Episode 250 (Morgan Snyder: Part 1)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.Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:39] This is episode 250 of dadAWESOME and my name is Jeff Zaugg. Guys, thank you for listening today. I started this ministry, this podcast almost five years ago, this January will be five years, 250 episodes in. I am so thankful to have Morgan Snyder joining today. We actually recorded a two part conversation, so today 250, and then next week, episode 251 will be my conversation with Morgan Snyder. He leads Wild at Heart with John Eldridge and leads the ministry Become Good Soil. Wrote the book Becoming a King. Guys, I am so thankful for this conversation with Morgan. He's made time with me every time I've been in Colorado Springs over the last three years here. He's made time to sit down, have a chipotle burrito with me and just cheer on and speak life into me. He cares more about me than he cares about some ministry that I lead. And that's my heart for you guys is that this conversation would transfer into your hearts. God has put dreams on your heart. The thing the common thing that brings us together is fatherhood. He's put the dream on our hearts that we want to be dads who are becoming dadAWESOME, who are adding LIFE to the dad life, who are saying, man, this Deuteronomy 30:19, I've set before you life and death, blessings and curses now choose life so that you and your kids may live. We want to be dads that are choosing life. That's what brings us together today, but I believe there are dreams on your hearts that that today maybe there's a little bit of those, those dreams will receive kind of a fanning and a like encouraging word, a spark to say move into that dream. That's what Morgan has been for me. So I'm so thankful. We actually just kind of recorded the whole time together, and I didn't know when I was going to start the podcast. What was he sharing for me and what's he sharing for all of us? And at first I was going to cut this first part out and I was going to just save the main conversation to share with you guys. But his challenge to me, his concern and loving concern for me as a leader in wanting me in my family to flourish, I thought was important to share with you guys. So I want to just share this little two minute clip and then I'll tee up the rest of the conversation. So here's the first part of my conversation with Morgan Snyder.Morgan Snyder: [00:02:59] An acorn doesn't need to be told to become an oak tree. It doesn't need to be told, it doesn't need to be demanded, it doesn't need to be coached. It needs to be cared for, right. Formed and Forged. And so you take care of the soil. You give it great nutrients, you give it great moisture, you weed it and it becomes, right. And so I think just the DNA is is similar for what we're doing. My heart for you is, I mean, you're, you're in the stage of like all pistons firing. And Michelle and kids, and this. dadAWESOME, and it's all good. It's all good. But it could all take you out.Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:49] Absolutely.Morgan Snyder: [00:03:50] And I think, you know, just my heart for you is ten years from now. Who do you want to become? Right? That, me and Matthew McConaughey, taught me it, of like the our greatest hero should be us ten years from now, which is just a wild idea because we are only meant to become ourselves. And that idea of who, who am I ten years from now and then ten years from then and ten years from then? The idea is, the target is to come home to God and become fully ourselves. And so I just think as we jump into wherever God wants us to go. Just my heart for you is like the leading word I would have is just, like, caring concern. I would say concern, but that sounds punitive. So I would say caring concern as a brother to say, I want you to be healthier a decade from now. Happier...Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:53] Right.Morgan Snyder: [00:04:53] A decade now. Like, more well off, and how you get there, because the world's going to just spin. I mean, the world's just going to blow wind in your sails and and cheer you on. And I'm not going to join the chorus that leads you to a place that's not good for you. And I love what you're doing. And I love your marriage and your kids and your mission. And I love it. So do you hear my heart? [00:05:20][26.4]Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:20] I do.Morgan Snyder: [00:05:21] Okay.Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:22] So as you can hear from that encouragement, that challenge, Morgan's heart for me and my family, this ministry, that is my heart. I said from day one with dadAWESOME, if if my girls if my wife and I in that in that time it was two daughters, now four daughters and my wife and four daughters, if if they say daddy, husband leading dadAWESOME is not making you more awesome for our family. If they say, man, it's counter. If they realize there's a duplicitous, duplicitous, if there's a like, man, you're being this on the podcast, but this is who you are on the home front. They don't expect perfection, but they want to see it dad, I want them to see a dad with a with a compassionate, loving heart that's moving towards Jesus and moving towards our family. That's my biggest prayers that ten years from now, they would see a dad that really moved towards them, towards their hearts, a dad who who said, man, I'm going to be a loving husband, a husband that moves towards my wife. And we get more of that, this conversation. But I just want to say that on episode 250, man, that's my heart and prayer. And this ministry is, it's gone way beyond where I thought it would. So let's jump right in. This is the first half of my conversation, episode 250 with Morgan Snyder.Morgan Snyder: [00:06:41] How do you thrive? Right? Those entrusted to your care? How how are they well? And I think, you know, Jeff, one of the core ideas like I mean, this is a predominant idea, like blow your mind, stop everything, and there aren't lots of those, right. But it came to me through a mentor, Vance, sitting at Saigon Cafe when I turned 30 years old, sixteen years ago. And I mean, I can tell you what the place smelled like when he told me these words. Super successful businessman, kingdom centered, loves God, and he's built a lot and blown up a lot. And he said One of the great dangers that most men miss is they marry desire to fulfillment. They assume, and often, Jeff, this is subconscious because it's so plays to our DNA, our design as men, they get a desire and then they run with it. We run with it, I run with it and we don't pass because we don't have the miles of knowing the consequence of it going bad. We don't pause to say, what's the timing on that? And even more, what Vance pointed out to me, was desire is intended to be the fuel for doing the hard work, the brutal, slow process of becoming the kind of man that can fulfill that desire. And so, I was out in the woods, archery hunting, last week. That's why our communication was terrible leading into this.Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:23] Good reason, though.Morgan Snyder: [00:08:23] Yeah, it was good. And, you know, it's interesting. There aren't many contexts that I fail most of the time. Like even marriage, I feel like, you know, 50/50. Like, I learned a couple of things. So every time I fail, I know how to pull one off. Like, in other words, I'm saying my marriage that needs tons of work. Hunting, archery, do it yourself, public land, like, on any given day, like 5% is like the highest probability. Right? But you just think about your world and how we can manufacture worlds that fuel our "success." So an example out there, eight days of of beautiful country, lots of elk running and opportunities. I called in some bulls and and I didn't fling an arrow. And I could have and every opportunity I could have flung an arrow would have been marginal, would have been, let me say, unethical. And let me also say, would have been in a like kind experience to something I'd done in the past and flung an arrow. Not all the time, but I have had instances in my life where I regret a shot that was a push. It was too far, it was really not enough light. There was, you know, a twig in the way. And I just tried to say, well, I can I can get around that. And what God had in my initiation as a hunter, was practicing the masculine reality of discretion, right? Better is a patient man than the warrior, a man who rules over his spirit, better than a man who sacks a city. Like that harness strength, and the Hebrew word is anak. And it's like a horse under rain. So back to desire fulfillment. Like we get desire, it's often from God, but we don't become the kind of person that can steward that. So I have stories in my hunting, which was all like my walk with God, my initiation as a man. I knew nothing about hunting when I became a young man. No one fathered me in that in my earlier childhood. And so it's the desire to put meat in my freezer, to adventure with men, to learn new country, that gets me out and weather. And I mean, it was brutal weather and 14 hour drive there and back. My son had mono, I had to bail halfway, come back again and the fulfillment of the physical thing is down the road. It took me ten years. On the 10th day of my hunt to harvest my first bull with my bow, ten years like that is good for a man soul. So I just want a name for you, as you're navigating, becoming the kind of man that God can entrust with many and much. Honor, desire, fueled desire, celebrate desire, don't minimize desire. But ask the second question, God, how would this be the fuel for me to do the impossible things? And do the things that I want I'm reluctant to do and what is your timeline on all it? And it really changes it then from the storyline of most men like Zorro, fighting bravely and dying quickly.Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:08] Quickly. So you're, just to make sure I have this right, the desire is good, honor that, but use that to fuel a process of whatever God's timeline is. It might be a very long, the desire fuels the hard work for a long time before actually some of the the next steps or the opportunities or the fruitfulness. Am I getting that right? Morgan Snyder: [00:12:29] Well, Oswald Chambers takes it a step further, which just blows my mind. Guy's crazy, he died in his mid forties, he was not an old man and when I read his writing I feel like, man, what is the secret? Like, he nothing was wasted in that man's life. He was an apprentice to the core, that intrigues me. But he says the process is the point. That actually when we rush the process, what we do is just hijack the thing that God's doing and so it comes back again because our Father is generous and reluctant, the Holy Spirit is faithful to guide and redeem, everything for good. So, like, even if it goes completely sideways, not all is lost. It'll come back again. But as we grow in kingdom, authority and kingdom just reality of what and who were entrusted with, the consequences are much higher. And so what I would say is I am learning to receive the reality that outcomes are less and less valuable and rushing the process actually makes it much more difficult because the processes and the process is the point and what we end up, at the end of our life, giving to God is us. You think about that, Jeff, like we will live forever. We are, we are, we are a soul. Like Dallas Woodward says, like we're not really a person, we're a soul, and that soul lives forever. And what we bring to God is who we've become and nothing else. And so what if, I guess that would be my question back, what if the process was the point? It blows the mind of a Western thinking of the individual man, the accomplishment, the achievement. Right? Build the résumé. It just, it's pretty upending.Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:41] Yeah. I I love that you caught me in already talking about the process, the jumping to, and then that comes later, and you're like, Nope, let's just keep the focus right there. The process is the point. And that does kind of jump in my heart, back to part of our conversation two years ago, two and a half years ago, was your wife, is Cherie, right? Yeah, so is it 20 years now? How long have you been married?Morgan Snyder: [00:15:05] 22. And I'm glad she's not here to verify that because I'm usually off by one or two years. We'll see at least 22. Married, December 16, 2000, do the math. Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:14] Yeah, do your own math. So you, you told me you spoke about her being the chief life officer in our last conversation. And at one point, I think I have this quote right, there was a feeling that she felt like or said, I feel like a bird locked in a cage and I can't fly. And this was not right in that moment of time, but it was in the past, that was a valley you guys walked through. My, the reason I draw back to that moment is I've spent the last two weeks, I believe this a lot over the last two weeks, part one and part two of the Land I'm Living In podcast series with Become Good Soil podcast and our friends Jonathan David and Melissa Helser, there ministry is called Cageless Birds. And I was just curious in this moment of time, thinking back to your wife and feeling caged and knowing that story that they shared with you, which I hope that everyone listening right now goes back and listens to this this four part series that you just are releasing. But the idea of flying and getting like the cage and becoming the cage and and what you saw with your wife flourishing in a season of like pressing into that and then even what God's doing in your heart today and then what He's showing you any any just current state reflections around being cage free and flying and and not staying trapped?Morgan Snyder: [00:16:33] Yeah, it's funny, I was just editing episode three of that, Become Good Soil podcast yesterday, and Jonathan tells this great story that I was grabbing this quote from because it just so moved me of this caged eagle, lived in a zoo for decades and they were going to set it free, and it was a true story down South America, and they had this big ceremony and they open the cage in this wild preservation and the bird doesn't fly. And they wait for a few minutes and it's a little awkward and minutes turn into hours and it doesn't fly. And what Jonathan said was they realized at that moment the bird wasn't in the cage, the cage was in the bird. And so even when the door was opened he had, he had lost the belief, I'm an eagle and eagles fly. So and I get choked up thinking about because what's so moving in the story is a wild bald eagle went across and called out and then this bird flew and so like freedom begets freedom. Life begets life. Repentance begets repentance. And the reason why I share that story, that was my story with Cherie at the time. She she was a caged bird and I didn't know and she had the courage to share that in a marriage counseling session. But what I'm grateful now, I'm a decade or more past that counseling session and what's so beautiful is I want to say this gospel works. Like we're not who we will be one day, but we're not where we were. Like, I have joyfully surrendered the trump card and there's no strong arming in our marriage anymore. There is there is mutual curiosity. And I say that phrase very particularly. It's like, we want to know what God's doing. We're going through some really tough things with our kids right now and I think back when we did that interview and I was lamenting on what it was like years ago, I think I would have stepped into that mode of, I'm the leader. I'm going to come through. I'm going to make it happen. And my intensity would have been in the service of a really uninitiated boy, in the name of God, and that's where this thing gets tricky. I would have thought I was doing good and being a good man, but if you had asked me, how am I feeling inside? It wasn't peace. It wasn't confidence. It wasn't well-being. It was scramble. It was behind. It was react, fear, control. And now we're going through some things and it's sad, it breaks our hearts. But our primary posture is curious consent. God, what are you doing, for our children? How do we participate in Your initiation? Cherie, what are you discerning? What am I discerning? Like, how do we bring both of us to this equation? So it's really back to the story of the eagle calling out to the eagle. What we found is more of the heart of God saying, I got this, right, to to come into a God that tranform us, that transforms us to become the kind of person that can say, I have enough, I am enough, and God, You are more than enough. Because if it's just these circumstances, we're screwed. Like, and I don't know what to do. And I'm angry and I'm sad and I'm confused. But when I come back to the Father and rest in that place, Eugene Peterson says, God is the country in which I live. When I know and I practice, Christ is in me and I am in the Father. I have enough, I am enough, God, You are more than enough. Then there really is a union that we can sabotage things that look really good, that aren't from God and say, no, we we just want God. And when there's plenty of rooms to make mistakes in that in that way of living.Jeff Zaugg: [00:21:05] Would have been for you some of the moments or the voices that have been the Eagles cry, the eagles soaring over? You know, we talked earlier about many some of the fathers have passed away and are in heaven now. But do you have any, either moments or people, that have caused you to realize, oh, freedom does beget freedom, like I can step into more soaring? I'm living with some of that cage within me. Anything come to mind, that's a signal to you to fly?Morgan Snyder: [00:21:34] Yeah, that's a great question. I think one thing that I was deeply in the early thirties that I've returned to a lot over the last 12 months is immersing myself in the stories of wiser, older men. I remember I got, what is it called, it's Ronald Reagan, an American Life, I think. It was his biography. And and I'm not particularly passionate, I'm not passionate about politics. I engaged to the degree in which it's important to be a citizen. But I read his biography, and I was deeply moved. And what I was deeply moved about was masculinity, was the path and process of initiation. I didn't even have words for all of it, but to see a man over decades, and recently I've been living, saturating myself in Burning in my Bones, Eugene Peterson's biography. And what's fascinating, his son wrote the introduction, who also is a pastor, who they had a bumpy story. And what's so beautiful is the biography is chronological, and so in, I don't know, ten chapters, you just get this curated and distilled gold of God's process with a man. I'm now in Dallas Willard's biography, I think it was Gary Moon that writes it, Becoming Dallas Willard. And and, you know, it's not particularly intoxicating writing, but his life is intoxicating. He was a roofer. He was a roofer and he was a day laborer guy. He got Cs and Ds in a lot of classes in college. Dallas Willard, smartest man I've ever met, because he was doing day labor on farms, like abject poverty, abandoned by his father, abandoned by his mother, excuse me, like brutal. And it's beautiful to get into his twenties, in his thirties, in his forties, because the Dallas I met was in his sixties. Right? So I would say, old, wise guys has been really helpful. And then one other point, I think it's important, especially like in the context of dadAWESOME, is you know, Dallas would say if you want to find God, His address is at the end of your rope.Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:00] You got to get to the end. Yes.Morgan Snyder: [00:24:02] I love it. I love it. And I love parenting. It's what you and I share in common. It is our passion, right? I love the initiation of a young woman and a man into full maturity. It's what I live, breathe, eat, sweat, like think about all day. I'm dreaming out offering this God, love, sex class for seniors. I've wanted to do for 20 years and now I have a kid that's a senior and...Jeff Zaugg: [00:24:34] Seniors in high school? Wow.Morgan Snyder: [00:24:37] And Cherie's a little reluctant, so we'll see where that goes, but I just love it. So with my second child who happens to be a daughter, I kind of put forward my best dreams for her life in my practical shepherding your heart and a ton of stuff backfired. And you ask, What is the call of the eagle? I remember the day that I'm sitting on the couch and my daughter's telling me every way that I've blown it and, like Jeff, I can't believe this conversation is happening. Here's the thing that I most value and apparently I most suck at and in some ways it's my life's work. And it was moment of such, I'd call it humiliation, but it was actually humility because I just went, Wow, what do we have here? I didn't go to shame. I went to curiosity and I realized, okay, God, I need You, I need You to show me what You're doing. And what what was revealed over time is there was actually a lot of dreams I had for my daughter, that I thought were God's, that had to die. And a lot of that was my uninitiated places in the way in order that through all that death I could come open handed to God as it related to parenting these children in this story and come with genuine curiosity to say, Father, what are you doing now? What are you doing now? What's my role? Where am I in the way? And it would be one thing if it was just like my brokenness and my sin as far as like this, like needing to use her for my validation. But a lot of it was actually what I thought was good for her. And I was off. I was missing the mark. And so it's both the mentors and those men beckoning me to the ancient path. And it's also my pain.Jeff Zaugg: [00:26:52] That's the moments.Morgan Snyder: [00:26:53] It's the moments of pain where I just go, this is this is the, this is the on ramp.Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:00] Wow. The moments of, I lead a ministry called dadAWESOME and I feel like I'm a complete failure, on the fatherhood side, are way more often than what most people would think.Morgan Snyder: [00:27:11] Absolutely.Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:13] So your story is a gift to me. You're saying that it happened, that you walked it. The eagle cry of a reminder of who I am, who Gods created me to be, to take the jump, to soar, to fly, to get out of the cage. You have been that eagle cry for me, Morgan. Six months after after my dad passed away, I read your book twice, that summer. And and it was shortly after we had our last chat two and a half years ago. So I couldn't tell you this, then, but I can tell you this now that your book, Becoming a King, has so strongly been an eagle cry of I like This is my story. What it's done is it's unfolded my own story. Like, it's not just it's not just I've read your story, but it's like, oh my goodness, look at all the areas of my story that God still wants to father me through. And I have several friends, actually, multiple of them were, two of them were praying for me on the whole drive down here knowing, they sent me questions to ask you, these friends. It's interesting, though, your friendship goes deeper when you know someone else has been impacted in a similar way by the same person. And you're that person for this group of friends that your book is a bit of multiple read for these other guys, Andrew, Kelsey, Pete, Skip, these guys. It's been an eagle cry that's changed the trajectory of our life. And I have told multiple people, I've told small groups of, of, of dads, I've said, what if God has created dadAWESOME, and He's giving me a voice to, now almost five years of a podcast, to plant some seeds or even maybe it's not even seeds I've planted, I get to water a little bit. And the next step down somewhere is, is Morgan's book, Becoming a King or your podcast. I wonder sometimes, I'm just so grateful, anytime I discover a treasure like that, that's part of the chain, I'm just like, God, I hope everyone that I get to touch just goes to the next step. So you've been that for me, but you've also been there for a lot of others, and I wanted to say thank you.Morgan Snyder: [00:29:17] Thanks, Jeff. I received that and I'm really humbled and honored. And here's particularly why is like part of, you mentioned identity, like early in this process of initiation for me, God began kind of speaking my name to me before I even understood the theology behind that. It was fascinating. And in one of the pieces was He He said, I would be a man who has the privilege of shaping and being shaped by men who are shaping God's kingdom. And so I have the privilege of investing in leaders of leaders, and I no idea how you would do that. But that was part of the desire fulfillment, where that was the beginning. I thought He was launching me. What I didn't know was he was saying, Buddy, don't forget this, because when you're eating a shit sandwich again and again and again, you know, the only thing you'll be able to ask is, would you like fries with that? Right. Every good man eats a lot of them. You have to go down, to go up. You have to do the slow and steady, you have to do the work of dismantling and in being aware of all the broken parts within us that are uninitiated and lacking maturity and in union with God. And so that was the fuel. And so Jeff, to to know, like you are one of those rare men on the earth that at a post, being entrusted with a kingdom. And I believe that this podcast, like a lot of these listeners are intended to be men and the women that support them at these posts to recover everything that God meant when he meant masculinity. And those posts are very different, that's what I love, is so many of them are, are communities and schools and businesses and politics and very few churches and some non-profits and some for profits. But all of them there's this like hearted fellowship of kings around the globe that are maturing, that are at their post, and there's this awesome reciprocity that's happening. And so I'm just yeah, I'm so encouraged. And I think a question I'd have back to you on that, Jeff, is like, where do you feel like are the, the greatest risks for you, like the pitfalls the oh, wow, this, this or not even the greatest, but maybe a few that stand out? That you go this is precarious because you even mentioned, right, like there's the public Jeff and there's this the story people tell themself about you, especially as a parent. And then there's your real life like and the danger in a public role is a sort of duplicity where we're offering something that we're not living. And so I would I'd just be curious in in some authenticity of like, do you see some potential pitfalls that you go, Jesus is inviting would be to be vigilant about that category?Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:17] For sure. For sure. And this is this is all this is very fresh, but it's also constant over these almost five years of leading dadAWESOME. And it's the the rhythms of opportunities and real responsibilities and navigating how to, what am I saying yes to when a series of opportunities all we've been praying for and they've all become oh, look at this, yes, stacked with yes, stacked with yes. And then there's the real treasures, which are my four daughters, my wife. And we're right now living in an RV, and God has nudged us to travel in the RV, to homeschool as a couple, not as Michelle's homeschooling, but we're homeschooling as a couple. And feeling the, look at these invitations, how how do I say yes and then keep my yes or say no and be joyful in I've chosen a better yes. And it's been a real challenge, especially these last couple of weeks here in Loveland, Colorado. We have this stream right behind our RV, beautiful spot. But there's been some real ups and downs, moments where we're seeing a we're doing marriage counseling through zooms we just had yesterday a session that we're like, this is really hard, the things my wife shared. And it's interesting that you brought up Cherie in a marriage counseling a ten plus years ago because the things she shared made me feel right in that place of this is dad awful and husband awful, not dadAWESOME, not husband awesome. It made me feel that way. But we did, through the course of that hour meeting, we drew closer and I, I didn't feel like a failure at the end of the call, but we went there. We went into some this is hard work and shortly after that we went into the stream and I've been stacking I think they're called cure ins, the stacks of rocks and my daughters all stacked their age behind our RV. And I went back and I stacked, I tried to stack my age, but what happens when you try to stack 40 rocks is it fell over multiple times. And the reason I'm taking this to this story versus away from vulnerability for a moment is like I, my daughter saw me restock and it fall and restack, and my wife was actually in the back window of the RV and she said she was laughing out loud watching it. So she was she experienced joy. I actually experience like what is the right order and what level of tipis okay, as you go higher. I got to 23. I never got to my age. But it was a moment of, I want so badly to make sure the right rocks, the foundation work is right and I like daddy/daughter dates was very consistent before we were on the road in the RV and we traveled six months last year, we're traveling nine months this year. Feels so strongly, this is a journey God has lovingly invited us into and given us the grace and the resources to do. But some of those core rocks, one of them is brotherhood, it's like, I need strong friends that sit around a campfire in a consistent way, and in the RV it's been deep brotherhood for moments and then we leave and say goodbye to the Front Range, we had the San Diego for a month. And it's a, it's been a real grieving process to see some friends that God sent me other friends that have really been a blessing in the phone calls and and using Marco Polo and other tools. But the friend rock of my foundation is really been a shaky rock in this season of the last two years. And that's been that's been hard. It's been hard for our marriage, it's been hard for my girls, I mentioned the daddy/daughter dates, that's been a rock that was real consistent when we were at home in a neighborhood with rhythms. In the RV, it's been a lot harder.Morgan Snyder: [00:36:00] Yeah.Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:01] And so some things that I just I'm like, this is so strongly, this is the way of being dadAWESOME is, is dating your wife. It's hard to find a babysitter when you're traveling from city to city that you can trust with your four daughters. So dating looks different, friends look different. Dating your daughters has looked different. Rhythms of just the household and space and time alone looks different. So in some ways there's a bunch of areas that feel shaky, but they're shaky in that huge family value of ours is together. Like we're closeness as a family, and that one's really strong. Hearing the voice of God and touching, every time my hand brushes past my knife in my pocket, it means my Heavenly Father is still fathering me. So I feel very close to my Heavenly Father. I feel very close to my family. But there's some other pieces that are like, Man, it's really hard right now. And I I do feel like we're pressing into those hard and and not like shaky, it's all going to come crashing down. But, like, no, it's it's it's hard.Morgan Snyder: [00:37:02] And, Jeff, what I notice in what you just shared so beautiful is like that you, Michelle, are still doing marriage counseling in the RV and like, you're not settling for, okay, well, and I can't imagine with four girls in an RV how you even pull out off counseling. And also what I appreciate and what you just articulated is the values remain the same. Right? We understand these values of dating our wife, of intimate time with our kids one on one with genuine, authentic brotherhood, that is a fuel. And yet, every season, how we live those out, it can be dramatically different and we the in the the importance of pausing and resetting and saying, Jesus, what does that look like now? Like, you know, dating my wifem as an example, like we did that pretty consistent. Well, first of all, before kids like it was natural. It was like, let's go, it's what we did right? We didn't have to be told to go have fun. And then the kids come and it's a swirl, and then we realize, like, where did that go? And but now that they're teenagers, we just put a stake in the ground and said, you know, they don't want to be with us on Saturday night. And so now all of a sudden, Saturday night was a family night, and now it's back to joy night, started last January and we said, now the ground rules are it's only fun. We don't talk about anything important, whether it's tough, you know, or like it's just interesting and necessary. Like, if it's important, we don't go there. We're just choosing joy because the rest of our life is tending to all the unfinished, tending to the growth like, going through counseling, doing hard things, but we need joy. And it's it's been an absolute refreshing shift that we couldn't have done that sort of we we weren't ready. Our kids were in that stage. But the idea is we're constantly for us, it's semester by semester, beginning of summer, and then each semester to say, where are we now? Because our kids are changing dramatically. So I just love that you're naming categories of concern and specifically Holy Spirit, how do we address those in this moment of our life? Because you're in a very unique place that's not a one size fits all.Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:38] Guys, thank you so much for joining us for this first half of my conversation with Morgan Snyder. The second half, episode 251, will will drop just a week from today. Every Thursday morning for 250 weeks now, we drop this podcast. And I want to encourage you if this week, if you're like, man, I want more dads, I want a few and maybe it's your brother in law, maybe it's your neighbor, a coworker or if you're like, Man, this might be helpful, dadAWESOME might be helpful to another friend in your sphere of men, you have their cell phone number, you can text them, dadAWESOME.org, the easiest way. You can of course share on social media and Instagram or Facebook sharing dadAWESOME.org or a link to this specific episode, but but sometimes the individual text message actually shows affirmations like, Man, I see you as being an awesome dad for your family and I thought of you with this podcast. Because that's our heart, is to engage awesome dads and to encourage all of us to take a step towards being dadAWESOME for our families. So thanks for passing this along. Thank you for checking out the show notes, dadAWESOME.org/250, all the conversation notes. We'll see you back next week for the second half of my conversation. Have a great week, guys.