363 | A Million Little Miracles, Recapturing Childlike Wonder, and Lessons from Four Famous Visionaries (Mark Batterson)
Episode Description
It's time to wake up to the wonder all around you! Tune in as Mark Batterson shares simple ideas to shock your system and spark your curiosity. From prayer walks to outdoor adventures, you’ll discover new ways to connect with God. Plus, Mark recounts his favorite wisdom from four thought leaders to help you go all-in as a dad.
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Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church in Washington, DC. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Regent University and is the New York Times bestselling author of 24 books. Mark is married to Lora, and they have three children.
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· Childlike wonder and pure delight are sacred, holy things.
· Change of Pace + Change of Place = Change of Perspective
· Nature acts as an antidote to narcissism.
· There are no ordinary days.
· You have never not experienced a miracle!
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· Send a Voice Message to DadAwesome
· Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
· A Million Little Miracles by Mark Batterson
· Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson
· The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson
· Chase the Lion by Mark Batterson
· Praying Circles Around the Lives of Your Children by Mark Batterson
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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 got 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.
Mark Batterson: [00:00:39] You have to be a student of your children, discover what they love, and then learn to love what they love. My oldest son loves to bike. I am going to learn to love to bike and I have. And the feeling of training and then crossing that finish line together, it really does more than double your joy. Those adventures have been a ton of fun.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:01:05] This is DadAwesme, episode 363, and we are celebrating this month, January 2025, we're celebrating the seven year mark of this ministry. DadAwesome started in January of 2018 and here we are seven years later, continuing on this mission of activating dads to lead with wonder. My name is Jeff Zaugg and guys, I'm so excited about today's episode. Mark Batterson is back. This is his third time, we think it was three, maybe it's his fourth, joining DadAwesome. He's been a partner, a friend and encourager of DadAwesome and our Fathers for the Fatherless movement, and I'm going to tell the story about an 11 mile prayer walk that happened a year ago. We're going to lead in with that story. We're going to go into his new book, he can't wait to share more about A Million Little Miracles. And guys, I just want to say thank you for being a part of this movement, DadAwesome only exists because hundreds and thousands of dads have said we're in for this mission. We want to be a part of this mission. We want to see a generation of dads being awesome dads. And we believe the world changes, our communities change, our churches change, our families and our grandkids and great grandkids are changed by dads being awesome dads. So thanks for being a part of this movement. I want to invite you, anyone interested in starting 2025 with a jolt of intentionality, the DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort. It's a six week sprint gathering everything we've learned in seven years of DadAwesome into a six week sprint. This intentional group, there's only ten dads that are a part of this and we'd love to invite you to join. All you have to do to learn more and to apply is email awesome@dadawesome.org. So send that email, so you get all the information. Simply email awesome@dadawesome.org. All right, enough of that. Let's jump into today's conversation. Let's kick off the year 2025 with this conversation with Mark Batterson. Mark, I have to start this question, because it's new, this phase, grandpa life. Are you like you're like nine, ten months into grandpa life. Is that about right?
Mark Batterson: [00:03:29] Yeah, that's about right. And we're loving it. My Mondays are our Sabbath. So Lolly and Pops, Grandpa and Grandma, we get six hours with our grandson, and we are loving it. It's just likem, it's like living life all over again. And so we're loving every minute of it. It's a new hat.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:52] I have to ask, you said Lolly and Pops. So your wife is Lolly and you're Pops, Lollipops.
Mark Batterson: [00:03:58] Yeah. Put it together, yeah, it's kinda fun. I mean we have to see what, what comes out of his mouth when he says our names but that, that's our leaning, so, yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:09] Amazing. It's been a couple of years since we had you on for a conversation with DadAwesome. Now we've had our paths have crossed over multiple century bike rides with Fathers for the Fatherless, a couple hosted events for fatherhood ministry leaders. So I feel like I've, you know, chatted with you a lot, but not to share on the podcast. So thanks for coming round three. I think technically this is round three, I can't even quite remember. But the excuse today is the launch, one month ago today, you launched A Million Little Miracles. This, this book that is power packed with dad principles and the like it threads actually I mean even our mission at DadAwesome of activating dads to lead with wonder like you're, you've given a gift that any dad can kind of explosive a like connection, heart connection and like wide eyed like storytelling and Aha moments with our kids. But we're going to thread back into the book in a moment. But I want to start with saying thank you and here's, here's why I wanted to say thank you, Mark. You inspired me with a book you wrote almost 30 years ago or a prayer walk you took almost 30 years ago. This prayer walk, you know, long before we ever met, connected, I was inspired to, to make that part of my rhythm is going on prayer walks. And we moved here out of the RV season, we moved here to Northeast Florida and I took a prayer walk on January 15th of this year. So this is from the time of we released this episode, you know, just about a year from, from that moment, I took a prayer walk, a 11.1 mile prayer walk. Now...
Mark Batterson: [00:05:39] Wow. You went farther than me.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:41] Yeah, yeah a little further. But I had the, I had the day and my watch, you know, recorded it. So I actually have a timestamp that I can see where I, where I walked. And I just prayed, God, you know, we're renting a house, we've been on the road a long time. Is this the place you have for our family? And I spent a long time walking and praying. Well, just last month, we locked in our closing on a purchase of a home, that's, as I looked at the prayer route, I'm finding that exactly 51 weeks from that prayer route is when we're closing on this house that was on the prayer walk and is truly a gift from God. Like we didn't go out with a realtor, we waited, this house came to us. So I think forever my girls, my family will know that dad walking and praying led to this miracle that is now a house we can use for, it's going to be home base for DadAwesome, but also, you know, hosting and the girls. And I've even said I could see them getting married in this backyard, of this house like it's more than we could have asked or imagined. So I wanted to say thank you because without knowing you, I read and was inspired and started a rhythm and habit. And we're going to talk about some of the people that you have read that have caused just a new focuses, new priorities in your life. And we're going to kind of unpack a few of those people, those mentors to you. But I wanted to say thank you to you, your, these are the specific books. Your book Draw the Circle, Circle Maker, Lion Chaser and Pray In Circles Around The Lives Of Your Children, those are the four books that that really did anchor some like, this is who I am now as a dad, that's how I show up as a husband. So, thank you.
Mark Batterson: [00:07:19] Man. Well, Jeff, that's pretty fun. And I'll just, you know, I'm having this mental picture because one of the bikes centuries that, the first one I did with you, I started cramping up around mile 92.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:36] I remember that.
Mark Batterson: [00:07:36] Do you remember, you drafted me up that last hill and help me hit that, that century mark, that hundred mile mark. So I, I have drafted behind you on a bike and you have drafted behind me with a book. So we're, we're, in different ways, and that that's what it's about. It's about drafting off one another. And but man, I'm so thrilled for you. You have been so faithful serving the Lord. And I'm just thrilled that you found a home base that the Lord has blessed you with.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:13] And our timing, I mean, our timing is not God's timing, our timing, sometimes there's years and years delays from prayer walks, and sometimes it's months and sometimes it's a year, in this case. But there's yeah, there's a lot of hope that I have because I've seen it in the rearview mirror. I've seen so many times where we have pressed it in prayer and we have seen God bring our family to a next step. And so it grows trust and it grows faith. And I'm just going to just quick side note, The Lion Chaser's manifesto, I'm not going to read it today because I, we've shared this on previous conversations, but it's just the easiest, you Google Lion Chaser's manifesto, you don't have to even buy the book, you can read and be challenged by it. But I texted to a friend this morning I texted that, that that little screenshot and that the book Lion Chaser is the posture of us as dads. I want to be leaning in versus leaning back. And I want to be, you know, I want to be an all in kind of dad that raises girls who are leaders who believe they can do, you know, they can step in the size of their dreams, not the size of what they've seen, they think is possible in the short term. So I thought we'd start here, though, a quote, Gordon McKenzie, I think is the author, did a study on the inner artist and studied a bunch of kids and their drawings. And this is the quote that came from this study and that basically this is where it lands, is the the the pressure to be normal. And I'm thinking about your grandson, I'm thinking about my daughters, all the other kids represented. But the quote is, "genius is an innocent casualty in society's efforts to train children away from natural born foolishness." Okay. So you could take that all different directions. I'd love to hear you. What does that kind of what rises up in your heart with that quote?
Mark Batterson: [00:09:54] Yeah, well, we better differentiate between childishness and child likeness. And so, you know, the writer of Hebrews said, come on, grow up. You're still drinking milk. It's time for solid food. So there are a lot of people that have been following Jesus for 25 years, but they don't have 25 years of experience. They have one year of experience repeated 25 times. That's childishness. But child likeness is kind of recapturing that inner child that is still within each one of us. And I think child likeness and Christ likeness are are two sides of the same coin. So Jesus said, you can't even enter the kingdom unless you become like little children. And, you know, Jeff, that may be one of the most multi-dimensional statements that Jesus made because there are so many facets. But I think one of them is this sense of wonder. It's a childlike wonder. I think another is a playfulness. And, and there might be people, you know, listening, thinking well, that doesn't sound very spiritual. Well, Sir Francis Bacon called us God's play fellows. And I love that language. And I write about it in the book a little bit. You know, even Psalm 104 says, Did God form the Leviathan to frolic, to sport, to play? This is this is a God who has a playful side. He's not a cosmic killjoy. Quite the opposite. He wants us to get back in touch and kind of release that, that inner child that maybe lost its innocence at some point and for many of us, in the wrong way, right?. So, yeah, that's, I think that's what comes to mind when I hear that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:49] I think a day could be normal or a day could be sparked with unforgettable awe and wonder, just based on my perspective of what I'm looking for. And you use the hummingbird, a whole page, you unpack and research you found about the hummingbird. And I am fascinated by hummingbirds, but I've never like done the research and sat with my daughters and said, Hey, do you know about their heartbeats? Do you how about how many feathers they have? How fast their wings, how they sleep? I mean, these facts.
Mark Batterson: [00:12:19] Yeah. And, and the fact that they have the strongest pectoral muscle, which I think is hilarious because they're such small creatures. But to be able, to be able to hover the way that they do, I mean, extraordinary creations of God, no doubt.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:37] Yes. But it's just an example, when we say activating dads to lead with wonder, we have to go looking for it. We have to, we don't stumble. And really the mission from day one, we're celebrating seven years of DadAwesome, right as this podcast releases here in January and, and from day one it's like the dad life can be normal, drudgery, complain about dad life or we can choose to have eyes wide open, shiny eyes. Even on the hardest days we get to choose joy, choose intentionality. Choose to be a moment maker. Choose to bring some wonder and discovery. Choose to celebrate even though 99% is going bad. But there's got to be something we can celebrate. What does that stir up in you, when you here activating dads to lead with wonder?
Mark Batterson: [00:13:25] Yeah. I think you have to choose adventure. And you know, my wife and I kind of joke, Lora, you know, FOMO, the fear of missing out. She's like Jomo, The joy of missing out. She's, she is, she's wired in a way that she's not quite as adventurous as me. So, I'm having, what I'm doing is just acknowledging the spectrum of personalities. But at the same time, I think one of my jobs is to take my kids on adventures. And so one of the things I do and Jeff, you've helped me with this, is I try to have an annual adventure and an annual challenge. And that annual adventure, you know, it, it might be a rite of passage with one of my kids. Like my oldest son, we hiked the Grand Canyon, rim to rim, my young gun, we rafted the Colorado River with my daughter, Summer. We attempted the escape from Alcatraz, where you swim from the island to the shore, but it got fogged out. Unbelievable. But an annual adventure and then an annual challenge where, you know, you might run a triathlon together, you might do a bike century together. And, and, of course, you have facilitated some of those challenges and adventures. And, and it bonds, it bonds us together in a way that, like, there's something about sweating together towards a goal that really forms the cement in relationship.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:06] There's something about like the college days where it's just pretty normal to like, say, Hey guys, what if we go do this and load that spark? Yeah, exactly. It happens less, it happens less. You know, I'm in my 40s now. It just happens less, I see less of my friends saying, Hey, what about this? And it doesn't have to be a long time away from family. It could be, what about this, let's work out before the sun rises together. Let's do something, I'm holding, if you're watching on YouTube, I've got two pictures. Here's one of them. This is in a hot air balloon, and it is Mark and I and a team of some other leaders of fatherhood ministries. Here's the second photo that I'm holding up. And this is one of our largest teams ever, a Minnesota team that did that century ride Fathers for the Fatherless. And so I have these two photos now. I read 4 or 5 of your books, we had never met each other. You know, I already, my life was already impacted far before we had any experiences together. And that's where I want to, just as a tangible example, let guys like the dads listening, we can spark moments for those around us. Sometimes it might be a mentor is a part of that. Sometimes it's but, but it takes it takes a decision. Instead of, hey, this next September, instead of it being a normal September, well, what does it look like to pray into, how do we set a goal, set a challenge, commit to an event and invite some others along? This is something that, that you were, you're pretty quick to say yes to. Which was wild, I know it tied with, its one of your son Parker. It's been so fun to get to know your son. He's joined us both those times, which is cool that it's a family bond as well. But why, why do you say yes when asked? And why do you think most dads should be initiating some form of adventure with other dads?
Mark Batterson: [00:16:46] Yeah, well, I think you have to be a student of your children and discover what they love and then learn to love what they love. So I probably, Jeff, if we're being honest, I would not have done that bike century by myself. I really wouldn't have. And part of this goes back to when I started setting life goals, I realized that the first list was pretty selfish, that there were more getting goals than giving goals. And so I kind of flipped those financial goals and, and a lot of them were about me and myself and I. So, I started adding a relational component. And, and I just know my oldest son loves to bike. And so I'm like, I am going to learn to love to bike, and and I have. And the feeling of training and then crossing that finish line together, it really does more than double your joy. So just thinking through the relational components has been, been huge. And so those adventures have been a ton of fun.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:00] Yes. And most of the adventures that I'm thinking of right now exist outside the walls of a building. And the one, one part of the fun research that bubbled up when I was reading this book is around getting outside and getting outside without a phone because I know some of the studies show that if you do the walk, but you got a phone, it actually reduces. But you had, I love this, it said, there was a study about Half Dome, which I had a chance to see. I didn't hike half done, but I got a had a chance to see it. And, and the study said that the hikers on the way down after experiencing this mountain, they were more kind and more generous after just the exposure. So bigness, right. There's something about the, man, I'm realizing that I'm a small part. So you actually wrote "There's something about nature that acts as an antidote to narcissism." And I do, I mean, I drift. I think most of us dads drift towards selfish like a towards self, right. So, yeah, expound on that fourth, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Mark Batterson: [00:18:56] Yeah. Well, in the book I write a little bit about two foot field trips. And you know, the first one is Abraham. He's in his tent. God says, Go outside, look up and count the stars. And, and, you know, one second he's inside the tent. Next second, he's outside. What's the big deal? Well, as long as he's inside the tent, he's staring at an eight foot ceiling. The second he steps outside, the sky's the limit. And so I think God is always trying to take us on field trips and, and take us outside. If you lose touch with nature, you lose touch with nature's God. Sso I do think that all truth is God's truth, that God has revealed Himself through his creation, Romans 1:20 And the first House of God was not brick and mortar, a church. It was a place called Bethel where Jacob woke up one morning and said, Surely the Lord was in this place and I wasn't aware of it. So, you know, I write in the book about just kind of the theology and the psychology. Like there's something called the three day effect or three day phenomenon that when you get into nature and it's a study that was done on Outward Bound Adventures where you measure creativity before and after, and about a 50% difference, Jeff. I mean, that's, that's crazy. So, one of my formulas is change of pace + change a place = change of perspective. So I think great leaders are good at kind of mixing up their routine and finding ways to think new thoughts. And sometimes that requires a different place or a different pace. You know, I even think of the, the leaders that you brought out to D.C. You did a field trip here this summer, and then we did a field trip over to the Museum of the Bible. And it's that kind of thing where you get outside your routine and it just you come to life all over again.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:58] Yeah, there's a Hebrew word that I might be pronouncing wrong. Is it tov? Is that how you pronounce T O V, tov? What is tov? Yeah, what does it mean to you?
Mark Batterson: [00:21:09] Well, seven times in Genesis 1, it says in God's saw that it was tov, it's good, but it's gooder than good, it's too good to be true. It's as good as it gets. But really, it's original emotion. God takes delight in life. It's His original reaction to His creation. He says it's toast. And so I think childlike wonder, pure delight, these emotions are sacred things. They're holy things. And I think that that's the way that God designed us. The challenge is what psychologists call inattentional blindness, that, you know, we become immune to just immune to beauty, to joy, to kind of things that happen regularly. We lose track of it. In fact, can we do a little, little thought experiment?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:06] Let's do it.
Mark Batterson: [00:22:07] Okay. So right now, people may say it's an ordinary day. There are no ordinary days. I don't believe in ordinary. We're on a planet that's spinning at a thousand miles an hour, that speeding through space at 67,000mph. So even on a day we didn't get much done, we did travel 1.6 million miles through space. Now, my question is, when was the last time you thank God for keeping us in orbit? And the answer is like never. Like we don't pray that way. Why? Because we take constance for granted. And a guy named G.K. Chesterton said "we should marvel at the permanent thing, not the exception. We should be startled by the sun, not the eclipse." So it's this idea of kind of waking up to the wonder of everyday life. And so, Jeff, there are no ordinary days. There are no ordinary people. There are no ordinary things. Einstein said "only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle and the other is as if everything is." So, A Million Little Miracles is really about waking up to those miracles that are all around us all the time.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:23] Yes. And I want to play a little game around Wake up moments, like shock the system, basically. And these are just examples, we'll ping pong and I'll throw some out, you can throw some out. But how do we shock the system into alertness and curiosity? So I could walk out this door and grab a garden hose and just drench myself with cold ground like, like, well, water. And like that's not normal. That's not a normal thing I do at 2:30 in the afternoon, but that's an example of like it could cause a shock to the system. Go ahead and throw one out. Any, any examples of ways to shock the system.
Mark Batterson: [00:23:57] Yeah. I think instead of driving wherever you're going, walk there or bike there. And that, that different mode of transportation will kind of mess with your mind a little bit and mix things up.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:12] Yes. Here's another one, just breathe in, breathe out. There's something powerful I've learned about these breath prayers and the breath of God and that we've been gifted the breath of God. And if I do ten deep breaths and ten exhales and pray the same thing or just pray like gratitude. God, thank You for this, thank You for this. If I do ten breaths, that shocks my system into gratitude. Let's go one more each, you got another one.
Mark Batterson: [00:24:33] Well, I think gratitude journal where you're just looking for things to be grateful for and you write them down. The act of writing them down reinforces what you're grateful for. So your focus determines your reality. If you're looking for something to complain about, you'll always find it. You're looking for something to be grateful for, you'll always find it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:57] Yes. And another one, so I've been using ChatGPT to learn facts about things. So I could literally, I could walk out the door with one of my daughters and the first insect, animal, whatever we find, let's learn about it together. And it's just, it's just such an easy way to, like, let's learn together. I don't know. You don't know. Let's learn together about this thing. So, yeah, it's just fun and that takes me into the wonder switch. And I think about the DadAwesome dashboard and how do we help dads create like a little bit of awareness? How am I doing and steadiness of like, I can just change a few things and actually increase the amount that I move from dad average to DadAwesome or from Dad annoyed to Dad amazing? Like there's a scale and we never are fixed. We're always bouncing between, right. What would you add around a way to use the wonder switch to say with intentionality, I'm going to like switch on more wonder?
Mark Batterson: [00:25:50] Yeah. I mean, it might be just instead of you planning and prescribing a day off or a day with your child, let them, let them dictate where you go and what you do. Let them call the shots. Just kind of reverse mentoring, so to speak, and and just see, see what that see what that does. And I will say this, you know, different people, the wonder switch flips on in different ways. So, you know, it could be nature for some, it could be music for others, it could be an art museum for some people. Some people would fall asleep in an art museum. They need to go to the stadium and get the adrenaline rush of, you know, watching 11 guys on both sides of the line of scrimmage run full speed into each other. So whatever that is, you have to figure out the way that you're wired and, and be intentional. You know, here's a question to ask, when in the last year did you feel most alive, most present, most alert? What would be the the day? What would be the place? What would be the moment that, man, that, that was a day when time stood still and you have to kind of do an audit like, you know, even now I would have to kind of search my memory and think about, okay, what were those moments? And you can't recreate them exactly. But I think with intentionality, so much of it is just a willingness to do anything other than the path of least resistance.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:38] Yes. You know, walking into your office when you guided, you know, the group of us, we get to come and just have a tour of the property your church has there in Washington, D.C. We walked in the office and there's these four pictures hanging next to your desk and you already brought up Albert Einstein. So he's one of them. These are people who have impacted you through their writing and through their lives that that's shaped who you are today. Like I mentioned earlier, you're one of those people for me, Mark, and I'm so grateful. But could you take one at a time, we'll start with Albert Einstein. What, like what, what pops out? Like, why him? And then what's a dad principle? Anything that you'd be like yup, do this as a dad. I learned it from him.
Mark Batterson: [00:28:20] Yeah. It's, I call it my personal Mount Rushmore because it's four pictures. So Albert Einstein, page 755 of the biography that I read when I was 21, he said, "Never lose a holy curiosity." And so I want to cultivate that in in my kids. So tip of the hat to Albert Einstein, then George Washington Carver, one of the greatest chemists, agronomist. You know, he's known for 300 different uses of the peanut, but he saved the economy of the South through crop rotation. But it was Carver who his life verse was jJob 12. It says, Speak to the Earth and it will teach you. So he would get up at 4 a.m. and take prayer walks through the woods, and that was his classroom. So Carver is just the man, the myth, the legend. And then John Muir is really interesting. He believed in baptism by water, baptism by fire. He had the New Testament memorized, but he also believed in baptism by nature. And he said that his mission was to save the soul from total surrender to materialism. Like he just saw even 100 years ago. Like we tend to live in these very insulated environments and something is lost in the process. And then finally, Teddy Roosevelt, who man, the picture I have is him riding a moose, which is pretty funny. But here's what I would say, just as a father, Teddy Roosevelt would keep heads of state waiting to play hide and seek with his kids in the West Wing. So this is someone that, you know, he never really grew up. He always had this kind of childlike, playful demeanor to him. And I think you know, that, that's one key for sure to being a great dad.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:30:33] I'm going to include, in the show notes, so we won't talk about it now, but a recommended book on the life of each of them. I've listened to some podcasters, but I actually haven't read deeply about any of those four. And so I'm going to take it as a challenge myself to to jump in and read at least on one. So thank you for the flyover, though, the quick flyover. I wanted to end here as we celebrate seven years of DadAwesome and as we, you know, we look to a future of continuing to grow this community of dads who want to lead with wonder and want to step in with their whole hearts, grateful for you and your encouragement, the ways you've cheered us on in this journey. But I want to, I want to see more of the miraculous. I want to have a lens to see and anticipate today, I'm going to be a part of miracles, and I want to help my kids know that God is doing miracles in every breath, in every moment. I use the phrase with my daughters all the time, I love you to the moon and back. And they'll say, Well, I love you to the moon back and I'll give me back the two handed, I love you. You talk about, well, I love you to the moon and back times Google, they know that's a really big number, right. But some of what you have sparked in this book is, is the bigness and the even the Greek word miracle, right. And miracle...
Mark Batterson: [00:31:50] And wonder.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:31:51] Wonder, same word. I wanted to give you just a moment, a final charge to the dads, to you to lead with wonder, but to be expected for miracles.
Mark Batterson: [00:32:02] Yeah, I think, you know, when we hear the word miracle, we tend to think of anomaly, epiphany, exception to the rule, things that defy laws of nature or defy a doctor's diagnosis. And I've experienced those kinds of miracles. You know I have. But I think this book is about waking up to the everyday miracle. So, Jeff, right now, 37 sextillion chemical reactions happening in the human body. And I didn't flip a switch this morning. I'm guessing you didn't either. We didn't have to do a blame thing. In Him, we live and move and have our being. The heart will pump six quarts of blood through 60,000 miles of veins, arteries and capillaries. That's twice the circumference of the earth. So people who say I've never experienced a miracle, with all due respect, you have never not in fact, you are one. I mean, come on. There, there is six feet of DNA, microscopic DNA in the nucleus of every cell in the human body. And so if you stretched it end to end, bout 10 billion miles to the moon and back. There you go.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:33:14] This is the quote.
Mark Batterson: [00:33:15] The moon and back, 150,000 times. And so, Jeff, part of where I'm going with this and I, I don't pull too many punches in the book. I'm just, I'm, I'm tired and weary of being made to feel foolish for believing in intelligent design when the truth is it's common sense and it's common science. When, if we think we can teach this narrative that you're a cosmic accident, the result of random chance, which is a false narrative. If we think we can peddle that narrative and it not affect the soul and the psyche, we're fooling ourselves. The Bible has a very different vision. We have a theology of dignity that we are the image of God, the apple of God's eye, God's workmanship, fearfully and wonderfully made, created a little lower than the angels and crowned with glory. And if our kids don't understand this, I mean, how are they going to treat people? I want to treat other people for who they really are, and that is a miracle. So I think there's something that is even beyond getting beyond our own narcissism or our small little world and kind of waking up to gratitude. It's a larger cultural issue that you cannot take God out of the equation and not experience all of the side effects that come with that. And so I hope and pray that the book wakes people back up to A Million Little Miracles.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:34:59] And it's not, it's not a children's book, but it's written for dads in these bite sized sections that truly we could read a page and a half, a little section and and have plenty of conversation points to show. In fact, Pippi Longstocking, the great philosopher, Pippi Longstocking, talks about being thing finder's, Tthing finders. And you've inspired this, I've seen it in various rooms where I've been with you that you pulled out your notebook and start writing down when something is shared that I missed, I missed it. And I see you gathering that really the curiosity that Albert Einstein inspired in you. So one more time, I want to say thank you and just invite you, Mark, would you pray over all of us dads as we close?
Mark Batterson: [00:35:36] Yeah, absolutely. Lord, thank You for every dad listening. God, I pray the joy of the Lord let it be our strength. I pray the peace that passes, understanding that it would guard our hearts and our minds. Lord, I know as a dad I beat myself up way too often for mistakes made, things I said or didn't say. And I know that there aren't any perfect parents, but thank You that there is a Heavenly Father who compensates for us, who makes up that difference, and who is a good, good Father, who gives good gifts to His children, whose gospel is good, who works all things together for good, whose will is good, pleasing and perfect. So, Lord, we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. We give You praise today. Just encourage dads, in their guts just to keep on keeping on to do our best, love our wives, to love our children. In Jesus name. Amen.
Zara Zaugg: [00:36:51] Thank you so much for listening today. This was episode, what again?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:56] 363.
Zara Zaugg: [00:36:58] 363 with Mark Batterson. You will find all of the show notes at dadwesome.org/podcast. Thanks for being awesome dad's. Can you tell me what to say? I’m Zara Zaugg and I like this podcast. Can I have a tic tac? Can have a tic tac and a mint if I want to? Thank you so much for listening today. Thanks for being awesome dads.
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· 19:02 - "[Abraham] is in his tent. God says, Go outside, look up and count the stars. One second he's inside the tent, next second, he's outside. What's the big deal? Well, as long as he's inside the tent, he's staring at an eight foot ceiling. The second he steps outside, the sky's the limit. God is always trying to take us on field trips and take us outside. If you lose touch with nature, you lose touch with nature's God. So, I do think that all truth is God's truth, that God has revealed Himself through his creation, Romans 1:20... One of my formulas is change of pace + change a place = change of perspective. Great leaders are good at mixing up their routine and finding ways to think new thoughts. And sometimes that requires a different place or a different pace."
· 32:04 - "When we hear the word miracle, we tend to think of anomaly, epiphany, exception to the rule, things that defy laws of nature or defy a doctor's diagnosis. And I've experienced those kinds of miracles. But I think this book is about waking up to the everyday miracle. Right now, 37 sextillion chemical reactions happening in the human body. And I didn't flip a switch this morning. I'm guessing you didn't either. We didn't have to do a blame thing. In Him, we live and move and have our being... So people who say I've never experienced a miracle, with all due respect, you have never not, in fact, you are one."
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