Episode 251 (Morgan Snyder: Part 2)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 give it my all.Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:39] Welcome back to dadAWESOME. Today, episode 251 is the second half of my conversation with Morgan Snyder. Morgan joined us about two and a half years ago on dadAWESOME, but today is the second half of a conversation recorded just about two months ago, at the end of September when I was in Colorado Springs. If you missed last week's episode, I want to encourage you to hit pause and go back and listen to Episode 250 first before today's conversation. We're going to pick up today on the topic of play and even my questions that I asked him, we were 20 days into our dadAWESOME RV tour, now I think we're we're like 50 days into this. So it's about a month ago when I recorded this, but I think it will be applicable. I think all of us are wrestling with man, how do we navigate playing, as how do we be dads who who are child like? I think there is something about God's heart, childlike hearts to engage and be a dad with that kind of heart and play is a part of that, but we need wisdom in discerning what does that look like to to play and set time aside strategically to engage in play. So you're going to love this conversation. Here's the second half of my conversation with Morgan Snyder. I was going to ask, because this is day 20 that we're recording of this trip that will be likely a 250 day trip, I mean, like, it's it's a lot of days on the road, but in these first 20 days, play has been a pretty common for me. I've experienced quite a bit of play, some with our family, some with mentors, some like this trip down to Colorado Springs today of driving a sweet rental car away, nicer than my car, right? Turo. Yes. And and having great conversations with mentors and friends like this is a, and my wife knows, this is a play day for me. Like this is so fun. There's so much joy in this. But I wentt jeeping for 5 hours in Buena Vista with it with a mentor, that's play. I went climbing with our mutual friend, Alex, that's play. There's been a lot of play for me and it's been intentional. My wife has had, we had a day that was a Michelle day, as we landed in Loveland, that was a gift. But in general, I have been playing. I love my job. She sees, she's like, she sees delight and joy in my eyes. And she's working really hard with four daughters. And those every moment that I go play is a moment that she's working as a single mom with our girls. And and part of even your encouragement to seek brotherhood and to seek moments like your eight day hunt you went on which I know you came back from because of of course things change and you come back because your son and his health. But the how do you, could you just help me with the next 20 days being better than the last 20 days and how I still enter play and still pursue and and and say yes to the God yes' of come to Colorado Springs. Which my wife said yes to as well, she's like, Yes. But how do you navigate bringing some of that joy to to Cherie and and her to experience a pathway of joy bombs and friend moments and coming alive, do you get the tension?Morgan Snyder: [00:04:01] Oh, I do. I do get it. And, I think what I'd say, Jeff, one thing particular to the season that you're in with the RV and the Brotherhood, just that ties into play. But I had a buddy that also went on a hunt and he took a friend, through a weird sort of circumstances, that doesn't hunt and they had never been in the field together. But they're neighbors and they had spent three years of relationship in the suburbs. And he said what transpired in those three days compared to those three years was just two worlds apart. There's just something about the intimacy of being in the field and cooking together and sweating together and and struggling through hard things and having a joy moment that that doesn't translate to a picture, you know, that sunrise or that bugling elk, he was at 30 yards with binoculars on a bugling elk coming in, and he had never been near and elk before. That's like piss your pants kind of moment, right? And so like that was three days. And so just that that the joyful reminder of the Father's heart of like He can do that even when you don't have the geographical proximity where you drop in for a two day deal. And yeah, you do know there's someone trustworthy in Kansas for your girls for four days and you find an adventure to tack on to that and something then for Michelle. So just to name God is infinitely creative in fulfilling the need in a way that's congruent with the season when we feel like it's impossible. And so to just close the door to unbelief in that. But with Michelle, I think it gets me really curious of, I don't know Michelle, but I would venture to guess your play often doesn't align with her play. Five hours of jeeping, driving through traffic in a rental car to do a podcast, probably is not play for Michelle. Okay, maybe. But let me just tease this out for a moment. The question is, well, what is play for her? Where does she get to experience all the the the manifestations of the kingdom that come through what we name is play, right? That inefficiency of it all, the glorious wastefulness that the the reality that it's not for producing anything. And so an example, my wife wanted a dog for a very long time. I'm one of those guys that didn't want one and that was very perplexing, because I don't have an interest in a dog. If it was a hunting dog that chased antlers and birds, it'd be a different story. If there's a working dog that herded cattle, different story. But just my DNA and my story, to be fair, just doesn't have interest. And so for years I had this posture of there are things that I can give you. In ways I can love you and a dog is not one of them. And, I will confess, Jeff, a lot of that there is a reluctance out of a victim mentality of I'm not going to fill in the blank, pay the money, let the house be destroyed, orient my life around a dog. Right? I have children. I don't need a dog. And through my initiation, what I came to realize is there's so many layers of what God wanted to bring for my wife and my daughter through dog. And it's inefficient and the math doesn't add up. We spent more on our dog's first year, and we're not even through it, than we did on the lives of both of our children in their first year.Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:03] This is part of my story. Very similiar thing happened to us a few years ago.Morgan Snyder: [00:08:06] Good. I need, I need a friend here because it's like, blow my mind, what are we doing here? And I feel my skin rail and yet it is a place of play for my wife. She takes Malley down to Bear Creek Park almost every day. And it's like a for me it's a major anxiety zone because there's always one Doberman, you know, that's untrained and there's always like drama. And I'm thinking, is my dog going to crap on someone's shoe and all this. And she just it's light and easy, it's her joy, and she's really good with the dog. So, the whole point of that story is I had to do the work to become the kind of person that can celebrate my wife's joy and in what she values for play and then champion it not as a victim and also do it with a with a self-respect. Where I sat the girls down and I said, I'm ready to bless you with a dog. I would love to do that for you. And you just have to know I need boundaries because of my story. I'm not signing up to be the primary caretaker of your dog. And so I'll partner with you on this. And and so it's doing the work to then be able to see what does she need to fight for it, to value it as she values it, that that only comes from more wholeness of heart.Jeff Zaugg: [00:09:34] And there is valuing for, so for Michelle, there's a series of things that I need to value with her before you can get to wasteful, playful delight, of like there's a level of organizing the RV inside and out. There's a level of homeschool success and feeling like, Hey, this is level of like margin for fitness and exercise, level of, there's, there's these actually stepping stones before I can then help come around her and support the gift of true play. Where I, the way I'm wired, I can all those other things, even on the work side, of like I'm under prepared for this or that, I can put it all aside and I can go play.Morgan Snyder: [00:10:15] That's really different. Right? Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:17] Yeah. So, so there's a little bit of my curiosity, of figure out the stepping stones to help set up those moments of play for her. And I have not thought of it until this moment like that. So helpful. How about for your kids? For them to understand this is what it does to Dad's heart, to have deep friend time climbing that mountain or hunting that elk, especially even when they're a little younger. Like just for them to understand, like, this is time away from my kids. But man, it's so good for Dad's heart, for dad's friendships, for dad's soul. Like, you can bring that gift back to them. Was there any conversations or helping or ways to help them understand this is why Dad's taking time away?Morgan Snyder: [00:11:02] I think there were a lot of efforts when they're little and most of which failed miserably. They don't care.Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:10] You're just gone.Morgan Snyder: [00:11:11] One, the don't want you to go. And two, they want to come with you. Right? And so I think in those early years, you're going on belief, you're going on trust and confidence that this is the loving act, right? It's, it's the story of the two women who fought over the child and they both claim, this is my child. Right? And and then the verdict is we'll cut the baby in half and you each get half. And one woman responds, okay. And the other woman says, No, give the child away. And at that moment, we know who the mom is, right? It's like we have to offer the unthinkable at times in order to practice the prevailing care of our Father. And so I rolled the dice, Jeff, in the early days. I can tell you most of the women around my wife's world resented me for how often I tried to get out of town. And it didn't help my marriage and Cherie was standing alone. And, but over time, I rolled the dice and she experienced the fruit of, I'm a more loving man when I would come home. And actually in a very specific way, and I think it's important to name in the podcast, every man needs play, every man needs adventure, but wilderness is a necessity for every human being, it's not a caricature. And so wilderness might look different, but wilderness and nature is part of design for soul. And we could have a whole podcast on that, but there are elements like just simply a man submitting himself to a world that he doesn't control, that that he is exposed, that he is in need, that there's something bigger than him. There's humility. There's awe. There's the way things work that's essential for every man, his version of it. But for my children, what's so beautiful now is, they've lived through it, so I've kind of moved through your stage of the littles, and now I have teenagers. And so what's so beautiful is you'll know it by its fruit. So I can say it was bumpy in those early years. One of our favorite pictures is Abigail, just bawling as Joshua and I were leaving for his first time and he was two and a half, and he's going on antelope hunt with me and she was bawling, or he was three, because she was a newborn. And she's just going, I don't understand any of this. Everything is wrong about this. And it's just the most precious, precious picture. But now, so last week I was out archery hunting and actually two of my buddies harvested and wanted help with their elk and I wasn't there to help them. And I've set up a butcher shop. I love butchering wild game and so my garage becomes a butcher shop and I've got all the tools, so people love coming. But, Joshua's on his own and he's done it a lot with me for over a decade, but he's never done it without me. And it was this beautiful initiation of something happened in his soul that validated all those years of my time of choosing adventure. And now he's offering it to others. And then his his uncle comes into town, and he took his uncle for a bike ride, who's an Iron Man guy, and he didn't even invite me. He said, I'm taking my uncle and he tried to just work him and what's so cool is, it was a world I brought my son into because I started adventuring with man. I learned how to mountain bike, spent a lot of time on bike tours and brought my son into it. And now he's bringing others and now I'm reaping the fruit of those early years where I rolled the dice and didn't know how it would turn out.Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:04] Hmm. Thank you. That's that's incredibly helpful. And it is a common question between myself and these other buddies who you've been a source of inspiring us and challenging us to take the step. That's been a tension area.Morgan Snyder: [00:15:18] Oh it is. And the tension doesn't go away but masculinity is always synonymous with risk. And so a question to ask back to that question is like, where are you risking? Where you risking? Because risk is actually a practice, it's not just a dispensation. It's a practice like lifting weights and growing muscles or stretching, it increases with use. And the masculine heart was meant to risk in the in the Western culture, this hyper individualism, read about it with David Brooks, he's just brilliant on it. Like the water we swim in is profoundly adverse to risk, to play, to brotherhood.Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:03] It is.Morgan Snyder: [00:16:04] So we're not starting with an even playing field.Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:07] Yeah. So you've mentioned several books and even just the category of biographies and what we can glean from from biographies. How about books for for your kids? Any just like hey you've suggested, you found from mentors or friends and you've brought to your kids some books that you're like, I'd love for them to read? Any, any books on your list?Morgan Snyder: [00:16:29] It's it's really fun to be with you, Jeff, because like hearted, same gospel, same mission, different outposts, a little different season. So your littles piling in the bunk beds, you know, is back when I was giving my my daughter pedicures and manicures and I had a, ah, a Pinterest account to look at flower designs for nails and like those days are gone, right? We've, I would say graduated, but I'm too sad to say that, like I should say promoted. I'm too immature to say that. So I don't know where I am, but I'm not there. So reading books with my kids, I mean, that was like Cherie, oh, my gosh, hours and hours and hours. And I did it a good bit, but not as much as her. But we had some books like Danny The Champion of the World, just a brilliant book, written, older, early 1900s, setting in the UK. But it's a father and son adventure story.Jeff Zaugg: [00:17:28] Roughly what age? Do you recall when you read that one to your kids?Morgan Snyder: [00:17:32] I think I want to say like eight, nine, ten, eleven. Not younger than that. We had, like, Till the Cows Come Home, for my daughter. Oh, that is one of that when I read it to her before she even understood. But Danny the Champion of the World to to allow my father as a father and son to get lost in a story of a father and son, like it was just so good. And then when he's a little older, Far North, is another book, Will Hobbs, I think and not Christian in any way. But borrowing all of its themes from the gospel. And it's a story of epic adventure. A young, young boy swept up into an epic adventure that has a survival component. And the prevailing goodness of God in and over all things. And so those are the stories I'm looking for, where stories that capture their imagination. So you've been talking with some parents yesterday, our hearts will gravitate to the biggest, best story we can find. You know, drugs, sex, in high school, was the biggest story I knew. That was a big story. No one ever offered me anything bigger. And that's why I'm dreaming about this God, Love, Sex class, because, like, I want to cast a really big story for sex. I want to tell them how amazing it is that God has the best sex possible designed for them, and it's meant to come in a certain way. Right? The fire is meant to be in the stone fireplace, and I just want to wow them with a really big story so that when they have a 16 year old guy that wants to have sex with them, they know that's actually not a big story. It sounds attractive, but he wants to take from me and not give from me, so something's not right. Right? And so, Far North, was one of them. But what's really fun is now, as my kids have kind of been on time in their initiation, we've had all sorts of books that we're in, in our car, road trip, we have a culture of reading books out loud. And so we just read the what's it called, the Pushcart Wars. You've heard of that book? So great story. We've probably read it three times aloud, but now have teenagers and it's a little young for them, but it's the joy of we have a culture now, again, teenagers, not littles, but in the in the car, there's no headphones and there's there's only shared. So it's either shared conversation, shared silence, shared prayer, shared stories, shared books, but it's shared. It's not an individual experience. And so we just went camping this summer and read Pushcart Wars aloud. And and so it's not even so important what book it is as the manner in which we're experiencing them.Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:20] Yeah, I wanted to end our time with a George McDonald quote that you mention in the book, I think it's on your website as well, and I'll see if I get this right. "The hardest and gladest thing in the world is to cry out, Father from a whole heart." And there's another half to it but that's the part that I scratched out on my paper in the the reason I was drawn to this today is I have found myself like when you're with someone, you're just like, you can't help but say something because like you're affirming what they just said. You're crying out like, yeah, like I'm with you, I'm with you. I have felt through reading and listening to your book, Becoming a King, and then through, especially these last two episodes of your podcast, which again, The Land I'm living In, is what I'm just recommending all of our listeners, go listen to the four part series, but I'm finding myself vocally responsive to these moments, these miracle stories, these testimonies, these like I'm just like crying out with a and I have felt a glad heart. And I know I'm taking this quote a little bit in a side direction, but I want, so badly, for I want every one of these dads that I get a chance to encourage in a small way, to have a full heart, to cry out Father, to experience hard things. It's not just, to live from a place of gladness. There's so many parts I can a cherry pick from this quote, I want that. But even the like, I'm going to live like full hearted, I'm going to live vocal, I'm going to live crying out as I biked past Red Rock. That's where I was biking when I listening to your podcast. And I was I was vocally like crying out with a full heart. And part of it was the land, the backdrop.Morgan Snyder: [00:22:00] Oh, it's just a response to being loved, to being pursued.Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:03] So I want to thank you for for just you breathe some of that into me. The fuller heart, maybe even carrying a knife is part of that. Like I feel a fuller heart and more willing to be vocal with it. But I wanted to ask Morgan if you would just encourage and even riff on that concept as we land before I have you pray for us. Why is it missing and why is it important?Morgan Snyder: [00:22:28] Yeah, you know that a wise mentor once said, when the son is ready, the Father appears. When the son is ready, the Father appears. So often, it's actually the condition of the orphan that's blocking the radical love of the Father, the pursuit of the Father, the ongoing efforts of the Father to intervene. And so that's why there's this term, Brant Curtis named it first, as far as I know, but redemptive remembering, where as we recover pieces of truth and restoration, it is so important to look back in our story with a new lens, with a more mature belief and say, Where was God there? That Jeff I just couldn't receive Him because I wasn't open to it. Right? Jesus said these four conditions of the soul like one is good soil, rich and robust, but one is hard and path, that it doesn't matter how much water comes, it just washes off. That happens a lot in Colorado in this kind of semi-arid desert. And then the rocky soil, you know, where genuine things germinate, but the soil's just not deep and so it can't root. And then the weeded soil where good things grow but there's all sorts of other things growing greater still, right? Weeds take great resources and produce no fruit. And so it's so much about the soil and not about the nutrients. And so what I would say to men, that your Father is at work. Like He is here. Like He's arranged for this moment. Like, He's always coming. In every moment of every day, our Father is beckoning the son home. It's like the rest to just sit in regret about the past or worry about the future is the work of the enemy, but the work of the Fathers to risk just declaring I am a son, you are my Father. Could I then become the son that I am to a Father that is at hand, who holds nothing back? And Galatians says the full inheritance of Jesus Christ of Nazareth given to him by his father is ours. Today. Like Dallas Ward says, the kingdom is at hand here and now. It's the gospel of the kingdom now and forever more, not just later, as fire insurance. And so we have the full access to it is in entire Galatians says it's the full inheritance and Ephesians says we have equal access. And so, Jeff, the brilliance of being a son is you and I and every listener today, right now is equal access and has our full inheritance. And now like would we cash in on it? Would we receive it? And as we do, more and more of the father comes known to us and more parts of us, and this is the brilliance of God, more parts of us come home to more parts of God. And that's why it's an ongoing process that doesn't require a certain magic formula, certain circumstances, certain outcomes. It requires none of that. Psalm 23, Psalm 73, they say the same thing. You have a person that comes in need, they show up with lack and something shifts. And so, Psalm 73, basically, David's like, Look, I'm sideways. You know, that's the BGS translation, like everything sideways. I've been eating a shit sandwich. And by the end of the Psalm, what's shifted is his heart's orientation to God. And he finds himself, filled with the goodness of God, with the richness of God, with the generosity of God and nothing's changed. Psalm 23, he declares, God, you are my shepherd and therefore I shall not lack. In other words, I will not be in one. He comes with want, he comes with lack and he has to make the declaration. And so my encouragement to the men is wherever you are, whatever you're doing, like what if this is the onramp? Like, what if God has allowed this moment, this orchestrated circumstance, to be the perfect opportunity to bring just a little more of you home? And so these questions of what's not working, where is your fear? Like, those are the important questions not to hide from God, but to bring to God.Jeff Zaugg: [00:27:16] Morgan, would you pray over all of us listening that the right that God would just illuminate, what's the next step? What's the next, what's the shift? So that we all have hope leaving this time.Morgan Snyder: [00:27:29] Yeah, I'd be honored. Father, you are dadAWESOME. Like, you're the awesomest dad. You're everything we need. Right? To cry out, Father, is the hardest and gladest thing to do it from a full heart. And I confess, Father, I come to you today without a full heart, without a whole heart, with parts of me that are still lacking in their initiation. And I see it manifest with my wife, with my kids. I'm seeing it manifest with my body, in my in-laws. And God, I just come to you confessional saying I am in lack. And I have failed to receive you, as you fully are. Father, I'm asking for you to give me grace, to open myself to you. Right here. And right now. And Holy Spirit, I'm asking for you to shine your light and illuminate some particular place of, the word that's coming to me is testing. And it might be attached to aggression or apathy. It might be attached to fear or failure. It might be attached to success. Holy Spirit, shine your light in the place in me, that's right now, the place of testing. That I am reluctant to let you Father me, God. As a whole, just wherever God has taken you in your sanctified imagination or in your story, Jesus high risk inviting you into this place. Jesus, you say you and your father are one. That you do nothing apart from your father. That your father is in you and you are in your father and through your life, Jesus, by choosing you, by saying yes to you, you open up that equal access. And I can say with all my heart, I am in the Father because Christ, you are in me. This mutual indwelling. So, Jesus, I invite you into this place through your power. You were raised from the dead and ascended and have claimed authority over all things in every measure. You are in control. You hold it all together. Ephesians says, that you are at the center of everything that you Christ in your kingdom is not peripheral to the church too, or not peripheral to the world, but the world is peripheral to the kingdom. And God, so I pray through your power, Jesus and your guidance, Spirit of God. Father, you would come and shepherd me in this place of testing where it feels impossible. It feels hopeless. It feels defeating. I pray that you would come and Minister, your Ministry of Sonship. That you would integrate this part of my story into you step by step, by day and by decade. That you would shine your light and you would show me just the next first step. What is it that is in my power to do, with this testing? One step, who is it that I am supposed to journey with in this struggle? Show me their face. Who do I need to let in? Father, I need more of you. You are awesome and yet there's still much reluctance in me to invite you into all of me and my story. And so I come as I am. I bring you everything I am and everything I'm not. And I declare, I am your son, you are my father. Would you father me today? Amen.Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:59] Thank you so much for joining us for Episode 251 with Morgan Snyder. The Conversation Notes and links, and I just want to so strongly encourage you guys to listen to this four parts podcast series, The Land I'm Living In on the Become Good Soil podcast. That's all going to be linked in the show notes. dadAWESOME.org/251, dadAWESOME.org/251, is the links to all those. Reading Morgan's book or listening to it on Audible, becoming a King. I read it twice. Transformational. I want to encourage you guys to check out everything from Wild at Heart, but specifically Becoming Good Soil and his book Becoming a King. So, guys, thank you for listening today. Thank you for choosing to be dadAWESOME for your families. Let's have an amazing week with our kids.