Having a Brave Home

What always strikes me is this. I think to myself, they really have reasons not to jump right now, because I'm not always trustworthy. And yet, I know that I'm going to catch them. I know it's going to be okay.

Why won't they just jump? Isn't that how God looks at me? Because I have no reason to doubt him.

He will absolutely catch me and has never failed me. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. My credit to my wife is going on vacations, and we went on a couple RV trips.

Yes, they are so fun. Where we traveled the country in an RV. We used to call it camping, but it's not camping when you get an RV with a generator and AC and all the great stuff. So I remember we'd stop at these campgrounds, and they always had a pool. And I'll never forget when our boys were real little, and every dad or mom's probably experienced this. You're in the pool, and they're afraid to jump in because they haven't really done that yet.

So they're there, and you in the pool are like, come on, come on. You're trying to convince them. You can trust me. You can trust me, you know, but you can see in their mind this little tension between faith and fear. Do I trust dad? Do I trust mom?

Can I trust? I've never done this before. Fear is I've never jumped in a pool. My head's never gone under. And of course, you're like, look at me. Look at my arms. They're the size of a Greek god, right?

They've got biceps that would never let you down. You know, they are either going to jump, and that's that faith moment, and there's that split second where they don't know, and then they feel dad or mom catch them, and they're running back to do it again because they've experienced it. But, you know, when you apply that to our walks and our faith life, I mean, we don't have that thought in the pool, but if you think it through, if they never jump, there's consequences because they'll think, you know, I'm not a jumper kind of kid, you know, and I'm not. And if they do jump, there's consequences. And so I think this applies to what we're talking about today with Kevin A. Thompson, pastor in Arkansas, who wrote a book called Fearless Families.

It's all about fear. And I love what we were talking about building a home of the afraid, your term, or the brave. And I know you've written other books, and you're a dad, and you're a pastor, and so you live this not only in your home, but in your church, in your community. First of all, let me say welcome to Family Life today. Glad you're here.

When can I jump in? Because you're shaking your head. I can tell that you've experienced, have you experienced that as a dad with the kid on the side of the pool? Oh, there's no question. What always strikes me is this. I think to myself, they really have reasons not to jump right now because I'm not always trustworthy. And yet I know that I'm going to catch them. I know it's going to be okay.

Why won't they just jump? Isn't that how God looks at me? Because I have no reason to doubt him. He will absolutely catch me and has never failed me. See, look what the pastor does with that.

He just takes it to a whole other level. Because when I see Dave telling the boys, do it, do it, I'm thinking, is he going to catch them? Yeah, because you've seen him fail.

Dave has failed you. He has, Kevin. But God never has. And yet so often, whenever I think about that division between my children and me, it just reminds me that is such a small division compared to my division between God and me. And any time I'm frustrated by my kids not trusting me, not telling me the truth, not obeying me, not doing all those things, Kevin, just flip that around. That's how God feels. He just knows you're going to have a better life if you will follow him. And that's what Fearless Families really is about in the end.

It comes down to a very basic question. Are you going to go the way of love or not? Yeah. And as you thought about writing a book called Fearless Families, is that because you saw a lot of fear maybe in your own home or in other homes? I know you pastor and you know a lot of families. Was it something like, man, I see fear everywhere.

I got to address that? No, I think the funny thing about the title of the book is the concept of it comes out. And my daughter, who is now 15, she looks at me and she goes, but Daddy, we're not fearless.

And basically calling out the hypocrisy of that. Like, who are you to write a book about fearless families? But it really is this concept of how fear is dominating every aspect of our lives.

And that's really the heart of the book came from. In my own experience that I had with my son, that kind of revealed then the anxiety that I had within my own heart and how that was playing out in the lives of everybody that was around me. The family that I have in my house with my wife and children, the family I have at work at the church with my co-workers and the employees that work for me, the fear that I was now kind of bringing to my friend group, all those different little families that I have, how my fear was adding to their fear and how it really was dominating our world. And this was before the pandemic.

And then the pandemic hits. And then it just explodes of this concept of fear literally driving every aspect of who we are. And I think so often people don't see it. I think that's what's the amazing thing to me is now that people see the book and they're starting to read it, they'll say things like, Kevin, I never realized how I was driven by fear until I read this book.

And I'm like, are you crazy? Like a couple comes to my office and I can point out 10 different ways that they're making choices based on fear, but they don't even realize it. Fear is so much the water that we're swimming in. We never even recognize it. And we don't know how it's ruling our lives.

It's interesting. I remember when our kids were teenagers, I've probably never been as fearful as that era when they're all teenagers. And I read Tim Kimmel's book called Grace Based Parenting, and he asked the question, are you parenting out of fear? And my answer was, of course. And I should be afraid.

Look at our world. And I realized, oh, most of my decisions that I'm making with our teens are based out of my own fear of what they'll do, of what they'll become, of how they'll make us look. And all of it was out of fear. And you're right.

I didn't even recognize it until someone pointed it out. And so you're helping us. You're asking us, what are we afraid of? The reality is on many of the statistics, we actually live in one of the safest times ever. That whenever you look at child abduction, child murder, whenever you look at the big statistics, this is actually one of the safest times ever to be a child. But what happened, I think, with the onset of 24-hour news channels, the danger rate for children was dropping 60 percent.

The news stories about child abductions was going up 600 percent. And then 9-11 happened. And my generation was watching these events as before we got married, before we had kids, or maybe right when we were having them. And suddenly the world seemed like a very dangerous place.

And then a pandemic hits. And literally what used to be the most mundane kind of concept of sharing a handshake or a hug could now kill a family member. And so it's no surprise, I think, that we live in a very fearful generation. And yet at the same time, is our awareness of that fear making our lives better? Are we making better decisions because we're feeling so fearful? Nobody would say that.

Nobody would claim that this is going the way it's supposed to go. And I understand, especially raising teenagers in a fearful kind of culture. But I think the question then becomes, do the decisions you make based on fear lead to better outcomes? No, they simply don't. Wouldn't decisions based on love be better?

Of course. I think we all naturally and hately know that. We just don't believe it. And so it comes down to this question of, which are we going to believe?

Are we going to believe what feels natural to us, or are we going to believe what God has taught us and follow after him? One of the things we do when we're afraid is we make an idol of safety. You know, it becomes sort of our God. I'll do whatever it takes to be completely safe. But you mention in your book other idols, other things we sort of place up because we're living in fear.

What would they be? We talked about previously that the home of the afraid is built on the foundation of safety, that we make that the primary question. And fear drives us to idolize this concept. Well, the natural roof that is built on top of the foundation of safety is that of appearances, that we are now going to project a strength, a power, an ability. We're not going to show any weakness whatsoever until maybe we are what we're actually projecting or at least until we're not found out to be in that way. And what becomes the dominant kind of image and metaphor for the family, what's really driving us is we know we don't have it all together, but we can't show that weakness. We can't reveal it to our kids. We can't reveal it to each other. We definitely can't reveal it to those who are outside of our families. And so we are so concerned with projecting something that doesn't match the reality of who we are. Why? Because when safety is the foundation that we're building on, we can't show any weakness.

Think about it. If you're out on the prairie and there's a lion that's out there, then you can't limp. You're the one he's going to chase down. Literally, it's survival of the fittest that is still driving us. Survival of the fittest, that is a concept in many ways that is a God-given concept of fight, flight or freeze. We understand that when our lives are on the line, it can be the right response.

But whenever it comes down to having a difficult conversation with your teenager or with your spouse or with a coworker or a friend, that is the worst response you can possibly give. And what happens is when we idolize safety, we naturally begin to idolize appearances. Because if I show weakness, if I show vulnerability, I'm not going to feel safe in that moment because I don't trust you. I can't now reveal my full heart and who you are.

And the next thing you know, a marriage that's built on appearances. You're showing part of your heart. You're bringing in part of your heart. And it's not even a real relationship. You said I do to bring the fullness of who you are to the table.

But neither one of you are doing that because you're afraid that if I show the weakness, if I admit that this hurt me, if I ask the question, how have I hurt you, you can then use that against me and manipulate me and abuse me and bring it up. And we've been hurt so many times that we just very naturally learn to project, I've got it. I've got it together. I have it all. I can be it all.

I can do it all. And it's killing us in the process. What's really scary when I hear you say that is that idol is a big idol in the church. People feel like to walk in the doors of a church.

That's where the people that have it together live. And so we put on our masks. We put on our masks. I said many times at our church over 30 years, I'd like to put a sign at our front door that says drop your mask here.

You know, this was before we were wearing masks in a pandemic. Now you definitely want to say that. But, you know, you just want to say, I want I hope this place could be an authentic place where you can come and be real. And as much as you say that, you still realize it's really, really hard to do. People see the church as a place where I can't be. So I put on the appearance and I don't share weakness. And sometimes we do the same thing in our home. It's just like I'm not going to tell mom or dad what I'm really struggling with.

I'm not going to tell my son or daughter that I'm not as put together as it looks like as a dad or mom. What do we do with that? Because, I mean, that's the home of the afraid. You have another part of your book, which is the home of the brave.

So how does the home of the brave counteract that? Let me give an example of that. I remember I didn't grow up in the church. And so when we started going to church and we had kids, I remember sitting in a Bible study with a small group of women. And I said, I really yelled at my kids this week, you guys.

I feel like I'm going crazy and I'm a crazy person and I feel so bad and guilty. And then there was total silence. Everyone had small children. And I said, do you guys never yell at your kids? And somebody said, I've never yelled at my kids.

And nobody said anything. And so I walked away thinking, oh, I'm the only one, they are true followers of Jesus. I'm the only sinner in the room. And I thought, I'm not going to share any more of my mistakes and the things that I've made.

And so I just learned to put on a mask. Actually, I didn't because I just got out of that Bible study thinking, surely there's someone. I'll find another church. Because I can't hide and I don't think it's good to hide. And the message that was sent by that group in that moment was not that we don't make mistakes.

Because somebody could have stepped in and said, you know, I don't yell at my kids, but here's what I do. And to show humanity in that moment. But instead, the message that was sent to you is, hey, we don't reveal weaknesses here.

And what is that? That is the roof of appearances that we're not allowed because safety is the foundation of who we are. Appearances have to be the roof. And what we think is that appearances are going to protect us now from the fears of life and from the pains of life. So if you can project a strength, project a power, then somebody else won't accuse you of something. They won't try to manipulate you or guilt you into something.

If you refuse to show that weakness, we think they'll have nothing to come after us with and we'll be safer in that way. But Dave, you've been a pastor of a great church for 30 years. You know better than anybody, until you come in here and live in an authentic way, until you admit what's going on, you have no chance of healing.

Until you reveal it, you can't heal from it, right? You have no chance. And you know. And what's funny is, as a pastor, as you all have done in your church for so long, is you just beg people continuously. Just drop it. Tell us the truth and we'll deal with it. We'll handle it.

But as long as you're acting, it's simply not going to work. And what you're doing in that moment is you're calling them out of the home of the afraid, the church of the afraid, and into the home of the brave, the church of the brave. Well, what is the roof? Well, the foundation now is not safety. It is trust. We're going to trust God and we're going to trust each other. Now, we don't just give trust to one another without forethought.

It has to be earned in many ways. But we are going to have the courage to recognize we do need to trust other people. And once you have that trust with other people, then you can begin, instead of putting up the roof of appearances, you can put up the roof of heart. Here's who I actually am. And you can think about that concept of heart. You can think about the concept of character.

Here's who I actually am. And as parents, here's the home that we want to have. Here's what we're going to be building, the importance of character. It's interesting to me that we live in a time in which the topic of character is now thrown aside.

As though it's not important. Somehow we've cut out of the Bible the idea that character is a prerequisite for biblical leadership in the home, in the state, in the country, anywhere. And there's no biblical model for that being the case. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of biblical models for here's what happens when you no longer care about character. And so even the concept of character development, churches don't even think about that anymore.

A lot of parents don't even think about that anymore. But in the home of the brave, what we're going to say is, appearances matter. A good name matters. But what matters more than appearances is reality. Who are we? Where are we? Where do we want to be? And until we admit where we are, we can't take the proper steps to get where we want to be. So somebody walks into your church, you're begging them. Don't go through five years of hypocrisy and then let me see who you actually are.

Start right now and you'll be different five years from now. And you look at your kids. I beg my kids, right?

Two teenagers. Just tell me the truth. I can deal with it. Just don't put on this show.

Just tell me who you actually are. Well, how much is God telling me that? How much is my wife telling me that? Now, Kevin, you don't have to downplay this. You don't have to diminish this. This is in one of my early marriage books, Friends, Partners and Lovers, but it's the basic concept that I had to learn that I could tell Jenny what hurt me and it wasn't going to kill us. But I'd written the story growing up in the home of a divorced, right? I'd written the story that if the conversation goes wrong, this could be over.

And so I put up the roof of appearance. I'm fine. Everything's OK. We're good. Well, Jenny's like, I know you're not fine. I can see that you're not fine.

Why don't you just tell me? And to now put up the roof of heart that I'm going to engage the totality of who I am in the brokenness and the messiness of it all. But once you actually start to do that, then you have the chance for transformation. You have the chance for change.

Imagine what your home would be like if we really dealt with reality. No lying, no mask, no hypocrisy. And I'm not saying using our failings or our brokenness in a mean spirited way, but I'm just saying have this common aspect of grace and mercy to where you can tell me what your hurt actually is.

And now we can get to work. Dave, I don't know about you, but as a pastor, some of my favorite people are recovering addicts because they understand the danger of lies, of deceit. The most honest people in your church.

Absolutely. And that that's why they're healthy is because they have understood that that deception leads to death. And the only chance at life is truth.

And so they will literally come in and they will destroy the roof of appearances faster than anybody else. And then they will bring their actual heart into what's going on. So what do you say to a mom or dad who is trying to foster that kind of home, the home of the brave trust heart?

And I've got a teenager who says, OK, I'm not going to live in fear. I'm going to tell you what I'm doing. And I'm doing this. I'm having sex with my boyfriend. I'm smoking weed.

I've done it three times this week. I'm making this up, you know, and they've been afraid to say that. But now they feel like I'm not going to be afraid anymore.

How does that parent respond in a way that. How do we not get anxious about that? Well, rightfully so. I think you appreciate the honesty.

You welcome it. You encourage it. You do everything in your power not to explode in that moment. I was going to say, number one, don't freak out.

No, that's exactly right. You have your friends, your counselors that you go back to and then you can say, oh, my goodness, can you believe that this is what they say? But in the moment, you don't. But then there are consequences to decisions. The question I would then go to is, all right, what are the rules of the house? Have they been violated? But here's the scary thing, David. And most homes have never clearly defined what the rules are.

They've never said, hey, here's what we're going to value. So when I go grocery shopping, this is before, you know, Wal-Mart pickup. But back in the old days, when I used to go grocery shopping, I could do that if I had two things, a list and my cell phone. So I need Jenny to tell me what I need to buy. And I need I need to be able to call her two or three times to say, hey, where in Wal-Mart is this? Exactly.

But I can go. But she would clearly define here's what you want. Here's what's frightening to me. For the average family out there, they have put more thought into what they're going to buy at the grocery store this week than what they value as a family. What are the values? If you were to go to Fort Smith right now and you were to find Ellen and Silas and say, hey, what are the Thompson family values? They could tell you five things immediately while rolling their eyes.

And they would do that. They would say, man, number one, love decides. In our home, love is the decision maker for all things. Number two, family is bigger than us. It's not just about us, what we think, what we feel.

So there's always room at the table. It's ultimately about God. This is about using what God has blessed us to help other people. Number three, we avoid the two L's. We do not lie and we are not lazy.

We just don't do those things. Number four, we live respectfully. And so we're going to show respect to one another.

And then we're going to make decisions in a way that if other people find out about them, they're going to respect what we have done. And then number five, we're going to celebrate courage. We don't celebrate success. We don't celebrate A's.

We celebrate when you have gotten out of your comfort zone and tried something you didn't want to try, when you eat the dish you don't want to eat, when you walk up to the girl and ask her out, when you walk into the school even though you didn't want to. Those are the things we're going to celebrate. Those are the five values that we have, right? What I love about those five values, you can't value it all. And obviously there are other things that are important to us.

But basically everything falls underneath those five. But now, when discipline needs to happen, it always comes back to those values. And what I love about the values is that now means my kids can call me out. Love decides. And so if I make a decision about them, a discipline, they have the right to ask, Daddy, is that loving discipline? They have every right to ask that.

And I can't snap off of them and double the punishment now because they asked the question. But literally, we are all submitting to these values that we have collectively said are important to us. And what they value now is that concept of heart. And what we're doing is we're trying to shape the character of our kids, the character of each other.

We often forget about this. You as a businessman, as a pastor, understand this. Corporations have cultures. Corporations have character.

Not just individuals. How a church makes a decision, how a church treats people, that collective body has a character. And so what we're trying to do with these values is to shape our individual character, shape the character of our children, of our marriage, but also of our family. To say, here's who we're going to be. And in our family, this idea of heart is going to matter far more than appearances. And whenever you make that choice, it greatly influences what happens.

I use the illustration in the book. Imagine if your marriage is struggling. You live in a small town in Arkansas, right? Hypothetically, there's one stoplight in town and there's only one marriage counselor that comes in. This isn't Fort Smith, is it?

No, not quite. This is outside of Fort Smith. So one day a week, one marriage counselor comes in from the big town and they have an office right at that stoplight. And you call. You're having problems.

Your wife has agreed to get counseling with you. You call and they say, yes, I can see you Tuesday at noon. And you think, well, that's lunch hour.

Every car in town goes by that place at lunch hour. Do you go to the appointment or not? The home of the afraid does not whine because they care more about appearances than reality. And the idea of being seen as having a problem is not something that they value. The home of the brave goes because they care more about the heart of their marriage than they do the reputation of the townspeople. They care more about the heart than they do appearances.

Which do you care more about? That's good. I'm thinking of this as I'm thinking of heart. I'm remembering that one of our kids, when they were in their late 20s, came back to us and they said, I wish you guys would have cared for my heart more than the idea because he came to us and told us he'd been drinking and got drunk. And so when he told us that, you know, we did have consequences and all of that. But later he said, I wish you'd have asked me why.

What are you gaining by drinking? Of course, he says that now as an adult. Could he have answered it then?

I don't know. I don't know if he could have, but he says now, like, I didn't know who I was. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be a part of everybody. And I was feeling incredibly insecure. Now, as an 18 year old, 17 year old, I don't know if he could have communicated that, but it's interesting that you say that. He wanted us to care for his heart. Don't explode.

And I know there'll be consequences, but go deeper with me continually and find out how is your heart. And the appearance thing, especially with teenagers, when they're making bad decisions, it's really easy in the church to judge one another. Oh, they're home.

They are really messed up. But we, you know, it's easy to do that. But I like that you're talking about that.

Really getting to the heart, knowing your values. That's really big. Well, and think about this within the concept of even that discussion. I think it's important for the listeners to understand and to remind themselves we're all going to mess up. Every single one of our kids are going to be able to come back to us if they want to and give a list of questions of I wish you would have done this.

And you know what? In a lot of ways, they're going to be right. And that reality paralyzes the home of the afraid. The idea that I could possibly mess up my child, that I could make the wrong decision.

It literally paralyzes us from making decisions, from doing anything. But in the home of the brave, we can mourn that and grieve that, know we're going to make mistakes. But still the question becomes, OK, so what's the loving response to that?

What is the next loving action that I need to take? And so even something like that in the home of the brave, where they are now revealing their heart. And you can thank them and appreciate what's going on, not feel any need to defend yourself for the decisions that you made. Say, you know what?

Man, we must have messed that one up and I would do it differently now. But it doesn't paralyze you. Instead, it frees you in what's going on.

And so it's interesting that two families can go through the exact same circumstance. And for one, it can be grief-stricken. And for other, it can be liberating. That's an interesting insight. And yet it doesn't paralyze you from moving forward. And it makes you point them. Again, it shows that we're broken and the Father, God the Father, it just points you back to Him. Like, aren't you glad that He doesn't mess up, you know? That's good stuff.

Really good stuff. Well, and I think it's great for listeners just to have that conversation. I had this with our kids. I said, what do you think our values are in our home when they were preteens and teens? And I'm just going to tell you, it was discouraging because sports was number one.

Because we hadn't read your helpful training. But I think it's great just to open the door and start having those conversations. And do you feel like we're afraid? Do you feel like there's fear in our family?

And can you be open and share your heart? It could be a great conversation starter. Yeah. Way to go. Thanks for being here.

Thank you. It may be that your family would benefit from having the kind of conversation that Dave and Ann Wilson were suggesting. A conversation about fears. What are your deepest fears?

And how can we address those fears? And how can we build courage and confidence together as a family? Dave and Ann have been talking today to Kevin Thompson, who has written a book called Fearless Families. It's a book that we've got in our Family Life Today Resource Center. We also have a link on our website at familylifetoday.com to Kevin's website, where he blogs and has additional resources available. Again, go to familylifetoday.com to order a copy of the book Fearless Families, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to order. The website, again, familylifetoday.com.

The number to call is 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word Today. You know, it occurs to me that it's not just families that can be controlled by fear, but ministries like Family Life Today can experience this as well. David Robbins, who's the president of Family Life, is here with us. And David, this is a culture that causes all of us to become anxious and fearful, and this is something that, as a ministry, we've had to address, right? Yeah, this is something we've been processing as a Family Life staff team of, as the world continues to get more complex, as culture continues to get more challenging, and you navigate different issues, how do we, as a ministry, continue to trust the Lord and His timeless truth, to be bold in faith and what He wants to do in our day, and to live out our calling as an organization to rise up families who not only experience the gospel and become transformed themselves, but live as fearless families proclaiming the gospel to their communities around them. And that part of our mission statement we love and is only possible through families just like you, of those families that are being encouraged and transformed, going out and transforming other families around them.

That's what Jesus invited us into, and that's what we love being a part of at Family Life. We can make this really simple for you with some of the tools and resources we've got. You can get together with other couples, other parents, and say, we're going to go through a study on parenting called The Art of Parenting. Would you like to go through that with us? Or we're going to go through a marriage study called Vertical Marriage.

It's a video series. Invite people into your home, fire up the video, watch together, and begin to have some interaction around important marriage and family subjects that can lead to a conversation about spiritual matters. Go to our website, familylifetoday.com, and there's information about many of the resources we have available. And then plan together to step past the fear and start engaging with your neighbors. Well, with that, we've got to wrap this up for this week. Thanks for being with us. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday when we're going to talk about how we can have winsome conversations with family members, co-workers, people at church about hard, even controversial subjects.

Is that possible in our day? Tim Muehlhoff and Rick Langer think it is. We'll talk with them on Monday. I hope you can be with us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.