July 4, 2025 • 24 mins
Minister of Children at First Baptist Church Kearney, Abraham Leonard, interviews his own father, Pastor Benjamin Leonard, on parenting. Benjamin shares his beautiful, educated, and practiced insights with the world.
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hello, welcome to the Kearney Kids Parenting Show.
I am your host, Abraham Leonard,Minister of Children at First
Baptist Church Kearney.
(00:20):
I am so glad that you havejoined us.
Well, welcome to the show, themost influential father in my
(00:41):
life, my very own father, PastorBenjamin Leonard, coming at us
all the way from Kabul,Missouri.
How are you?
I'm doing pretty good andexcited to be on the podcast
with you.
Well, could you tell us a littlebit about your family?
Of course, I'm a part of yourfamily, your ministry, and just
how you're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
Well, my family consists of my wife, Valerie,
who is a manager at the localcoffee shop and who is my
partner in crime and pretty mucheverything that we do together.
I'm grateful for her and ourministry.
Here and all that she does butmost importantly for her
(01:23):
ministry to our three boys ofwhich Abraham you are the oldest
and then Jeremiah and Josiah allof them are teenagers or above.
And so this is a new time in ourfamily with lots of milestones
as we have the baby of thefamily getting his permit and
(01:46):
they're in high school or nowyou are in college.
And so family life has changedquite a bit this year for us.
And so trying to navigate that,but feeling very blessed and
love watching the three boysgrow up, each in their own very
different and unique interestsand personalities, yet
(02:11):
undeniably brothers.
And so grateful for that part ofour family.
As far as ministry goes, I'm inmy 11th year at First Baptist
Church of Kabul, where I am thesenior pastor here and have been
for a long time.
We're a I like to say we're asmall church and a big building,
(02:31):
and so 40-something years ofdeferred maintenance and trying
to catch up on that over thelast 12 years, as well as reach
a community in which we have apast for mistakes that we've
done and things of that, butalso a present with the last 12
years of seeking to the best ofour ability to Amen.
(02:53):
Amen.
(03:22):
watch out the youngest one hashis permits stay off the road
that's right that's rightalthough if we're honest he will
be the least crazy of the threeboys in the car so um i'm not
not as worried
SPEAKER_01 (03:37):
so well that's good to hear um well to start off i
want to start off with somethingkind of light do you have any
good parenting memories maybe acouple of your favorite
parenting memories
SPEAKER_00 (03:49):
Well, my favorite parenting memories all surround
gospel conversations with eachof you boys.
And I can think of one with eachof you.
And thinking through those arealways special to me, whether
that's taking you to theevangelism workshop and having
(04:10):
that conversation or Havingconversations sitting on the
edge of Jeremiah's bed ortalking to Josiah while driving
him to a practice somewhere andabout those deep things.
And so those are some favoritememories for sure.
But as I think back, obviouslythere was a time that you were
(04:33):
extremely into fitness.
And some of my best memories arethose early, early, early
mornings in which you'd wake meup at 5 in the morning to go
work out at the gym.
And we'd spend time together andtalk about life and school and
everything.
(04:54):
and things of that nature.
And I'd see you, uh, accomplishnew goals that you'd set for
yourself.
And, um, those are some of my,my best memories.
Um, and the same could be saidof, of your brothers as well.
Um, and watching them, um, uh,accomplish new things and being
(05:14):
able to, to be a part of that,uh, with Jeremiah, most of my
best memories come with musicand, you know, uh, uh, Him and I
cruising with the windows downand the music blaring and
laughing together about that.
And with Josiah, you know, beingin the gym, throwing the ball
(05:35):
around, helping him reboundballs and having deep
conversations.
So a lot of my good memories aresurrounded around gospel
conversations and just privateopportunities where I get to be
with you boys.
and and doing that um i alsowould say that um one of my
(06:00):
favorite parenting memorieswould be um us hiking in
colorado together as a familyand uh that journey and i don't
know it was just kind of amilestone i felt like we'd all
kind of come to a place where weeach uniquely had something to
say and offer, but we weregrowing and experiencing things
(06:23):
together, and we were away justas a family.
And so those are some of my bestparenting memories.
SPEAKER_01 (06:30):
Well, I want to kind of go into something a little
bit harder now.
Could you tell us about somehard times that you have had as
a parent and how you've overcamethose hard times?
UNKNOWN (06:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (06:45):
Well, my hard times as a parent have probably
centered around a couple ofthings.
They've centered around you boysand the hard times you're
experiencing.
So walking through life withpeople.
(07:05):
bullying you boys or treatingyou poorly.
And, you know, as a dad and mysinfulness, I just want to go
and yell at that kid that's, youknow, doing something or, or,
you know, I want to just fix it.
And I couldn't, I couldn't fixit.
(07:27):
And so walking through seasons,it felt like, and which, I saw
you guys, the boys struggle withhard relationships with other
people.
That, that was, that wasdifficult for me as, as a parent
(07:53):
and knowing how to do that, howto walk through it and not take
charge and, and those kinds ofthings.
Yeah.
But then I'd also say anotherbit of the hard times that I've
struggled with is seasons whereI allow other things to distract
(08:16):
me from my priority as a parent.
And whether that be work orhobbies or something else, and
then you look back on thoseseasons times that you've missed
and there's a feeling of guiltum there is a sense of you know
(08:37):
how do i make this right um whatdo i do about these things and
and how do i how do i fix thisyou know and and ultimately you
can't have that you know i grewup in an era um in which you
watched pastors abandon theirfamilies for the work of
ministry um And that's not aproblem just for pastors, by the
(08:59):
way.
So if there's listeners that arelistening that are faithfully
serving the Lord by being godlyworkers or bosses or business
owners, it applies to them too.
But I saw that.
And honestly, I feel like thatpressure was still on pastors
(09:22):
even today, where there's kindof an expectation that, the
family comes second.
And yet scripture says that if apastor doesn't manage his own
household well, that he's notfit for the ministry.
And so finding those seasons inmy life where I was distracted
by building projects, and so I'mdedicating literally every spare
(09:48):
moment and the time that I wasspending with you boys was
putting up and down scaffoldingto work on windows in the church
or sweeping the floors of thedust to get ready for the next
Sunday morning while we'reworking on stuff or that was a
failure on my part.
(10:08):
And it's a failure for my familyas a whole to And the way I
treated my wife during that timeand not being there for her.
And I'd add to that, you know,just other times in ministry in
which I allowed work, ministryto get in the way of those
(10:34):
things.
And so the question then is howdo I overcome them?
Well, I could never have thattime back.
And so the only thing I can doand could do was to ask for
forgiveness and to try toexplain to you boys why that was
wrong and ask for your help inthe future and to commit myself
(11:00):
to making family a priorityduring those times.
That was just one example.
I mean, I feel like we kind ofas individuals kind of go
through ebbs and flows whereIt's new temptations, new
distractions.
But learning this Sunday, Ipreached from Psalm 78.
(11:21):
And in Psalm 78, the ass tellsthem that he will not hide the
dark sayings, but will tell themto the coming generations.
And the verses that follow areall the mistakes of their
fathers and grandfathers.
UNKNOWN (11:41):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (11:41):
And I think it's important that when we fail as
parents, that we confess that toour children and teach them to
learn from those failures andmistakes and not to make them
themselves, but to learn fromthem that the next generation
would see the glory of Godgreater.
(12:03):
I mean, that's kind of the pointof the rest of Psalm 78.
And so, yeah, all that to saythat the hard times in my life
or in my parenting life havebeen helping you boys deal with
the sin of other people andhelping you boys deal with my
sin and, and how we interactwith those things.
(12:25):
And so, um, I think all parentscould, could learn, learn from
that.
It's important to be honestabout those things.
So, um, does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01 (12:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was good.
Some good things.
examples of hard times as aparent.
And of course, you're a pastor.
And so those may look slightlydifferent for everyone, but kind
of as you explained, that'sapplicable to everybody.
Anybody can struggle withputting their work first,
whether like you said, that'sbeing in the business world or
(12:59):
maybe that's, you know, we seethat as a common theme
throughout parents.
Or
SPEAKER_00 (13:06):
I'd say even hobbies too, like not just...
Not just work, but when you, youknow, oftentimes I feel like we
do hobbies to distract us fromthe difficulty of life or things
like that.
And so then we can begin runningto those instead of, so that
could be any form of hobby thatwe turn to over and against our
(13:30):
responsibilities of beingfaithful as a husband and
father.
SPEAKER_01 (13:39):
take you know weeks weeks on weeks sitting in the
woods instead of being home notsaying that being in the woods
at all is wrong but instead ofbeing home with their families
at all and they'll completelyabandon their families or you
can see that with a lot ofdifferent hobbies where they'll
they'll neglect their family ohi need i need time away maybe
(14:01):
that's watching tv playing videogames whatever it is we see that
even yeah that's running rampantin our world so That's really
good.
If you were going to go back intime, back to when I was born,
and you were going to giveyourself some parenting advice
before becoming a father, youwere going to tell yourself, you
(14:24):
know, this is what you need toknow, Benjamin.
What would that be?
SPEAKER_00 (14:28):
Well, I had a really good professor in school that
when you were born, he was...
talking to me about the funnelof parenting and how um you know
authority is one of the the bestthings that you can teach your
kids and um you know how youknow we wouldn't have question
(14:52):
and answer time with you guys umand you know you being the
oldest we'd have to often remindyou of you know you're not your
brother's authority and so wetalked a lot about authority and
but he would talk to us aboutauthority and instruction and
obedience and he would talkabout it in the form of a funnel
in which you should be mostrestrictive when a child is
(15:15):
younger and as they grow andmature you should give them more
and more and more freedom andthat was incredible advice for
us because when everybody elseeven ourselves wanted to laugh
at times of disobedience, weknew that that had consequences
(15:37):
in the future.
That disobedience at three mayseem cute, but that same
disobedience at 13 would bedevastating, right?
And so I was so grateful forthat advice.
But one of the things that Istruggled with in that process,
(15:57):
if I could go back and tellmyself things was, When it comes
to things that arenon-disciplinary, it's okay to
let you fail.
It's okay to let a child growfrom failures.
I mean, all throughoutScripture, we're told that
failure, struggling, difficultyis meant to produce something in
(16:20):
us, right?
Yeah.
And I think I took that samemantra of...
of discipline and tried to applyit to just life in general of
things like if you were workingon a project, it's okay for it
to not be perfect.
You know, it's okay for it tofall apart or for you to make a
(16:43):
mistake or things of thatnature.
You know, growing up in apastor's home, I think one of
the temptations is, you know,things aren't cheap and money
isn't growing on trees, right?
And I said this about you onSunday, so I'll confess it now.
I've never known a child tobreak more things than you.
(17:05):
You had a unique giftedness atbreaking things.
And so rather than allowingthose to be mistakes that you
learned from and the cost, youknow, dad would freak out over
things replacing something oryou know things like that and
the money associated with thatand we've had a lot of trash
(17:26):
cans and trash can lids in my ohmy goodness uh hard on the trash
can lids um but uh if i could goback i i would tell myself you
know what it's not that big of adeal and there's a greater
education in the failure and inthe brokenness and just the
(17:46):
consequences of not havingsomething or not being able to
do something and learning thosethings.
I think that's what I think.
You kind of gave me a heads upon a few of the questions here,
and that's kind of what I wasthinking through.
If I could go back, there's moreimportant things in those
(18:09):
moments to teach.
The other thing I'd probablytell myself is, to not lecture
in the moment.
I am the king of wanting tolecture you boys when you make a
mistake.
And, and I, and I don't thinkit's wrong.
I still don't think it's wrongto use a failure as an
(18:30):
opportunity to teach.
Yeah.
Um, but when it's immediate,oftentimes it comes across not
as teaching, but as angst andbitterness and anger and, and,
And I wish I would have toldmyself, give yourself some more
space between the teachingmoment and the instruction.
(18:55):
Just for me personally.
Some dads, that may not be anissue.
When Josiah's a dad, he's soeasygoing.
He may not struggle with thatlike I do.
But I just wish I kind of wouldhave...
would have taken a little bitstep back and grateful for your
(19:18):
mother to remind me of that andbe like, Hey, you probably need
to give them a little bit ofspace and then, and then come
back to it.
So,
SPEAKER_01 (19:27):
yeah, that's, that's really good.
I want to end on a, on a widernote.
I've got a lot of differentanswers doing these podcasts
interviews, but here it goes.
I'm kind of curious to see maybea little nervous to see what
you're going to say.
Could you give us a funnyparenting story?
(19:47):
What's maybe your favorite funnyparenting story?
SPEAKER_00 (19:53):
There's so many, Abraham.
And since you're hosting thepodcast, I don't want to throw
you under the bus or anything,but there are so many.
And thinking through...
Some of these things, there aresome things that are funny now
(20:15):
that weren't funny then.
You know, to go along with thetheme of all the other questions
you've asked, my friends used toalways say I was the most
patient person they ever met.
And I always say that's becausethey knew me before I had
children.
And, you know, we used to camp alot, and camping was always a
(20:38):
thing, and I can remember, youknow, funny stories there.
I can remember the time that,you know, it started pouring.
We have a fire going and it'sand we're cooking.
And I tell you boys to grab allthe stuff and bring it
underneath the stove.
(20:59):
The tarp, you know, there thatwere there and, you know, I'm
thinking things like chairs thatare fabric and, you know, the
things that might get wet.
Right.
And it might matter.
But what do you do?
You go and grab the grate offthe fire.
and hand it to me in the middleof a storm because you're
(21:22):
worried about the, the greatgetting wet.
Um, um, and of course, you know,everybody that was there says
that was my Hulk moment, which Ithrew the great and I'm not
worried about the great it'sraining.
Um, you know, a failure on mypart in which I have to confess
and repent.
And, you know, we kind of laughabout it now, but then it
(21:45):
probably, uh, wasn't as funny asit is now.
I can still picture it in myhead a little bit.
I'm sorry, son.
I really am sorry that that'sthe memory.
No, but I can remember itactually came up the other day
(22:07):
on your mother's video memoriesor picture memories as we were
going through them.
I can remember as a kid or as atoddler, you loved food.
And so some of my favoritememories were, this picture
(22:28):
comes up, we had this weirdalley kitchen and you could go
out either side and we had thebaby gate on both sides, and
your mom would have to sneakinto the kitchen to start
cooking dinner.
Because if you knew she wascooking dinner from that point
forward, you would stand at thebaby gate and shake it and say,
(22:51):
eat, eat, like you were BabyHulk.
And so those things, or I canremember at the same time, same
apartment, your mother and I aresitting at the table eating,
you're in your little highchair, and all of a sudden the
kitchen table collapses.
(23:13):
And...
We realized what you had beendoing underneath the kitchen
table.
You had been taking the nuts offthe bolts that held together the
kitchen table.
And so the kitchen table fellapart on us.
Of course, you were only two andwe didn't realize that's what
you were doing underneath thetable.
(23:34):
You always just like to hideunderneath there like it was
your little fort.
And so we didn't think anythingof it.
But you were two, three yearsold and taking apart things.
And so...
Those are some of the funnyparenting stories I can remember
that I think of often.
SPEAKER_01 (23:53):
Well, those are pretty good.
And I think that's a good noteto end on today, a light note to
end on today.
On behalf of all the listenersand myself, I want to say thank
you for being on the show.
We really appreciate youagreeing to join.
to doing this.
(24:14):
Thank you for joining me.
I hope this was an encouragementto you.
Please follow the show, leave areview, and share it with the
people around you.
Hello, welcome to the Kearney Kids Parenting Show.
I am your host, Abraham Leonard,Minister of Children at First
Baptist Church Kearney.
(00:20):
I am so glad that you havejoined us.
Well, welcome to the show, themost influential father in my
(00:41):
life, my very own father, PastorBenjamin Leonard, coming at us
all the way from Kabul,Missouri.
How are you?
I'm doing pretty good andexcited to be on the podcast
with you.
Well, could you tell us a littlebit about your family?
Of course, I'm a part of yourfamily, your ministry, and just
how you're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
Well, my family consists of my wife, Valerie,
who is a manager at the localcoffee shop and who is my
partner in crime and pretty mucheverything that we do together.
I'm grateful for her and ourministry.
Here and all that she does butmost importantly for her
(01:23):
ministry to our three boys ofwhich Abraham you are the oldest
and then Jeremiah and Josiah allof them are teenagers or above.
And so this is a new time in ourfamily with lots of milestones
as we have the baby of thefamily getting his permit and
(01:46):
they're in high school or nowyou are in college.
And so family life has changedquite a bit this year for us.
And so trying to navigate that,but feeling very blessed and
love watching the three boysgrow up, each in their own very
different and unique interestsand personalities, yet
(02:11):
undeniably brothers.
And so grateful for that part ofour family.
As far as ministry goes, I'm inmy 11th year at First Baptist
Church of Kabul, where I am thesenior pastor here and have been
for a long time.
We're a I like to say we're asmall church and a big building,
(02:31):
and so 40-something years ofdeferred maintenance and trying
to catch up on that over thelast 12 years, as well as reach
a community in which we have apast for mistakes that we've
done and things of that, butalso a present with the last 12
years of seeking to the best ofour ability to Amen.
(02:53):
Amen.
(03:22):
watch out the youngest one hashis permits stay off the road
that's right that's rightalthough if we're honest he will
be the least crazy of the threeboys in the car so um i'm not
not as worried
SPEAKER_01 (03:37):
so well that's good to hear um well to start off i
want to start off with somethingkind of light do you have any
good parenting memories maybe acouple of your favorite
parenting memories
SPEAKER_00 (03:49):
Well, my favorite parenting memories all surround
gospel conversations with eachof you boys.
And I can think of one with eachof you.
And thinking through those arealways special to me, whether
that's taking you to theevangelism workshop and having
(04:10):
that conversation or Havingconversations sitting on the
edge of Jeremiah's bed ortalking to Josiah while driving
him to a practice somewhere andabout those deep things.
And so those are some favoritememories for sure.
But as I think back, obviouslythere was a time that you were
(04:33):
extremely into fitness.
And some of my best memories arethose early, early, early
mornings in which you'd wake meup at 5 in the morning to go
work out at the gym.
And we'd spend time together andtalk about life and school and
everything.
(04:54):
and things of that nature.
And I'd see you, uh, accomplishnew goals that you'd set for
yourself.
And, um, those are some of my,my best memories.
Um, and the same could be saidof, of your brothers as well.
Um, and watching them, um, uh,accomplish new things and being
(05:14):
able to, to be a part of that,uh, with Jeremiah, most of my
best memories come with musicand, you know, uh, uh, Him and I
cruising with the windows downand the music blaring and
laughing together about that.
And with Josiah, you know, beingin the gym, throwing the ball
(05:35):
around, helping him reboundballs and having deep
conversations.
So a lot of my good memories aresurrounded around gospel
conversations and just privateopportunities where I get to be
with you boys.
and and doing that um i alsowould say that um one of my
(06:00):
favorite parenting memorieswould be um us hiking in
colorado together as a familyand uh that journey and i don't
know it was just kind of amilestone i felt like we'd all
kind of come to a place where weeach uniquely had something to
say and offer, but we weregrowing and experiencing things
(06:23):
together, and we were away justas a family.
And so those are some of my bestparenting memories.
SPEAKER_01 (06:30):
Well, I want to kind of go into something a little
bit harder now.
Could you tell us about somehard times that you have had as
a parent and how you've overcamethose hard times?
UNKNOWN (06:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (06:45):
Well, my hard times as a parent have probably
centered around a couple ofthings.
They've centered around you boysand the hard times you're
experiencing.
So walking through life withpeople.
(07:05):
bullying you boys or treatingyou poorly.
And, you know, as a dad and mysinfulness, I just want to go
and yell at that kid that's, youknow, doing something or, or,
you know, I want to just fix it.
And I couldn't, I couldn't fixit.
(07:27):
And so walking through seasons,it felt like, and which, I saw
you guys, the boys struggle withhard relationships with other
people.
That, that was, that wasdifficult for me as, as a parent
(07:53):
and knowing how to do that, howto walk through it and not take
charge and, and those kinds ofthings.
Yeah.
But then I'd also say anotherbit of the hard times that I've
struggled with is seasons whereI allow other things to distract
(08:16):
me from my priority as a parent.
And whether that be work orhobbies or something else, and
then you look back on thoseseasons times that you've missed
and there's a feeling of guiltum there is a sense of you know
(08:37):
how do i make this right um whatdo i do about these things and
and how do i how do i fix thisyou know and and ultimately you
can't have that you know i grewup in an era um in which you
watched pastors abandon theirfamilies for the work of
ministry um And that's not aproblem just for pastors, by the
(08:59):
way.
So if there's listeners that arelistening that are faithfully
serving the Lord by being godlyworkers or bosses or business
owners, it applies to them too.
But I saw that.
And honestly, I feel like thatpressure was still on pastors
(09:22):
even today, where there's kindof an expectation that, the
family comes second.
And yet scripture says that if apastor doesn't manage his own
household well, that he's notfit for the ministry.
And so finding those seasons inmy life where I was distracted
by building projects, and so I'mdedicating literally every spare
(09:48):
moment and the time that I wasspending with you boys was
putting up and down scaffoldingto work on windows in the church
or sweeping the floors of thedust to get ready for the next
Sunday morning while we'reworking on stuff or that was a
failure on my part.
(10:08):
And it's a failure for my familyas a whole to And the way I
treated my wife during that timeand not being there for her.
And I'd add to that, you know,just other times in ministry in
which I allowed work, ministryto get in the way of those
(10:34):
things.
And so the question then is howdo I overcome them?
Well, I could never have thattime back.
And so the only thing I can doand could do was to ask for
forgiveness and to try toexplain to you boys why that was
wrong and ask for your help inthe future and to commit myself
(11:00):
to making family a priorityduring those times.
That was just one example.
I mean, I feel like we kind ofas individuals kind of go
through ebbs and flows whereIt's new temptations, new
distractions.
But learning this Sunday, Ipreached from Psalm 78.
(11:21):
And in Psalm 78, the ass tellsthem that he will not hide the
dark sayings, but will tell themto the coming generations.
And the verses that follow areall the mistakes of their
fathers and grandfathers.
UNKNOWN (11:41):
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00 (11:41):
And I think it's important that when we fail as
parents, that we confess that toour children and teach them to
learn from those failures andmistakes and not to make them
themselves, but to learn fromthem that the next generation
would see the glory of Godgreater.
(12:03):
I mean, that's kind of the pointof the rest of Psalm 78.
And so, yeah, all that to saythat the hard times in my life
or in my parenting life havebeen helping you boys deal with
the sin of other people andhelping you boys deal with my
sin and, and how we interactwith those things.
(12:25):
And so, um, I think all parentscould, could learn, learn from
that.
It's important to be honestabout those things.
So, um, does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01 (12:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was good.
Some good things.
examples of hard times as aparent.
And of course, you're a pastor.
And so those may look slightlydifferent for everyone, but kind
of as you explained, that'sapplicable to everybody.
Anybody can struggle withputting their work first,
whether like you said, that'sbeing in the business world or
(12:59):
maybe that's, you know, we seethat as a common theme
throughout parents.
Or
SPEAKER_00 (13:06):
I'd say even hobbies too, like not just...
Not just work, but when you, youknow, oftentimes I feel like we
do hobbies to distract us fromthe difficulty of life or things
like that.
And so then we can begin runningto those instead of, so that
could be any form of hobby thatwe turn to over and against our
(13:30):
responsibilities of beingfaithful as a husband and
father.
SPEAKER_01 (13:39):
take you know weeks weeks on weeks sitting in the
woods instead of being home notsaying that being in the woods
at all is wrong but instead ofbeing home with their families
at all and they'll completelyabandon their families or you
can see that with a lot ofdifferent hobbies where they'll
they'll neglect their family ohi need i need time away maybe
(14:01):
that's watching tv playing videogames whatever it is we see that
even yeah that's running rampantin our world so That's really
good.
If you were going to go back intime, back to when I was born,
and you were going to giveyourself some parenting advice
before becoming a father, youwere going to tell yourself, you
(14:24):
know, this is what you need toknow, Benjamin.
What would that be?
SPEAKER_00 (14:28):
Well, I had a really good professor in school that
when you were born, he was...
talking to me about the funnelof parenting and how um you know
authority is one of the the bestthings that you can teach your
kids and um you know how youknow we wouldn't have question
(14:52):
and answer time with you guys umand you know you being the
oldest we'd have to often remindyou of you know you're not your
brother's authority and so wetalked a lot about authority and
but he would talk to us aboutauthority and instruction and
obedience and he would talkabout it in the form of a funnel
in which you should be mostrestrictive when a child is
(15:15):
younger and as they grow andmature you should give them more
and more and more freedom andthat was incredible advice for
us because when everybody elseeven ourselves wanted to laugh
at times of disobedience, weknew that that had consequences
(15:37):
in the future.
That disobedience at three mayseem cute, but that same
disobedience at 13 would bedevastating, right?
And so I was so grateful forthat advice.
But one of the things that Istruggled with in that process,
(15:57):
if I could go back and tellmyself things was, When it comes
to things that arenon-disciplinary, it's okay to
let you fail.
It's okay to let a child growfrom failures.
I mean, all throughoutScripture, we're told that
failure, struggling, difficultyis meant to produce something in
(16:20):
us, right?
Yeah.
And I think I took that samemantra of...
of discipline and tried to applyit to just life in general of
things like if you were workingon a project, it's okay for it
to not be perfect.
You know, it's okay for it tofall apart or for you to make a
(16:43):
mistake or things of thatnature.
You know, growing up in apastor's home, I think one of
the temptations is, you know,things aren't cheap and money
isn't growing on trees, right?
And I said this about you onSunday, so I'll confess it now.
I've never known a child tobreak more things than you.
(17:05):
You had a unique giftedness atbreaking things.
And so rather than allowingthose to be mistakes that you
learned from and the cost, youknow, dad would freak out over
things replacing something oryou know things like that and
the money associated with thatand we've had a lot of trash
(17:26):
cans and trash can lids in my ohmy goodness uh hard on the trash
can lids um but uh if i could goback i i would tell myself you
know what it's not that big of adeal and there's a greater
education in the failure and inthe brokenness and just the
(17:46):
consequences of not havingsomething or not being able to
do something and learning thosethings.
I think that's what I think.
You kind of gave me a heads upon a few of the questions here,
and that's kind of what I wasthinking through.
If I could go back, there's moreimportant things in those
(18:09):
moments to teach.
The other thing I'd probablytell myself is, to not lecture
in the moment.
I am the king of wanting tolecture you boys when you make a
mistake.
And, and I, and I don't thinkit's wrong.
I still don't think it's wrongto use a failure as an
(18:30):
opportunity to teach.
Yeah.
Um, but when it's immediate,oftentimes it comes across not
as teaching, but as angst andbitterness and anger and, and,
And I wish I would have toldmyself, give yourself some more
space between the teachingmoment and the instruction.
(18:55):
Just for me personally.
Some dads, that may not be anissue.
When Josiah's a dad, he's soeasygoing.
He may not struggle with thatlike I do.
But I just wish I kind of wouldhave...
would have taken a little bitstep back and grateful for your
(19:18):
mother to remind me of that andbe like, Hey, you probably need
to give them a little bit ofspace and then, and then come
back to it.
So,
SPEAKER_01 (19:27):
yeah, that's, that's really good.
I want to end on a, on a widernote.
I've got a lot of differentanswers doing these podcasts
interviews, but here it goes.
I'm kind of curious to see maybea little nervous to see what
you're going to say.
Could you give us a funnyparenting story?
(19:47):
What's maybe your favorite funnyparenting story?
SPEAKER_00 (19:53):
There's so many, Abraham.
And since you're hosting thepodcast, I don't want to throw
you under the bus or anything,but there are so many.
And thinking through...
Some of these things, there aresome things that are funny now
(20:15):
that weren't funny then.
You know, to go along with thetheme of all the other questions
you've asked, my friends used toalways say I was the most
patient person they ever met.
And I always say that's becausethey knew me before I had
children.
And, you know, we used to camp alot, and camping was always a
(20:38):
thing, and I can remember, youknow, funny stories there.
I can remember the time that,you know, it started pouring.
We have a fire going and it'sand we're cooking.
And I tell you boys to grab allthe stuff and bring it
underneath the stove.
(20:59):
The tarp, you know, there thatwere there and, you know, I'm
thinking things like chairs thatare fabric and, you know, the
things that might get wet.
Right.
And it might matter.
But what do you do?
You go and grab the grate offthe fire.
and hand it to me in the middleof a storm because you're
(21:22):
worried about the, the greatgetting wet.
Um, um, and of course, you know,everybody that was there says
that was my Hulk moment, which Ithrew the great and I'm not
worried about the great it'sraining.
Um, you know, a failure on mypart in which I have to confess
and repent.
And, you know, we kind of laughabout it now, but then it
(21:45):
probably, uh, wasn't as funny asit is now.
I can still picture it in myhead a little bit.
I'm sorry, son.
I really am sorry that that'sthe memory.
No, but I can remember itactually came up the other day
(22:07):
on your mother's video memoriesor picture memories as we were
going through them.
I can remember as a kid or as atoddler, you loved food.
And so some of my favoritememories were, this picture
(22:28):
comes up, we had this weirdalley kitchen and you could go
out either side and we had thebaby gate on both sides, and
your mom would have to sneakinto the kitchen to start
cooking dinner.
Because if you knew she wascooking dinner from that point
forward, you would stand at thebaby gate and shake it and say,
(22:51):
eat, eat, like you were BabyHulk.
And so those things, or I canremember at the same time, same
apartment, your mother and I aresitting at the table eating,
you're in your little highchair, and all of a sudden the
kitchen table collapses.
(23:13):
And...
We realized what you had beendoing underneath the kitchen
table.
You had been taking the nuts offthe bolts that held together the
kitchen table.
And so the kitchen table fellapart on us.
Of course, you were only two andwe didn't realize that's what
you were doing underneath thetable.
(23:34):
You always just like to hideunderneath there like it was
your little fort.
And so we didn't think anythingof it.
But you were two, three yearsold and taking apart things.
And so...
Those are some of the funnyparenting stories I can remember
that I think of often.
SPEAKER_01 (23:53):
Well, those are pretty good.
And I think that's a good noteto end on today, a light note to
end on today.
On behalf of all the listenersand myself, I want to say thank
you for being on the show.
We really appreciate youagreeing to join.
to doing this.
(24:14):
Thank you for joining me.
I hope this was an encouragementto you.
Please follow the show, leave areview, and share it with the
people around you.
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