331 | Fighting Shadows, Leveraging Your Season, and Asking Curious Questions (Jon Tyson)
Episode Description
Jon Tyson is back for the third time! In this episode, he uncovers the seven lies that hold men back from becoming fully alive. You'll discover the strategies Satan uses to keep you distracted and passive, and you'll be inspired to embrace your current season and ask curious questions for the sake of others.
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Originally from Adelaide, Australia, Jon Tyson is a pastor and author based in New York City. He is the author of "Fighting Shadows" and the bestselling books "The Intentional Father" and "Beautiful Resistance." Jon has been married to Christy for twenty-five years and has two adult children.
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· Satan wants us dumb, entertained, oversatiated, and unmotivated.
· You must fight against despair, loneliness, shame, lust, ambition, futility, and apathy.
· If you ask curious questions about the needs around you, you never know what you'll get swept into.
· What things do you need to harvest and enjoy right now before they rot and are gone?
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· 147 | Jon Tyson on Intentional Fatherhood & Creating the Primal Path
· 187 | Jon Tyson on Skillful Manhood, Capturing First Moments & The Intentional Father
· The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character by Jon Tyson
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Jon Tyson: [00:00:38] I would do anything to get that time back, but it's gone. Again, you didn't feel like it at the time. I felt like I had eternity. But now that she's gone, she's moved out, she's not moving back in. It's like, man, I really wish I'd redeployed those 100 hours. I think a lot of men think they've got forever, they miss them moment and they give themselves to civilian affairs. When God's really calling them to fight, to stand up, fight for their kids hearts, fight for their marriage, fight for their communities. Satan wants us dumb, entertained, over satiated and unmotivated, and God wants us aware, contending, using our gifts and our strength for the sake of others.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:01:15] What's up guys? Welcome back to DadAwesome. My name is Jeff Zaugg and today, episode 331, we have Jon Tyson joining us. And we're celebrating because just yesterday, or maybe it was two days ago, he launched, with his co-author, Jeff Bethke. They launched the book Fighting Shadows. And we're going to talk about that book today. It's fun to, you know, guys that we really get behind. We're like, we've been talking about resources from Jon Tyson for the last 4 or 5 years. He's been on DadAwesome twice. And we're always mentioning his resources, his books, his courses. And so when friends of ours, mentors and friends, of DadAwesome launch a book that we know is going to be helpful. And I read the whole book, Fighting Shadows, an incredible book. I'm actually planning to pull guys together and go through it one week at a time, the Seven Shadows. So all that to say, we're thrilled to launch this episode on book launch week for Jon Tyson and this book, Fighting Shadows. Quickly before I jump into the conversation, the DadAwesome Accelerator, we just finished up our first ever, the pilot round, of the DadAwesome Accelerator. This six week sprint, where we invite dads to come in with their full hearts to level up and to say, I'm going to actually bring my full focus and I'm going to give five hours per week. So it's one hour of coaching time, but it's it's another like four hours of homework each week. So it's it's all in, guys. In the response from these first guys, these first dads has been off the charts, this has been so helpful. And look at what God has done in this short period of six weeks. So I want to invite you guys. It does not matter where you're at in the Dad life. Some of you guys are leading men's ministries at your church. You're like, you're that leader that's just like I'm all in. I'm clearly just taking ground and leading others. People look to me as an authority, a source of wisdom in this space. Some of you are in another place. You're at a place, you feel you're stumbling and you're frustrated, and you've been way more dad angry than DadAwesome. And you're like, man, there's no way they would, they would receive my application and accept me because look at where I'm at. And that voice is not the voice of your heavenly Father. So if you're finding yourself in that stumbling place of fatherhood, this is very much for you. In fact, about half the guys that were a part of our first cohort, that was the place they came in, in a place of almost more brokenness and like, I need help. I'm really struggling. That's okay. So don't feel like you only should apply if you're like this stand out dad. Because most of us, in fact, almost all of us, we don't feel that way. I want you guys to apply, if at all, you're like, this is of interest to me. Don't think about the competition of it, will I get it in, will I not get it in? I want you to send the email to awesome@dadawesome.org and we want, we want to be in touch with you about this process. And we'd love for you to prayerfully apply to join us this summer, it kicks off in July. So okay, let's jump in. My conversation with Jon Tyson, the third time that he's joined us here at DadAwesome. Buckle up. Get your notes app open, and you're going to learn a ton. So here you go, episode 331 with Jon Tyson. Welcome back to the show.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:23] But we're celebrating the launch week of your new book. And for those on on YouTube, you can see the picture Fighting Shadows. Thanks for sending me an early copy. And, I have just been so grateful for the passion and the, the way you framed up you and your co-author, Jeff Bethke, around helping men in these areas that war against us bringing our whole heart is dads to our kids or to our communities or to our families. And, I was hoping, could you just paint big picture, why did you call it Fighting Shadows? What's the, what's the visual? What, what are you doing there?
Jon Tyson: [00:04:55] Well, you know, recently we had an eclipse, and I don't know what it was like with, where you are. I hear if you went to where the totality was, it felt like it was the end of the world. Like I had some friends who flew down or flew up to where the totality was, they said it was just, like, mind boggling. An eclipse is when the moon gets between the sun, and for a few moments, it looks like the sun is gone. And if you lived a thousand years ago, you probably would have lost your mind. If you had a pre-scientific understanding of an eclipse, you would have thought like, this is the end. And, I use that metaphor, which is the central metaphor of the book, because it comes out of a conversation that Jesus and Peter had. Jesus comes to Peter and said, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. Can you imagine how terrifying it that would be, to say Satan has personally asked to sift your faith? And then Jesus says to them, but I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when you return, strengthen your brothers. That word that is used there is the word klouper where we get the word, the root word eclipse. And that, I think, was the enemy giving too much ground. He sort of let us in on the strategy, which is to put things between you and God, so it looks like God is gone, and all you're left with is that particular struggle. And you know what's possible by how you position yourself. You can blot out the sun from the sky, if you put your hand in front of your face. And I really feel like that's Satan's strategy for so many men is to put their struggles in front, so close to their face that it seems like God is gone and they're all whole reality is wrestling with the struggle. So, that that's the central metaphor, Fighting Shadows. I think there's 7 or 8 core things that Satan is trying to put between us and God that make God disappear. So all we deal with is a life controlled by struggling with an issue.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:53] Well, we're going to go into some of the, we're not gonna get to all of them, but I want to just give a quick flyover and and I'll bring my full heart cause I read the whole book. I'll bring my whole heart to recapping and then then we'll dive in from there. But we're going to fight the shadow of despair with hope. We're going to fight the shadow of loneliness with community, brotherhood for us dads. We're going to fight the shadow of shame with vulnerability. We're going to fight the shadow of lust with faithfulness. Fight the shadow of ambition with a Kingdom vision. Fight the shadow of futility with calling. And fight the shadow of apathy with a cause. I know you've been in so many conversations about this book. As you've been, had the chance to launch it this week. But is there, for DadAwesome, for us dads who are just bringing our whole hearts to loving our kids and leading them to Jesus. Is there one that you're like, let's go there first? Any, any that you would just find yourself gravitating towards?
Jon Tyson: [00:07:43] I would say this, I mean, depending on the audience. So, you know, I'm here in New York City. I think ambition has had a lot of resonance with a lot of people. They are coming to the city to make something of their lives, and ambition can be very good or very bad, depending on how it works in your life. That's had disproportionate resonance here in the city, probably the one outside of New York that's got the most traction is the topic of loneliness. I think so many men are lonely. A lot has been written about it. It has tremendous deficits on your health. One social scientist said it's the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarets a day. It's detriment to your health. We've all heard all of this, but I would say this, a lot of dads just feel like, are too busy to really keep my old friends around. I'm overwhelmed trying to be a good dad. I just let my wife run the social calendar. She's the one that's telling me who her friends are and who she wants to hang out with. And so you get a lot of busy, lonely dads. And, and that is really, really sad. I saw an interview with the folks in the Gottman Institute, and they said, when a woman dies, she normally does really well because only a small percent of women view their husband as their best friend. But when a husband loses his wife, they really struggle because a lot of men say their wife is their closest friend and they really don't have many friends outside of that circle. So yeah, maybe it's talking about male loneliness, particularly for busy dads and how important it is to fight for friendship.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:12] Let's go there. And then we're definitely going to steer back to ambition, because I had the most notes in that section. Like I, truly, like was was rocked by that section, so we'll come back around. My observation when it comes to you, you go to most churches and is there anything going on for dads in this church? Are there gatherings of dads growing together? It's almost nonexistent, for there's not much for men, but there's even less for dads. And my, my take is the reason that that subject matter is lonely and not touched, as far as guys recruiting others in around the theme of fatherhood is tied with the shadow of shame. Because if there's stuff going on below the surface, unseen, who would I be to step in and lead in that area? I'm curious if the topic of loneliness and shame, how do you, how do you see that overlapping?
Jon Tyson: [00:10:00] Shame, shame is about isolation, you know. So much, shame, obviously, guilt, I've done something wrong. Shame says there's something wrong with me. Shame is, chronic shame is to internalize a critical gaze. When I reflect on myself, I keep saying, why can't you be better? Why can't you stop looking at porn? Why can't you be more patient with your wife? Why do you keep yelling at your kids? Why are you so unhappy at work? We just get this deep sense that something fundamentally wrong with me. And nobody wants to get around other dads, often dads can, you know, sort of humble brag all the time, and you can just feel like I feel crap in every area of my life. And the last thing I need is a group of dads to remind me how poorly I'm doing with my kids. So yeah, I can definitely see that. I always tell people, hey look, my vision is intentionality, it's not perfection. No one is perfect. Nobody. In fact, the perfect fathers are often the ones that damaged their kids through such high expectations. It's just do your best, live in love, be honest with your struggles and get help. Rely on the community of men to help raise your kids. Ancient societies were not primarily just father-son societies. They were the community of men playing a vital role. It was the tribe that helped formed men, not just this psychotic pressure on an individual father. So yeah, the enemy would want you to be on your own, feel terrible, think you can't keep up, think everybody's doing better than you. So you never actually get help from others who are all probably feeling like you. And rather than relying on one another to meet the deficits or deal with their struggles, we just sort of sit alone.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:34] So what do we do? How do we move, the guy who feels isolated, lonely, I don't have that person I can call when I need to, and I need I need a brother, I don't have them yet? What's your, what's your next step encouragement for those dads?
Jon Tyson: [00:11:46] Well part of it, I mean, I wish I could say do nothing, really loving people will see your invisible cry, come around you, nurture you, heal you, help you, and make everything all right.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:00] I wish.
Jon Tyson: [00:12:01] But alas, that is not how life works. So you're probably going to have to take some measure of grace fueled initiative and put yourself out there and be vulnerable and probably rally if you troop yourself. I think someone's got to go first. And I think measured vulnerability that leads to deep vulnerability is probably the way. You know, so if you're in a meeting, if there's not a meeting, you should probably start a meeting. If you're in a meeting and it feels super shallow, just sort of like cultural banter, not really getting into the issues of the heart. You could say, hey folks, look, I don't want to intrude with something too deep here, but you could insert a real struggle, would you be willing to pray for me? I'm having a really hard time with one of my kids, or I'm in a really stressful season with my marriage and I could use your support. You'd be amazed at how people would probably go, oh, gosh, at last, I was just waiting for somebody to talk about something that was real. So, yeah, I think you've got to have a little courage. Now don't emotionally vomit on everyone because you got all this pent up stuff you haven't shared, that'll will just push men away. It takes a lot of patience, a lot of time to cultivate this environment. But someone's got to go first. So I would say, go first. Wait for a moment. Measured vulnerability. Lean in and see if something doesn't open up.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:14] I loved your story about wasting 100 hours that you shared about, during, yeah, you were sick...
Jon Tyson: [00:13:21] People hate me all over America on this.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:23] I love it because if we took 100 hours, which most of us, if we looked at the landscape for next year, we actually could give 100 hours to anything we want. We have, we can find the 100 hours. But if it goes without purposeful, I just think the reason for that story, right here, is when you say take initiative, sometimes it does take trying. Try again. Host another group. Invite three more guys. Let's go do this. It takes time and it takes stick to it. Like, initiative is like be willing to go first, but then we got to stick with it and keep inviting and keep inviting. Would you share the hundred hour story and then, and then kind of bring it into like, man, what if a dad took initiative for 100 hours to form brotherhood?
Jon Tyson: [00:14:03] Yeah, I just, I did some other research on time. The typical working man has between 1,000 and 2,000 discretionary hours of downtime. So you've got a lot more time than you aware of. It takes about 650 hours to functionally learn guitar. Like really to be able to play well, it takes about 700 hours to learn a language. So we can get a lot done. So I'm basically trying to make the point, about getting entangled in civilian affairs. So I'm trying to make the case, hey, listen, there's no soldier serving in the army gets entangled in civilian affairs. That's what Paul says to Timothy, find untangled men. And, I said the problem with civilian affairs is they're not, they're not sinful, often. They're just stupid. It's just poor stewardship, but it's not sinful. You can't go to one of the vice lists in the New Testament, say, there it is, watching too much Netflix. It's like, it's you have to sort of sense it. And we live in a world that would justify anything you're going through. And I was sharing that part of my civilian affairs is watching Netflix. I mean, I love great television. I love it. I love character development. Back in the day, there was no such thing. 24, remember the show 24?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:16] Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Jon Tyson: [00:15:17] That changed television forever. Because each episode used to be a complete unit on its own. They weren't logical, sequential. They didn't build themselves out. Now it can be two seasons and they're still just doing character development. So it's very hard to watch an episode and call it a day. It's addictive. You know, Netflix created the play next. The automatic play is the single greatest feature Netflix did to increase, screen time. So my I really struggle with this. I struggle with this a lot, and I joke about it, but it's like, it's a war I have to face, because there's something in my mind where if I start something, I have to finish it. I can't space it out. I get bored, I move on, I lose it. So I got to binge it. So anyway, I, I was really, really sick. I had Covid. My wife had left. She almost died from Covid. She was really sick. So any time I get sick, she's like, look, she's got a compromised immune system. She's like, I got to go. So I was left on my own and everyone in church was like, you got to recover, man. Don't work. Don't lay in bed working, like, really rest. So I remember someone had said to me, have you seen Yellowstone? I think you'd love it. And I remember just thinking, well, a better rest. So let me do something relaxing. So the first day I watched season one and then the second I watched season two. The third day I watch season three. And then I realized this is like not that long ago, embarassing. I realized, oh my goodness, there's a back story, there's 1883. Now I can get like like studying the Bible, I need context, I need to go back in history and see what's happening. Then there's 1923, there's these other shows that you can watch it before and then, before it's all said and done, I've invested about 100 hours into a fictional TV show. And then if you're, you know, I've got two adult children, my son's about to get married. Gets married in a couple of weeks. My daughter's a senior in college. And I kid you not, I would, I would pay $10,000 cash for one more day with my daughter at age five. If I could go back in time and take her to the park and get a bagel, an absolute bagel, and just sit in the park at one and third in Central Park West and play with my daughter. I would do anything to get that time back, but it's gone. And again, you didn't feel like it at the time. I felt like I had eternity, but now that she's gone, she's moved out. She's not moving back in. It's like, man, I really wish I'd redeployed those 100 hours. And so I think a lot of men think they've got forever. They miss the moment and they give themselves to civilian affairs when God's really calling them to fight, to stand up, fight for their kids hearts, fight for their marriage, fight for their communities. Like, you know, Satan wants us dumb, entertained, you know, for, you know, over satiated and unmotivated. And God wants us aware, contending, using our gifts and our strength for the sake of others. So, a TV show may not seem like much, but over the course of time, it costs you a lot more than you know.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:19] Well, Jon and you're talking about deploying hours, if you could deploy hours. That's where I go back to brotherhood and fighting against isolation and saying, no, I'm going to build friendships. It's going to take building, just like your your whole, the new nonprofit you guys launched about forming men like, we're going to form and build and they're going to press in and through resistance to actually form those friendships. But it compounds forward, like a great investment, if we put the hundred hours in, in the next six months, we put 100 hours in, in this next Q2, Q3 of this year. We will see the compounded forward of those friendships and it will change everything, versus so many other uses. It's funny. Also, I heard, you know, show me your wallet or your checkbook and show me your calendar and I'll show you what you really value. You're actually saying with that example of your daughter being willing to spend money to go back and get one day when she's five, that we need to be intentional with our money and our time. But time when it's gone, it's fully gone.
Jon Tyson: [00:19:19] Yeah, I mean, there's this, there's a few ways you can waste time. I mean, I know everybody tells you this, be careful when you kill time, it has no resurrection. You can waste time. You can kill time. Waste time. Use time. Invest time. Redeem time. Or leverage time. And a lot of God, that's Ephesians 5, make the most of the time. That's not the word kross is the word kairos, which means you were in a season right now, that must be leveraged that you will never get again. It's not the same in every season. So I'm not advocating a kind of guilt where every, like, if every spare moment should be in prayer. That's, that's death. That's the law. I'm advocating, I'm advocating an awareness of your season. The things that need to be harvested now or they rot. Or seed now, or you missed the window to sow. Or enjoyed now or it's gone. How do you really figure what that is in that season and leverage it? Make the most because the days are evil. So yeah, it's about really trying to leverage the season more than anything else. First you got to know what it is, but when you know what it is, you got to be aware and go after it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:32] Yes. I want to dip for a moment, before you go back in order, into the shadow of apathy. And here's a short quote around the gravitational pull. This is the way we we go if we're not wise, our desires and wounds can have a kind of gravitational pull that causes us to collapse back into ourselves. Selfishness and reduces a man's vision. It causes him to lose sight of anything beyond himself. It pulls him out of the fight and into his head. Would you just kind of build from that and share a little bit of your heart there?
Jon Tyson: [00:21:06] Yeah. Jeff Cook says the hell bound don't travel downward, they travel inward. And that's what the, the reformers Augustine talked about, inca Vitus love collapsed in on itself. And that ends up being the challenge. Men are born to use this strength for others. And when everything becomes about you, whether it's self unhealthy, self-consciousness, self obsession or self focus. You end up, you're not being able to use what God's given you for anybody else and just becomes kind of like a, a narcissism. It can be, you know, narcissist is obviously that young man who fell in love with his own reflection in the pool. And we can do that through self pity. We can do that, you know, we can do that through pleasure. We can do that through a desire to build social media, like drowning in our phones, distractions, whatever it is. And so yeah, I think we've got to figure out how to confront that and fight that and get beyond ourselves. Love is about others. Love requires others. It keeps in mind. The other is the object of love. And, when we love people, we will go beyond ourselves. Again, I mean, not to get too intense, but that's the C.S. Lewis' critique of men who masturbate. That's what masturbation, he says it's really self focus. True love and all, I think, women would say the best love is a rather conscious. They're not in it for self-fulfillment. They're within it for, you know, to to bless another person. And, he talks about the haram within which you're enslaved and nobody ever asks anything of you. Whereas he says love, that's what lust does. Love pushes you beyond yourself in a real life, in the pursuit of the other. So yeah, it's very easy to collapse inward out of shame, fear, loneliness, isolation. Jesus always leads us out, using our strength in love for the sake of others. And, but we live at a time of the sovereignty of self. We live in a time of radical self-definition and expression. It's it's very, very hard to have enough life in your relationship with God that it gives you the capacity to live in public for others. It's a real, it's a real, it's an art of living.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:16] That, that ties with in the The Shadow of Lust section, the four step sequence of love. And it's just starting with others and then moving towards the end. This like the, and I don't have the notes in front of me, so I apologize, but just this flip of it's about others versus about this approach with lust does.
Jon Tyson: [00:23:36] Yeah, reversing, reversing the four loves. Yeah, that's C.S. Lewis. Again, probably channeling Augustine the Greco Roman vision of love, you know, or modern society says love is primarily erotic love. It's sort of sensual and sexual. And then it's storge love, which is still like that friendship, nostalgia, Instagram wonder. And then you've got, Philia love or, you know, Philadelphia love, that, that brotherhood. And then lastly, Agape. And modern society says I'm sexually attracted to, it's like last, I want a sense of wonder and fun. And then if I get to sleep with you again, I really like you. Then I'll really focus on friendship with you and then maybe I'll commit to you. That is the opposite of the gospel. The gospel starts with other centered sacrificial care that's agape, and then it moves to a profound sense of friendship, and then it moves to really enjoying them as a person. And then it consummate all of that commitment and depth with sexuality, which is a sign of whole life covenant, union anyway. So that's the problem was lust as it, yeah, it seeks to, particularly pornography, seeks to isolate the pleasure component of a woman, utilize her for self-gratification rather than loving her, which is really about seeing the whole of her as a person and then committing yourself to her, and then crowning and modeling that commitment, through sex.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:56] Wow. There's so many more questions that direction, but I'm going to take us back into ambition for a moment because of just the wrestling that that chapter was for me, the shadow of ambition. Sam Gibson, you quoted him saying, the questions we ask determine the culture we create. And that most of my questions are, I'm asking questions because it's something that routes back to me and my hopes and my wants. But used the example of Nehemiah and the questions and how they radically changed everything. And we have to be careful the questions we ask, would you, would you like, inspire us and just kind of challenge us dads around the types of questions that we ask?
Jon Tyson: [00:25:33] Well, I think part of it, it gets back to that collapsing inward. Frances Schaefer wrote a book called The Great Evangelical Disaster and a book called The Christian Manifesto. And these were, as he was getting older. He's getting ready to die. He was sort of prophetic trying to look down, this is in the 80s, he's trying to look down and ask, where could the church go wrong? And he had, he said, two of the great problems are personal peace and affluence. When all the man cares about is, do I have enough money and are my people good? That man is, it's not that that's bad, it's just insufficient for someone living the way of the Cross. And so he said, when the church's whole vision is about self-preservation and and, making sure that our needs are met, we lose our mission ledge. And when a man refuses to care about something beyond the borders of his own concerns, that man will become very hard for God to use. Nehemiah, on the other hand, says, how are the remnant and the exiles doing in Jerusalem? And the answer was not good. Gates are burned down. The wall is gone. They can't prosper. And he doesn't say, oh, man, that's tough, isn't it? I'm going to put them on my Tuesday night prayer list. No. Something in his heart says, that that question became a door of his destiny. And a lot of time, the only questions men ask is, how can I make more money? How do I get more time for myself? How can I get my wife to initiate sex more? How do I get my kids to appreciate me more? Instead of asking the question like, why does that, where is that kid's dad? And why does he always walk to practice? Maybe there's a need there. Why does that school seem to, kids from that school seem to struggle so much? Why does that one person on my street never have the ability to do their yard work? Instead of me getting mad that they're bringing the neighborhood, like, what's the story behind that? Asking a question could open a door to a call. And again, if you ask questions about others and you ask curious questions about needs around you, you never know what you get swept into. But most men only ask, how do I get more for myself and how do I get more for my family? And again, these are the things the pagans run after. Christians should have a bigger vision than that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:52] Yes. And that, kind of the tension, in this chapter of ambition between, like, leave nothing behind, I'm going to enter with my whole heart and everything I have like to go after it versus the trust and the patience and the, but like, there's, there's kind of it feels like a disconnect of you have to choose one side or the other. And you guys kind of you thread like encouragement on both sides. Could you explain and I'm sure you can do a lot clearer job that I'm doing, like where the tension lies in this area of ambition?
Jon Tyson: [00:28:23] Yeah. Well, most, most people will say ambition is good and bad. The world is run by ambitious people. Do you know who shapes history? Here's the answer, whoever wants to. The people most committed to what happens are the one that make things happen. You're living in a world somebody else chose for you. You have a governmental system someone wanted. The founding fathers wanted this and chose this and paid a price to have this. Your community looks exactly like the person who's willing to pay the highest price, that has the strongest ambition for their agenda to be in the community. And Christians are often passive, like, well, I don't want anything else. Like, that's not true. You just want small things. So we've got to acknowledge that ambition is not sinful, but it is potent and it is dangerous. The world is run and directed by ambitious people. What are the marks of unhealthy ambition? James K. Smith says it's two things, it's domination and attention or recognition. Which means there's nothing wrong, C.S. Lewis says this, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be the best dancer or the best poet. But if you only find joy compared to being better than somebody else or beating somebody else, and there's no joy if you don't beat them, that's unhealthy, ungodly ambition. So there's that domination competitive, competitive ambition. Nothing wrong with wanting to be the best, but if you're being the best only matters if you beat someone, it's unhealthy. And then secondarily, he says it requires recognition or attention, which means people, you have to look good doing it and you need people to notice you've done it. That's the challenge of social media. Psychologists talk about our reference group. Most people aren't comparing themselves to celebrities. The number one reference group is your college buddies. And so you're not thinking, well, you can create excuses why you're not like the famous person, but you have very excuses why you're not more like the people you went to college with that you can really build a similar life with. So we're often trying to look for ways to look better or to compete with them and to up, you know, sort of upscale ourselves compared to them. And that often leads us to be reactive, to be selfish, to lie, to manipulate, to control. We don't need any more of that. But godly ambition, it's about having a vision beyond yourself. It's about paying whatever price it takes to see that come to pass, not just wishing and dreaming, and then taking radical action to step out and to make that happen. And I try to make the case in the book that Jesus is holy ambition embodied. Jesus cared about something more than Himself. Jesus refused to let people sit in their sin even though it wasn't His problems. And Jesus took radical action, willing to die on the cross. So Jesus whole life was a life of holy ambition. So Satan's was unholy ambition. I want to be the center. I want it to be about me. I will sacrifice people for myself. Jesus sacrificed himself for people. I think that's the essence of holy ambition. So, yeah, I think this, if you're in business, if you're a dad in business, if you have unholy ambition and you're a Christian, you're going to be miserable because you won't, you'll always feel guilty or torn or regretful or out of balance. So unholy ambition is a complete corporate disadvantage for a Christian man. But holy ambition is a total advantage because you have clarity that it's for God, assurance that you have His favor because it's His kingdom, not your own idols. And you can step out with total freedom from outcomes, knowing that it's really up to God how well you do. And if you're a Christian with holy ambition, you have an unbelievable competitive advantage in the workplace. So we don't do well and we're torn, it's conflicted energy. But when it is, when your motives have been changed by God, you try to walk in the Spirit. You're trying to honor Him. That releases all of that tension into radical accent, releases excellence, sacrifice, the ability to do more. And so we need not less ambition, we need holy ambition. And dads with holy ambition in the world living out of that for the glory of God.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:45] So this is where the wrestle, for me, I have huge vision for my wife. Huge vision for my daughters. Huge vision for the ministry, DadAwesome and the dads in the community that I live in and way beyond. But I have a ten, seven, five, three year old daughters. So I got these four little daughters right now. And I feel like I use the term crystallization of discontent. Like I feel there's a gap, there's a chasm between where things are at today in some of these areas and where I dream and hope, and I can I can envision the future. But I want to, like, really be thankful for the present and be thankful that it's hard work right now. And I'm not seeing some of the dreams realized yet. And I actually have more margin. If those dreams were realized today, I actually have more. I'm traveling less. I'm home with my girls more because there's this like I've been using, like I've been speaking out loud to friends, partners, our board, like, I'll speak out loud, I'm thankful this thing has not hockey stick taken off, because I actually think I'm a better dad for my four girls. And I'm, I feel like God still, like, doing a lot of work
Jon Tyson: [00:33:53] Of course.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:33:53] But am I saying that as an excuse for, there's actually something I should be stepping into today? And that's, that's the, where the tension lies is I do I feel like I'm succeeding in either, the big long term vision or the short term like, development refinement? I feel like I'm just torn there.
Jon Tyson: [00:34:13] Yeah. I mean, that's very, very common. There's a lot of pressure. We want to get it right everywhere. And so I really, really empathize with that man. It's very, very challenging. I just have a simple question which is like, are you doing your best? Only you know, if you're doing your best, mate, that's enough and that's literally all you can do. so when you said, like you said, are you doing enough? That's the wrong question. The question is, are you doing your best? And if, you know, like, this, this book, Fighting Shadows, I don't know what will happen with it. I can't control that. But I will tell you this, I have done my best. Whatever happens, if it's a best seller or it just fades into irrelevance, I've done my best. I can hold my head high regardless of outcome, saying everything I needed to do, I did and that is enough. So yeah, I think that's, you know, reframing the question might be helpful. I'll say this, so I'm 47 and if God gave me what I wanted when I was 27, at 27, my motors weren't right. And I think in many ways God can trust me now because at 27, I really cared what people think. At 27, I was trying to stand out from my peers, I was trying to become someone. At 47, I don't, Gen Z doesn't think I'm cool. I have kids this age. My kids don't think I'm cool. I want to be helpful and trustworthy. And so my whole motivational structure has changed. I just want to be helpful, man. I want to be, I want to be a trusted voice of clarity in the midst of all the chaos, for the sake of others. So I think God will often use the frustrations to form your motives, to purge your motives. And, it's nothing worse than getting too much success when you're young, because you don't have the character to handle the influence and you think you've peaked, and then you go chase it again because you love the high. And I, you know, I'm sort of planning to peak in my late 50's.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:23] Yes. Yes. Same.
Jon Tyson: [00:36:24] I was going to say the only thing I would say is, I do a lot, man. I mean, I think a lot of times people are like, dude, how do you do so much? And I'm like, well, remember, my children are gone. I have six nights free a week. I wake up when I want, go to bed when I want, and nobody almost ever asks for anything in the morning or evening from me. What would you do with your spare time? Now, I'd say this, the one thing I do do is use the time I have well. But I have a lot of time. So never compare your season of obligation and family duties with somebody's emptiness season. So I once had a young church planter say, you know, I want to, I want to be a writer. And I was like, dude, at your age, you know what I was doing? Drowning in diapers and pastoring a church plant. I wasn't writing books. I wasn't, there wasn't even the concept of an influencer. Well, I wasn't even trying to be one. I was trying to survive my life. I was trying to be a good husband. Like, what made you think in your 20s with little kids that this is the season for you to ascend into influence? Bro, you need to just serve your wife and love your kids and be content with the dignity of being a noble, present man, you know. But I was like, I feel sorry because it's so, so many folks feel that cultural pressure to be successful. And, so I just say, hang in there and be patient, man.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:37:47] Yeah, that's, thank you. You reflected in one portion, I can't quite recall the chapter, about a mentor, therapist, counselor, friend, challenging you where you thought, and I feel this at points, areas I just feel stuck and just down or like, man, I just, I need some relief here. I need some, like, freedom here. And he gave you the opposite advice. I'll read what you wrote and then you can kind of help explain. This was to me, I was like, I probably need this. I probably need it. You said, he he said to you, you need to get angry. Really angry. Feed the frustration, poke the problems, sit in the sadness until you are about to snap. Then you will have a new type of energy to get out. To get out the mud that stuck in your eyes that's making you miserable. I, I just thought that was interesting counter advice that you would expect. And maybe some dads need to hear this right now. Why was that, why was that helpful in that moment for you?
Jon Tyson: [00:38:41] Well, so part of it, he's he's responding to me personally. So he said to me, probably the, I don't know if I included this other detail or not, but he said to me, I can tell your default state is joy. He said, I can tell that you're by default joyful. And for whatever reason, in your developmental journey as an adult, you haven't been allowed to get angry. And so he says, you're stuck in this stage of sadness. And you keep, you keep revving, and you're just sinking further and further. He says try anger as an alternative emotion. He says, I bet you quickly get traction, and it just pulls you out of this and gets you back to a state of joy. And he was basically saying you didn't have enough emotional range for the problem that you're facing. And it was really true. I grew up in a world where, there was not much anger at home. My parents did a pretty good job. And then at work, I dropped out of high school when I was 16. There was so much anger all the time. And I got swept up into the anger of work, which is sort of like a kill or be killed environment. And in a meat factory in Australia. And I was like, I didn't have a gear of turn the other cheek, so I just defaulted to passivity. I didn't, I didn't know how to control my anger, so I would just shut my emotions down. And he said, listen, man, there's a middle range, where you'll let it out and it'll move through you, and then you'll get healthy again and it'll be in the past. And so yeah, like it was amazing. My wife's very supportive. She was like, I'd start getting angry. She was like, this is good. Get the anger out. And I was like, now you're making me laugh. And, because I wasn't very good at being angry. But that really was a gift, you know. We had that, part of that, we were talking through the window of tolerance, which is, you know, there's a zone of function that you could be in and you've got to find out, you know. I was, I was apathetic, you know, it was a hypo-arousal. I just needed something to get me out of it and get me back into a healthy place. So yeah, I do get angry a lot more now, but it's not at people, it's rarely at people. It's normally about things.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:40:51] Allowing yourself to go there though versus this like hold back, play it safe. Jon, I was gonna ask you, in this chapter of dad life right before your son gets married, is there any just new things that have popped in? Maybe this is the way that we'll kind of end the conversation. Any just things that have popped up recently that you're like, man, this is a new aha for the dad life, that might be helpful for us?
Jon Tyson: [00:41:12] Yeah there is. I would call it the pain of Zebedee Silence. You know, when Zebedee, when Jesus says to Zebedee, sons, drop you nets, come and follow Me. He'd probably raised them. He probably taught them to fish. He probably had his plans for them. He probably had his retirement built on them being around and caring. And when Jesus called them to leave, they dropped their nets and Zebedee says nothing. And, that's just the silence of a dad realizing I've done what I can. I've got to surrender them into God's call for their life. And any advice you give your kids, they do not ask for is seen as a lecture. And you've got to wait for them to invite you in or pray for them. And I am feeling the pain of Zebedee's silence, of just saying, okay Lord, I've tried to raise two Godly adults, and they're both wonderful, you know. I mean, wonderful young, young adults. As many times I just have to shut up and pray and let them go into the call of Jesus for their life and not try and control or guide it, or tell them or hey man, they're with Christ now. I can pray for them. So that's a, that's a probably the biggest thing. The pain of silence when I want to speak.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:42:28] Yeah. Well, I know you are just so passionate about the learnings and the wisdom from the Moravians, and I was hoping you could just pray a prayer for, it's my four daughters, and then the countless other kids represented from the dads who are listening right now. And the Moravians, like God would stir the hearts of the children to reignite, is what I've kind of learned, to reignite this movement of revival. If you could just pray for those kids specifically and that he would stir their hearts, to close our time.
Jon Tyson: [00:42:52] Yes. Yeah sure, man. And always great chatting with you, mate. Thank you for caring about dads. Dads often feel overwhelmed and underprepared and they they do feel isolated. So I love what you do on bringing them together is very, very important. And, it's really a joy to see the the way God's blessing you on the fruit that's coming. But, let's pray. Father, I just want to say thank You. Your word says that praise comes out of the mouth of babes and out of the mouth of babes you'll establish a stronghold against your enemy. Father, I just want to pray for our kids. Lord, I ask in the name of Jesus that we will be men like Jesus and not the disciples that make space for the children to come. Lord, we want to pray You forgive us for being so busy that we've driven the kids away from Your presence, or our own desires and ambitions have blocked our kids from seeing You. We just pray that You will make us men who create pathways for our kids to encounter, Jesus. Lord, I want to ask for every kid that is represented by whoever's listening on this podcast. Lord, I pray You would increase their love, for dads love for their families and their children. But Lord, I just pray that You would put your hand on these kids. Lord, we ask for spiritual inheritance with each child. Lord, we pray that they would come to know You at the first available opportunity. We pray that they would consecrate themselves to You and be marked and set apart from those in the world, not to judge them, but to love, serve, and be available to reach them. And we pray that You would just deposit a spirit of prayer into our children. Lord, I pray give us praying kids. Kids that know You, love You, hunger for You, grow in intimacy with You, and have authority with You. And Lord, I pray that You would give us the ability to spur our kids on, to raise them up, and to hear when they speak to us or challenge us. Lord, I think of Duncan Campbell's daughter, who said to him, why doesn't God use you anymore for revival, Dad, he used to. And how it broke his spirit and changed his vocation and he stepped back into his call. But I ask that You would give us kids who speak to us and remind us of the call of God in our lives. So I pray power, love, blessing on all of our children. Use them to be sold in line in this generation. We pray this in Christ name, Amen.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:45:15] Thank you so much for joining us this week for episode 331 with Jon Tyson. Guys, if today's conversation made you like, man, it stirred up some new areas of I would love to hear more from Jhn Tyson. I'd love to hear more about his thoughts around intentional fatherhood. I want to send you over to our show notes. So, dadadwesome.org/podcast, open up the show notes for today. I'm going to link the last two conversations we had with Jon Tyson. We've had him on two other times on the DadAwesome podcast, three years ago and four years ago. I'm also going to link his Primal Path course. I'm going to link the book the Intentional Father and of course the book we talked about today, Fighting Shadows. He also has a email that he sends out about every other week. You can sign up for that email list that'll be linked in the show notes. And, as so many other resources, Jon Tyson is just like we are just cheering on anything he touches, anything he creates. Oh, I mentioned the Awakening Network podcast, this is a podcast around prayer and sparking movements of revival and movements of leaders and dads praying for their families, praying for their churches, praying for their communities. So, there's so much more to dive into with Jon Tyson. I'm so thankful you guys joined us today. Let's be dads who take action. Don't just be learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. Let's be dads who say God, what is it from today's conversation that I can put into action, that I can put into practice, that I can show up a different dad for my family? That's what I'm praying for for you guys this week. Thank you for listening. Have a great week with your kids.
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· 10:40 - "I always tell people, my vision is intentionality, it's not perfection. No one is perfect. In fact, the perfect fathers are often the ones that damaged their kids through such high expectations. It's just do your best, live in love, be honest with your struggles and get help. Rely on the community of men to help raise your kids. Ancient societies were not primarily just father-son societies. They were the community of men playing a vital role. It was the tribe that helped formed men, not just this psychotic pressure on an individual father."
· 19:23 - "I know everybody tells you this, be careful when you kill time, it has no resurrection. You can waste time. You can kill time. Waste time. Use time. Invest time. Redeem time. Or leverage time. And a lot of God, that's Ephesians 5, make the most of the time. That's not the word kross is the word kairos, which means you were in a season right now, that must be leveraged that you will never get again. It's not the same in every season. So I'm not advocating a kind of guilt where every, like, if every spare moment should be in prayer. That's, that's death. That's the law. I'm advocating, I'm advocating an awareness of your season. The things that need to be harvested now or they rot. Or seed now, or you missed the window to sow. Or enjoyed now or it's gone. How do you really figure what that is in that season and leverage it? Make the most because the days are evil. So yeah, it's about really trying to leverage the season more than anything else. First you got to know what it is, but when you know what it is going to be aware and go after it.”
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