244. Sorry Satan, We Scheduled Family Night

If your home feels loud but strangely disconnected, you’re not imagining it. This week, we are unpacking six quiet forces that pull families apart—distraction, unending busyness, thin faith rhythms, isolation, marriage silence, and digital traps—and we offer simple, durable ways to push back. From dismantling the myth of multitasking to practicing a real Sabbath, we share how small shifts create big stability: a time budget for one week, a protected nightly check-in after 8:30, shared TV instead of isolated screens, and a daily anchor for Scripture and prayer that actually fits real life.

If this episode helps you, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a quick review so more families can find it.

Transcript

Banter, Setup & Tech Woes

SPEAKER_06 0:00

This was supposed to be a serious one.

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Sorry. I just want Satan to know. I have Jesus in my heart.

SPEAKER_06 0:07

I think you just shocked somebody's headphones when you did that right there. Okay. My eardrums are ringing. Um, all right. So tactic one.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

One last turn. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_06 0:17

All right, guys. We'll see you next week. I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

You don't know who you're messing with.

SPEAKER_06 0:24

We are at war. It's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians, or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

So the questions are who's the fight against? And are we winning or losing? We're the Adkins, and we are a force to be reckoned with.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Are you ready to join the force?

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. We don't know when you're listening to this. Happy whatever day of the week it is. We hope that you're enjoying folding your laundry, driving to work, mowing the grass, whatever it is that you're doing. And that's the beauty about podcasting.

SPEAKER_06 1:04

What is the what did that uh theologian say? It's five o'clock somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Right. It's five o'clock somewhere.

SPEAKER_06 1:11

You're listening somewhere at some time.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

How are you doing this week?

SPEAKER_06 1:16

Good to know.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

What?

SPEAKER_06 1:19

They were talking back to us. Didn't you hear them?

SPEAKER_03 1:21

No, I'm asking you.

SPEAKER_06 1:23

Oh, how am I doing this week? I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

A little less slap happy than last week. We did get some messages, a couple texts. We were a little off our rockers last week.

SPEAKER_06 1:37

But we may have been on to something.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

We may have been on to something. So if we offended you, we're sorry.

SPEAKER_06 1:45

If we offended you, I'm not sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

If we made you laugh.

SPEAKER_06 1:50

That's your problem, bruh. If we made you laugh.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

And that is a red flag. You're welcome. And also, I did want to mention, don't forget that if you go down, if you're on, I think if Apple, Spotify, any of them, go into our show notes and you can hit send us a text, we will get your text.

SPEAKER_06 2:08

Send us some green flags.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Send us some green flags. Send us what you want to hear from us. We're gonna probably mention something in here. We're gonna say text it to us. You just go, you click that, you text it to us, it's free. It doesn't cost you anything, super convenient.

SPEAKER_06 2:20

All you husbands and wives out there, if there's something that you want your spouse to do, yeah, send us those green flags. We'll make sure we get them out there.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

We'll shout them out on the podcast by name.

SPEAKER_06 2:29

Bro, my right headphone ear just went out.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Oh, that's annoying. I think that's the one I had last week.

SPEAKER_06 2:35

Oh, lame.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Speaking of podcast setup, you I see you've moved the desk.

SPEAKER_06 2:40

Oh, yeah. It was not great the way it was.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

No. And also, we're supposed to be recording with video, but but you know, the one USB-C slot and your computer's not working. So we're back to like original. We had a very high quality.

SPEAKER_06 2:56

Oh, not OG OG. OG OG was just recorded straight into voice memos on my phone.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yeah, and you were eating popcorn, chewing apples.

SPEAKER_06 3:05

I mean, I can do some of that.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

No, that's good, that's right. Um, but yeah, so we've we used to have like a super official setup. Now I mean it's it's this is who we are.

SPEAKER_06 3:17

It's the same setup. We just moved it to a different room.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Our podcast logo in the background, a really nice sign. We had, I don't know, video cameras, lights, cameras, action.

SPEAKER_06 3:31

Yeah. And then and we had world-renowned guests.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

And then we were like, oh wait, this isn't who we are.

SPEAKER_06 3:36

It's like, nah.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

So here, forget the guests. They just want to hear from us. No, we do have we do have some guests schedule that are coming up, and also I need to go back into the archives of all the guests that I interviewed toward the end of last year that I never aired. Oh, geez. But it's okay. Um, anyway, how was your week?

SPEAKER_06 3:57

Oh, I was busy, good, but I'm I'm ready for next week, you know.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

I feel like it was a really productive week.

SPEAKER_06 4:03

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

I feel like I've had a really productive nothing will whip your house into shape more than knowing your mother-in-law's coming to stay.

SPEAKER_06 4:13

And you leaving.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

And you're leaving. No, I'm just kidding. I actually called your mom and I said, Hey, just to forewarn you, um, as soon as I was done working, I kind of ripped the house to shreds, thinking it was gonna, you know, bro, organize everything and get everything in order. And then I slowly realized that my productivity wasn't gonna be what I thought because I'm home with kids, so it's a little bit destroyed right now. She said it was fine. But I but I did some decluttering this week. Things are in better shape. Yeah. So we're good to go. And honestly, who cares? I don't care. You know why I do? I actually do care. It I cannot function in a cluttered home.

SPEAKER_06 4:51

I don't care at all, and I'm ready to just start next week already.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

Yeah, so we're going on Corey and I are going on a trip. It's like an annual trip that Corey earns through work if he reaches a certain goal that they set for him. And we're going to Mexico. We will be safe. It's far from where all of the cartel stuff is happening. I did have a minor freak out moment earlier this week. Like war down there.

SPEAKER_06 5:15

Yeah, a gang is at war with the local government in a town.

Distraction: Multitasking Myths & Margin

SPEAKER_03 5:19

But I'm feeling all right. If something does happen though, please, somebody help our kids get divvied up appropriately because nobody is taking all five of them.

unknown 5:31

No.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

And we're traveling with most of our family.

SPEAKER_06 5:34

So that cartel's not gonna want to show up on our beach though. It'll be going down. We'll send them packing.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Did you see that funny reel I sent you though? That it was like my husband on our Mexico vacation doing the Congo with the cartel, and you're just on the beach with a bunch of cartel members doing the dance. No, no, it was me, me thinking my husband got abducted by the cartel. Only it's my husband three resorts down doing this dance, and you that would totally be you.

SPEAKER_06 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

We should whip out the videos of you doing the code.

SPEAKER_06 6:07

I'd make friends with the cartel, they'd end up like protecting us from the rest of them. That's the play. That's the play. Because we don't have any we don't have any weapons. You know, can't bring weapons into a foreign country, so that's the play. We just convinced the cartel to be on our side.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Can you make sure we're recording? And then that would be really bad.

unknown 6:25

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 6:26

Then we're uh we're good to go. Then they we get them to protect us.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:31

That's the play.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

So, okay. Well, let's dive into the topic.

SPEAKER_06 6:35

Speaking of enemies.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

Yeah, speaking of enemies, what's the title of this episode?

SPEAKER_06 6:41

Uh what was the actual um okay?

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Well, it was, I can tell you.

SPEAKER_06 6:52

Was it the enemies' tactics in the home?

SPEAKER_03 6:54

No. That wasn't ringing a bell. It was. Sorry guys. It was it was it was it was about distraction. It's like we know what we're talking about, but the title that we wrote sounded better than what we're saying right now. The enemy's tactics in the home. That's what I said.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

You're like, no, that's not it. That's not it.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Sorry. That was it. So, as you guys know, we talk, we're a family. We're a Christian family. We're in the thick of raising kids, we're in the trenches, we talk about it all the time. Many of you guys are in the trenches. Some of you are out of them and just listening because it takes you back, and you're like, oh yeah. I don't know. Some of you are like, This is the good old days, and some of you are like, Thank goodness we're not doing that anymore. I don't know. But the point is that we're at war, just like our intro says every week, and especially the family unit. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah. I think that the the the enemy attacks in all different types of ways, but one thing that the enemy hates is the family. Yeah. And that's marriage, kids, a healthy nuclear.

SPEAKER_06 8:17

Yeah, the family, the way that God intended it to be, really, in every aspect from structure to organization to the things that they do, all of it.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Yeah. And so while we like to be goofy and talk about fun stuff and laugh, the real like at the same time, you can do both. Like this is very real. And it doesn't mean you have to live in fear. It doesn't mean you have to be this uptight, worried person, but you need to be aware and you need to live as such. And so that's why I like to do the balance of like the fun episodes and then episodes like this, because you you you can live both.

SPEAKER_04 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

And you have to live both. Yeah. So today, you know, we've just been living life and we have noticed things in life that and not to over-spiritualize things, because I think that people can over-spiritualize things.

SPEAKER_06 9:13

Yeah, I mean, you can't blame the devil for everything.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Yeah.

unknown 9:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

I mean, I got a stain on my shirt. Thank Satan.

SPEAKER_06 9:19

Yeah, but he's also at play. So you can't act like he's he's not at play in anything, but you also can't act like everything is his fault either.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Right. So it's just being aware of different ways that the enemy will work within the family. And honestly, culture, because it's most of this stuff that we're going to talk about is very normal and very you just go with the flow. But if you're just going with the flow, that's not always good.

SPEAKER_06 9:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

So with that said, anything you want to say before we dive into the first one?

SPEAKER_06 9:57

Yeah, I was just actually, I was thinking of this scripture, and I could totally get the reference wrong on this, but I think I remember it. So just put that little caveat in there. I think it's 1 Peter 5 8, and it says that the enemy, you're the devil, is like a uh a roaring lion. Prow your enemy, the devil around like a roaring lion. Prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. So he's definitely at play.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

And the and prowling around is like he's looking, he's like eyeing everybody up.

SPEAKER_06 10:30

Like, who am I going to go get?

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Right. On the prowl. It's like you're sneaky. You're you're on the prowl. You're not, it's not loud and apparent. It's yeah, on the prowl. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, attack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:43

I in reality. I mean, dude is good at what he's trying to do. He's been around for a long time. So if you think about it, it's like he's been around since the beginning of time.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Back to the garden.

SPEAKER_06 10:51

Like, imagine the knowledge you would have if you've been around since the beginning of time.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

Yeah. Not as knowledgeable as God. No. Not omnipresent.

SPEAKER_06 10:59

Not no, but as a limited being, even just as a if you were just a human being that would had been around since the beginning of time. Like, obviously, we don't have all the power, and we don't have anywhere near the power that God has, and neither does Satan. But like, think about all the things that you could do to trick people and manipulate and get the things that you wanted.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

He's a sneaky little guy.

SPEAKER_06 11:21

If you had knowledge going back to the world, ugly to Satan.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Ugly. Just gotta, you know, just in case.

SPEAKER_06 11:30

Um, so yeah. Anyways.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

Disgusting.

SPEAKER_06 11:35

The messed up part is is I know somewhere in there talks about how he's actually good looking.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 11:43

Which is which is manipulative.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Right. Yeah. Maybe you're good looking on the inside, but outside, but you're ugly on the inside.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Ugly on the inside, you g and we don't befriend people. UGL. You ain't got no alibi.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

You ugly. No, I'm not kidding.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

Like, when you're out of town, this is the stuff that I'll do. Like, I'll be in our realm and I'll be like scared, and I'll be like, get out of here, Satan. You're gross. You're ugly. You're not welcome here.

SPEAKER_06 12:12

You actually say something? I swear.

Busyness: Seasons, Sabbath & Saying No

SPEAKER_03 12:13

You're going again. It's scary. Because I I am scared. Like, and people are like, Why are you scared? You're scared of the dark. Like bad guys aren't gonna cut. Just lock your door. I'm like, dude, the things that I'm scared of, they don't go through doors. They don't go through doors.

SPEAKER_06 12:32

You're also scared of stuff that goes through doors.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

No, but it's mostly demons.

SPEAKER_06 12:37

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

And Satan. But then I'm like, get out, Satan. You're not welcome here. And I'm holding my Bible. I rebuke you. You are not allowed in the name of Jesus. I promise you. But it works. It works.

SPEAKER_06 12:51

I'm laughing just because the way you're saying it, but I actually do that stuff too. If there's like if the song just feels really off in the house. Yeah, like the other night.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

In the same night had nightmares. Yeah. And like, mm-mm, Satan.

SPEAKER_06 13:04

And we it might not be anything, but it can't hurt.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

This would be really funny to do some of those bleeps right here. Mm-mm, Satan. In the name of Jesus. I swear, I if you don't, I'm gonna I'm gonna do it. Just so you guys know. We weren't saying bad words, it's just fun.

SPEAKER_06 13:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Okay. So, anyways, you guys are allowed to do that too, you know.

SPEAKER_06 13:29

Yeah, I mean, I believe in that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

I do too.

SPEAKER_06 13:32

And I think it definitely works.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

And I think it's not a joke. It's not a joke, Satan.

unknown 13:38

Out!

SPEAKER_06 13:39

That's a whole other conversation, but I do think that people that goes back to like trivializing it. It's like, oh, Satan doesn't have anything to do with anything. It's like, yeah, he does.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

I'm also kind of scared of new Nephilim.

SPEAKER_06 13:50

When you read through the New Testament, you know how many demons Jesus cast out? Yeah. So many demons. What we just think demons are gone?

SPEAKER_03 13:56

They're not gone. They're not gone, dude. They're not. And I'm scared of Nephilim, too.

SPEAKER_06 14:02

All right, that's a whole other thing. All right. Can we go back to the cast? Yeah. All right. So point one is enemies' tactics. Number one.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

But I'm not that scared, Satan.

SPEAKER_06 14:14

This was supposed to be a serious one.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

Sorry. I just want Satan to know that I I have Jesus in my heart.

SPEAKER_06 14:21

I shocked somebody's headphones when you did that right there. Okay. My eardrums are ringing. Um, all right. So tactic one.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

One last time. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_06 14:31

All right, guys. We'll see you next week. I'm out.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

You don't know who you're messing with. I've been lifting. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 14:40

It's not in your power.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

It's in God's power. And he is strong. Okay.

unknown 14:47

Bro.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

Point number one.

SPEAKER_06 14:48

Get it together. All right.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

I'm only halfway through this a line, too.

SPEAKER_06 14:54

Gosh. All right. Tactic one, distraction.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Oh, shoot. Was that Satan? Trend.

SPEAKER_06 15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Okay. Okay. This is for real. For real this time.

SPEAKER_06 15:06

But genuinely distraction. So just think about all the ways. And there is a point on here specifically about um digital entrapment. So but if you look at um, there's a bunch of different ways that you can be distracted. You can be distracted by being spread too thin by like doing too many things. There's too many good things, so then you can't be really good at any of them. That is a level of distraction. Um there outside of like your phone and stuff like that, there's TV. Right? So you could just like, oh man, I just need to, I just need to chill. And so you watch start watching TV. And now in today's age, you can just continuously keep watching this like an entire series of a show. Next thing you know, hours are gone and it's gone by.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

Yeah, and just multitasking, which multitasking's great, and we're becoming more and more productive. And I think the this is a real thing. We've heard this before, and we might have even talked about that. The original thought with technology and all of these things to help us become more productive was to give us more time. But what we're finding is we're not giving ourselves more time, we're just filling our time with more and more stuff because we can multitask more and more.

SPEAKER_05 16:25

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

And so that's one piece of it. But then also just the multitasking of cooking dinner and checking your email and talking to your kids and helping them with homework. I know that that's the reality of the busyness of the world that we live in, but it's actually not intentional and it's not good.

SPEAKER_06 16:43

And multitasking actually isn't real.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

I know.

SPEAKER_06 16:48

No, it's no, it's physically impossible. Multitasking is a terminology that came from computers because computers can multitask. They can have multiple things open and have multiple things running at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

But your brain can't. Our brain can't.

SPEAKER_06 17:01

We can only focus on one thing at a time. So when we try to multitask, it's like we're focusing on one thing for a short term, then we switch to another thing, and it actually messes with the your neural pathways in your brain and affects you in a negative way.

SPEAKER_05 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:15

We really should focus on one thing at a time to completion or until at least we're finished with like what we are able to do on that thing.

SPEAKER_03 17:23

But in reality, in the world that we're living in, that's very hard because somebody might be listening and they're like, okay, explain that to me. Because I am a working mom and I've been at work all day, and now I have to go pick up my kid, pick up groceries, cook dinner, help them with their homework. And we live in a world where you this.

SPEAKER_06 17:39

Yeah, but are you picking up groceries and your kids at the same time?

SPEAKER_03 17:42

No, I'm not saying I'm not arguing your multitasking argument. I'm saying that in our world, the reality of busyness is real. So somebody's listening to this and they're like, okay, I hear what you're saying. I don't disagree with you, but that's just my reality right now.

SPEAKER_06 17:57

Yeah, but I would also say that busyness necess in and of itself necessarily isn't a bad thing. Because there are some times where there are seasons where you have to, you know, you may have kids where you just have to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and say, This is a busy season, family, and we just have to get through this together. Right. Like honestly, we just finished a kind a uh busy season where we had two kids in sports. I was uh coaching at the same time. Like we had a lot of different things going on, but we knew that that was gonna end. We weren't trying to continue this on for the rest of time.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

Yeah, I think that's the answer for this section. It's one, know your family's why. Like, and we've talked about this before, as a family, knowing this is our family mission, and this is this is where we're headed. And sometimes there's gonna be busy seasons, but then when you have the busy season, it can't be this is our life, this is our way of life. It has to have an end to it. And so if you're like, well, this has been our life for years, and we're like nearing burnout, and we're tired, and I don't know, then that's when you have to go back to the drawing board and say, What do we need to cut? What do we need to right and we've done? Yeah, we've we have we've done that, and that was a big piece of of me even not working right now in this season because the demands of our kids growing, there was just so much that it was needed somebody to be more focused at home, yeah.

Faith Discipline: Bible, Prayer, Church

SPEAKER_06 19:26

So, yeah, and so we really kind of blended tactic one and two there. We kind of bounced so tactic one was distraction, tactic two was uh was busyness, and so just some ways to counteract each one of those, like one with with distraction, is we actually have a lot more margin in our day than what you might think. Um, so one thing that can be helpful is just like when you have a budget and you're going through and you're like, oh, well, we've got these on auto subscription and this, and you're looking for things to cut back, is doing a daily budget. So, like for a week, you could just fill out on a on sheets of paper, or if you have a count, uh um uh what's that called, a planner. Um, you could just kind of write out like what things are you doing each hour and then look and be like, oh, I wasted time watching TV here, or I wasted time on this here. Okay, I need to intentionally put in time to spend in my Bible. I need to intentionally have time for for prayer, or intentionally have time to listen to some worship music, or time during the week to connect with my family and go through some prayers or read through devotional stuff like that. Those are we've talked about the big rocks, so I'm not gonna get into all that, but those are big rocks. So the way to battle distraction is to intentionally schedule plan times into your regular um rhythm, daily rhythms or weekly rhythms to spend time with God so that you're not missing really the most important thing is that time.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:54

So, and then to the to the busyness thing, which we we kind of hit on, is look at all the things you're doing and look for some things to scale back on, look for some things to cut out completely and intentionally take some time for for rest. We like to so like we're getting ready to go on this trip, and I know as long as I hit my goals, we're gonna be able to go on this trip. So that is a time for us to work towards knowing that we're gonna get a week together and to rest. Um, and then when we're on the trip, like I shut down as much as I can. You shut down as much as you can to allow that rest to truly set in. And then we also do that with like a family vacation. So we plan different moments throughout the year for us to kind of work towards, and then we know we're gonna get that that rest.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Yeah. And one thing I want to say maybe women struggle with this, or maybe it's just a me thing. I don't know, struggle with this more than men is there's a lot of so like there's so many good things that we can do. And an example for me right now is there's a Bible study. That a friend of mine has invited me to for eight months. They've done like three different studies by now. I couldn't do it at first because I was working. Now I'm home and I really wanted to do it. But I kind of re-evaluated our schedule and the demands of our family right now. And even though it's a really good thing and I could make it work, it's still a not right now for me because it's just one more thing. Like I need to read my Bible at home. I need to spend intentional time with God on my own. It's one more social thing that it's like I have to check, do I really have capacity for right now? And so right now it's a no.

SPEAKER_06 22:37

Um, and for somebody else, that could be a yes because maybe they need that because they're not spending time in their Bible or they aren't in uh, you know, if you're in multiple Bible studies, yeah, you might need to cut one of them out.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

Yeah, you know, and so good things there are seasons for those, and there's also seasons to say when you know your why of what your family mission is and where your family is going, it's easier to say this doesn't fit right now. And it's okay to just say, hey, the demands of our family are too much right now, and maybe in another season.

SPEAKER_06 23:10

Yeah. And so, you know, you hear the term, and I feel like this became more uh more widely used term that maybe wasn't used for a long time. I mean, it's in the Bible, and we've all heard it, but people are really talking about Sabbath. And um, you can go find the references. Everybody knows I'm not great at this, but uh I remember there was there's a passage where the disciples were um they were walking along a path and they started picking, I think it was like wheat or something and eating and crushing the wheat. And so, like, that was against the law for the Jewish people back then. And the Pharisees were like, Oh, you guys are working on the Sabbath, you shouldn't be doing that. And Jesus confronted him was just like he said that the Sabbath wasn't made for uh or man wasn't made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man, so they had it backwards. So resting is biblical. We need that, and it's it's it could be resting and spending time with your family, but it's also like it's resting and spending time with God in that in that rest too. So it's resting in him, it's not just being lazy and like hey, we're just gonna sit and watch TV all day, stuff like that kind of a rest. You know, you need a physical rest.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

And asking where he wants your attention, right? Instead of letting the world tell you where your attention needs to go. And so that's why James 4 7 submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you is so essential. Every single day you should be submitting yourself and your plans to God. And and I really think that that is just very important and essential, and just surrendering every single day and every single meeting and event to God and asking, where do you want me, Lord? Where do you want my attention? And everything else can fall to the wayside.

SPEAKER_06 24:57

Yep. All right. So tactic number three is just a lack of faith or discipline discipline in your faith. And I think a lot of us think of discipline.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Well, the way I had this written was lack of faith, discipline.

SPEAKER_06 25:11

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Yeah. So lack of faith makes more sense. So it's one thing to say, yes, we are people of faith. We have faith, we're Christians. Okay. Great. What does that mean? What are you doing in your daily life to live that out? So be yeah, and be disciplined and live it out with your kids and your family.

SPEAKER_06 25:31

Discipline is huge. Like that, what's the Jocko Willing book? It's like discipline equals freedom. And it's like, it is true because it helps you to be, it helps you put the big rocks in first. And so, like a lot of you listening, you're probably disciplined in some areas and then not disciplined in others. Like some of you listening may be really good about getting in, you know, four workouts a week or five workouts a week. Some of you may be disciplined in how you're eating. Some of you may be disciplined, some of you may be disciplined in reading your Bible, some of you may be disciplined with your finances, and you have a really good budget and really good game plan that you're following. All of those things create freedom. When we're disciplined in our finances, it creates financial freedom. When we're disciplined with our working out and our um eating habits, then we have more freedom with our health and the types of things that we can do and the energy that we have. So when we're disciplined in our faith, it creates helps us to create that connection with God. Like if I didn't spend any time talking to my wife all week, how do you think our relationship would be? Not good. The way that we interact with uh with God and maintain a relationship with him is we read our Bible and we sit in prayer so that we can hear from him, and then we pray to him so that he can hear from us. And so, you know, it's reading your Bible and praying. You know, it's the it's a thing that everybody's like, oh, you need to read your Bible and praying.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

And it doesn't have to be this extensive thing. Some mornings I have an hour because I get up earlier. Some days I have to do it for 15 minutes when the kids are napping, but it's going back to submitting your plans to the Lord, seeking Him, and that's like a really good anchor that keeps you grounded and keeps you from becoming distracted and busy because that then is your focus.

SPEAKER_06 27:23

Yeah, and everybody's discipline in that is going to be different, like just like everything else. Some people prefer to work out in the morning, some in the evenings, some people that have different eating plans.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

You could do it in the car when you're driving. Listen, have play the Bible, right? You know.

SPEAKER_06 27:38

So it's find out or figure out what works for you that can be something that you can is sustainable that you can do daily.

Isolation: Family Togetherness & Community

SPEAKER_03 27:47

But it's not just reading your Bible, it's also other disciplines that we practice are getting to church, making sure you get to church. Now, you know, we're not saying to be legalistic about this. Do we think that you should do your absolute best to get to church every single Sunday as a family and encourage your kids to go? Like sometimes our teenager doesn't want to go. He knows it's also not really an option, right? It's a non-negotiable, but the reality is we're also a busy family. So just recently, we've had several months where we missed a lot of church because of sports. Right. But that doesn't mean, oh, church is out the window. Our kids know the expectation. We're gonna listen to a sermon in the car on the way to the sporting event. If we decide we needed to be home that that week because it was such a busy week, we're exhausted, and getting the kids out the door to actually go to church. If we do that, it's few and far between that we do do that. But if we do do that, we're listening to church at home.

SPEAKER_06 28:41

What you said do do.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

So that's a spiritual discipline, or is that the right word? Like a faith discipline getting to church.

SPEAKER_06 28:52

Yeah, and there are and there's stats on this too. Uh I I don't remember the exact stats, but you can look it up. But there it's somewhere around, so this is for specifically for men that when you have a mom that is leading the family spiritually and making sure that the family is going to church, it's somewhere like 20 something percent of kids that were the mom where they grew up, where the mom was making sure that they went to church, end up actually also going to church when they're when they have their own families and are adults. And it's 70 something percent when the man, when the the father, the husband leads the family and makes sure that they're going to church. So, you men out there, don't put that on your wife. And I'm just gonna say, like, how like that's weak in my mind. Like, if you're letting your wife lead for it there where you're supposed to lead to get your family to go to church, and you're causing even some strange, like, I don't want to go to church, I want to go golfing, or I want to do this, like, dude, man up. Like, it's your responsibility. Get your family to church. And if you are maintaining your relationship with God, like for me, there were times where I didn't want to do that, and but now because I've done better at trying to build in some of these disciplines and maintain my relationship with God, I want to go to church. I look forward to going to church. I see the benefits of going to church and having my family at church, and I understand that it's my responsibility. So, men, man up.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

Yeah. So spending time in the word, going to church, a couple other small ones that are just part of our family culture now. Um, and it's okay. Like, there's no shame if you're like, I need to, we need to do these. Yeah, we're Christians, our kids know we love Jesus, but as a family as a whole, we don't do these things. That's all right. There's no shame in it. Pick one or two of them and say it over the next month, we're gonna be way more intentional about doing these things. This is the spiritual armor that God talks about in Ephesians doing these disciplines to fight the battle that we're up against. There are spiritual strengths, things that we need to do. So, um, reading our Bible, going to church, we pray with our kids at every meal and before bed, and they asked for it. That just the other night, our oldest came in in the middle of the night. He was having trouble sleeping, he was having a bad dream, and he knew he could come up in our room and he asked me to pray for him. And so I prayed for him, he went back down and went to sleep. That is just a normal thing within our family, like the And you'll see the benefits of that.

SPEAKER_06 31:23

And like one of my favorite things has been that I did no idea this was gonna happen, but there are times where I'm on a work trip, yeah. And my 13-year-old and my 10-year-old will call me and ask me, like, hey, I'm going to bed. Can you pray for me before I go to bed? And it's like, I didn't tell them they had to do that. Yep, they just wanted it, and so like that warms my heart. So they'll even do it if they're spending the night at a friend's house. Yeah, at a friend's house and their friends right there. Yeah. And they're just like, Amen.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Yeah. Um, I I do love that. And then one that we're not good at that we do try and we're very inconsistent, but we are we are always trying, is doing family devotions together.

SPEAKER_04 32:02

Yeah. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

It's a really good one. So just figure out what is your, you know, um, what faith disciplines can you work on? Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 32:12

So then tactic number four is isolation. And I I think that this is it's multifaceted. It's isolating each family member to where if you're not doing things together, you're not close and you're not on the same page with things. But I think it's also isolating individual families from other families.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

So Acts two is a really great piece of scripture that just talks about the power of community and how God intended it to be and what that looks like. Um, so reading up on that is really powerful, and we are meant to be in community. That's what the church is, and it's so important and it's so essential.

SPEAKER_06 32:54

Yeah. So, like one, when you're with your family, having intentional family time for you guys to do things together to do. Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

So that was more about with family. So we'll start with the individual as a family.

SPEAKER_06 33:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

I think technology is huge for isolating. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 33:09

You know how easy it is, especially for us when we have five kids at the age range, just to say, Hey, you know what, why don't you go watch something over here, or you go play a video game over here? Um, you can have an an iPad, or let's turn on a show and just put the kid, the babies in their height chairs or whatever, and just veg out. And and I get it. Sometimes, you know, I I'm guilty of it. It's like it's hard, you're exhausted, it's been a long day.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

It's so it's so easy to do it. And so every now and then it's fine. Um, but one a couple of things that we've done to be more intentional to avoid those things as a rule in our family is we don't do TVs in bedrooms. Right now, it's a little bit slippery because Carter's room is technically in our basement where that's the kids' hangout area. So he kind of does, but he's gonna be really sad when in a few months he has his bedroom back and there's no TV in there. But it's just not necessary in our home. Like we don't want our kids up in their rooms watching TV. We have a really good space in our basement where if they have friends, they get that area for sleepovers. But otherwise, if there's gonna be TV, they can watch it in, although there is a TV in our room. But that's that's different. That's different. That's different.

SPEAKER_06 34:22

We genuinely don't use it that often.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

We probably, yeah, we probably only use it a couple times a month, honestly. Yeah. But if we're watching TV, we try to do it as a family.

SPEAKER_06 34:32

So yeah, we only did that to the if there were people like kids or whatever singing at our house and we wanted to hang out together, that we could just escape from all of them.

SPEAKER_03 34:42

So we don't allow phones in rooms, yeah, uh, no TVs in rooms, and then if we're going to watch a show, we'd try our best. And this is really challenging with having one-year-olds all the way up to 13-year-olds. We try to pick a show to watch as a family because I do think that it is important to be able to relax and watch TV. And it can do it, we try really hard to do it as a family, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:04

And we mix it up too. Like we watch the voice or the middle or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Disney movie together.

SPEAKER_06 35:10

Yeah, but we also we've been uh we've watched episodes of The Chosen too. Like which are I love that show, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Other things that we do to try and say promote togetherness as a family is uh we've been building puzzles.

SPEAKER_06 35:25

I was just gonna say the new one.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

This is gonna sound so lame and so old, but it's actually it's been so good because you don't have a screen in front of you, but you're stuck sitting there, and so it's been really good to um allow like natural conversation.

SPEAKER_06 35:38

Yeah, and even unless I'm really dialed in and focused, and I don't want anybody talking about it. I'm trying to find this piece.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

I'm trying to find this piece, but we'll put the babies in high chairs, we'll have everybody in there. Even Maya will help, like she's actually getting really good at building puzzles, so it's good for your brain, it's fun, it's an activity, and we've decided that we're gonna be framing our puzzles and hanging them on the wall in the basement. So it's just fun, good time. So think about things that you guys can do together as a family, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:03

And then the other part is community, like, and I think this this is so important, and it's very easy to isolate yourself from other families, it's easy to not do things with, you know, to find friends to run with, but you we need we were made for community, and we've done whole episodes on this, so I'm not gonna harp on.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

We'll probably do more though, because it's so important.

Marriage Silence: Daily Connection & Help

SPEAKER_06 36:25

But having fellow believers with kids that are, you know, around your kids' age and and just to run with and to do life with and to do hard things with and to do fun stuff with is so important to have that.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Yeah, and community that you can go deep with. We're not just talking about the surface level. Hey, how are you? We're good, we're good too. Nobody's good right now, okay? It's 2026. There's a lot of bad stuff happening, it's a little bit scary. Everything's expensive. Groceries are out the wazoo, kids are exposed to things that they've never been exposed to before. We all have different struggles, okay? Nobody's 1000% good. We all have our stuff. So find your people that you can light your walls down with, enjoy life, laugh a little. And uh the thing I love about having these Christian friends is our kids all have different personalities. And so it's so good for them to have other adult Christian perspectives that are willing to pour into them. Because right now, sometimes our 13-year-old, he's not gonna listen to what we have to say because we're just weird, not cool mom and dad. But he might listen to one of our other friends that's really a cool dad, and he's into all these sports, and he's was an athlete. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 37:44

Yeah, it's it's a sense of not of not feeling alone and like you're not an island and you're not weird or whatever because there's other people doing it with you. And guys, we're at war. We are at war. We need an army, we need an army to continue to attack and rebel against this culture that we're in and rebel against the the the tactics of the enemy that we're talking about here. So you need a sense of community, don't isolate. All right, tactic number five. We've listened to your silent marriages.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

I was like, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_06 38:25

I was waiting, I was gonna see if you were gonna say anything.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

It's this is easy. All of this is so okay. Here's what I want to say about all of these things. If you're not constantly intentionally fighting to not do these things, you're gonna just naturally do these things.

SPEAKER_05 38:42

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

So you're gonna be tired, your kids are gonna go off and be on screens, you're gonna be isolated, you're gonna be isolated as a family, you're gonna keep adding things to your schedule because you're on autopilot, you're gonna be busy, you're gonna be distracted. Same thing with marriages. You, if you're not intentional with this, it is so easy to get into an e season of a marriage slump, and then before you know it, your marriage, you think your marriage is so bad. And then I genuinely think that that's why so many divorces happen because it's very real and it's very easy to get into these slumps and feel like I don't even know who you are, I don't even like you. Why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_06 39:15

Yeah, you don't talk like and there are times where we do that too. I'm like, we might be we might be with some other family members or some friends, and you start telling them something. I was like, bro, I didn't know that. When did that happen? Yeah, so like we're we are guilty of this, all of these things too, guys. But just like Bethany said, like, we have to be intentional and be disciplined in these things. And if and I actually used marriage as an example for a relationship with God. Like, if we don't talk and we don't like spend time just the two of us, whether it's it's having conversations, it's also having fun together, um, just spending that time together, um, alone time together, you know what I mean? As well. Like, it's not our relationship's not gonna be good.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Right.

SPEAKER_06 40:04

You have to put the work in.

SPEAKER_02 40:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:06

Anybody that tells you that marriage is sunshine and rainbows, and it's easy, and you just have to fall in love with the person, and it's then it's gonna be a all happily ever after. It's not true. It's like when you watch any Disney movie, they end the happily ever after right after they got married. Bro, what happened after? Because we know it wasn't all happily movie ended, but it was ever after. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 40:28

No, yeah, I know what you mean. And I would say we don't have this like secret formula. We don't so I think some people, if you listen to marriage podcasts, are like, we get up every morning at 5 a.m. We do a workout together, we read our Bibles together, we do coffee together, or he reads to me in bed at night. And we have tried different things like that. I think every season allows for different different things. Right now, it's a problem when you can't read right now. It's just intentionally finding time and space every single day, even if it's five minutes, and and then finding trying to find some rhythms.

SPEAKER_06 41:03

There are seasons where we can do a date night, you know. But then, like I was just when I was coaching, it was hard for us to find that date night.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

So we would just tell our kids I the number of times in the last couple of months that first of all, why do after 8 30? Then that's when the kids have all these questions and these papers to sign and all this stuff. I've just started telling our kids, oh, sorry, it's after 8 30. That can wait until tomorrow. We're off the clock because I'm hanging out with your dad. It's true. Like when the once the babies are in bed and we've had an hour of time with the big kids after they've gotten in bed, we're done. Like it's 8 30, dude. You've had all day. We need some time. You can leave us alone. So I would say that's probably our biggest staple. It might seem ruthless and not nice, but if it's after 8 30, your question can we do that?

SPEAKER_06 41:52

But you know what is more not nice is when we hate each other.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:57

So yeah. Hey, if you don't get this, then guess what? We're packing it up, bro.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

Yeah, and sometimes we're gonna build the puzzle without you, okay?

SPEAKER_06 42:05

For sure.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

You're gonna be going. It's 8 30. You want to build the puzzle with us? Probably not. Sometimes we might let you, but mostly no. That's time for us to hang out because we're tired and we want to go to bed by 9 30 or 10 o'clock.

SPEAKER_06 42:18

We want to hang out. So usually what works for you. I would just find something. Find whether it is like just hanging out in the evening together, maybe you can get up and work out together. That's great. Maybe you can get up and pray together. Maybe you can you pray together before you go to bed at night. Whatever it is, just find what works for you and just find a rhythm.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

And I do also want to note that in marriages, there are sometimes really hard things that need bigger help. And it's okay to go see a marriage counselor and talk to somebody or talk to a pastor at church about hard things that you're going through.

SPEAKER_06 42:49

Yeah, or a Christian couple that maybe is older than you and walked through some things that, or maybe they've walked through something similar that you've gone through.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

Yeah, like if you feel that you're in a really bad spot where you're like, I'm not doing these check-ins because we don't like each other and we're actually on the verge of not being married anymore. First of all, I just want to say you're not alone. And that's what I'm talking about. I think the first thing is not having shame when those kinds of things happen. Yeah. Because it's very real. We live in a broken world and we're broken, fallen humans. And the enemy is at work. How many times do we have to say it, guys? We're at war. But the encouragement is you're not alone. There are people that can help and you can get through this. And so yeah, that's it for the marriages.

Digital Entrapment: Phones, Limits, Boundaries

SPEAKER_06 43:33

All right. Tactic number six. Do we have a seven? Six, seven. We don't, we just have a six. That was bad. I just had to get it in there. Um, is digital entrapment. So, this is specifically this little thing that we carry around all the time that is called our phones. And this honestly is the easiest way, no matter how old you. Are to get distracted to get sucked in and have a it can harm you in multiple ways, it can harm you from just distracting. You may not consume things that are bad, right? You may just be on your phone and watching silly reels. You may be watching a bunch of reels or TikToks or whatever of package.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

You might be checking your email, right? It could be because the problem is that there's so many good things on our phones. There's so much convenience. Our calendars, our grocery ordering, our Amazon account, our bank accounts. There's so many reasons to be drawn to that device. But you gotta have boundaries.

SPEAKER_06 44:39

Yeah. I mean, we just talked about this at our church. We did a breakout session for a conference at a church with middle school and high school kids. And it's wild too. Your phones have your phones and the apps that you have on your phones want you to be on them more because the more you're on them, the more ads they can feed you, the more money they make, all of that. So they have algorithms. So if you're on, say, Instagram and you're watching stuff and it notices that you're staying on longer on certain reels, you're liking them or whatever, it's gonna continue to feed you more stuff like that to keep you on it so that you'll also get hit with their ads. And then when you open those ads, you if you if you're like me, you just keep getting pinged with that stuff. I know, but it won't they want you on there? And it's it's it's a good reminder to to know this. So it'll continue to suck you in, but then there's also there's bad stuff on there, guys. There's there's it'll it'll feed you bad stuff on social media. There's you know porn sites, there's all of this stuff for the devil to get a hold of you through this phone that you have to suck you in and keep you distracted, or hurt your marriage, or hurt your uh parenting, and and to keep you from doing the things that God wants you to do just by sucking you into this device.

SPEAKER_03 46:06

Yeah, and so I do think there's a few tools you guys have all heard of them, I'm sure, but just to reiterate, uh, we talked about this before, just having a spot spot in your house where I don't know, after 5, 6 p.m., you just put your phone away and then you have intentional family time. You don't look at it, you don't pick it up. Another one is setting app limits, which I have not personally done this just because I don't like we do it for our kids.

SPEAKER_06 46:28

Yeah. So yeah, that's the other thing is if you have kids, their brains aren't fully developed. But you know, we've taken an approach of where with our 13-year-old specifically now is that them him having a phone while he's still with us so that we can help coach him through that. So him having that, we have limits on what types of you know apps he's allowed to have on his phone.

SPEAKER_03 46:56

We're trying to teach him how to use it as a tool and how to set healthy boundaries. Right. And we'll even point out like, oh, you're in a really bad mood, in a really bad headspace right now. Did you notice that you were just playing video games for two hours and then you scrolled on your phone? And do you think that might have something to do with it? Because that's a very real thing. So app limits are real, and then I just want to say this like it's that we're not exempt from this as adults just because our brains are developed. So last year at the end of the year, when I was in a really bad, bad headspace, and I the first thing to go was my social media. I was like, I have to get out of this. And um I like kept telling myself this lie, like, well, I can't just delete the app. I'll just try to limit it, I'll just try to not be on it. And this is dumb, it's not really affecting me that much. But then I just deleted the apps, and I the amount of one, I realized how much time I was actually spending on there. You know, when I woke up, when I was sitting down for any amount of free time, just having the app deleted and then me picking up my phone and realizing it wasn't on there, it was such a good wake-up call for me. And I kept it off for probably about maybe three months, I want to say. I felt like I had so much extra time. My mental health went so much better, and it was kind of nice being out of the loop because then people that I might see in real life every day who I also was watching their social media stories, I didn't know these things. And so it allowed for better conversation in real life because I didn't already know about their whole lives. Right now, I have it back. I still do love social media and I use social media, and I think it is such a good tool. There were a lot of things that I did miss because there's great resources that I follow and things like that, and funny stuff and entertainment. But when I start to get into that bed head space again, I will just delete the app for the weekend. It's not, you can always re-download it. Like I just believed this thing, like if you delete the app, it's I don't know. It's not, you can just delete it. And then if you want to download it the next day, you can re-download it. And I think that that's one of the if you're not in a good place with time, with busyness, with all of these things, that's the lowest hanging fruit to go. Just get rid of it.

Recap & Simple Next Steps

SPEAKER_06 49:14

For sure, for sure. So just to just to recap, we are at war, and the enemy will is looking to seek, kill, and destroy, and to devour us. And that's specifically we were talking about families. So um, tactic one was distraction, um, tactic two was through busyness, tactic three was just a lack of your of discipline and your faith. Tactic four was isolating individual members of the family or isolating you as a family from a larger community. Tactic number five was just silence in your marriage, we're not communicating and intentionally spending time together. And tactic six was digital entrapment, so just sucking you in primarily with with your phone. So I think being aware of these things is huge, and so that if you're aware of it, then the next step is to do something about it. Yeah, and just remember all of these things are are you know, some of them aren't bad in and of themselves, but the the devil uses them for bad purposes, and he really ultimately wants to keep you from doing the things that God created you to do and created your family to do. And so if he can distract us and isolate us and do all of these things and keep us divided, then we're not gonna live out the true purpose and mission that God created us to live. Yeah, and to me, it's like, no, that's unacceptable. Like our whole purpose in life is to have a relationship with God and then do the things that he called us to do to impact others around us because he's coming back one day. And if we don't, if we let the devil get in our way, then we're not living out who God created us to be.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

Yeah. So I think that's pretty much what we have. The only thing I want to say is I know a lot of this might have seemed like common sense, but it's really good to just reiterate and reinforce because we just want you guys to know that these are all simple things that we might know, but it's easy to struggle with them, or it's easy to just we might know them, but you don't do them.

SPEAKER_06 51:27

Sometimes you need to be reminded. I do.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

Yeah. And for somebody out there, it might just feel like this wasn't common sense and this is totally overwhelming. But wherever you are, I would just encourage you. You could even go through and the points that Corey just read off, write them out, and then maybe spend some time just brain dumping on each of those, like things that you're struggling with there and a couple of things that you can do to improve. But I'd say pick two to three things. Maybe it's praying with your kids more, um, having a touch point with your spouse, and then reaching out to a person in the community or a family in the community that you guys can connect with. Just three things that you can work on over the next month, and they really will make such a huge difference. Um, yeah, I think that's it. If you have anything you want to say or things that you're working on, or things that hit home with you, you can send us a deck. And if not, we'll get next week.

SPEAKER_06 52:24

All right, let's take a look at the event.