No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Start Strong, Run Hard, Finish Well | The Middle Miles
In Part 2 of our three-part series, we explore the “middle miles” of life—the busy decades of raising kids, building careers, and juggling growing responsibilities. How do we stay intentional and faithful in the thick of it all?
Through touching stories, practical insights, and biblical wisdom, Brody talks about thriving in your 30s, 40s, and 50s—not just surviving. From prioritizing church to rethinking family vacations, this episode offers real help for running hard with purpose during life’s most demanding season.
Whether you're in the middle of the race or gearing up for it, this conversation will equip you to live with joy, focus, and generational impact.
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Hey, this week's episode of no Sanity Required we're looking at part two of what we started last week Start strong, run hard and finish well. I hope that you'll stick around and hear what we got to say, regardless of what age bracket you're in. Last week we really talked about folks in their teens and 20s. This week we'll move into 30s, 40s, 50s, somewhere in there, or maybe 20s, thirties, forties and into the fifties, but I think the bulk of this will be, uh, targeted at folks that are in that family raising, business, building, career, path of life. You know what I mean. And then, uh, we'll follow up and finish up with how to finish well, which is, you know that, into your maybe your 50s, but for sure 60s, 70s and beyond, and I hope that you'll stick around, whether you're in that age bracket or not.
Speaker 1:Hopefully this will be helpful for everybody and you'll at least get something out of it. We'll also give an update on what's happening at SWO. We just finished week three, had an awesome week, headed into week four now, and we'd love to give you an update on that. Read some texts and some reports. I think it'll be awesome. So, again, welcome to no Sanity Required.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:This past week we had a group of students at camp. They booked as this is not their first summer coming. They booked as a group called Ray Weed's Legitimate Children, and it's hilarious because Ray Weed is the name of an early SWO skit character that I would be and that I would do. One of the guests we had on NSR a couple years back, Jessica Hoover. She's one of the people that spearheads that group and so the Ray Weeds Legitimate Children group is a group of people that all the parents worked at SWO and now their kids are of the age where they're coming to SWO and it's just, it's a lot of fun. But I got a kick out of it because this past week I was talking to those kids, uh during I think it was during lunch one day, and I said, hey, I'm gonna. I love the Ray weeds legitimate children uh moniker or group name for y'all, but I'm going to start calling you the descendants of SWO. So the descendants of SWO was the name that I stuck with for the rest of the week and I thought that was pretty fun. But anyway, shout out to all of them. A lot of those folks listen to NSR. It was just an overwhelming blessing to have them at camp.
Speaker 1:I tell you to have been doing this now for 27 years, going on 28 years at SWO. We're coming up on 28 years in September since Little and I moved to Andrews and we're over 28 years from the time the Lord really gave us the call in and we started to work with other family members and put this thing together and a lot of people involved to get this thing off the ground. On Little's family, the land was put up, a lot of people contributed. Her parents were obviously the, the, the founding partners, and this thing would have never happened without her parents, and what her dad did was was to to give this thing to put wind in the sails of SWO. I don't think we would have ever got off the dock or offshore or off the ground, however you want to say it without his contribution and leadership, and I'm so grateful for that. And then, um, along the way, a lot of people contributed on my, my side of the family and a little side of the family. I mean those early summers I had, uh, some cousins that worked here my brother worked here just a lot of involvement from, from, uh, our families and little's brother worked here. Um, little had a cousin that worked here. So early on it was such a family affair and then it shifted into you know, those folks moved on and entered into their careers and their lives and went in different directions. But the folks that came early to work in this ministry in those first I say the first 10 years, all of them have a part in this ministry existing in terms of building and establishing it. I feel like we didn't really firmly have both feet planted where we could say, yeah, we've arrived, and I don't mean that in a negative way, like we've arrived, but you know what I mean. As far as we've arrived, we're here, we're here to stay, we're established, we're not going anywhere. I feel like we were about 11 years in when that occurred and so anybody that was here in those first 11 years played a vital role in establishing this ministry, and some of the folks whose kids were at camp this week are in that group or part of that team, part of that group, part of that family.
Speaker 1:I wanted to read a couple of text messages I got, including a text message from Daniel Ritchie. I want to read something he sent and then share with you a post that his wife made. When she was here on Friday evening, daniel and Heather Ritchie met. They served and they met at SWO and married here Not here, but married, having met through the ministry at SWO and they both had some incredible things to say this week, just so encouraging. Daniel texted me directly and I was so encouraged. He said I love that.
Speaker 1:20 years ago I sat at camp as a staff member and you led us through Romans. My son is with you this week and you're walking him through Romans. Pretty incredible legacy of gospel, faithfulness, proud of you, thankful for you, and that meant a lot to me. That meant so much to me. I appreciate and love Daniel. He's moved on to incredible things. The Lord's using him in incredible ways.
Speaker 1:If you know, daniel, we've tried to get Daniel on NSR and we will eventually. We just we've had a couple of times where dates fell through. I had to cancel. We had something happen on our end, a death in our ministry. I was supposed to be interviewing Daniel and we had a family that lost their son tragically and that kind of consumed that week and I had to change the. I had to cancel it. So anyway, we'll get Daniel on here at some point. Pretty awesome what God's doing in Daniel's life through Daniel, and then I was just blessed that he would reach out. We try to stay in touch and I'm so thankful for his support and love of this ministry and um his wife, heather, who we love so much.
Speaker 1:And on Friday night I looked out and saw Heather, among a few other parents, um sit sitting in the crowd when I was speaking Friday night and she had posted this on Facebook. Our media team sent me this it's pretty awesome A picture of her and her son. I won't say his name I don't like to mention minors without parental consent or permission but Heather, she mentioned us in a post that was shared on Facebook. Let's see. I don't know if it's from Facebook or I think this might be from X or Instagram, something like that, but Austin Scott, our marketing and media, our media director, screenshotted this and sent it to me, because I'm not on social media, but it says 20 years ago, in 2005, was my first summer on staff at Snowbird SWO and Brody taught through Romans 8, and it changed my life. That same summer I met Daniel R, romans 8, and it changed my life. That same summer I met Daniel Ritchie, which also changed my life. Here I am in 2025 with our son, who is now a camper, and Brody is teaching on Romans 8 again.
Speaker 1:If that ain't God bringing it full circle, I don't know what is. This place has always been and will always be special to our family. It is a ministry I believe in with my whole heart because it's about the heart of God reaching the heart of man and it's the most fun you've ever had. The stories us old friends told today of the years we lived here and were absolutely feral. But there's no evidence, since it was before social media and she puts one of those laughing, sweating emojis social media and she puts one of those laughing, sweating emojis. So glad we can share this place with our kids as SWO continues to be woven into the fabric of our family's story. And I'm not going to lie man, when I read that from Heather, when Austin sent me that last night, I literally got emotional. I was so moved by that and thankful for it, and so shout out and love to all of the descendants of SWO Rayweed's legitimate children and to all of your parents, who I got to see and hug this week.
Speaker 1:This was a special week for me, seeing second generation ministry occurring and even with that, knowing that we now have second generation folks coming on to staff in the last couple of years we've had several people serve on staff. This summer we've got one young lady whose dad served in 2001 or 2002, and she's on staff now just speaks to the faithfulness of the Lord over the long haul. It speaks to the faithfulness of the Lord over the long haul. By the way, if you'll excuse the noise and background and microphone sensitivity, I'm sitting in my truck, I'm recording this week's episode on my mobile thing and it really picks up every little background sound. There's no microphone, there's no way to screen or filter noise, so I apologize for that, but hey, it's middle of summer, so we're making do with what we got. Every space at camp is occupied this time of year. I'm actually recording this on a Sunday morning and the Sunday morning between weeks three and four, so it'll drop here in about 24 hours, I think, but anyway, you probably hear some some. It's probably not great the background noise and I apologize for that, but I think this is a.
Speaker 1:I wanted to share those posts for one so you can be encouraged, but then also because I'm so encouraged by those and I'm just thankful and want to share them with you. And that sets us up for where we're going to go in today's episode, up for where we're going to go in today's episode. But before we do get into that, I wanted to just one more thing give a shout out to all the groups that came week three. We had an incredible week. I had so much fun. I really want to each week just reflect on the previous week, and so I man, everybody that was here for week three I had so many awesome conversations, so many young men and women coming up to me and shaking my hand or giving me a hug and just saying, hey, thanks. This ministry this week, this camp, whatever, has changed my life. And it's amazing how many kids come up and say to me how much the teaching and preaching ministry at SWO means to them. That's what God's using to impact and change their lives and that's the goal, that's what we're striving for, striving towards. So I'm really grateful for that and so thank all of y'all who came up and shared and spoke and encouraged me, encouraged our team.
Speaker 1:There was a this week we had people always ask me what's the farthest a group comes. People always ask me what's the farthest a group comes and this week we had church the church called Church 8025, which is from Thornton, colorado. Thornton is a northwest suburb, I believe it's northwest suburb of Denver and it's not a suburb, it's a city but it butts right up to Denver, so it's the greater Denver area. The pastor of that church is such a close friend of mine and he's a SWO board member and I love and appreciate that church and Michael Talley, the pastor, his wife Dale and their kids their oldest daughter, quincy, was at camp so I just wanted to shout them out because that's a long way to come. They fly into Atlanta, fly from Denver to Atlanta and then we go get them, shuttle them up, just awesome. A few other kids from the Denver area also come separate from them, but come on the same week and that was pretty cool. So we had folks from Denver here this past week.
Speaker 1:Over the rest of the summer we'll have folks from Kansas City, from Ontario, canada, from parts of Texas. So folks come from all around Minnesota, wisconsin and people will ask me why do they come that far? And the reason is nobody's doing what SWO does. What we do is unique and when you look at the entirety of what we do. You could go and get good teaching somewhere else. You can go and get incredible relational ministry somewhere else and you can go and have wonderful high adventure experiences somewhere else. But to have all of that under one roof in one week with the energy that SWO brings, you're not going to get that anywhere else. I hope you get to come this summer and see the energy that comes to the stage like before the services kick off.
Speaker 1:And, um, our, our production team is unbelievable. They're just unbelievable. John Rouleau, dawson, dickey, issa Pineda, um, jb is part of that team. Jb, who y'all know JB is, is'all know JB is not a stranger to y'all now because she's an integral part of NSR. She's as much part of NSR as I am now, and so you know her. She's on that production team. Zay is on the Zay Hart, xavier Hart is on the production team, michael Fitzpatrick a bunch of people that just do a phenomenal job. And then, like our AV guys, the guys in the booth, landon, chris, andrew. We have an incredible team here and I hope you get to come experience it this summer. But that's why folks come from as far away as Denver or Canada, because nobody's doing what we're doing and it's just an amazing thing to see.
Speaker 1:So with that, I want to get into today's, this week's content, and last week we considered what it looks like to start strong. Today I want to shift towards that second category, which is to run hard, and think of this as overlapping in the 20s and then maybe the 30s and the 40s. This is that period of life. If you're in this period of life where you're still raising your kids or you've still got kids at home, some of us are in two periods. For me, I'm in the run hard period, but I'm also in the finish well period. All of these there's overlap.
Speaker 1:When you think about the first category, which is to start strong, for some people they're starting strong in their 30s. You know it's a delayed start or you've just become a believer. You're starting strong at 50 or whatever, but this is not an exact science. In terms of the first category is the 20s. The second category is the 30s and 40s, or 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever, like age 30 to 55. It's not like that. This is the idea of whatever stage of life you're in. There's probably principles and applications for each one of these that would be useful for you, and so we think about running hard For me.
Speaker 1:I'm in my 50s but I feel like I'm in the twenties, thirties, forties, run hard category because I still have kids at home. Uh, we're still. We're not empty nesters by any stretch, we're still a good ways away from that. So there's a lot for me to pull from this. But then also that last category of finishing well, I mean, I, I'm thinking hard about that because that's also the category of life that I'm in. I mean, my dad passed away around the age I am right now and his mom passed away around the age I am right now. So you just never know.
Speaker 1:But let's get into this idea. The second category, the second part of this, which is run hard. Most of these are going to be kind of like, maybe feel overly simple. You know, like, seriously, that's all you got for me. But if we'll put these into practice, I think it'll really make a difference. So, category number two run hard. The third episode in this will be finish well, and we'll finish with that in the final category or the final episode of this three-part series.
Speaker 1:But today we consider running hard, thinking of that middle stage of life where you're raising your family, you're building your business, you're building your career, you're in the thick of it, you're in the heat of your career. So just another bullet point list, another bullet point list and if I could draw from those principles in Ecclesiastes and if I could draw from those principles and ecclesiastes. Let me start by saying I'll probably start with this and come back to this at the end, but I want to say that you need to enjoy the simple things in life. You need to enjoy the simple things in life. Oh, hey, little bird, there's a cool little bird right there. I don't know if y'all could hear him no-transcript. Literally, while I'm talking about the simple things in life, and I'm sitting here on the tailgate of my truck in my driveway and that bird starts singing, that's pretty cool. So enjoy the simple things Watching a bird eat, seeing the sun set, seeing the sun rise, appreciating a good meal, a play day.
Speaker 1:What's a play day? Well, for me, a play day is going fishing, going shooting, riding my mountain bike, going with my family and doing something, some outing. It's just something, a day of recreation, you know, enjoying a true Sabbath. I would encourage you to take a Sabbath. For most people, the Sabbath is going to be on Sunday because it's going to be integrated with worship. That's what it is for us. For us as a family, sunday mornings everybody sleeps in. We have church on Sunday, but it's later in the day, so you're able to sleep in. We go for long walks, we get out and just enjoy creation, if the weather is permitting, and then the end of the day we're together playing games, sitting outside, enjoying the evening or playing a card game at the kitchen table Just a slow, easy day. Usually on Sunday we talk to family that doesn't live here anymore. So for me today it's Father's Day and I had the most awesome thing I got to spend some time on a FaceTime call with Kilby and Greg and Punky, my granddaughter, for Father's Day. That was awesome and just enjoying the simple things.
Speaker 1:For me it doesn't get much more simple than a cup of coffee and just a moment of of quiet. And I'm also. I'm also kind of uh, I'm kind of spoiled because I've got running right beside my house, I've got a waterfall, the Creek that runs by my house. I mean, my house is not fancy, but I don't know what I can sell this place for just because of the waterfall. It's kind of funny, I realized. I think my place is probably worth a lot more than it should be just because there's a waterfall beside the house and it's like dang man. The Lord blessed me with the most amazing gift. I've got a literal cascading waterfall that goes down by my house and I built myself a teeny little deck I mean, it's the teeniest little deck on the Creek bank down there and this morning just sit out there in my little chair with my Bible open, with a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1:Enjoy the simple things. If you're, if you're in this stage of life, the get after it. Stage the afterburner stage of life, pause and enjoy the simple things. It's so important and I think that's critical.
Speaker 1:Now, one of the things that I really challenged folks with in last week's episode with the younger generation is not to whine or complain, and, if we're honest, people in their 30s and 40s oftentimes are the whiniest complainantest people. Sometimes people in their 70s and 80s are the whiniest complainantest people. So, again, with each of these three categories, this is something I'm going to insert, and that is don't whine, don't complain, don't be negative, be positive. See the good in every situation. Don't be a complainer, don't be a whiner. The Lord speaks against murmuring and we talked about that last week and that applies for folks in this stage of life.
Speaker 1:Okay, next, get up every day and get after it. Get up and give it 100%, get after it every day. Every day is an opportunity for you to go hard, to run hard, waste time, be intentional in every facet, every aspect of life, every day, not in a particular order, but I put this high on the list just because I watch a lot of families put a lot of things in priority over the church and I understand that the church is not perfect. I understand that there's, you know, a lot of times there's frustration with the church. When I say the church, I mean your local church, the church that you attend, and I know a lot of people that don't attend church.
Speaker 1:They say that they're Christians and they love the Lord. They would profess to be hey, I'm a believer, I'm saved, I'm a Christian, I have a relationship with the Lord, but I don't attend church. And then they'll have reasons and a lot of times those reasons are understandable. I get it, man, the church is frustrating. Sometimes. The church is like your family, you love them, but, man, it can drive you crazy and for a lot of people it's hard to find a church that you really feel like you can plug into and be a part of and have a home. I know for each of my three adult children when they left home it was really difficult for them to find a church that they felt like they could really call home away from home. One of my daughters even in the last little bit.
Speaker 1:There was a situation at the church she was attending at school and it sort of came into. I'm not being in any way judgmental or trying to not sound like I'm being judgmental, but there was a situation issue handled at this church where you realize not every church has strong leadership, not every church has strong leadership. They have qualified leadership and this church definitely has qualified leadership, but there's an almost passive approach to how to deal with some things. And then other churches it's the other extreme. I mean they're heavy-handed, they're confrontational, they're short on the trigger, quick to pull the trigger on things like church discipline or confrontation.
Speaker 1:It's just hard to find that balance and I would just say that there's no perfect church and what we always tell people when it comes to church or marriage there's no perfect church. If it was perfect, it would be imperfect as soon as you showed up. That's what I always like to think and say. And with marriage, it's like when somebody's dragging their feet, especially with a young man. It's harder for girls, but for a young man, a dude that's in his late 20s or 30 and he's still living with his parents and he's not pulling the trigger. I'm like, if you're waiting for the perfect girl, she don't exist. But if she did, you're the last person, a dude that's still with his mama at age 30, you know, living with his folks or not, not launching a career or starting a business or getting after it. She ain't gonna want to be with you. You know it's it's.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like what are you waiting for? Same thing with the church. If you're looking for the perfect church, it's imperfect the minute you walk through the door. But there is no perfect church. The perfect church will be the church of Jesus Christ in the eternal kingdom, like in the new heaven and the new earth. So in this life, we just jump in, we contribute, we contribute, we do our part, we get involved. Man, put your hand on the oar. Imagine you're on a big ship and everybody's got a hand on one paddle and we're rowing this thing forward. Do your part, and I've learned that if you'll get involved in the local church and do so sacrificially and humbly, then you'll be a lot more willing to show grace to that church and its people in the areas where maybe they struggle a little bit or they're not super strong, super solid, as long as they're.
Speaker 1:I would encourage you if you're looking for a healthy church, look at what the primary distinctives of a church need to be. Do they preach the Bible expositionally? In other words, are they faithful to how they teach the word of God? Are they faithful in how they disciple their people, how they look at missions, how they build community and relationships within the church? Is the pastor accessible? Can you talk to the pastor if you need to, or one of the pastors? Can you have a legitimate conversation where you can get guidance and help? And how do they spend their money? What is important to them? There are some things you can look for. Is doctrine important, because that's critical. Do they hold strong and fast to historic, orthodox biblical teaching but at the same time, do they try to cultivate relationship with Christ and help you in that relationship? That's important. So I think you're not going to find the perfect church, but you could be a part of the church that's faithful. So look for a faithful church, the church that's faithful. So look for a faithful church, love that church and give of yourself to it. Yeah, so let's move on.
Speaker 1:And again, I apologize for the. I'm sure the sound quality's not great. I just realized I was leaning over the device, leaning into it, and so it probably it probably gets super loud when I'm doing that. But anyway, let's keep going, let's keep trucking along along along the lines of the importance of the church. I would say make tithing or giving a priority. I know for a fact I don't look at the names of people. We, we use someone. We have some, a team of folks that handle all of the giving at our church and I don't look at those names. I don't want to know because I think I'd be discouraged. But I know for a fact, statistically, that a small percentage of people give the bulk of money to the church.
Speaker 1:I'm thankful that our church, red Oak Church, gives sacrificially to missions and ministry. Our church spends a lot of money advancing the gospel. I think we give between 15 and 20 percent of our annual budget goes to foreign missions. That's pretty rare, I think. And then about that same amount goes to local. I mean half of our budget and it might be higher than that, but I want to say over half of our budget goes to ministry and outreach, or at least north of 40% I think a normal standard of church budget is, from what I've studied, is that right around 50% of your budget would go to salaries and we're actually a good bit under that because we just have super selfless pastors who fight against it even when we try to give them raises sometimes. But we have a pastoral team that is well worth the money, if I could say it that way. Worth the money if I could say it that way.
Speaker 1:But you should look at a church's finances and back to finding a healthy church. Be a part of a church that you're going to raise your kids in, that have, and maybe for you priority is solid kids program, solid youth ministry and those are all great. Our church. I love the focus on our children's ministry and on our youth ministry and they do a great job. But contribute, give to that. Like what kind of money do you spend on your vehicle, like your car payment, or your mortgage, or your vacations, or your streaming services or your hobbies. Tithing to the church and giving to the church should be way up there, and I think families that don't have that standard of giving. You're sending a really terrible signal and message to your children. But also I think you're missing out on the blessing of the Lord, and part of the reason maybe why church doesn't hold such a priority in your life is because you're not investing in it.
Speaker 1:Make tithing a priority. It's biblical, it's a point of discipleship and worship. You are showing yourself to be a very immature Christian if you're not giving. By the way, I don't receive anything from anybody's tithing. My income through my ministry job at SWO doesn't come from people giving. I don't get anything from the church at Red Oak. I'm a lay elder at Red Oak and so for me I don't stand to gain anything by encouraging people to tithe. But it's biblical, it's a point of worship and discipleship. You cannot live through your 20s, 30s, 40s and not tithe and expect God to really enrich and bless your life. You just can't do it. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:Next, don't look for purpose. Oh, by the way, one more thing on the tithing. I don't mean, if you're making $80,000 a year, that you give a hundred bucks a week. That's crazy. Everything should be to scale. A lot of people use 10% as a baseline. I'm not going to give you a percentage, I'm just going to say you put your money where your priorities are, and so it should be reflected in that. And then also just trust the Lord. Test him. Test him to show you that he's going to be faithful. If you'll be faithful, okay.
Speaker 1:Next, don't look for purpose and value first in your work, but know that work is good and it's from the Lord, so there's some purpose and value in it. Read that again. Don't look for purpose and value first and foremost in your work, but know that work is good and it's from the Lord, so there's some purpose and value in it. So if you draw from your career and that's where you find your identity you're going to come up short. But if you see it as an opportunity to glorify the Lord in your work, then, man, you can really use it to bring him glory and honor and to use the platform of your career to find purpose and value in your day-to-day life. You can get up and be excited about going to work, get up and be excited about building a business and you can do the things you do so that you can give more. Make more money so you can give more to the church or to missions to advance the kingdom. Find purpose in your work and have that purpose attached to ministry value and the building of the kingdom.
Speaker 1:Next, don't be scared. We live in a time and a place where people are convinced that everything's gonna kill them, everything's out to get them. Conspiracies, fear of the government of. You know everything from vaccines to uh to the the of. What is it? Uh, the contrails behind airplanes to uh. Are they poisoning the water? Are they watching me through my phone? Be aware of all that stuff and I'm not saying we shouldn't pay attention to things like that, but, man, a lot of Christians get completely overwhelmed and obsessed with that stuff. Don't live scared of everything. Be smart, make good choices, but don't be obsessed and consumed with everybody's not out to get you. Everybody's not out to get you. Everybody's not out to to do you harm. Most people are more concerned with with their own situations and circumstances.
Speaker 1:And but don't be scared, live with confidence, live free man, be free in Christ and free as an American. If you're, if you are an American in this country. We've been given and afforded incredible freedoms, and so enjoy them. Don't sad those things away, don't freak out and miss out on the goodness of all of that. We have a lot of freedom and we should enjoy it. At the same time, be aware that you can't trust people in power, so don't think you've got to trust them and hang all your trust and hope on them, but, at the same time, trust that God is sovereign and the season of life that you're in. If you've got freedom, enjoy it and don't live like wringing your hands in fear all the time.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that might've been a little bit of a not a rant, but like I guess a lot of this is going to come across as a rant, and it's. I think it's because I'm at the stage of life where I spend a lot of time investing in people in their twenties, thirties, forties and uh. So the things that sort of pop out to me um are are going to naturally come through in this Next fight for balance. Don't get lopsided in your priorities. Balance everything church, work, family, play.
Speaker 1:I've seen people that neglect their family because they're so consumed with their career, and sometimes it's a situation where there's not a choice. The career demands that they travel, for instance, and so the only way to avoid that would be to leave that career. And that's a bigger conversation. But in as much as you can control it, when you're at home, be at home, be present, be in that moment. I used to when my kids were young even my oldest kids that are adults now when they were young, I remember I would leave to go home and if it had been a really stressful ministry day, I would stop and just spend some time decompressing, getting my head in a good space, and then head on home. When I got home I wasn't bringing stress and work stuff home home. I wasn't bringing stress and work stuff home. You know, um, but I've also seen people, especially in ministry, that say, hey, my family's got to be a priority.
Speaker 1:I remember a guy worked at a snowboard guy that when he first became a dad, I remember having to sit down with him because he wasn't coming to work and I remember saying, hey, man, you haven't been coming to work and we were a staff of maybe 15 people. Then what is going on? He said, well, and they had had their first child and he was telling me the child had cried that night and he stayed up so his wife could get some sleep. And I said hey, man, I appreciate your heart in that. If you want to stay up and hold the baby so she can sleep, that's fine, but you still got to come to work. You don't get to take an unlimited amount of days off. And what was happening was he was letting her sleep at night after she'd nursed the baby, and then he would sit with the baby because the baby was fussing a lot, not sleeping, so she could sleep, and then he would come to work at 11 o'clock Because then when she would get up in the morning at eight o'clock or whatever, he would then sleep from eight to 10 or something like that.
Speaker 1:It's been a few years ago and I remember just saying hey, I really I do. I appreciate what you're trying to do for your wife. It's that's cool that you're trying to serve her in that way, but she doesn't work. She's at home with that baby. You know, I don't remember if she was on maternity leave or if she wasn't working at the time in a career field, but I just remember saying this is the balance we all have to find, and it's what makes it difficult.
Speaker 1:But the point was hey, man, this is the tension and the balance we all have to find. So work hard. You've got to still go to work and you do need to serve your wife and children, or your husband and children, you know, whatever. If you're a mom and a wife, like if you're a husband and a dad, we've got to do the hard work of finding that balance where we're doing what we need to do at home and honoring the Lord and loving our family. Well, we also got to be the best that we can in our career. One of the best ways you can love your family is to be the best at running your business, or the best police officer, firefighter, the best pilot, the best doctor, the best welder, the best race car driver, you know, whatever your job is, I threw race car driver in there because Hank, I love listening to Hank tell NASCAR stories, and we just did that a couple nights ago. So I thought, man, what a crazy career you know, making a living driving a race car. And and for Hank, he eventually left NASCAR because he felt like he could not balance that with being a husband and a father.
Speaker 1:So it might mean a career move. It might mean, um, you stay in the same career but you downsize. You know, I don't, I don't know, I don't know what that looks like, but you got to fight for balance. That's just that. That's, that's your responsibility. Okay, the next one is going to hit home for a lot of people. Well, I say it's going to hit home. You may not even care, but if you're wanting to learn and grow, and you're, I mean I, I want things to hit home for me, and this one definitely does, and it's it's uh, don't worship your children. You know you're.
Speaker 1:You're in your twenties and thirties, you're maybe starting your family, um, thirties and forties, you're growing that family, you're going through the teen years, and I think the struggle here is everyone deals with this when, once you become a parent and the struggle is when your kids are little, the whole world revolves around them is everyone deals with this. Once you become a parent, and the struggle is when your kids are little, the whole world revolves around them in terms of caring for them. I mean, you do everything right Feed them, bathe them, put them in bed. Every aspect of their day is sort of controlled by you, and you'll see this with young moms. Like I noticed we have a lot of young moms at SWO and those young moms get together and 90% of their conversation is about or around their kids. So it becomes literally the all-consuming aspect of your life. And I have a ton of thoughts on this, because that's not a bad thing what I'm saying there.
Speaker 1:But we do need to be aware of some things and be maybe a little bit guarded. I think a lot of marriages struggle once kids come along, but you don't realize the marriage is struggling because the kids become kind of just the main component of the marriage. Everything revolves around the kids, and so mom starts to put all of her focus and emphasis on the kids, and dad can tend to do the same thing. And before you have kids your focus is on each other, and so I think you got to strike a balance there. You got to make sure that you don't worship the kids so that you can maintain a healthy focus and emphasis on your marriage. Y'all this is so important when you're raising a family. You have got to continue to cultivate your marriage. If you don't, there will be negative effects that come from that, and it could be. Those negative effects could be very subtle and not show up until you're empty nesters.
Speaker 1:I know of three couples who divorced once they were empty nesters One at like 45 years of marriage, so they were way past empty nest. I mean, they were deep into the grandparent years. Another who did it at like 37 years and another one at like 34, where they've raised a family, they've built a career, they get into their 50s or 60s and then the marriage collapses. Well, it's because the adhesive to the marriage was the children, and once they're no longer around, it's very difficult. And I think this is an important thing to think about, because putting all of our emphasis on our children is dangerous in multiple ways. For one, the kids can't handle that pressure, and so you end up with kids that are very self-centered, family-centered and that can create a lot of problems when it comes to them surrendering to Jesus.
Speaker 1:And so you've got to maintain it's important that you love your kids well, that you lead your kids well, that you discipline your kids biblically, that you provide for your kids' needs, but that you don't live vicariously through your kids. Draw your purpose and identity from your kids. Give all of your time, affection, treasure, talents to your kids. So just finding that balance where what this now. This is a host of other episodes we would need to do.
Speaker 1:But how do we do that? Well, we love our kids. Well, we teach them who the Lord is. We show them what a life lived in obedience to the Lord looks like. We carry them to church, we read the Bible, we sit around the table and we have game night. That's great. But we also sit around the table or at the bedside and read the scriptures at night and we pray together. And I think, going on car rides, we maximize that time for conversation or for silence and reflection. We don't entertain ourselves to death. We don't worship our kids' sports or academics or dance or music or whatever they're into. And then the other extreme to that is we don't.
Speaker 1:A lot of folks will really focus on their kids when they're younger, but then when they get a little older, they kind of push them into. They just allow them to explore their own independence in an unhealthy way. So kids can go to their room, have unlimited access to the internet. I know someone that I've watched their life closely and they've watched our lives closely. We're very tied in with this family and I'm shocked at how little the dad is engaged day to day with his kids, but the grandmother it seems like the grandmother always with his kids, but the grandmother like. It seems like the grandmother always has the kids, but the dad is present, the kids live with him. It's a blended marriage, so it's his kids from a previous marriage and then the mom has kids from a previous marriage. But I've started to watch the kids from this man really really unravel in terms of just rebellion, pursuit of the world, kind of unhinged in the way they're living their lives, and he seems at first glance to be super involved. Then I realized well he is. He goes to all the ballgames, he goes to anything at the school, he's involved in a lot of ways, but he's not involved in their free time.
Speaker 1:Now here's a little niche that I think is very important. Your kids need free time, but it does not need to be free in the sense that they have full autonomy with what they watch, where they go, who they spend time with, what hours of the night they're up and so, keeping a balance of we're going to spend time together, I'm also going to give you some freedom and independence as you begin to grow into the teen years and just maintaining a balance so you're not centering your life around them but you're also not pushing them off to set sail on their own far before they have the ability to handle it. And again, this is completely other conversations but getting into, like, how much freedom they have with their mobile device or access to internet, access to friends, social media, things like that we're going to, we're going to do an episode this fall on social media. We did it, uh, two falls ago. We did a really long um conversation over the course of two or three episodes and we're going to be doing that again this fall. But for now, just you've got to keep that reined in Um.
Speaker 1:But the main point there being don't worship your children, don't order every aspect of your life around them. You have to order a huge aspect of your life around them because it is God's design. I life around them. You have to order a huge aspect of your life around them because it is God's design. I mean, the number one ministry that you have is not to your neighbor, it's to your children. But find that balance. Where you're the parent, you're in charge, there's discipline, but you're giving them freedom and letting them learn how to earn trust and things like that. So obviously a lot to that. That's a very short conversation on that, but that could be multiple episodes, but just striking that balance.
Speaker 1:Next, I want to challenge you to learn to appreciate the small moments. This could be car rides, it could be walks is commit that every day. As long as it's not raining real bad or the weather's not crazy, the daylight is there, you know it's not the dead of winter and you're getting home after dark. But even then, like every day, really commit to take a walk. I think one of the simplest, easiest ways to slow your world down, to slow your day down, is to take a walk, and we do this as a family and then I do it with my girls individually. So right now that's Lailie and Juju are the two girls that are still either at home or at home often enough. Lailie's at school, but this summer she's home. So usually about once or twice a week she and I go for a walk and then Juju's still at home. So we go for a walk pretty much every day, and it's a short walk, it's a 20 minute walk. We walk down the road and back and that's what I call a small moment and I learned to appreciate those small moments and a small moment.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about playing a board game, doing an activity, I'm talking about small moments throughout the day. Another one would be I'll get a small cup of coffee. I know I always bring up coffee, but I drink a cup in the morning and then twice during the day. I'll just pause and drink a small it's probably a five ounce cup of coffee. I'll just stop, I'll get alone, I'll stare at a creek or a tree and have a little cup of coffee and just enjoy entering into that moment. Life is passing by so fast, and especially when you're in this stage of life that we're talking about. So just enjoy a small moment.
Speaker 1:I keep a set of binoculars in my truck. I love to look at birds, critters, animals. Might be a groundhog that you see, it might be a. I love watching birds. I really enjoy bird watching, like to go out this time of year and walk and watch the lightning bugs, and all up and down our road there's fields with lightning bugs and just small moments. I don't want to over.
Speaker 1:If I over explain that, then it makes it not about small moments. You know it's kind of counterintuitive. So enjoy the small moments and bring your kids into that, bring your, you know, do it together as a spouse, as a husband and wife. I think that's important. That leads me to the next one that I think goes along with this, and that is entertainment in moderation.
Speaker 1:Entertainment in moderation, now, what I mean by entertainment? I mean electronic entertainment. So this would be Social media movies, streaming services, programming, your favorite sports programs, your favorite TV drama, whatever, podcasting. So podcasts, documentaries, shows, movies, sports music, social media, all of that. It's not that all of that is inherently bad. We enjoy and use all of that, but we need to do it in moderation. And I'm not going to give, I'm not going to make this a legalistic kind of thing where I give you the letter of the law you got to figure that out and you know and just make sure you're doing this with conviction, but in moderation.
Speaker 1:An exaggerated example would be you can't watch five hours of look at a screen for five hours a day and then go for a 10 minute walk and go. Yeah, we're just trying to keep everything in balance. You can't everybody go to their room and get on their own social media accounts for three hours every night, but then we come together for a quick 20-minute supper, but while we're at supper everybody's got their phones out. That's what I mean by it gets out of balance, real bad. And so just keeping it in moderation, set yourself some caps and some limits and some restraints. I think that's very important because the older you get and the more you you know, when you're in your thirties and forties and you're really running hard, it's so easy to just um, it's easy to just kind of dive into electronics or entertainment. You know, spend an hour on your favorite social media sites and an hour or two watching videos or shows or whatever, and then an hour or two listening to podcasts and next thing, you know, man, you look at your phone and it's like dang, I spent four hours in entertainment today and if you, if you self evaluate, you realize I did not spend that much time doing meaningful things. So, just again, not trying to be legalistic, just wrestle through that. Um, let's see, I only got a couple more and we'll wrap this up One. This goes back to the first, one of the first ones we did, and that's keep.
Speaker 1:Uh, church and community are important. This is kind of an addendum. I add this back to the one where we talked about church. Within the church. We're not just talking about the Sunday worship service. We're talking about getting involved in a small group. Whether you call those community groups, home groups, grow groups, discipleship groups, every church has got a name for them. Some churches don't do that. They still do the more traditional Sunday school. If you're going to be part of a church, be part of a small group. If your Sunday school is your small group structure, then do that. But then also, outside of that, try to cultivate community. I think a lot of people miss out. When they attend church on Sunday. They check that box. It's an hour commitment and then they're on with their life, and a lot of times, on with their life means, um, the only interaction they have with anything related to that church, including the people in that church, is that Sunday morning worship service. Um, cultivate a communal mindset, like we're living in community and maybe it's you decide that you're going to make.
Speaker 1:I got a buddy who's a pastor. Awesome dude, austin Ramel, love that guy he's. He's a close friend and brother. He pastors in in the Gastonia area of North Carolina but he, he hosts folks in his home. He practices hospitality in that way and uh, and we try to do that you know, have people in your home. I think that's one way you can really be connected to community. But then something he does and several other friends I know they host their neighborhood, they live. They live on a road, where I don't live on a road like this, but where you've got it's like a neighborhood or a subdivision. You've got a road and each house is on, you know a lot and you can see your neighbors from door to door. I mean it's I don't like I said, for me it's a little different. If you live on a rural country road, that's going to look different. But if you live in a subdivision, man, really cultivate community within that community. That's an extension of church and then maybe you start to minister to people and so you end up using your house, your home, your family as a means and a base of operation to do ministry. So teach your kids ministry.
Speaker 1:And with that I want to give you one last practical thing and we're going to elaborate on this my next episode I'm very excited about. We're taking a break from this series and we're going to have. I sat down with my daughter, lailie, and we just talked through life growing up at Snowbird and there's something she shares that I think is really important and I want to give you that principle right here, and it has to do with family vacations. Okay, so here's the last thing and I will give a closing, just kind of thought, but the last piece that I really encourage you to establish during the family years when you're raising kids. I'm so thankful that we had the opportunity and the Lord sort of nudged us in this direction, and the Lord sort of nudged us in this direction when our kids, when our three oldest, were growing up. Now we're not doing this now. It looks way different. Now, with our three younger kids, it just looks way different and I can elaborate on that.
Speaker 1:But when our three oldest kids were growing up, we just decided that every year for vacation we were not going to go to Destin, florida, panama City, myrtle Beach, charleston, whatever. There's nothing wrong with it, nothing at all wrong with that. But if a kid grows up and they go to the beach every year I did that you grow up, you go to the beach every year it's like, oh yeah, I got good memories as a kid going to the beach. It was cool, it was fun. Coolers full of food on the beach, playing in the surf, riding a boogie board, going out to eat at night all that goes with that kind of vacation. But I would say what I would say is diversify the vacation experience. So if you go to the beach every year, then maybe every third year go see a part of the country you've never seen. Now I'm building towards something bigger than this. This is just kind of in layers. This is in layers. Go to one of the monuments, one of the national parks, something like that. It'd be fun.
Speaker 1:But what changed my kids' lives, I truly believe, is every year, as long as they can remember, for a week we went and worked in an orphanage in Central America. We started this when my oldest child was six and we did it all the way through COVID, and so we did it for 20 years. I think we did 19 trips. So my kids growing up, they grew up going to work in an orphanage. So we would still at spring break we would go. The other thing is spring break we would rent a house on a lake, not in a town, we would buy groceries and then we would be together as a family. So the two things that we did that I can now look back in hindsight and tell you were absolutely effective. And that we're still doing is an annual trip out of the country and you go.
Speaker 1:Well, how do I afford that, man? We did that for like the years where all five of us went. It cost us about 3,500 bucks. So it's like man, that's a lot of money. Yeah Well, what are you going to spend your money on? You're raising a family, you're growing kids into adults and you're giving them experiences. You cannot put a price tag on the experiences that my kids had working in that orphanage. It changed them. It radically changed their lives. They were Kilby, tuck and Laylee were different human beings than their peers at school because of those experiences. I'm not saying they were better, I'm not comparing. I'm just saying they saw the here's what I'm saying. They saw the world through a different lens.
Speaker 1:You go to a third world country, you know, and when they were, when we were adopting GGMO, that was cool because we had the opportunity to spend over three months in a third world country. That's not realistic for everybody, but doing a trip, even every two years, save up, like on your off years, do a super cheap staycation. If you can't afford $3,500, most people spend that much on a vacation to Disney or Panama City. But if you're like, oh man, we spend $1,500 a year on vacation, okay, then skip a year and every other year, do something like this. Somebody listening to this is going to take my advice and it's going to take this. It's going to change your life. It's going to change your kids' lives. You're going to see kids that become others serving rather than self-serving, and it really is impactful and powerful others serving rather than self-serving, and it really is impactful and powerful.
Speaker 1:And then what we did on our spring break every year is we rented a little bitty house on a lake. I think we spent about a thousand bucks. You already got to buy groceries anyway and we just, every day we'd sleep in, get up, play in the water, eat a big lunch by the water, fish. In the evening We'd play games. You know, like we had a volleyball net, we'd stretch between a couple trees and play badminton, play, what's that one game? It's a game where you throw a ball. It's a I can't think of the name of it, but it's like a made-up game where you're trying to get the ball to the ground. Always think of like Atomic or Bazooka or something like that. That's not it, but anyway, it was a lot of fun just making games up, sitting around at night. We'd build a fire and just sit by the water, and it was just our family, nobody else. We didn't go see any sites, we did not go to a theme park, we did not.
Speaker 1:It's so effective, and so what I call that is redeeming your vacations. You're bringing value to your vacation other than recreation. You're bringing value that's going to shape your kids into the men and women that they're going to become. That's a big one, and I can tell you from firsthand experience it will make your kids better people and it will impact your family with memories that are way better than I remember riding go-karts and playing putt-putt. Nothing wrong with that. I'm just telling you it's a lot more meaningful and a lot more life-shaping. Hopefully, the sheep in the background are not too much of a distraction. It's pretty funny, though they're letting it rip. They just settled down. I paused recording here while Little was feeding them, so they're settling down now.
Speaker 1:Let me wrap this up the bottom line, and this ties into that last piece about how we use our vacations and ties into that idea of redeeming the small moments. You know, enjoying the simple things, but also um, uh, making the most out of the big things, like vacation, like, uh, evenings at home, things like that. Just be intentional and don't let family get in the way of being the best business owner you can be. Don't let family, don't let the idea that you've got to commit to your family keep you from being 100% at work. The struggle that we have to face, and that God will give us the grace to handle, is we got to do both. We cannot let family. That is priority. We cannot let our family be compromised and we can't compromise time and priority to that. But we can't be lazy at work or cutting corners to go in late or come home early. We need to do a good job at work too. We need to be the best that we can be, because it's reflecting on our relationship with the Lord and our testimony and our witness.
Speaker 1:I know we could elaborate on all this and go and go and go and go. Now that I'm at a stage in life where I can kind of look at, you know, with three adult children, we can evaluate what we do right, what we do wrong, what are some things we would do different. I'll tell you this it is a very freeing thing to know we didn't do things perfectly, but I wouldn't change a thing, even the mistakes I made, because we learned from them and they helped us and just live your life in a way that you don't have regret. If you're a young family, if you've got kids that are real small, or even if you've got kids that are in that 12 to 17 range, these days are going to fly by. These are the best days of your life, I think for young families that feel overwhelmed because you got a kid in diapers and another one that's a toddler, and then you got one that's starting school and you think, man, this is so stressful. I promise you it's not stressful. It may feel like it, but it's the easiest, funnest, most, I mean, you are living in the best season of life.
Speaker 1:If that's where you're at, if you're someone who's in your 30s or 40s and you're navigating the teenage years, I don't have to tell you it's hard. It's tough, especially if your kids are in school. If you're homeschooling, there's some things that I think make it a little bit easier, some things that you don't have to deal with, but if you're sending your kids off to school every day. It's tough, so just stay engaged, keep your hand on the plow. Keep your hand to the plow. Grip the plow in one hand, grip the sword in the other hand. Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God and you center your family and your life and your business and your world and your marriage around the Word of God and live as God would have you live and He'll do awesome things in your life and your family. So run hard. These are the days when you can, so make the most of them.
Speaker 1:Lastly I'm recording this, as I mentioned earlier on Father's Day. So happy Father's Day to all you guys that listen, all you men that listen, who are dads. Happy Father's Day to y'all. Be faithful. There's nothing I think you could make the argument. Nothing is more critical right now in society, in the church and definitely in our families then, that dads just do and be what God's called them to do and be. So be faithful in that and let the Lord bless and move and lead and guide and you just follow and be faithful to what he's commanded in his word and by his spirit in your life. Have an awesome week. Pray for us. Week four ramping up. I'll read you some more testimonies next week of students' lives being impacted.
Speaker 1:I literally got a text while I was recording from a student pastor in the Atlanta area, just south of Atlanta, a good friend named Alex, who said hey, man, one of our kids, she came to know the Lord a couple nights ago. And then there was one of our staff, one of our guys that's been here in the Institute the last year, a guy named Trip. He had one of his boys come to faith on Wednesday or Thursday night and Trip texted me and said hey, this kid just prayed to receive Christ. Pray for another kid in this group. His name's Colin. And on Friday night Colin and a couple of boys from that group and the youth pastor from that group walked up to me after worship and Colin was just, he was emotional man. He said I just gave my life to Jesus, he got saved.
Speaker 1:And it's awesome because those boys are in an alternative school. They've had a rough go in and out of, I think, foster care and man just walking through the first steps of discipleship with them. They got it, it took, it sunk in. So continue to pray that God will move in the lives and hearts of students and excited for this next episode next Monday, excited to share with you from a conversation I had with Lely. We'll have that one posted as a video as well, so look for that. Thank you all. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.
