you're going to be equipped. I mean, you're going to
go The Lord's got this. I've been through adversity before.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Yea.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
Even as I was talking there, I'm thinking back to
when Kirk Farns was at our house, we asked him
what's the best thing we could do as parents, and
they would he.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
Give us any advice? And he said just that.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
He said, sports is going to have a lot of
ups and downs, he said, and if you're a parent
that stays right here, steady, and when they're down, you're
down encouraging them, but you're not down with And when
they're up, you're still down here because they're gonna come
back down. You celebrate with them, but you don't get
too up with them. You don't get too.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Down with them. But I'm telling you.

Speaker 4 (01:00:13):
That's great advice for parents because the kids need a parent,
a stable to represent the stability of God in their lives.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
They don't need someone zigs on.

Speaker 6 (01:00:24):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:24):
It's sports is emotional and when you're at you're.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
At a level.

Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
Okay, you're hurt your back in high school, but then
you're in your senior year, you're slated to go in
the draft and you tear an achilles and you fall
out of the draft and you get picked up after.
That's a huge adjustment mentally and emotionally.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
It's huge.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
And to see Ike walk through that and trust the
sovereignty of God house. You know, that's a lesson that
you can't provide, only God can. And then the same
thing happened now in a contract here. You know, he's there,
he's lined up, he's starting, he's going to be a
free agent Tears of Achilles, and the guy behind him
gets contract, you know what I mean, and he starts

(01:01:01):
all over working through that. And to watch him go
through that and learn that spiritually, to me, that is
just powerful as a dad. And that's looking at it
from a spiritual point of view, not a worldly point
of view.

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
Which if we're Christians, that's what you're looking at.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
That's it. Yeah, And that's what you know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
If we can say anything to parents out there right now,
you're called by God to help shape your kids's mind
and allow Him to shape their minds in a biblical worldview,
you know what I mean. From look at life from
a spiritual in the unseen realm and not get caught
up in the scene realm. But God can handle the
scene realm.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
I just thought of another positive that maybe you two
can speak to and I can a little bit. I mean,
we're at a Christian school, so it's expected that the
coach is going to lead Bible studies and lead prayer
and teach biblical lessons throughout the season and during practices
and stuff. But athletics gives us an excuse to gather
together and go after a common goal. That then, when

(01:02:07):
you insure a believer into they have a platform just
because these people who are around them, who maybe aren't
all Christian, even at a Christian school, I don't think
all our kids are Christians. They get to be in
this environment where there are believers, whether it's Christian school
basketball team, whether it's Wartburg College church school where a

(01:02:27):
lot of people don't know christ or in the NFL.
Certainly it gives so positive of sports would be it
gives Christians a place or a platform to influence people
for christ. What's that been like for you guys?

Speaker 6 (01:02:41):
When at least to start, when people know that your
identity isn't in the sport, and they won't think that
that's what they're seeing, but when they see that you lose,
you know, maybe you lose a game or you don't
have a great game, and you're kind of just a
consistent person in the locker room and on campus and
you're encouraging, and it's more of a it's totally it's

(01:03:02):
mental with all sports, but especially girls, like they get high,
they get low, they're emotional, they shut down. And one
of the greatest things the Lord helped me with was
my mind and like being able to control my thoughts
and not some like secular control your mind, but know
where you find your value and then have confidence in

(01:03:22):
what you can do. People start to just hang around you,
and they don't and Ike and I would probably be
the same in this. We don't go in there and
blessing people and talking about and quoting Bible verses and
and people don't really know why they want to hang
around you. But then like coaches start to have you

(01:03:42):
meet with every freshman and then they say, hey, could
you do kind of every tour that comes in And
maybe people don't know why it is, but it's because
you know who you are in the Lord. And then
people on the team like to be around that. So
you get to have an impact without even really talking
about the Lord. And then maybe or senior ear when
everyone like what you say kind of matters to them

(01:04:04):
and you have some grind and they know that you
care about them, you can speak into their life. But
you you know, and I would say the same probably
with how you operated with the Lord and what turns
people off first just the way you live and how
that can have a huge impact.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Yeah, I mean it would I know Mom and Dad
even remember when I was growing up.

Speaker 8 (01:04:25):
It would be I don't know how to word other
than like the kids that are just too Christian, Like
they're like throwing it at everybody all the time, and
you throw a lot of people that are maybe open
to it completely off, and they're completely turned off because
they feel like they're.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Being judged and they kind of preached.

Speaker 8 (01:04:44):
Yeah, and I've just never I've had awesome talks with
guys that never would have received that. But I've become
really good friends with them, and especially in the NFL,
been able to have amazing conversations with them about their
relationship with the Lord, if they have it, if they
had it and lost it, if they're working towards it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
And it really comes from what Adri said is this,
if you are.

Speaker 8 (01:05:09):
Consistent and you know who you are every day, they're
gonna trust you first of all, because they're not going
to be like, how's he gonna react to this?

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
And then you know they might be going through.

Speaker 8 (01:05:19):
Something or have questions about something, they come right up
and it's open dialogue instantly.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
And that's just so many things with just having a
biblical worldview.

Speaker 8 (01:05:28):
There's so many questions, especially now something happens, we're talking
about all sorts of I mean, the stuff that we
talk about, it's insane in the locker room. But if
you have a biblical worldview, kind of like bringing it
back to reality.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
And this is just random, but our.

Speaker 8 (01:05:45):
Head coach is like he lets everybody be himself. And
I love this analogy he gives. You know, we just
build a fence around what you can and can't do
as a person, as a player. We just give you
the guidelines and it's pretty wide. You know, you can
you can be yourself as long as you just stay
in the within the fence. And I think that's, you know,

(01:06:09):
something that's huge for guys. So they're not feeling like
they're controlled or ruled, and especially in the NFL, has
a lot of freedom that guys have and you want
to give them that freedom to have put your finger
on them, but kind of tell them guys like you can,
you can. That's what the Lord provides you in life.
He just provides you framework. Everybody needs a little framework

(01:06:29):
to stay in. But if you don't have framework, if
we can't even you know, the thing that we were
talking about this time was if we can't say what
a boy and a girl is, Like what are we
even talking about? Like where can we even start morals
or anything if we're not even going to agree on that,
Like what is two plus two? I don't know if
you can't tell me. If you can't tell me that,

(01:06:51):
then I don't know if you can tell me that.
So that was our discussion and using that since the
coach had talked about in a team meeting, and I
just said, like, that's it, and it really connected with
a lot of guys because everybody wants a little direction.
I mean, it starts when you're a baby. It starts
when you're a kid, like you need your parents to
be help and guide you. You don't know what the

(01:07:11):
heck's going on. So just kind of piggyback on what
Adri said. But I think that's been the school.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
When you get injected, When a Christian gets injected into
an environment where those conversations are being had, you can
represent the truth Yeah, I mean that's way cool. That's
that's a huge positive.

Speaker 4 (01:07:30):
Totally, and we've enjoyed watching these two do that and
prayed that they would have opportunities to do it. And
not only that what they're talking about is internally in
a small way, but I would just also highlight when
you excel in sports. Because the world values sports so much,
you get public platforms all the time, and then you

(01:07:56):
you know, they approach them the same way. You don't
want to be that Bible beating person, but you also
don't want to ever shrink back from saying, hey, this
is this is Almighty God. I mean, he does this
work through us.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
I mean, and I think the people that are a
little bit more like the people who you guys aren't,
I think the Lord uses them in a way, you
know what I mean. Like I'm thinking the one who
pops in my mind from kind of back in my
generation is Kurt Warner. Yeah, I mean Kurt Warner was
every time a microphone was in front of his face,
he praise the Lord, thank Jesus whatever. Yeah, And that's
not how I'm wired. Yeah, but I don't think there's

(01:08:33):
a right or wrong. I mean, I was listening carefully
what I just said, And he's talking about representing a
biblical worldview when the opportunity presents itself well that there's
nothing squishy about that. No, it's just a different personality
and a different style.

Speaker 4 (01:08:46):
And you see that in the Bible, Peter versus James
versus John, how they carried it so different.

Speaker 6 (01:08:53):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
Let's turn the corner to specifically this youth sports. I
would call it epidemic or pandemic or something. And I
just I have I can just confess this. I have
a few specific people in my mind who I obviously
am not going to name, who need to hear some
of this stuff, and there's a lot more that they're

(01:09:15):
just kind of representations of the population. And I'm specifically
because I'm a dad. I'm thinking of dads who I
think care way too much about how they're elementary age
or junior high age or even high school age kid
performs on the athletic field. And again, I love sports.

(01:09:35):
We all love sports. We all see the value of sports.
We've hopefully established that. But it's like I don't see
a lot of difference between people who profess to be
followers of Christ and the rest of the world on
this topic, and honestly, I expect people who don't know
christ to go crazy with it. I expect that. I

(01:09:55):
expect people to take it out of proportion, put unnecessary
pressure on their kids, put too much value on performance
versus establishing their identity and something more stable. I expect
that from non believing people, but from Christians. When I
see that, it's just like, man, we got to talk
about this.

Speaker 5 (01:10:14):
You're listening to the CC podcast on pray dot com.
Access thousands of free episodes, including content just like this
at ccpodcasts dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:10:28):
Well, I'll just start with a story from I think
this last year. The girls, the Wags, they calm wives
and girlfriends, and the in Buffalo, I'll get together a
couple of times a week, got Bible study and they
get together for coffee.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Dinner, whatever.

Speaker 8 (01:10:43):
And the discussion of this is just to tell you
where mom and dad are at and where how Adia
and I grew up with around with them around sports
and you know that you know the parents. It doesn't
get better, I mean, and then NFL you still have
moms and dads that are out of control. The way

(01:11:07):
it shows, it's its face there is you know you
had the like I'm married to Katie, so a lot
of the time Katie and my mom or Katie and
my dad, they wouldn't get along because they are still
pretty possessive of the the NFL player and their identity
is still in me.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
That's not how it is at all.

Speaker 8 (01:11:27):
But that's how it is for a lot of these
wives and girlfriends. It gets brought up and they went
around and basically all of them were saying, you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Know, they're coming to town.

Speaker 8 (01:11:38):
Their husband or boyfriend's parents were coming to town, or
mom was coming to town. They weren't very excited about
it because they had to. And it's just like a
competition almost. It's very weird and uh like the why
the wives and girlfriends kind of competing with the mom,
like for their son's attention.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
Is it money or is it it's money?

Speaker 8 (01:12:00):
The status of it, the yeah, the prestige, like they
kind of wish they were able to live her life.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
You're I mean, be proud of him and leave it alone,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
It's brutal. It's brutal.

Speaker 8 (01:12:14):
So Katie, they got around the table with Katie and
Katie is like, yeah, Ike's mom, she actually can't stand football.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
I love it.

Speaker 8 (01:12:26):
She wishes I would have quit playing football before I
even started, so that was like the opposite. And then
you know, she goes on to tell him that because
I've told Katie how it was for us growing up.
You know, mom and dad, or you can play whatever
sport you'd like, but you're going to finish it. You're
not going to quit halfway through. You're gonna give your
all at it. But at the end of the day,

(01:12:48):
that's not what your identity is in.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
And if you don't want to play next season next season.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
That's fine. They're not putting any pressure on it and
just try out different stuff. And now you know that.

Speaker 8 (01:12:57):
People ask me all the time, like are you gonna
have Clay play football? Like, I don't know if he
wants to do, right, I don't care if he enjoys
it and wants to play it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:06):
Absolutely, Before you share whatever you're gonna share, I just
want to highlight this, like this is the kind of
contrast that we need as the body to be putting
on display in this area. I mean, I'm imagining I
don't know what it's like in this house where this
Bible study that's happening and these women are going around.
I mean, I think it's probably a jaw dropping statement

(01:13:26):
for Katie to say, Yeah, I X mom doesn't even
like football. It's so contrary so everything else it's being said.
And I mean, you don't need to be contrary for
the sake of being contrary. But if we're truly going
to live in a relationship with the Lord and walk
by the Spirit, there are going to be things about
us that are just radically different, right, And if that's

(01:13:51):
not happening at different places, I think we need to
go what's wrong here? Do you agree with that?

Speaker 7 (01:13:57):
Can I just jump in on that?

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:13:59):
A little different. But when I was praying, I mean
I was almost unconsolable. When I texted that the Hawkeye
coaches were coming to the high school to meet with
him and Ross Puerschbaker and I run out of the barn.
The barn wasn't open.

Speaker 3 (01:14:19):
The little store I own and barn Happy check it
out online.

Speaker 7 (01:14:23):
I was just doing something in there, and I ran
out and I was paying and I said, Tim, we
have to pray. We have to pray, And He's like,
why am I Cause the Hawkeyes are going to the
high school and I just have this bad feeling. He
looked at me like I was an absolute unicorn. He goes, uh,
you can pray. So I lent into this prayer, besieging

(01:14:46):
the Lord. I'm like, Lord, you know he's good at basketball.
And you know anyway, I go back into the barn
by myself, and you know how the Holy Spirit whispers
things to you. Here it is Mother's here, it is
the Lord said, he is mine and you will not
control him. Wow, at which point I bawled my eyes out,

(01:15:10):
bowled my eyes out. I'm like okay. And then I'm
bargaining with God. I'm like, okay, God, I got it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
I got it.

Speaker 7 (01:15:15):
So he's not mine. I won't control And but can
he still play basketball?

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
The kicker?

Speaker 7 (01:15:19):
Could he be the kicker? Like I'm I'm like okay,
I got that message that was certainly clear, So okay,
are we good now? And then when he got offered
in two days. It was a journey for me for
two years with my quiet times with the Lord because
of a fear of the injuries is what was driving

(01:15:40):
my wanting to control, which happened. Oh yeah, and after
his achilles tear, I said, Lord, typically all I do
is pray for his safety pretty much every snap. And
I said, I don't even feel like it's you're hearing me.
I said, I don't even know what to pray. I said,
now heard again, And I always was assured. It was like, okay,

(01:16:03):
it's a leg at heels like I always took comfort
in that, like the Lord is gracious, right. And then
the next really clear thing he said was, how about
pray thy will be done.

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
This big boy pants.

Speaker 7 (01:16:18):
I'm like, oh, it's not still not still not about
me dot kuna.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:16:22):
I mean, honestly, I've had to learn so many lessons
because of his football career, and that I would have
never seen coming. Not so much with the basketball because
because of the lesser injury and has twelve pounds of
tape on her ankles or senior year, she'd be off
the court, where like put, I'm an adrant. Oh she's
getting those ankles tape, Like that is good.

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):
So I would just add to this, you know, the
opportunity for parents to actually just grow up and be
parents in our culture right now, it's just there if
you want to seek God in it and you want
to try and mature spiritually and also help channel your
kids's life to mature spiritually and involved in sports. It's

(01:17:06):
there if you'll seek God in it. I mean, it
has grown us up so much. I mean we could
spend hours talking about how we've had to mature as individuals,
watching releasing, you know, interacting with their kids and what
we want for them is for them to live into
all God has for them, not what we want for them,

(01:17:27):
and still pray for that.

Speaker 7 (01:17:29):
I mean, I have a great story. Ike was going
into a senior year of basketball and being a post
and a big kind of tough kid. Underneath you're always muscling, pushing.
You know, it's a rough They're both posts. I always
think if there's basketball post moms, there could be a
support group. They work their tail off and everybody's mercy

(01:17:49):
to give them the ball and they get three kids
filing them and they don't get called. But then they
throw a toenail and they get.

Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
Not ain't it?

Speaker 7 (01:17:58):
But anyway, I was like, I you know, when you
go to the line, they're gonna fall you, you know,
because well I don't know what your free throw percentage is,
but they know it's you know, you're not a three
point shooter. So anyway, and a lot of times I
ex baldn't was just a little flat because he'd been
working so hard. It's hard to shark that hard and

(01:18:18):
then run to the free throw line laying something soft
so it'd come a little hard. So away, I just thought,
I'm going to do something really helpful here. And I
to be fair, I had I ever been critical one
time of anything you'd done in eighteen years. I mean
I was always like, good game, that was fun. I
mean I wasn't like a coach him up, mom ever,
just saying that I did play six on six best

(01:18:41):
not very well. So I didn't feel like I had
a lot of tips. But I thought I had one
here and I was going to share it. And I said, hey,
you know, when you get to the line, remember the rainbow.
I said, just put that in with a nice little arch,
because every time you arch that ball it's a swich.
I said, but when you don't arch, they can kind

(01:19:02):
of go. And he looked at me. He's an expression
on his face and change he goes. He goes, Mom,
if that's the last thing you ever say to me
about basketball, that would be good. Yep, yep, Okay, he goes,

(01:19:22):
I've got like five coaches and you're just you're my mom.
And like, I was so thankful he could put into
words exactly how he felt when I said that, like
can you just be my mom? You know, it was
probably a pretty good idea, right, that's not wrong with
that was wrong with that.

Speaker 4 (01:19:39):
Remember I'm gonna mention that, well I would have this,
you know, this would be just encouragement to parents, is
be self reflective about how your kids might be experiencing you.

(01:20:00):
I mean, that's where this started for me. I was
in third grade. He was playing in a tournament down
in tame, Iowa. Third grade. Mind you, I'm in the
front row of the bleachers screaming at him about needing
to be a little stronger and a little more stable
down low and asking for the ball. Third grade. And

(01:20:23):
he looked at me from the court like a third
grader would, like, Dad, I'm doing the best I can.

Speaker 6 (01:20:33):
And what happened to you?

Speaker 4 (01:20:35):
And in that moment was a check in my spirit
where I got I started to get very self reflective
about how my kids are going to experience me as
their dad around the arena of sports. And that's where
I decided, and this is what we could coach up.
You know, for parents now, picky positive, Be picky positive

(01:20:58):
with your kids. Pick out little things that they're doing well,
whatever level of play they're at, and reward them with
the positive.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
Just stay away from the negative. They know the kids
know what's.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
Going on in the the sports arena, how they measure
up for the most part, and if they don't, they're
going to figure it out. They're going to get humbled.
So be picky positive. Tell them you're excited to watch
them play. Tell them it was fun to watch them
play after no matter how good they did, and pick
out something good that they did.

Speaker 7 (01:21:34):
And it's magical.

Speaker 6 (01:21:36):
They'll build.

Speaker 7 (01:21:37):
They'll build on that. You pick them apart, and they'll
just get worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 4 (01:21:42):
More performance anxiety and stress, and you'll burn them out
and they won't like sports.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):
And it's just it's happening all the time.

Speaker 7 (01:21:51):
They'll act like they're sleeping when you get home, so
you don't talk to them.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
They want to ride home with somebody else. I mean,
we've heard all these things.

Speaker 7 (01:22:00):
Yeah, we yeah, that's out there.

Speaker 6 (01:22:02):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:22:03):
A friend of mine coaches basketball. He's had pretty decent
success at the high school level in Iowa and we
are having dinner one night and he just said, I
asked him kind of the question that you said about Clay.
You know a lot of people ask like, so is
your son gonna you're gonna stick around to your son
plays basketball for you or something like that. He's like,
I don't know, he said, if he's into it, yeah,
And if not, he said, I'm not gonna put a

(01:22:23):
whole lot of pressure on him. And this conversation developed
into what he is noticing with this youth sports craze.
I mean you talk about starting in third grade. That's
so early. I mean Mason played tackle football in fourth grade.
I mean it's and you got these baseball teams and
everyone's like, we said jockey and and if my kid doesn't.
I had one guy tell me once, my kid needs
to go to this certain school because these are the

(01:22:45):
kids who are gonna play varsity basketball, you know, eight
years later, and they need to get some chemistry built
on the playground at recess like this is in fourth grade.
Like and this is a dad, Like you're an adult
man and you're saying this stuff, like what are you
talking about? But so this coach friend of mine. He
just said that so many of the best athletes that

(01:23:08):
he would have access to are burnt out and they're
not playing anymore by the time they get to high
school because their dads have just warmed down. And the
schedule and the I mean, yeah, kids playing on four
club teams. And the whole thing is someone's trying to
scheme and jockey their way to the all star team

(01:23:28):
so that you go to this tournament where these D
one coaches are at and then you get noticed and
then maybe you'll get an offer. It's just so foolish,
I think.

Speaker 4 (01:23:36):
Well, it's just it's out of control. And even as
you're talking, I'm just thinking about even when I was
just what forty years ago, a lot of guys had
chores on a farm where I grew up. They had
other things to do. And currently there's a lot of
kids in town they don't have much else to do.
So being involved in sports at one level is good,

(01:23:58):
you know what I mean, when you're young and taking
up time and energy. But to be sure, the guy
who was mature on my fifth grade team never grew again. Yeah,
and he was the best player in fifth grade, and
by the senior you cannot predict it. I don't care
what they're saying at third, fourth, fifth grade. It's irrelevant.

(01:24:20):
And because of maturity and growth, would you think Ike's
going to be alignment in the NFL?

Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
I mean quarterback in high school recruited as a tight end. Yeah,
and then on one and so Iowa way by the way.

Speaker 4 (01:24:35):
So let you let your kids be kids and let
them develop a full enjoyment of life outside of sports
as well as sports, and then as they mature and
get a little later, then you can maybe help guide
it as a parent more. But we do need some
balance in it.

Speaker 7 (01:24:53):
And at the end of the day, it has to
still be fun. I mean, amen, Adoran took a slogan
to Warburg if it's if it's fun and it gets done,
you know, because when the girls stopped having fun, they
stopped winning, and then the minute they started goofing around
and having fun, they started winning. Ike feels the same way.
So I try to have fun every day. I mean
there are days that aren't, you know, giggling, But I

(01:25:13):
mean it it's a game. You gotta play this game, right, I.

Speaker 6 (01:25:18):
Was gonna add, it's one thing like you were talking about,
It's one thing to get burnt out and you don't
even make it to You don't make it to high
school sports, you don't make it to college sports because
you're emotionally burn out. Your body's burnout. It's which who
cares that you didn't make it? It doesn't matter. No
one cares that I was an All American and no
one cares. It doesn't matter. I mean, Ike's it's his

(01:25:40):
job right now, right, but at the end, it doesn't matter.
It's another thing to not have a relationship with your parents, Like, yeah,
it's okay, you got burnout and you didn't play, but
now you have fifty years of being hurt from your
dad because he cared too much about it and you
don't know who you are. So it's it's like, yeah, Ice,
we saw people come in and you see people in college,

(01:26:01):
like you have this ability that now is going to waste,
which is a bummer, But it doesn't even compare to
the relationship now that you have to try to build
back as a dad or as a mom for the next.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
And maybe soul wounds to heal from.

Speaker 4 (01:26:17):
Yeah, I mean identity issues and all that stuff, which
are far deeper than the disappointment of a sport.

Speaker 6 (01:26:23):
Because anything your parents say to you.

Speaker 8 (01:26:27):
In it.

Speaker 6 (01:26:27):
When you're especially in high school, you're gonna remember. I
don't care if they heard you yell at at the
RAF or they heard it you raise your voice during
a game. They remember, and it's a little like, oh,
dad thinks this is important, and usually it's dads. And
then does dad after the game tell you good things?
Is he quiet? Because quiet says things too. Man, you

(01:26:50):
didn't have a good game. He thinks you know more?
And then what do you do when you graduate? And
what do you do when you you know? How do
you view your dad? Because of which is a way
bigger thing.

Speaker 3 (01:27:01):
So this is where I start to like go nuts,
because you're you're claiming out of your mouth that you
are a follower of Christ and that this is the
most important. If you filled out the test question, you'd
say the most important thing in my life is Jesus
or my faith or whatever. But then all this stuff
is indicating that that's not actually true. Actually, you care

(01:27:25):
more about your one a Iowa Star Conference, seventh guy
on the team, basketball player, and and your kid. That
is a major problem. And not only are you going
to have like you said, potentially soul wounds. But now

(01:27:45):
we've got a discipleship issue because these kids.

Speaker 4 (01:27:49):
Well and God has told those kids to honor their
dad for the rest of their lives, and you you
might be making a real hard on them.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (01:27:56):
I own kids, and we obviously love sports. We've had
a lot of great things happen through sports. But I
know a lot of people I'm like, if you would
just quit sports for your family, for your relationship with
your family, you would be better off because there is
so much built into it. There's so much time, there's

(01:28:17):
so much energy that it's like you're your kids still
has a heart and it's still and especially girls and guys,
they they want home to be safe. They want mom
and dad to be encouraging.

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
Not talking about the last game all the time.

Speaker 6 (01:28:29):
They're not talking about the game, like hey, if you
if you just you know you're you're better than what
you're playing, Like I just still don't want you to
tell me that, right, my coach will tell me that.
And I want mom and dad to care about me
as a person and growing with the Lord. And when
I see them growing with the Lord, then you want
to grow with the Lord, and it's not that big
of a deal. We lost, and it's not you know,

(01:28:52):
you don't you don't wave with the wind all the
time because your parents aren't. They don't even have to
say anything besides do it themselves. Which when a game
gets intense and you see your dad over there just
dreaming on someone, what does that say to you? I
mean as a kid, and you might act like that's great,
but then you feel like, holy cow, dad, I've never

(01:29:13):
seen him like encourage me like that, or spend time
with the Lord like that, or get in passionate about
anything besides this. It can hurt.

Speaker 4 (01:29:23):
Now, I'm going to say this, man, it's easy as
a dad to sit in a room and talk about
this right now.

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
You're in a game. I know what, when you're in
a game, I.

Speaker 4 (01:29:31):
Never I never thought. I never thought I would be
in the middle of Kanic state and being the only
one standing trying.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
To get everybody to stand up. And I look back
and that happened to me.

Speaker 4 (01:29:45):
I mean more than once that I'm up there like
we're hey, we're on d it's coming to Third Dome.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
Why aren't the people standing?

Speaker 6 (01:29:51):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
And it is emotional, you get in there.

Speaker 4 (01:29:55):
And but that all being said, everything we're saying here
today about spear ritual maturity, growing in this being reflective
even after things like that and.

Speaker 6 (01:30:05):
Important, say you did it wrong, Like there have been
times their mom and I had have been like I shouldn't. Yeah, yeah,
we're sorry. Yeah we overreact, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:30:13):
And then you're like, okay, yeah, yeah, maybe your mistakes.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:30:18):
Two thoughts that I have one is what what could
we say to these dads who are around my age
maybe a little younger now as I'm getting older. Their
kids are just coming up and there's all these options,
all these teams, what she try out for this club
or that club or whatever? Who who I think have
a little bit of an identity problem of their own
and maybe it comes from how they were raised. I

(01:30:41):
don't know where it comes from, but it's like something
about some of these dads at least, is like they're
looking for significance even among their peer group by attaching
themselves to a successful athlete who's their kid. What do
you say to them, you're a pastor.

Speaker 4 (01:31:00):
Deeper in God. I mean, it's it's that, It's that simple.
It's like you could, you could experience the wonder of
your children and separate kind of the sports issue.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
From performance, yeah, from who.

Speaker 4 (01:31:16):
The marvel and wonder they are as people, and then
pray more like, what do you have in mind?

Speaker 2 (01:31:24):
Lord? Do you help me?

Speaker 4 (01:31:25):
What do you have in mind for my kids? Why
did you create them? What's what's your journey for him?
Give me insight into my children so that I can
help them accomplish your good purpose in their life. And
the deeper you go with God, the better person you
can be for your kids in helping him live into

(01:31:45):
who He's created him to be. I mean, that's really
I think the root of good leadership in a home
is being led well by God, yourself surrendered deeply to
Him so that He can give you wisdom and insight.
And it's something I'm still maturing yet. I mean, I

(01:32:06):
want to keep growing in this, not just for my
kids and my wife, but also for grandchildren and for
other people the Lord brings around me to help discern
what God's doing in their lives. And you got to
separate yourself, your identity from it and grounded in Christ
be able to do that. That's what I would comment to.

Speaker 3 (01:32:26):
That I talked about Mason growing like five six inches
after his senior year and we put him in school
when he's homeschool, but we started him a year. He's
young for his grade and so I mean, he's just
like dad, Mom, You guys screwed me. I mean, like,
if I'd have had that senior year, and we've kind
of joked about that, but it was a significant thing

(01:32:47):
for him, right, and he grew a ton, he got
better at basketball. He would have been I mean, he
started for us as senior year, he would have been
another starter. He would have maybe made some noise in
our conference. But it was interesting just this last year,
which he took as a gap year, you know, between
high school, and now he's gonna be at you and I.
He said, I've been thinking about this because it was

(01:33:08):
hard for him to let basketball go, and even after
he was done with high school, he's going to fit
every day and playing pickup games and and and coming
and practicing our team. And he said, I think that
if I would have had that senior year, there's a
chance I would have tried to go play at Dubuque
or at some small college, and maybe even to the
point where I would have walked on somewhere. I mean,

(01:33:30):
you go down to faith and walk on without even
being half as good as he was, you know what
I mean. And no offense to Faith. But he's just
like I think the Lord just orchestrated it because he
knows how distracted I would have been by basketball, and
it's time for me to get on with what he
wants to do with my life. I really appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (01:33:52):
And he's embracing the sovereignty of God right there in it.
And that's so good, you know, in that disappoint me
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:34:00):
He's working and I'm glad, I mean from my perspective,
I'm glad that he felt he didn't I don't know
that there wasn't this crazy pressure from me despite the
times that I failed in the stands all that. My
second thought was social media posts, the social media posts,

(01:34:26):
and I'm very active on social media. And I'm not
saying I have an at but but honestly, like it's
you know, the the fifth grade girls basketball team won
the whatever metal at the whatever tournament, and there's this,
you know, all this like eight pictures and this big
thing about Mercedes was part of the championship team. And

(01:34:49):
I think that one thing I would challenge parents to
do is like, like, think through that's great if you
want to post pictures on social media celebrate your kid
compete and having a tournament, But so much of the
emphasis is like I've tried to intentionally sometimes make posts
when things didn't go well, you know what I mean,
to not just send a message to the world, but

(01:35:11):
sending a message to my kids, like I still love
coming watching you play. Like I want to see more
posts on social media from people whose teams their kids
teams with like zero to five and looked like complete trash.
But you were there celebrating your kid. Let's let's have
some more of that, you know what I'm saying. I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
This is good, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:35:33):
I mean, I think we could go on forever. There's
so many dynamics to operating in this as a family.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
There just really is.

Speaker 4 (01:35:41):
But I don't know in terms of closing comments. For meh,
caring about each other emotionally.

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):
And not building that pressure in there.

Speaker 4 (01:35:57):
Is going to reap a lot of dividends over the
next sixty to seventy years.

Speaker 2 (01:36:02):
Yeah, you know, I think that.

Speaker 4 (01:36:09):
If parents could value that and steward their kids' hearts
more than their sports performance. We'd be in a better
place with all this.

Speaker 7 (01:36:20):
And then can go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:36:21):
I was gonna say, I like the closing comments theme,
So where you ready to go? Okay?

Speaker 7 (01:36:26):
I would say I read an article when the kids
were probably late late junior high or the high school
about if you could have a lase fair approach to
whatever your kid's passions are, they are going to find
out much quicker how hard they want to work and
how good they want to be, versus trying to please

(01:36:48):
your please, your mom, please your dad. Because your mom
and dad care so much, so you want to care
enough to give them the opportunities to develop how God
made them to be the best they can be, so
you want to avail them of opportunities in a spare
led way. We thought we'd pray a lot about friends, drugs, sex, alcohol,
You know, we prayed more parenting these two around their

(01:37:08):
sports involvement and asking the Lord what's right, what's wrong,
what's too much, what's not enough? And believe it or
not Lord, to let you know. He'll pull you in
in a direction you hadn't thought of. He'll pull you
out of stuff you thought was great, you follow that piece.
When you're asking him, he'll let you know you're unsettled.

(01:37:29):
You don't feel good about this, and then you test
the spirits and you still don't like don't I think
that's wrong? So anyway, follow peace, pray, and then when
your kids compete, especially upper class junior senior year in
high school, and then if they go on to play
college ball or even professional ball, they would have had

(01:37:49):
to develop an internal heart and passion and gear to
carry them on. And it has nothing to do with
the noise of their mom and dad. So if you
can get the noise of mom and dad out of
their life sooner rather than later, and they find out
how bad do I want to play? How good do
I want to be? How important is this to me?

(01:38:10):
That will carry them as far as they want to
take it. I remember it wasn't so much ike I
every year was very excited for the next season, anything
with the ball to compete. I feel like that's very male,
especially uh, how God made Ike he loves competition. Adrian
loved being with her friends, She liked the workout, she
liked the challenge, but she didn't she was She's not

(01:38:33):
geared like a I just want to get in there
and you know, compete and grind and you know, so
every year Adrian would have to decide every I feel
like for like seven years in a row. E don't
have to decide every basketball season. I surely wanted to play,
and we would say, you know what, You've had a
lot of fun playing, but it takes a ton of time.
It's a little hard on your body. What do you
think She'd say, I'm going to think about it, and

(01:38:54):
we'd say, great, take your time.

Speaker 3 (01:38:57):
Absolutely, you could get behind it.

Speaker 7 (01:38:58):
Absolutely, it's a girled out their student government's amazing. Some
people love checkers. We don't care. We kind of want
you to be having fun with friends. You can work
your whole life at hive Like that wasn't I didn't
love the idea of my kids taking a job. I
would like them to take advantage of things that they
can only do in junior high in high school just
because it's a short season.

Speaker 6 (01:39:18):
But I didn't. We didn't care what it was.

Speaker 7 (01:39:20):
We said it should be fun and you should decide
you want to do it. And literally every year Adrian
had to decide because she wasn't sure, because she would
count the costs. She was like, this is a ton
of time. My legs do hurt. I think my ankles
are a little sore. I mean, you know, like she
was considering the whole picture, and then when she would redecide,
then she knew she was.

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):
Going to be in.

Speaker 7 (01:39:40):
We didn't decide it for yes, And I think that
internal gear that carried these guys.

Speaker 3 (01:39:45):
I tell my kids and I tell our basketball guys
all the time, there are a lot of really amazing
things you can do for the Kingdom of God that's
not playing basketball, you know what I mean, Like this
just doesn't matter. I mean, now for some of you,
maybe it mattered. Maybe for one of you it's gonna
be the thing you do for the next five years.

Speaker 2 (01:40:03):
And it becomes a big platform.

Speaker 3 (01:40:05):
But but like, go do something else that the Lord
blesses in your life to just give them the freedom.
I mean, but parents, you got to live in the
open hand there, and you gotta be okay with not
having to live through the athletic prowess of your children
to get to that spot. Final comments, what we got.

Speaker 6 (01:40:25):
That is so true. I can see looking back, I
can see how discouraging it would be because we're naturally athletic.
I'm tall. I really only played like some of my
best ball one year, my senior year, and it really
wasn't anything besides how I grew as a person. And
I know, and you guys probably knew, I could have

(01:40:47):
probably played somewhere bigger if I would have been like
just every year grinding and out had my head, you know,
been focused, And they knew I would like go one
on one against Dad, like, but I would never play
that way in a game, you know what I mean.
So I'm sure there was some like, oh, what is
she doing? Like she can do this, But I never
felt that cause I didn't quite I didn't believe it
it like they did. And I really think that if

(01:41:10):
they would have pushed me, I maybe could have gone
somewhere a little bigger. And I may, but I wouldn't
be like I might not love the Lord. I might
not have want to hang out with my parents. There's
just something bigger. And I think a lot of that
was them listening to the Lord and asking the Lord
and then let's pray about your club team, let's see
where God has you for that. And I never went

(01:41:32):
into a club season like I can't believe I have
to do this club team. And I know there's a
lot of kids who are like, I don't want to
be on this club team. But we prayed about it.
We felt like, okay, you know, and then let's do this.
Then you go, you know, you know, your parents are
sacrificing some money and and so you go do it
with all you've got, even if it's it's not the
best or not the top. So even praying about teams,

(01:41:53):
which yeah, I didn't think was a big deal. I
thought we just did that, but I you know, that's
not what every family does. But praying about the little things.
What team should you be on? Who do you think
the coaches are going to be on that team? Not
how many are we gonna win? And are we gonna
get seen? But let's see, like what does the Lord have?
And I seriously look back on my sports and think

(01:42:15):
that was.

Speaker 3 (01:42:15):
So much fun. Do you remember praying about that stuff
or you talk about your parents praying about it.

Speaker 6 (01:42:20):
I remember praying like they would be like, let's be
in prayer about it, and we might say a family
prayer about it, and I would kind of be praying
and they would be praying and we would kind of
come to a consensus of like this might be a
good spot.

Speaker 3 (01:42:32):
I'm just thinking of a good just kind of just
self check for people listening to this. Have you ever
prayed about your kids club team and whether it should
even be a thing? I mean that's been It's surrendering
to the Lord, and the Lord will honor that good stuff.

Speaker 8 (01:42:49):
I would just say, if you're listening to this and
you feel like you haven't done it correctly, just as
a parent, just going to your kids and having a
conversation with them about it would mean a ton and
just kind of hitting the reset button because even if
you have not done it right and the kids are
pretty hurt, just having a good conversation. If it takes

(01:43:11):
a few you can turn it around fast and they're
gonna appreciate that more than anything that you're.

Speaker 2 (01:43:17):
Gonna say after that.

Speaker 8 (01:43:19):
I know that would mean a lot, And has been
a lot of buddies that I had that their parents
even years after they got done, they went and kind
of mended that relationship by just apologizing.

Speaker 2 (01:43:30):
And you know, if you're a kid and just let
your parents know.

Speaker 8 (01:43:34):
If your kid listen to this, just let your parents know,
Like that's not what you're doing isn't helpful, you know,
just keeping them in check and working.

Speaker 2 (01:43:44):
Together on it, because at the end of the day,
you're gonna, like.

Speaker 8 (01:43:48):
Adri said, you're gonna want a relationship with your parents
after sports and sports it should not be something that
gets in the way of it. I still have a
lot of fun playing football, Otherwise I wouldn't play any more.

Speaker 2 (01:44:00):
And people always ask me, you know, how much longer
are you want to play?

Speaker 8 (01:44:03):
I'm like to play until I'm done having fun with
it and as long as the body and the Lord
want me to keep playing. And uh so for that,
I think it's just thanks to the parents. And there's
a lot of guys even in the NFL that they
can't stand playing football, but they just they're good, so
they keep doing that. But I still enjoy, you know,

(01:44:23):
a lot of parts about it.

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
So cool. Thanks to the parents for raising us like that.

Speaker 3 (01:44:28):
Were you gonna say something.

Speaker 4 (01:44:29):
That I just will what I was saying there about
if you're a kid listening to this and you don't
know how to bring it up to parents, just share
this with them and ask them to listen to it.

Speaker 2 (01:44:38):
And could we have a converse podcast. Yeah, Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 3 (01:44:42):
Yeah, your comment reminds me. And I know you listened
to this because you told me. I did a podcast
interview with a guy named Trace Embrey at the National
Religious Broadcasters and he was the guy who was death
on cell phones. Yeah, and he said, do not give
a minor living in your house a cell phone. And
he was pretty emphatic about that. And you remember me.
That's an example of where I had to go to

(01:45:03):
my kids and you, guys, I shouldn't have done what
I did, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:45:09):
Yeah, but you said that. I like listening to your
to your podcast, but.

Speaker 3 (01:45:13):
It's like, and that's hard to do, Yeah, to admit that, like,
because because I was trying to, I had a lot
of good reasons to like give my kids unfettered access
to the internet, as bad as it sounds, now that
I understand things differently, Just like these parents that are
trying to put it's not like you're trying to ruin
their kids.

Speaker 2 (01:45:31):
No, No, they want the best for them. Of course.

Speaker 4 (01:45:35):
I just love what I said in there too. For parents,
is it's okay to apologize to your kids. I mean,
if you feel bad, an apology is huge and to
go say hey, we're all learning along the way. That's right,
and I'm sorry I was too over this way and
I'm going to try and learn and grow. And like
I said, kids are they respond well, yeah, that kind

(01:45:58):
of thing.

Speaker 7 (01:45:58):
And parents, give your kid it's permission to tell you
when you're out of line, you know, just open that
line of conversation, because it's a growth thing. You if
you're in a habit of doing something that isn't helpful,
you're not going to just stop it in the heat
of the moment because you've had a revelation. So give
your kids permission to say, Dad, that was too much,

(01:46:20):
or Mom, if that's the last thing you ever say
to me ever about sports, Like you know, just like
have it be a safe enough relationship where you can
have that kind of dialogue because that also can carry
through your whole life.

Speaker 3 (01:46:33):
So I was, I mean the long view, I think
about your family. You guys are tight. I mean, you're
out in Buffalo and you're back in Iowa, and I mean,
but I think, aren't you doing like a family fun
day today with everyone one or something like that? And
so I mean, I just I want that for my kids.

(01:46:54):
I want to I want to have a tight like
when they are adults and the grandkids they want to
come around because I'm not always harping on picky stupid
stuff and like take the long view, take the Kingdom
view and uh and if you get to go watch
your kids play in the NFL or All American Basket
But great, that's kind of a cherry on top, but
totally you know, I want to say thank you to Fluidine.

(01:47:15):
Fluidne is a business that most of you never need
their products. They do water treatment. But Mike Mant and
Eric and TARGETI Mant are there and our boys swim
who they let leave work to come set up the
audio and video for this because I needed some help
in a pinch. So shout out to those guys, and uh, Tim,
will you end this just with a prayer? Sure for parents,

(01:47:38):
for kids, whatever you want to do.

Speaker 4 (01:47:39):
It's been great, Matt. Yeah, Father, thank you for the
chance to sit in this room and talk about this,
this reality and our world. And you you have great wisdom.
I pray for all the parents listening, for the kids
that are listening, children, young athletes, whatever age, give wisdom

(01:48:01):
to each one of us around this great gift of sports,
which we know comes from your hand, but it also
can be something that takes over our lives in too
much of a way, and then we lose sight of
the larger picture and even maybe being restrained and led

(01:48:21):
by you. So give us wisdom on that. Thank you
for your guidance and blessing in our lives. We ask
that you bless everyone who hears this and cause them
to seek your wisdom and show them the path to
life that you have for them.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Speaker 3 (01:48:39):
Awesome. Hey, thanks for being here, guys, and thanks everyone
who listened. For tuning in and check out all other
stuff and we'll talk to you next time.

Speaker 1 (01:48:45):
Thanks Gay, Thanks Thanks. This has been Ccpodcasts on pray
dot com. Thanks for listening to hear more of our
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(01:49:06):
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(01:49:28):
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