It's Not About Being a Perfect Dad — It's About Being Fathered | with Eric Manly

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In today's conversation, we're going to talk about why so many men tie their worth to performance, even when it's inside of ministry, how father wounds form even a good in good homes, why healing doesn't come from more knowledge, but from being fathered by God. And how learning to slow down, stay present, and embrace ordinariness actually reshapes us as men, husbands, and fathers. This isn't an episode of how-to's, it's an invitation. An invitation to stop proving and start becoming. If you've ever wondered why success hasn't brought you peace, why fatherhood feels heavier than it should, or why you're doing all the right things, but something on the inside feels disconnected, this conversation is for you.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

My life was just spyrolling downhill. Depression, alcoholism, incarceration, deaths by despair. One guy who showed up is just Jesus. If you can give a man clarity and community, he can start to live out his purpose. You can break generational curses of alcoholism.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Welcome to Dudes Without Dads, the show that trains men how to become the dads they never had. Eric, welcome to Dudes Without Dads Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Thanks so much for having me, Joshua. I'm looking forward to continuing our conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Last time we spoke, you gave us language most men have never heard. Language like sonship, apprenticeship, being fathered by God. But today I want to slow down and get extremely practical because a lot of men are listening and they're asking, okay, but how does this actually change how I show up as a man, a husband, and a dad? So let me ask you just right out the gate, yeah, what is the core lie men are believing that keeps them from becoming the men, husbands, and fathers God designed them to be?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah, the core lie. Joshua, you know, I think the first thing that comes to mind, you know, and and as we talk about this, there there might be a couple of core lies, right? But the one that comes to mind right away for me is just what we were talking about. This this whole idea that my worth is something I have to prove. Right. I think that that is just so central to where things start to go sideways for us. Okay. And we come into this fatherhood thing, just tying it directly to how this plays out in fatherhood, right? We we come into that with these unresolved questions, this unsatisfied place, this unfulfilled, unhealed place in our hearts, I think we could capture it just with questions that we all carry, right? Is it do I have what it takes? Am I a worthy person, right? Do I matter? Okay. It's part of what it is to be human, is to ask those questions. Okay. But if we live our lives and we live out our story and we never begin to know satisfaction at that level, then we're always searching for it somewhere out there, right? And so translate that to fatherhood, okay. If if that is a question that we carry to fatherhood, we actually are executing our parenthood mission, not from a place of security and satisfaction and wholeness. It's not coming from overflow. We're actually engaged in it because we're still trying to get something from the experience, from the mission of fatherhood. And your kids feel that. We talk about sonship, right? Think about your own experience as a son. Okay. And, you know, I know you do a ministry called Dudes Without Dad. So, Joshua, you have a lot of men who did not have a man around. But I suspect that in those stories, one thing that is common is because of that void, they look to other men in their lives to be a father figure for them. They were looking for that, right? And so you've probably experienced the pain of uh having a man in your life, but deep in your heart, you could tell that there was more a feel of him getting something from you than what he had for you, right? It's common, that's a way of shaping this story. I call fatherlessness. Okay. It's epidemic in our culture in particular, and it's actually epidemic in the human story. You can go right through scripture and just trace the the tragedy of fatherlessness happening right from the beginning, Genesis right on through, right? You just see it all the way through, and you can capture it. Just ask yourself is this encounter of a father with a child draped in, is it bathed in a heart of a father for his child? Or is it is the background there of a father still searching for something from the world and therefore from their child? And that's why I would say then, just kind of circling back to your question, Joshua, I would say that the central theme is um just that I have something to prove. I would say that that is that is the number one place I would ask a man to start looking to begin recovering God's design for fatherhood.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, and and in your ministry, you've worked with, you know, we can start with self, and we can also look at the men that you've worked with. Um last time we chatted, you talked about this pursuit, climbing a mountain, always trying to earn improvement. Yeah. And if there's anyone that's listening and you're constantly trying to feel loved by God through somebody else's approval, you know, and that this is what what I've noticed is that once you start this ministry, you have people coming and saying, whether they're older than you or younger than you, they're like, teach me how to how to be loved. You know, they want to know if I would love them. And I'm like, I love you. But what you really need to receive is the love of the father. So if the core lie is believing that we're really valued or loved by the father, or that we have to earn our self-worth, would you help someone shift to how do you transition the lie and the emotions and the heaviness of feeling like nobody cares about me? Yeah, feeling completely loved by the father.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, yeah. And that that is really, I mean, you're getting to the heart and the essence of when we talk about healing, Joshua, it's there. It's there, it number one place, right there, okay. And healing means a lot of things, okay, but we we really have to get to that core issue for any other promises of healing to start coming our way, relationally, vocationally, right? You know, the the the things that we all care about, and you know, you know, in parenthood, we we tend to think about those things out there first, right? And say that healing, and we, you know, what I what I envision when I think of healing is uh, you know, I'm gonna have a great relationship with my kids. I'm gonna have a great marriage, okay. And so we tend to try to incorporate or take hold of healing on the surface things that we live and experience, right? But what we have to understand is that that core question, that core need, experiencing, living, not just talking about it, right? It's not something you talk yourself into. It's it you have to live it, you have to experience it, okay? And that starts by getting deeply, deeply in touch with the core need itself, right? And and I ask it this way, okay. Let me just ask you, Joshua, just sit with this, you know, and think of your own story and your listeners, okay? I I have four questions that I ask a man, a woman, anybody, okay. I think that there are questions we can ask that kind of cut through the noise that help us get in touch with the core heart cry of what it is to be human. Do you see me? Do you hear me? Do you know me? Do you understand me? Okay. And those are four questions. And now let me personalize it. Let me just ask you, Joshua, ask a listener, reflect. Honestly, as you go through your days and you think about what your experience is like, do you feel seen? Most days, is that your lived experience that you're going through your day and you feel seen by those around you and the world that you're living in? Most say no. Right? Do you feel heard? Like what you say matters, and that what you say is received, and that it has space, and that it's dignified, right? Do you feel seen? Do you feel heard? Do you feel known? Like really known. Right? Is that your lived experience? And you put all of those together and it's this last question that kind of brings all that together. Do you feel understood, really? Like, is that what your lived experience is? And so you're asking those questions, right? And and most people, if they're really ready to sit with an honest assessment of what their lived experience is, will say no. Okay. And you're asking those questions. And the problem isn't that we have the questions, the problem is where we look for answers, right? And we're so used to the idea that a perfect, you know, a marriage, right? That a spouse can answer those questions for us, right? That a great relationship with our kids can answer those questions for us, that just the right vocation can answer those questions for us, right? And to some extent, it's not an entirely crazy idea, right? You think about a marriage. You want a spouse who you can be with, in which you feel seen, heard, known, and understood, right? But you know, Joshua, for us, for our wives, to take the full weight of that question to her inevitably is going to leave us wanting more. She cannot satisfy the depth at which we ask that question, right? And so these are windows into this idea that are called sonship, that are called daughterhood, right? That we have these desires. And everything that you want relationally is meant to flow from a place of satisfaction, right? That you have learned to come and be with Jesus in such a deeply intimate way that you begin to experience yes to those questions, not from those around you, but from the source himself, right? Then go to your relationships from a satisfied place, and you can begin to engage out of this idea of for and not from. It changes the whole equation, right? So that's that's kind of how I begin to navigate that, Joshua, and just draw people into the core of the need here. And we all need healing for that, all of us. Every one of us has a story that we have to walk to begin learning the difference between looking for answers in the world around us and in our, you know, horizontal relationships.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

So good.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

And come back to take the desires back, learn to find satisfaction first in oneness, sonship, daughterhood with your creator who can satisfy what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Yeah, there's a book called The Way of the Shepherd, and the whole book is about a doctor who went into Israel and spent time among shepherds and connected it to all the pieces of scripture um of what the role of a shepherd is.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

To protect, to provide, to guide. And one of the key is that if the sheep feels loved, secured, it's going to respond differently than one that is afraid of the wolves, has had some bad experiences in the past. The way of the shepherd is to calm. And so what I hear you saying is in order to actually I don't know, give it uh to to be a great dad, you first have to learn to be a great son by spending time and being loved by the father. Is that yes?

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Is that what you're it's exactly, it's exactly what I'm saying. It's exactly what I'm saying, right? Because you know, one thing that we all have in common, um, Joshua, is is our humanity, okay? And there's just things that are core to being human. And so before you're a dad, you're a human being, right? Um, before you relate to sons and daughters, before you relate to spouse, just the essence of those relationships are born out of being a human being, right? So you have needs, you're they're given by God, okay. And it is one, acknowledging those needs, okay. It's it's not a point of shame that you have those needs. That's a part of being human, okay. But healing begins when we realize that while those needs are there, we have been looking in all the wrong places for satisfaction, okay? And it has it has a ripple effect, it has consequences to how we relate to those around us. And it just leaks and it begins to seep in and skew and pervert what is meant to be known and experienced and loved in those or known and experienced in those loving relationships. That's what I'm trying to say. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

I want to thank you for taking time to listen to this story. And if there's something inside of here that is adding value to you, I want you to stop and hit subscribe. I am on mission to help men become the dads they never had. Many of us struggle with father wounds, addictions, identity issues, and really what we need is we need a model. We need to see people that have broken the patterns and come alongside of them. I want to simply invite you to join me on the journey. Every Thursday, we're going to release a new episode. Each episode is going to help you and others become the dads they never had. Hit subscribe and share with a friend. Now let's get back to the story. I'm thinking about our our listeners. And so, if someone is is listening and they're trying to process, okay, I I understand what you're saying, that I need to learn to be loved so I can give. Or um the posture that I'm hearing that you say is you've got to be able to move to a place of trying to get from others and try to move to a posture of giving to others. You know, you mentioned in your own story last time we chatted that your own church that you worked at, you were trying to perform being loved, you know, by you know, the the role of the pastor or being successful.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

And then someone ended up asking you the following question. They said, Hey, why don't you become a full-time dad?

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

You had a lot of fear around that statement, and it pointed directly to some identity conversations for anybody that's processing right now. Okay, I desire it, but I have all these emotions, these fears, this unbelief. How would you help them settle? And then specifically, what are some practices that they can start that a dude can start practicing so they can be the man, the husband, the father they desire to be?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, I love I love your question, Joshua. And and this is this is kind of the next piece. One is is getting in touch with that story. Um, and let me let me offer another little piece of language that I have found very helpful. Okay, and then I'll answer that question. Um, that what we're what we're talking about when when you realize and begin to get clarity on, okay, I have been living right now in search of satisfaction from the world around me, right? From relationships and and and circumstances. I've been trying to satisfy this deep eternal need with finite things. Okay. So first you awaken to that. I see that, okay. Then you put alongside that, and Jesus offers a better way. There's freedom, there's freedom, okay? And I I asked the question this way, just to get your heart and soul in touch with that invitation. And I say, can you imagine? Just try as best you can to imagine what it would be like to actually live a day completely free of the idea that you have something to prove. Just try to imagine it, right? And usually what happens, Joshua, is someone will sit there with that thought, be like, Well, there's something in my heart and soul that says, Yeah, boy, that would be awesome. Okay. And immediately comes, but I have no idea how to do that, right? I have no idea. Thank you. Yes, and we all get there, right? I call that distinct or that that moment, an awakening to the sacred gap. Okay. It feels like a stalemate. It feels like, hey, that's a great picture, Eric. I love that you put that in front of me, but I also feel kind of stung by it because I think you're telling me something that is a pipe dream, right? It's how it feels, right? That's where the journey begins. Okay. Then comes the next piece, which is very hard, especially for people who live in the West. I have a friend of mine who has just really um begun to begun to explore this idea of the comfort culture, right? That we live we we live in a Western culture that just continues to propagate this idea that we can escape pain, right? And that that is kind of part of what it means to live in our Western privileged world as we get to escape pain, right? And so there's a little bit of an uphill battle, really. If if we see this sacred gap, it's very hard to hear that lesson number one is reshaping our relationship with pain. It starts there. That is where Jesus begins. Lesson number one. And we have to begin to get comfortable, we have to begin to learn to be at peace with this idea that our apprenticeship with Jesus doesn't take us away from pain. He actually calls to us from within it. We move toward it. That is how the journey through the sacred gap then begins to unfold. Okay. And these are hard things. These are hard things because you know the question started, hey, help me be a better dad. And now you're telling me I have to look at my own pain. Wait a minute, that's not what I signed up for. Okay, I hear you. And I understand that your your instinct as a human being is to shield yourself and cope with pain by numbing and escaping, right? And what we begin to learn is that healing requires us to face it, to go into it, to sit with it, to name it. And so this sacred gap is actually the first step in that journey because what we've done is we've named desire. Yes, I would love to know what it is to live that free. I would love to. And anytime you awaken desire, you also awaken unmet desire. And unmet desire is very painful. And so the journey begins by looking deeply into it and feeling it and grieving it. And that is where the sacred gap starts. To close.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah, I'm thinking about uh I work with an organization called Lead Like Jesus, and uh they say that every man and everybody on the planet has what's called it is an ego, E G O, and it's the desire to edge God out. So when you talk about a comfort culture, when you set up a mindset of uh, you know, and there's three main areas that that we tend to edge God out on. First is the object of our worship. Yep. You know, you can just go constantly through the old testament and see how it worked out for those that ended up stop worshiping God instead of worshiping uh created things or satisfying themselves and not listening. The next one is the next one is edging God out as the author of our stories. And this is the one I want to sit in with your with your statement. When it comes to suffering, our theology on suffering is is taught by the church in the West, and that if you do good, good things are gonna happen, and if you do bad, bad things are gonna happen. Well, when bad things happen, you have to either change your theology that God's a good God, or you end up disowning God, or you end up saying he's not a God that you can trust, you know, or you know, something's wrong with me that that this is happening. And so what I hear you rightfully saying is what does it look like to exalt God only ego as the author of our stories? So when we get cancer, when our children pass away, when our siblings, when the unbelievable things happen, which is the normal life. The normal life is painless. We just say, Man, I remember this, and I'm sorry to go here, but there was a lady in one of my churches uh in Raleigh, and she was an older lady dying of cancer, and she said that her grandkids would come to her and say, Grandmama, why is God letting you suffer like this? I didn't cry just talk about this. She looked at them and said, That's God's business. My business is to be faithful.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Oh, what a beautiful gift.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

We gotta remember that.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

That our job is to be faithful. It doesn't mean we don't have pain and suffering.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

So right, right. Yeah, and the being faithful, Joshua, you know, this is this is where I would want to be very clear, okay. That another false story can slip in right there, right? That we say, I'm gonna be faithful, I'm gonna be faithful. And and so what you know, what that that can mean for some people is I'm gonna start being Pollyanna, right? Everything's great, I'm good, God's good, right? It's it's not that big a deal, right? And we just we try to downplay what we're experiencing. That's actually a form of coping, that's a form of escape, right? And it it sounds grand, it sounds so so religious, you know, when in fact it's very violent to the heart and soul. Okay. What we're talking about in being faithful is actually taking us deeper into understanding what kind of relationship Jesus cherishes. It's the authentic one, right? That we don't pretend we're not suffering. It's that when we do, when we are feeling pain, we're learning to be in it with him, with all of it out in the open, right? When, you know, grandma is having cancer, you know, that she would say, I'm scared, right? This hurts. My body is is in terrible pain right now. And I'm feeling alone and distant, you know, and all the things that come with the suffering, right? But you you learn to be free with putting all of that, you know, and I call it, you know, for some of us, we have just such a hard time with that because it feels so ugly. Part of sonship and daughterhood, an essential part of that in reshaping our relationship with pain is learning that he has room for the ugly. Come as you are, be in your messy ugliness with him, okay? Because by golly, those things are real. They're very real. And when we have these seasons of life that stretch us to our breaking points, we are in relationship with a God who, you know, Isaiah described him as the suffering servant. We're in relationship with a God who knows exactly the kinds of things you feel and experience and wrestle with. You know, and we're talking about parenthood is kind of maybe maybe what drew people into this discussion, Joshua, right? But all of this, all of your parenthood dreams are meant to flow from that kind of honoring of your humanity.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

So good. I'm thinking, I'm thinking specifically about a conversation we had last time, and you mentioned uh transitioning from, you know, once you start walking with God, once you start accepting this sonship, or not trying to get approval or earn your worth or value, you're then able to actually become not a perfect dad, but more like the dad that your your your family needs. And one thing that you did is you started walking with your son intentionally with clarity, intention, and blessing. Can you identify what what what happens to your children when you start speaking over them and becoming an intentional father?

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Yeah. Yeah, well, one, it's it's uh here's the flow, right? As I father you, so you father your children, right? That that you begin to find your place, you begin to engage in a story of being a beloved son and becoming. It's both, right? And then you out of that overflow, invite your children into a discovery of the same story, okay. And so what begins to unfold is a deep understanding of something that is just core. It just this, you know, if you think about your desire as a father, Joshua, right, if you if I think about mine and I begin to try to capture some of those more abstract desires, right, some kind of picture of being in a story with my children is the backdrop, right? And so it is the invitation then of I want you in this discovery journey with me. Okay. And so, you know, this is a good time to kind of kind of speak to something else that that I often have to speak to. Okay. What we're talking about is is not becoming a perfect dad. That's not actually what your kids need and want. What they want is a dad who has room for them to be with him. Okay. And so as I began to understand this, and I my initial steps into this, you know, my my first experiences of kind of crossing through that sacred gap. Okay. Joshua, that was not a one-and-done thing. That was that was one installment of what became an ongoing journey of going through that again and again and again, right? And so, you know, I have three children, and so now my youngest, who is 15, soon to be 16, we're kind of in the home stretch of this initiation journey that we first lived out with my oldest son and then with my daughter, right? And where I am as a father today is in a very different place than where I was when my oldest son was eight years old, right? I'm in a very different place. And so does that mean that the story that I had to share with my son is invalid or less worthy? It it doesn't, because it wasn't about being a perfect father. It was about the journey we had to share, right? And the gift, the bestowing, then, is what I what I wanted them to take away is an understanding of that journey, that story of sonship, that story of daughterhood that we shared together. And in sharing that together, learned together and now, as adults, continue sharing and learning together. I had a lot more to learn back when my son's oldest son was eight years old than I do now. And I still have a lot to learn, right? So it's just my story has grown. I have things that I'm offering my youngest son that I just didn't have yet, when my oldest was that young, right? Um, but we're all still living that story together. And it's not about being perfect, it's about being fathered. That's the difference.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

It's almost as if Jesus kind of meant it where he said, Abide in me and I in you, and you'll bear much fruit. Yeah. And that fruit, I mean, in many ways, is a presence of you know the father, you know, that the more time we do spend with him, the more we become like him. And then that everyone benefits when that goes up. I want to end with a practical step. If there's someone that's listening today and you know they're they're wanting to have some tangible or one thing this week or this month that you're gonna challenge them to do, what's a challenge that you'd like to give a dude who's trying to find sonship specifically for them, where they have a belief that they've done things that that God couldn't possibly forgive them, or they have uh experienced things from a father, whether it was, you know, a biological or uh you know a stepdad, and their their belief is just not lining up. What is something that you would encourage them to do where they can sit under um truth? Do you have an incredible story of overcoming the home that you were raised in, or maybe the father wounds that were placed inside your life? If so, I want to share it with other dudes without dads. Simply go to Dueswithout Dadspodcast.com and apply to be a guest on the show. The reason it's important to share your story is because when you share what God has done for you, it helps other men believe that God can do it for them, and he can. To share your story, head over to Dues Without Dads Podcast today.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yeah. I'm just struck, Joshua. I I love I love what you've kind of put on the table here to to wrap up. And I'm just I'm thinking of any number of listeners right now. Um you know, and really what you're you're talking about someone who is just sitting with their own story of pain. And they they feel that, right? And there's just something beautiful and unique about this calling of fatherhood. That for any man who carries a passion and a desire to be a great father, you can't have that come alive without feeling a lot of pain. Because there's fear. Am I gonna get it right? There's there's doubt. Um and I, you know, you just want to you want things for your kids and your family, and then you're just left with the question mark of, can I come through? Okay. And I guess where I would point a man is to the deeper things that that points him to. Okay. There is pain there. And you know, if it's I'll say it again, if it's not lesson number one, it is like one A with Jesus, is reshaping our relationship with pain. I would just sit with this idea. Start to consider your pain as sacred, not a curse. There is something beautiful in it for you. And it's we're not talking like uh like a masochistic kind of thing here. We're not talking about self-punishment. We're talking about the promise of healing. Okay. And for any man, the journey must begin with acknowledging where his pain points are, coming to understand them, coming to appreciate them, learning how to move toward them, because it is from the depths of our pain that Jesus calls, and he has a promise in the middle of it, which is comfort and healing, satisfaction, abundant life. All of those things are in that for you, which is why your pain is sacred. It is actually your path forward into all the things that you want as a father, everything you dream of and imagine. And so I, you know, I don't know, Joshua, how a man might do that. I can tell you how I do that is it's a very simple exercise of just creating space to be and to look deeply into my pain, name it, and acknowledge it, and start there. And I do that with some just some space for some silence. And personally, I like to write. That helps me. I journal. It's not necessary, it's nothing, nothing like magical about that. It just works well for me. So I would invite a man who's not sure to consider doing that. But more is just show up and consider that that time and that space where you're just gonna learn to be with Jesus and let all of the things that you've been carrying all along have their day, come to the surface, get familiar with them, name them, talk about them, and then from there you will begin a healing journey.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Yeah, I want to remind our listeners that in John 14, Jesus said to his disciples before he went uh to the cross, he said, It is to your advantage that I go, because if I go, I'll send down the Holy Spirit, the comforter. And the comforter is what's here now, is the Holy Spirit. And so I just want our listeners to be aware that if you've never heard that there is a uh a God, a uh father, a son, a spirit, that his presence is actually not far from you at all. The father loves us, and the fact that you've got this uh podcast, uh our lives have been radically changed as a result of the father's love and what he did for us, he can do and will do for you. Yes. So I want to encourage you, uh, as my brother in Christ shared, spend time sitting, dwelling, processing. Don't run from it, but maybe sit in it and ask the father, as the spirit, as the son to help you process and walk through it. And I believe the father will. And um, it isn't really about becoming a perfect dad or a better dad, as Eric mentioned, it's about becoming a whole man through healing. And Eric, I want to thank you for being just practical, being present, and give us a sense of peace as it relates to what it looks like to start walking as a son of God. And once we truly start walking as children, as son, or as adopted and receive the identity that Jesus desires us to walk in, we can then offer the world the thing that we we ultimately desire. And that's the best version of ourselves that we have for that day. So yeah. So thank you for being on the guest. Any last words or any way that if if if you want to direct anyone to find out more information about you or uh anything that you've done?

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah, and first of all, Joshua, thank you. I'm just I'm very grateful for you uh for your invitation, uh, for the discussion. Um it's just uh it's just been a gift. Uh I'm I'm grateful, it's been a blessing. And you know, for for any listener out there who would like to know more, and and I would say that, you know, in in talking about that first step of just learning to sit and um just acknowledge your humanity and your pain and and begin to embrace your pain as sacred. Um, there are things in that for you to experience with God. And then there's this thing called community, okay, that you don't have to do that alone. And if this is kind of putting you up against something, it's like, I need help with that. Um I it's a big part of what I do is help men walk that road. Um, and so you know, if if that is a listener and they're they're looking for help and they they would like to contact me, they can do that through my website, www.theintentionaldad.org. And I have a contact tab on there, and you can reach out to me and we can begin talking about how I might come alongside you if that's if that's something that begins to stir in you.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Forgiveness is more for you than them. I had inner peace for the first time in my life. It's just Jesus. Just Jesus.