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Father & Son (When You Didn’t Have a Good One): Daniel Nayeri

Family Life Today / Dave & Ann Wilson, Bob Lepine
The Truth Network Radio
August 21, 2024 5:15 am

Father & Son (When You Didn’t Have a Good One): Daniel Nayeri

Family Life Today / Dave & Ann Wilson, Bob Lepine

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August 21, 2024 5:15 am

How could your lack of a strong father figure affect your parenting journey? Daniel Nayeri left his father in Iran when he, his mother, and sister fled from religious persecution. Now a dad himself, he reflects on the impact of the relationship of father and son.

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Hey, I want to take just a second to let you know how important you are to us. In fact, we couldn't even do this without your prayer support, without your financial support. We need you. You are our partners. Family Life and our ministry does not exist without donors and listeners who say, I don't want to just be a spectator.

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So if you give a donation today or tomorrow or anytime, you become our partner and we can change the world together. A lot of the traits that are now in me because of my childhood are traits that I value, like the hustle mentality, the ability to work really hard. Just the ability to kind of withstand pain and discomfort, being comfortable, being uncomfortable. Like these are all things that kind of came to me because of a difficult childhood.

One of the biggest challenges for someone in my position is to say, how do I make my son strong without inflicting a childhood that requires strength? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today.

All right. We've got one of the most interesting authors. He's like the most interesting person on the planet. He's got a really cool hat on too.

And he just has a great storyteller. I want to hear you say his name. Daniel, let me think.

I have to look at it. There it is. Daniel Nayyer. Nope. Daniel Nayyer.

I never get names right. That was a pretty good one. That was a good one. The last one was great. You've got to say it the way you say it though.

Nayyer. Oh, we can't do that. That's impossible. But your book, Everything Sad is Untrue, a true story has been the sort of center of what we've been talking about the last two days. I really didn't think we'd do a day three because you said so much in the last two days. I'm like, where else can we go? But here's what I want to ask. As a dad now, coming from the home and the experience that you've had in your life, how do you approach being a dad? How do you embody that position? Boy, that's a tough question. When my son was about to be born, I was really, really anxious.

I can't say I had any really great father figures, except for late in high school, my football coach was sort of the person I think of as a great father figure in my life. Offensive guard, linebacker? I was outside linebacker.

There you go. Not at the level you're used to. I don't know. You played in Oklahoma.

That's a pretty good football. High school, yeah. I felt barbaric. I didn't really have a sense of how to do it. I had a friend who I was kind of just mentioning it to. He goes, well, yeah, I know you didn't have a lot of good dads in your life, but you want to be a good dad, right? I said, well, yeah, that's what I've been telling you this whole time. I want to be a good dad.

He goes, well, guess what? Most of the people who weren't good dads didn't want to be. They didn't even care about it. Right. And it was a light bulb. I was like, oh. That is a light bulb. You're right.

They didn't even want to be. And he's like, so just want to be a good dad as much as possible. That was the beginning.

That wasn't all of it. Of course, you have to actually work on it. And I think the other question that always pops up in my head is, you know, a lot of the traits that are now in me because of my childhood are traits that I value. Like, you know, the hustle mentality, the ability to work really hard, just the ability to kind of withstand pain, you know, and discomfort, being comfortable, being uncomfortable.

Like, these are all things that kind of came to me because of a difficult childhood. One of the biggest challenges for someone in my position is to say, how do I make my son strong without inflicting a childhood that requires strength? Like, I don't want him to have to have that. I certainly wouldn't just send him through the same meat grinder and tell him come out on the other side. But I'm not actually that's that's a question I think about all the time.

He's never going to experience poverty on that level. And, you know, he's always going to have a dad who, like, will care for him and stuff like that. So I think trying to figure that out has been the challenge of my fatherhood.

I tell him I love him probably too much, too many times a day. Like, I'm like, oh, if my son's around, I am my arms are wrapped around his neck. Like, I'm that's something that I'm trying to still figure out because there are times where I really I remember a kind of reaction that I would want from him.

I see him in sports now, you know, he does wrestling or something like that. Like there's a killer instinct and then there's like soft or whatever. And these metaphors that will throw around and trying to figure out how to how to build that up without being somebody who's aggressive or punching down or just trying to figure out what exactly.

How do I give him those kind of skills? I think that's that's probably every father thinks that way. Right.

How do I give him the best part of my childhood without the worst part? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, working with NFL athletes, they add that as well. A lot of them came up tough times. Yeah.

Grind. And now they're wealthy and they're raising kids in wealth and they're like, I don't want to raise them as spoiled. That's right. You know, entitled kids.

So there's that balance of allowing hardship to shape their character. Yeah. You know, here's my other next question. So you didn't see a great model from your dad as a husband. You're now a husband. How do you approach that?

That's a great question. Well, so we dated for nine years before and a lot of it was for that. A lot of it was like spending a lot of time. Like I met my wife when we were 18 in college and undergrad and. Nine years?

Yeah. We did it for a long time. Maybe it was eight. So for those eight years, it was, you know, I knew I would like to marry this person, but had none of the toolkit. Were you even afraid of marriage or no?

No, no, no. I wanted to be married. But also, like I, you know, I just like an example would be conflict resolution. Right.

A common problem in marriage. And my conflict resolution, I described it as I remember one time we were in an argument and she was just like, well, let's take a second to think about it and we'll just come back to this. And I was like, what?

Put a pause? Are you? No, no, no, no, no. We have to like.

Daniel, this is me and this is Jay. Let's let's just separate like now. Absolutely not. And just kind of not understanding that, you know, take 10 minutes.

A lot of this is because you need a Snickers bar. So like calm down. And that wouldn't have occurred to me. Right. I was I was kind of like, let's get in the ring. Let's like duke it out. Metaphorically, of course, like let's duke it out. Like it's just like have the argument.

Say everything that comes into our heads and then like and then forgive each other afterwards. It's like, hey, no, you don't have some control over your mouth. See, this is me. This is why I had to write this book that I'm writing.

And one phrase that pops into my head a lot. I punish people with fire and she punishes people with ice. So she would be hurt in an argument and and it would feel icy and cold.

And I would be like, what? And when I punish someone, I punish with fire. And and first of all, you shouldn't be finding ways to punish your spouse in any way.

Like it's not one, it's not your job. But to like, why are you harming the thing that is a part of you? Like, why are you trying to do that? These are things I heuristically didn't understand until, you know, years that we dated. Well, I remember we tried to you know, we were thinking we wanted to get married. So we went to our church and said, you know, we'd like to do like premarital counseling.

And they're like, oh, cool. Are you engaged? And we're like, no, we're not engaged. We're just dating.

And the guy is like, well, this is usually for people who are engaged. We understand. We understand.

But this is like a pre premarital counseling. Why don't we just do that? Like, we just wanted to give us the questions. Like, hit us with the questions.

Help us find out if we want to get engaged. Yeah. I thought it was a funny little moment. I didn't realize that that wasn't I guess it was seen as abnormal. There's an old story of me as a sixth in sixth grade where I wanted to go to the young married couples class in our church because I mean, there was so many grades. There's so many divorces in my childhood.

And so I was like, terrified that I you know, that divorce was just going to be a thing for me. So so I'm 12 and I show up to this young. You really went?

Yeah, yeah. They were going through a program. Yeah, they're doing this like workbook program. And I was like sitting there like this little kid.

Now I look back and I'm like, they must have thought. And the pastor was like, OK, well, so there's a lot of conversation here that's really not for you. We're not going to have you sit in on the like, you know, there's it was a workbook. So on the chapters that are about intimacy and things like that, you know, we don't need you for those weeks. But if you'd like to be here for the first week and couples, you know, a couple of weeks in, then great.

And so I sat in and watched the little videos we talked about. I'm telling you, that's phenomenal. Because it shows the heart of kids like they want more than maybe what their parents had. Yeah.

And you're willing to learn it at 12 years old. Yeah, that was probably too early. But it shows your heart, though. Yeah. Did your mom get remarried? So she got married and remarried several times to her second husband, who is in the book and is not was not a great choice. And so that was a ping ponging sort of back and forth experience for basically all of my childhood until senior year in high school. And then that was your stepdad.

Yeah, my stepdad. And then. But so I tell people, a lot of people email me after this book and ask, like, so how did it go with your mother? And my short answer is it got worse before it got better. But then it got a lot better. And he sort of exited her life. And after a lot of years, she met a gentleman at her church named Matthew, who was just just a gentle soul and a lovely person and absolutely the right person for her. And they got married about four years ago.

I want to say maybe five. And now, you know, they garden together and have just a beautiful experience. And I think so.

Yeah, it ended in a really beautiful place. You stay in touch with your dad. Yeah, about once once a month or so we have a call. It's a really expensive to call. Yeah, I should be on somebody. I don't have a phone with apps on it, but I'm told, like, there's apps that make it cheaper.

But I yeah, we'll jump on the phone and try to catch up as quickly as we can. You have a phone the size of a credit card. It's pretty phenomenal. I mean, that thing is just this tiny little thing with wow.

It's a non smart phone, as they said. But yeah, it's delightful. It keeps me focused. How's your mom like as a grandma? She's good. Well, she is craft grandma in the extreme. So my son, who loves animals and Pokemon and anything, you know, like any kind of little critter. And so any time they get together, it's kind of amazing to watch how fast she can knit.

But he'll come with like pictures of the Pokemon or a cat and then they sit down and they knit a little version of it. And then she and I will cook together. She's unstoppable. As a character trait is a good, still a great description of her because she she's just zipping around.

So, yeah, she loves to do crafts with him and we cook together and that's a good time. Well, some of our listeners are going to be you never explain the title. Right. I mentioned it. Yeah.

In day one, everything said is untrue. I know where it comes from, but help our listeners. Sure.

Yeah. A lot of people I mean, I'm aware that it's technically an inaccurate statement right now. There are sad things in this world. And that is true. But it comes from a couple of places where the specific phrase comes from Lord of the Rings. There's this part at the end where the kind of the heart of the heart of the story is this little hobbit named Samwise Gamgee. And he's just delightful and naive and heroic and loyal and kind and this horrible. No spoilers for Lord of the Rings.

So I got to give this to you. Are you a Lord of the Rings guy? I do. Yeah, I grew up loving it.

Yeah, I still love it. And so there's a moment where Samwise kind of discovers that this thing that was very tragic that they thought had happened did not happen. And so he runs up and he asks that question and just this childlike naivete that I adore that. And he says, well, is everything sad going to become untrue?

And the answer is, of course, like, yes. In the future tense, everything said will become untrue. And that used to be the first title of this book. Everything said will become untrue. And then I started to think about it from the perspective of not Samwise, who's delightful and naive. But from the perspective of this young boy, myself, this narrator of this book who's kind of in a particularly dark place. But looking past it, looking past into the into the future and how we know that our experience and our expectation of the future will absolutely change our experience of the present. And so he sort of starts to claim. I thought my character would probably claim that future tense into the present tense. He'd say everything said is untrue. I have been called onto the carpet by a lot of theologians to defend that position.

And were I to do that, I would begin with some legalese. I would say, let's define all our terms. Everything can stay everything. We'll keep everything. Everything sad is just sad.

I'll keep it the highest standard. It doesn't even have to be everything tragic is untrue. We'll keep it as everything mildly sad, untrue. I'm not going to be one of these slippery people who tries to redefine truth. We'll keep a capital T truth. So now we just have to redefine is. And in this case, of course, if you want to be practical about it, is could be everything said is at this moment untrue. OK, that's not accurate, but let's redefine it as everything said may as well be untrue. This is still grammatically works. And I still now I like it now. I think I'll stand by that statement.

Everything said may as well be untrue, given the timeline we're on, given that on a long enough timeline, we're all dead. And on the other side of it and looking back and there's so much more. I'm curious, would you just talk to the listener who is in the middle of that struggle, in the middle of pain and in the middle of that waiting period? Yeah. You know, because you guys have lived that. Your mom has especially felt it because she's also providing for you guys as two little kids.

What would you how would you encourage them? Goodness. Well, you know, so you alluded to it that I, you know, from 18 to now, I've sort of been a fanboy of Tim Keller. And I think he's so he has a wonderful sort of illustration that I think always applies to this moment, which is about that idea. Right. That our expectation of the future changes our present, no matter what kind of present we have. The way he describes it is what if I gave you a job and it was you were in a dark room putting a widget into a watch it. And you did that all day, every day.

Right. And but I told you that at the end of the year, I'm going to give you and fifty billion dollars. But you're going to do this for a whole year. And of course, you, David, I've got at the end of your year, you're going to do the exact same job. I'm going to give you fifty thousand dollars. And I'm telling you, your years are going to be the exact same activity, but a completely different experience. Why?

And this is cribbed right out of a great Keller sermon. And the reason, of course, is that you're going to spend your year spending that fifty billion dollars. What kind of boat should I have? And those days are going to go so fast and you're going to think about all the different, you know, glorious experience you're going to have on the other end. Things she would buy for our grandkids.

That's what she would do. And you're going to spend the time thinking about how fifty thousand after taxes on an hourly. Can't live on it. And, you know, it's still, you know, it's OK. And then what am I going to do with the after that? What's what's going to be my job the next year? And you're going to still be worried, because even though, of course, that's a lot of money in the global sense of the word. Your year is going to be very different. And of course, there could be a person right next to you who's going to get fifty dollars and they're going to have just an absolute drudgery of a time. Right. And that's really meaningful.

You know, it sounds like a little kind of I don't know, just an aphorism. But the reality is that I've been in those situations where I have a year where I have something to look forward to or I have something and it absolutely changes my present. And I think that was what my mother did in that refugee camp. And we we were expecting to go to school. And so we needed to know English so that we could have friends like my friends were waiting for me. She's always looking ahead. Yeah.

But I just needed to I just needed to know how to talk to them, you know, and my you know, my I had to keep my grades up because I had a future. And I think those were very different experiences than saying, let's just, you know, muddle here and wait and because then hopelessness sinks in. Absolutely.

There is no future. Right. And you're saying like you're always looking forward to that. And Keller talked about that in a sermon. Oh, in many sermons. Yeah.

He nailed it on that topic. Yeah. It might be one of the most important things ever. Hope. Yeah. Think about it. You can wake up with even a sliver of hope you can get through the present because you're dreaming of the future. But if you don't have hope. Yeah.

I mean, the short answer to your question is, yeah, I would just send them to Keller Sermon on Suffering. Why would I say it? He said it really well. Thanks.

Yeah. Well, no, it was wonderful. He he had a lot to say on suffering, I think, and that was very helpful. Speaking of Tim Keller, we didn't get to sit under his teaching like you did, although I listened to it quite a bit online. And I hate to admit it, but I might have stole a few things when I preached. I always tried to give him credit, but man, his brain is thinking we're so unique and deep and fresh and practical.

I mean, I'll never forget his teaching on first Corinthians 13 on love, which everybody quotes as the love passage. And he goes, let me let me unwrap it a little bit. And you're like, oh, my goodness, all that's in there. Anyway, anything that you would think of that you learned or.

Golly, so much. I mean, it would be hard for me to even pull out what I learned from my brain. It might be easier to tell you the stuff he didn't teach me. He didn't teach me anything about comic books. So everything in my brain about comic books is not Tim Keller.

Everything else on some level, I credit him because he formed a lot of what I understand about the world and faith. Broadly speaking, I remember going to New York City for college and quite a lot of people in my church in Oklahoma were very wary of that. There were there was a certain element of like, well, you're going to the big city. And that's that's true.

You should you should make sure that, you know, you're you're not going to get lost in a city at the same time. Keller was never afraid of the city. He never walked in this idea of being afraid of the culture at large.

And he didn't feel that if he read The Village Voice, suddenly it would infect his faith in some way. He had a quiet confidence that I very much understood and gravitated toward. He understood that what he had to offer is specifically, of course, the faith that God and Jesus has to offer. Like what he had to offer was such a better sale than what the city had to offer.

And I think there wasn't even a question. He walked with that kind of confidence of knowing that, like the way that, you know, the sort of the most competent fighter walks into a space and knows they can defend themselves. I always felt that he was he was unafraid of the culture.

He was unafraid of the city. He did such a good job of articulating some of the paradoxes of the faith, both the idea of the law and and love at the same time, but also about, you know, Jesus, who was you know, he wasn't trying to find a muddy middle. He understood that Jesus was more liberal for the liberals and more conservative for the conservatives at the same time, which is a wild and accurate understanding of Jesus's approach. He yeah, he did a very good job of being unapologetically complicated in the understanding of the faith and at the same time simplifying it for anyone to understand. I thought he had such an organized mind that I came to adore his like, you know, the stereotypical three point sermon. I think it was a way to articulate the faith and in ways that were, you know, to me, very impactful. I hold him in great esteem. I miss him.

I think it was I was really saddened and still feel like I'm mourning him. And yeah, I'm not a fan, a fan being short for fanatic of almost anything. I don't collect things very much.

I don't I'm not like a brand ambassador for any IP or whatever, what have you. But I would happily cop to the fact that I you know, I was a fan of Tim Keller. I still am. And I, you know, I loved the way he carried himself. I've seen you know, I've I've met his sons and his family.

I love I love the way he handled himself. I couldn't I didn't put him in my list of father figures because it would be a parasocial thing like it was a big church. I would I attended for decades. But, you know, I didn't I didn't get to sit at his knee and listen personally. And if I had, he would have been certainly from afar. He absolutely was a father figure to me. So the least we can do is put some respect on his name. He did more for me than, you know, any apologist of any century. And I think history will prove that. So I don't I don't feel like I have to I have to be much of a argumentative type.

I think he was great. And greatness is in short supply. Yeah, I think as we get older and we've been in ministry a long time, we're looking at how people finish. Yeah, because there's a lot of people that have fallen.

Some of our friends have fallen. And, you know, as I look at him like, oh, man, he really finished well. Yeah.

And lots of leaders don't finish well. So we can add that to it to finish. Well, I think, too, as I think about that appeal with the culture and how Tim addressed that. One of the things that I love is I remember I gave my life to Jesus at 16 years old. Yeah. And reading the Bible and understanding it for the first time. And I had this like, are you kidding me?

Like, I get it. This is phenomenal. When they said good news, like this is the best news.

It's the best. Like, I want to tell everybody. And my parents, even though they weren't believers at that time, they gave me freedom. My parents created this home of joy. It was like a magnet. We had fun. We had great food. We had meals. It was that atmosphere of family. And so then you combine that with this great good news of knowing Jesus and what he's done and the call in my life.

I'd go to these parties in the world and the culture. It felt like nothing. This is the dumbest. Like it just, why are we doing this? And it felt so empty in comparison to God, his word, a family.

And I think we get so scared as parents of what our kids are facing and what they'll become and what they'll be under. But I'm just going to remind all of us and as listeners to like our faith and our great God is compelling. He woos our kids and he's drawing us in and the power of your family together, the meals that you're eating, the laughter that you have around the table, that is great power as well.

And it's a magnet. I can see that in you. Like you love to cook. You love to be around friends.

It's that Middle Eastern hospitality that draws everybody in. Daniel, this has been fun. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. . What a joy to hear Daniel's story over the last three days. It's amazing to see how God works in lives in ways that you can never really imagine. In order to shape stories that highlight Christ's goodness and in just incredible ways, it's been such a blessing. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Daniel Nayeri on Family Life Today. He has an incredible story, a true incredible story.

And you can read more about it in Daniel's memoir called Everything Sad is Untrue. You can get a copy of his memoir by going online right now to familylifetoday.com or you can find a link to it in our show notes. Or feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329 to request your copy. Again, that number is 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. You know, we're dedicated at Family Life to reaching families all over the country and consequently all over the world. One of the things we're trying to do during this month is raise $250,000 in new funds by the end of August. We want to do that because we care about marriages and families. And if you want to be a part of that, if you want to be a part of the ministry, be part of the solution to help reach marriages and families all over the world, I'd love it if you would hop in with us and make a donation. You can do that by simply going to familylifetoday.com to make your donation. And when you do make a donation of any amount, we're going to send you, as a thank you, a limited edition Family Life pen along with a copy of Brant Hansen's Unoffendable. It's just a small way that we want to say thank you for partnering with us to make this ministry possible by reaching marriages and families all over the world. Again, you can head over to familylifetoday.com to make your donation or give us a call at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Or you can drop us a donation in the mail if you'd like.

Our address is Family Life 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832. Now, coming up tomorrow, we have Alan and Jennifer Parr. Alan is a famous YouTuber with over a million subscribers, and they're going to talk about the red flags of unhealthy relationships. It's provocative, so you don't want to miss that tomorrow. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-08-21 06:13:57 / 2024-08-21 06:26:30 / 13

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