David Robbins: How to Be the Spiritual Leader of Your Family

I think one of the things we have to embrace is that the greatest harm we can do when we're trying to create a spiritual climate of growth in our home is not participate, quit, and push for control. Ultimately, things we're going to talk about today, just take a step of faith.

What's the Holy Spirit going to prompt in you? Don't try to do it all. That's going to push for control. You're going to try to do way too much. You're going to burn out.

It's going to last a few days. What is it that in this season, right now, God's saying, this is it? Like, step into this. 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. So one of my biggest questions, 41 years ago when we got married, do you know what it is?

No. It wasn't about you. It was about me. It was like, how do I bring a spiritual climate and environment, atmosphere to our marriage on a daily basis? Did you ask that question? I never said it out loud, but inside I was like, I know I want to do this. I feel called by God to do this.

How do I do it? You know, part of it was I never saw it in my parents' marriage. I never saw it in my home. There was no faith at all. And so I had no model.

Of course, that could be a victim thing. Like, I can't do it. But I knew I want to do this.

I want to do it well. And I want Ann to just be like, I married the most spiritual, amazing, Apostle Paul man on the planet. This makes me so happy. Why didn't you tell me? Because you didn't think you married that guy. Because I let you down so much. I just felt like I was not doing a good job of it.

And I actually think every man that's a follower of Christ has that thought in their mind. Wow. That's cool. I don't know. I'm not a man. Yeah.

Well, you didn't have any of that sense as the wife? I was just thinking, this is going to be so fun. We're going to do this together. We're going to walk with Jesus.

We're going to change the world together. But I didn't have that heaviness. I didn't even know that you carried that.

I carried it. And you might remember, I cried on our honeymoon, feeling the weight of that. And so, we'll talk about that later.

Seriously, we'll get into that as we get into the discussion. Because we've got David Robbins back in the studio with us. The president of Family Life is back in the studio in Orlando. Hey, Tim. Glad to have you back.

Good to be with you, no doubt. David, we love having you with us. And Meg's not here this time.

She's with her mom, who just had some surgery. But it's always good to have you and Meg with us. We love teaming up with you guys. Yesterday, we talked about sort of the heart of what spiritual leadership looks like at home.

Today, let's talk about practicality. And David, you're probably like me. It's like, I'm the guy that says, okay, I agree. Now, what do I do? Just tell me what to do.

Give me something. If you had a guy asking you that. And by the way, this doesn't just apply to men.

This applies to wives and moms as well. We're all wanting to bring a spiritual environment, climate. We want to lead our home spiritually. Where would you start? If you think practicality, what is like step one or one of the steps? Can you just indulge me for a second before we dive into practicality?

Why is it worth the conversation? The fact is that we're not just trying to be good husbands and dads. As a man, I am serving my wife and kids, seeking to disciple them, and they go be forces for God's kingdom out in the world. Like that's the goal. I may get to disciple a college student or a young couple that we're mentoring for first season.

I get 18 years plus some adult kid dynamics, you know, after that with a kid. And how can we do that? And in our own homes with our own spouses, how can I keep honoring the image of God in my wife of who she uniquely has made?

And how can I be the best student of her and lift up who she is and give her the opportunities to live that out? I don't do that perfectly. We're in a crazy busy season where we're having to fight for that.

But yet it's worth fighting for. And by the way, let me add, because you just reminded me as you said that. Often I think, and maybe it's just me that did this, I found myself trying to make disciples outside my home. You know, even as a pastor and a spiritual leader, it's like, that's my job. I'm called by God, the Great Commission, Matthew 28, I'm going to make disciples and I would just study and go to conferences.

How do you do this? And then do it. And I think I sometimes forgot, wait, wait, wait, the most important disciples I'm making are in my home. My wife and my children are disciples number one.

Not that the others don't matter, they matter, but you talk about priority, it should be our home. And that was a source of contention for us because I mean, I said to you that that guy that goes out and disciples and does all that and pours into men, I want him in our home. And that was so, you felt the critique of that. But man, I watched you do that, but I think you felt ill-equipped and you weren't real sure what that looked like. Yeah, but what you just said, David, you just articulated that.

That's our role as a mom, as a wife, as a husband and dad, to love and serve in our home, to lead our home to Christ. Yeah, easier said than done. And I say it so passionately because I need to hear it first, you know, like it's hard. They know the full me. They get me 24-7. People out there see me for little segments of time and get to maybe, you know, I don't know how impressed people get, but yet it feels better, you know, inside the home.

Like they see it all, the dignity and the depravity. One of these days, we're going to have your kids on. There you go.

That would be a good show. That's awesome. I love that. But, you know, getting toward the, okay, what steps can we take? I think one of the things we have to embrace is that the greatest harm we can do when we're trying to create a spiritual climate of growth in our home is not participate, quit, and push for control. Ultimately, things we're going to talk about today, just take a step of faith.

What's the Holy Spirit going to prompt in you to you? Don't try to do it all. That's going to push for control. You're going to try to do way too much. You're going to burn out.

It's going to last a few days. What is it that in this season right now, God's saying, this is it. Like step into this. I'm praying as we talk through the three of us together, some ideas of things that have been good for us to step into that God would actually and the Holy Spirit would actually speak to you things that we don't even say. But yet he knows your family and he knows your wiring and who you uniquely have been made to be. And he's going to prompt things in you that are uniquely crafted for you and your home. That's what I'm praying happens today with some things that have perhaps worked for us or that we've done in seasons. But as a man, which again, going back to even where you started this, you do feel that extra responsibility. And a shift for me that helped was not just focus on all the things I'm not doing or what I hope to be true or not true and just simplify it to what can I go first at? Like to simplify it and boil it down to I'd have an hour to take a step of faith to be first. We sometimes super spiritualize it, which is beautiful to make grand plans sometimes in busy seasons. You know, be the first to laugh at yourself.

Do I have the security and humility and my identity in the source of Jesus to just die out laughing at myself when my sin goes just out? I remember we were moving to Orlando just a year ago and we came in from our, you know, 10 hour drive and we are home. Let's just call it. It's not the dream home. It's the home God provided for us.

And we're making it home. But it has these weird like 20 foot ceilings and a weird angle, lots of echoing with no furniture. So we come in and, you know, I'm just at the end of myself and I go on to raise my voice to the place where I scared myself. I certainly scared my kids. And it echoes threefold out of typical.

There's no carpet on the ground. You mean you're like angry? Yeah.

I mean, I was just maxing. I mean, we're moving. It's so stressful. Sin and anger just comes lashing out at the kids being too crazy. And, you know, ultimately everyone kind of goes silent, moves to different ways. And I just start laughing at myself going, OK, that's what's going on inside of me. And we had a little, you know, a gathering together where I just go, you guys, like, I'm so sorry. Can we just laugh together at how bad dead sin just was?

Like, it just came out and my sin came out on you. And that could hurt you if I can't right now be humble enough to say, I'm not doing well. I'm stressed. This is our home.

Are you kidding me? You know, I'm not doing well. And I want to invite you into that. That is beautiful. Well, it wasn't, but it. But I mean, that is life. That really is life. And it's just a little piece of what our daily lives and our our yearly lives look like.

We're plagued with hard moments like that. And when you can laugh and here's the thing I've seen. Our kids are watching as when we respond or we react, they're watching like, oh, you know, then there's a little fear in them to like, oh, no, dad's mad. And then for you to flip it and just start laughing at yourself. I bet I would have loved to have seen their faces, the relief and the modeling of like, oh, well, dad's not perfect. And he knows it, guys.

It's good that he knows that he's not perfect and he can laugh at himself. And really, the opposite of that is what we often do is we cover. We feel embarrassed. We don't admit that we saw that we did what we did was wrong. We don't make space.

We go get space. And we do what you said earlier. We don't participate.

You know, you just said that would be one of the worst things you could do is don't participate. And I think that's what a lot of us do. We just think, well, it's her job.

She's better at it. If it's spiritual leadership of the kids and we back out and, you know, our wives hate when we do that. And like you said, David, I think it's one of the worst things you can do is like don't participate, even if you're not good. Even if you don't know what you're doing, be in the game.

You know, and like you said, maybe it's going to be I'm going to lie. I can't imagine I can just see you standing in your family room. I've never been there, but I can see you laughing at yourself. And the whole room is just like, what just happened?

That was so ugly. That draws people in. It drew you back. That's good.

Way to go. Well, there are many other moments and opportunities to practice it because the fact is everyday life, things are going to come out sideways. There was a study done and one of the, this is a scary stat and I'm forgetting the exact stat, but the general principle is one of the key indicators for our own kids source of security and safety that leads to thriving long term is how their parents handled stress. Isn't that kind of scary? So scary.

I know. And you're like, wait, there's all sorts of intentional things we can do to lead in the home. How we're, and I mean, talk about a stressful time. We're all living in one. These layers keep coming that are, they're adding to complexity and stress in our lives.

How are we doing? One of the best ways we can lead our families actually lead ourselves in processing and ensuring, okay, that's coming out sideways. I'm going to name it and take it to the Lord and bring it out into the open, even if it means laughing at myself.

Well, that's an interesting angle you just took. Like how to lead is be the first to laugh at yourself. What's one of the first for you, Dave? I mean, when I heard you say that, I literally thought of a Weekend to Remember conference. And I'll tell you the story before I tell you the point.

You'll know what the point is as soon as you hear it. I'm sitting in the back as my co-speaker, Jim Keller, who actually lives here in Florida, was speaking on the podium and I'm in the back and was not at that conference with me. So I'm the other speaker. And it may be helpful to know Jim Keller's a counselor who can like pierce into your soul.

Yeah. And he's a good friend. We've known each other for years. So I'm sitting at the back table and beside me is his wife, Renee. And Jim says from the podium, I have made a commitment in my marriage that every time there's a conflict or a need to reconcile, I will be the first.

I will not wait for Renee. I will always be the first. And he goes, I've done that for 20 years, whatever. And I turned to Renee because I'm thinking, okay, seriously, 20 years, is he just being speaker talk?

You know, this sounds good. I should say this. I just turned to Renee and I go, is that true?

Is he really the first? She goes, every single time. Jim comes to me, apologizes, said, I'm sorry. How do we make this right?

I've never been the first. He lives what he just said. And I remember going home thinking, that's leadership. Maybe I wasn't wrong. Maybe I think I'm right, but we have a broken relationship right now. I'm going to make it right. That is a great way to model for your kids, to model for your wife, what it looks like to be Christ in your home is I'm going to come to you and we're going to make this right.

I mean, you nailed where I was thinking. Talk about reflecting Christ to your wife, to your kids, like being the first to take the initiative to go there. That's what he did for us. He came to this earth, took the initiative, consistently takes the initiative as we keep messing up in life.

And so you're living out Jesus into your home. I love that. I also think of the first person I ever heard say something very similar. It was more in a leadership context. I was leading my first ever team. I was doing a campus ministry at the University of Georgia. And I so respected this guy named Bill, who was leading a long term leader at Auburn University. And we were at this conference for all the campus leaders. And I'm getting to kind of ask Bill questions. And I remember asking, OK, so what's all the typical things like what's the best strategy? What's team leading?

What's the best thing to do? The only thing he said was apologize every chance you get. You will build the trust of your team and it will keep you humble and spiritual vitality will reign in your ministry.

If the leader is apologizing every chance he's convicted to do so. And I was like, oh, my goodness. And it rings in my head.

Yet taking that to the home is really good. Dave, I feel like you've done that. I mean, you're way better at that than I am.

I'm glad you just said that. I feel like I've learned from you and our kids, too, because I think because of my pride and because I came into marriage thinking I had to win at conflict to apologize as saying you didn't win. You know, and that was my brokenness and the insecurity that I had. But you always modeled that.

You would come and say, hey, you know what? I shouldn't have said that. I'm so sorry. And I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry I did this over and over to the point where I finally apologized and you wrote it down. Yeah, I wrote down the date. Wow.

Oh, that's hilarious. I mean, that was in the first year of our marriage. But I'm really glad that you did, because as parents, we're continually apologizing. But you've really led in that for our whole family that, like, it takes strength to be able to apologize and security, I think.

Yeah. Another thing that comes to my mind is, and we talked about this a little bit earlier, but being willing before your family to admit fault, take ownership from it, and then model for them what you do with it. I remember, boy, I can see it in my mind's eye right now. I don't know, Anne, if you remember this, but sort of confessing to one of my adult sons who was living with us at the time, I think, before he got married. And Anne, just a struggle I was having that he was having. And so we're sitting there in the family room, and we both just sort of shared, yeah, we're struggling in this area. And we all three got on our knees. Do you remember this?

No. Yeah, well, it probably happened many times. But we just got on our knees and prayed for God's strength in that area of our life. And again, you wouldn't pull back and go, let me show you a video of leadership. That was a video of leadership in a way that you don't always think, because you always, like we said earlier, think it's strength. Sometimes it's weakness and saying, man, I need to lead dependence on Jesus and his power to be the man that he's called me to be.

I can't do it without him. And sometimes that means I need to say to my wife or to my kids, or your wife says to her husband or the kids, I'm struggling right here, and I need to get on my knees and ask God for power. You want to join me?

And often they'll be like, yeah, I need help too in a different area. I'm going to join you. That's a home that has spiritual leadership all over it.

I love it. Like being the first to go to your knees. And I'm picturing you guys in that living room getting to your knees together and nowhere in your mind earlier in the day when we're going to be crying out to the Lord together on our knees.

I do feel like there's a spiritual stronghold sometimes that the enemy can go, eh, praying together, like getting on your knees. Are you kidding me? I mean, just do it. Just do it at night in the bed. That's sufficient and which it is. I mean, that is a great place to pray at the end of the day. Yet, OK, look for an opportunity this week to initiate getting on your knees together. And that, for some of you, may feel so weird and so strange, but yet going before your God, the Creator, to go, Lord, we need you in this place. We declare our dependence. We're finite. We can't control it in this area of life.

We're going to get on our knees for this. Yeah. And I like this. I just thought of this. You talk about spiritual leadership. I watched Ann do this, it's got to be a thousand plus times, with our little tiny toddler boys, car seats, praying in the car as she's driving all the time. Yeah. I mean, as simple as that is, out loud, modeling for these little toddlers, this is what a follower of Christ does all day long. I remember— We talk to Jesus all day long. Exactly. I mean, for little things— It's because I was so broken.

I needed Him desperately. I mean, for a parking spot or anything, you name it, but I remember our oldest—I mean, our youngest son is on a mission trip in college, and he makes this comment about they're walking through some street somewhere. Somebody says, hey, we need to pray about that. So as they're walking on the sidewalk—remember Cody said this—they're praying out loud, and after they pray, one of the girls says, wow, never done that my whole life. That was so cool. And Cody was like, thanks, Mom.

Oh, that's cool. I saw that modeled every day of my life. And this woman was like, I've never seen that done. And I thought that was a great moment where you wouldn't say, hey, I was a great spiritual leader.

That's modeling. Well, it's so interesting, too, with adult kids. You think they're going to remember these great things you said. Like, remember when I taught you this? Like, no, I remember none of that. But the thing that they'll remember is, but I remember seeing you on your knees.

I remember—I couldn't even hear your prayers, but I remember seeing your face and seeing you on your knees. Or in the Word. Yeah. And those are the things that they remember. And I think especially for a man, because we just picture men as strong, and they can do it themselves. But when you see a reliance on Jesus, that's a beautiful mark of leadership.

Yeah. You're listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Family Life President David Robbins on Family Life Today. We'll hear more from David in a minute. But first, if this topic has brought about deeper thoughts about fatherhood, or if any of the topics here on Family Life Today have touched you, would you consider joining in our mission for godly homes? We can only continue to bring content like today's topic because of our dedicated financial partners. So we wanted to send you a copy of Brian Laritza's book called The Dad Difference. It'll give you an opportunity to pour into your kids in ways that you've never thought of before. It's our gift to you when you make a donation of any amount this week to support the work of Family Life Today. You can give securely online at FamilyLifeToday.com, or you can pick up the phone and give us a call at 800-358-6329.

It could be a one-time gift or a recurring monthly gift. Again, the number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. All right, now back to the president of Family Life, David Robbins, and how a husband needs to be his wife's biggest cheerleader. You know, another one of going first that I've seen you do, Dave, often, and I think Meg and I have really benefited from it, and I seek to model, is that you celebrate Anne's wins. Like, when you see her thrive, you call it out, you ensure that she knows that you saw it. And in the busyness of young kids, you know, leading the ministry, like, I can sometimes get so caught up in my world. And it's the principle I teach my five-year-old of, the world does not revolve around you, right? But in my own life, I can just start living in a, the world revolves around me, where I stop taking notice of when who Meg is is coming alive, and I don't call it out.

Like, it just becomes part of our routine instead of looking for that opportunity to be the first to call it out and go, look, look at you, this is who you are. Like, right now, she's kind of with a team planning family mission excursions for Family Life and kind of doing a beta test trip and more to come. And hopefully we'll be sharing about that sometime soon, but that's who she is. She has a gift of evangelism and a heart for evangelism and for the world. And she is getting to dive into it some and pave the pathway for others to do that with their children, for moms and dads to go with their kids and go share Christ together and serve people together around the world.

I certainly championed it in some ways, but I can get so caught up in my world where I'm not truly cheering for her in the ways I want to. Yeah, I would wrap this up saying I think there's two ways to live. As a man, as a woman, husband, wife, mom, dad, you can live passive, you can live active.

It's serious. I mean, we would teach this to our kids, but I often would be in a moment and I would realize in that moment in my home, in the kitchen, watching something happen, I could be, and you said it earlier, I could participate or not participate. And there were moments where I didn't participate, I didn't engage, I didn't step in, and later I regretted it. Now I'm a grandfather and I realize those moments come and if you don't jump in, they're gone and they're gone forever. And so you can be passive and let somebody else do the work or you can say, you know what, I'm going to engage, I'm going to step in, I'm going to say something, I'm going to pray, I'm going to laugh, whatever.

I'm not going to miss this moment because I'm telling you, we're old enough now to know you're going to regret if you miss that moment. So don't be the passive man or woman, be the active one and say, God, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say?

How do you want me to respond? And then jump. And that moment will be caught in eternity. It's worth it. Yeah, I just hear that and I go, leaders in a home do uncomfortable things.

They step into it. I love it. And let's not forget, we said this earlier, but to pray for our husbands, to pray for our kids, to pray for our sons and our daughters, it makes a world of difference. That's David Ann Wilson with the president of Family Life, David Robbins, on Family Life Today. If you know of anyone who needs to hear today's conversation, you can share it from wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, it really helps us out if you'd rate and review us.

There is a Weekend to Remember event happening this weekend in Scottsdale, Arizona. We'd love it if you'd take a sec and join us in prayer for all the couples who will be attending. And next week, David and Wilson are going to be talking with, well, me, Shelby Abbott, about the brand new podcast and weekend radio program for 18 to 28-year-olds coming out from Family Life called Real Life Loading. I'll share about how I plan to become a trusted friend to help guide young people toward the life-changing power of Jesus in a constantly shifting culture.

That's next week. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. family life today is a production of family life accrue ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most