The Father Wound, The Blessing & What the Bible Says a Man Is | Robert Lewis

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Isn't it interesting that we live in 2026? And the big question is: what is a man? What is a woman? And nobody will seem to want to venture out and nail that down. And yet we're suffering from that curse of a lack of a definition all throughout American society. I mean, it is a plague that most men growing up today and most men in our society today still have questions about what a man is. And most churches are sitting there talking about manhood and womanhood, but then when you ask, well, what does that mean? They can't tell you. They can't give a specific definition of manhood. And let me tell you what that is. That is a curse.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

My life is 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 1:10

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

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Thank you so much, Joshua. It's a delight to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

For those that don't know our guest today, Robert Lewis, he has spent the last four decades doing something most men's ministries only talk about. He actually got men in a room, opened the Bible, and helped them figure out who they are. He founded Men's Fraternity. He wrote Raising a Modern Day Knight. And his work has touched over five million people around the world conservatively. Now God is doing a new project through Better Man. And we're just excited to see what God has placed on his heart today for the Dudes Without Dads podcast. Robert, again, thank you so much for being a guest on the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Great to be here. Great to be here and have some time to interact with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Now last time we tried to do this, the internet went wonky on us. But I do want to I want to set us up again with the similar questions that I started off. Um you how today you're 76 years old, and if I'm wrong, please correct me. You've been a Christian for almost is it 50 or 60 years? 50. Almost 50 years. How long would you say you've been reading the Bible?

SPEAKER_02 2:52

I've been doing that this week with a number of people involved in their life. So yeah, it's just it's been my life.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

And last time we met, I asked you how many hours a week would you imagine that you've spent inside the Word, and we came up with over 70,000 hours.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Um that I've been in I've been in the Bible a lot. I know that. I have. I love the book.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

And so for those for those that are listening, our our guest today has met with man. He knows the heart of man, he knows um and seen a lot over time. And so today I'm going to present five questions that Robert's going to unpack for us. And so the first question is going to be around this wound question. Um, what specifically is a father wound?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Yeah, it's good we define it. A father wound really is just uh an ongoing emotional, social, and spiritual deficit for a man who is now a young adult and beyond, that deficit would ordinarily have been met in a healthy relationship with his dad growing up, but it wasn't. So now he's suffering from these deficits. It could be extreme or light. I mean, it goes a whole spectrum, but because he has suffered that wound with dad, it now has to be met later in adulthood by some other means. It could be, you know, being with a group of guys, it could be forgiveness, it could be restoration with his father. There's a lot of different ways that wound can be healed based on how deep and severe the wound is. But usually it's something that a man carries out of the home because of something he didn't get from his dad, and uh it begins to haunt him in his young adulthood and beyond and holds him back from a better life.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Since I asked this question to you last time, would you say that that it's possible for, you know, if we could say that men have father wounds, would we say that women also have similar father wounds?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

They do have father wounds. I think it impacts them in different ways because of their gender. Um yeah, but it's still a big hurt. It's still a big, it's still a social, emotional, and spiritual deficit of some kind. I mean, there is no fixed father wound. The father wound is fluid based on how much or how little you got with dad and who you are, what your personality is. But there's no doubt that if you didn't have your cup filled growing up with a healthy relationship with dad, that when you leave, you leave with this deficit of some kind.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

So now that you defined a father wound as being something that has happened or didn't happen from the past, but ultimately it's something the father didn't pass on or you know speak or do something, how would a man recognize if he even has a father wound, um, even if he had a dad?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Well, that's a great question because I think a lot of men, especially as they move into young adulthood and beyond, if they suffered that wound and nobody has identified it in some way, they may have just an angry relationship growing up with their father, and other boys are saying the same thing. But I think a lot of men don't recognize the father wound growing up. They bury it in their heart, uh, they bury it in their emotions or denying their emotions, and then they move out into life and they try to solve their sense of hurt by overperforming, by being angry, by getting addicted because of different uh emotions and depressions and those kind of things. But I think a lot of times the wound goes underground, so to speak. They don't realize what they didn't get from their father. And usually somewhere when they're growing up, based on people they're with or a study they're in or something, somebody sparks in them the question of reflecting back on their relationship with dad. And as they do that and they reflect back, suddenly they begin to realize a lot of what they're feeling was connected, like you said, because of what dad did or didn't do in their formative years. And all of a sudden they go, that's what that's what I'm lacking. The reason I'm driving myself and overperforming all the time is because I never felt like dad was proud of me. Or I was always trying to earn my dad's love and didn't know it. Or I was angry with my dad because I wanted these things from him and he didn't get it. And the reason I became a great football player with anger and all that kind of thing is it was really my father wound acting itself out subconsciously because of what I didn't get. But a lot of times I don't think young men or even older men really know that until someone helps them connect the dots. In fact, one of the things we we do in my men's ministry is early when somebody starts a men's study with us, we get the guys together and have them tell their father story because for most men they've never done that. And it's kind of like a aha. They begin to connect dots between who they are right now and what they're feeling, and what they didn't do or didn't get or got too much of, or the anger they felt with dad growing up.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

I'm trying to honor our listeners as they're as they're hearing this, because I'm assuming we have those that are listening that have never even heard the word father wound before. And to unpack it and start processing, it's like it's going to take some time to really understand what's driving our behaviors and emotions. And so can can you share maybe a couple of uh real life examples of how a father wound is because I I really want our listener to think like this why are they angry? Why are they frustrated? Why do they behave in a way they know they shouldn't behave? Can you share a couple of or one or two examples of hey, I've seen this as the behavior, and really it wasn't about their wife, their kids, their boss, or these other things. It was something deep down on the inside of Father Wound.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

I I think I think the biggest thing I want to say right at the beginning when you say that, I don't want our listeners to think everything goes to the father wound.

unknown 10:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Because we're we're much more dynamic in our personalities than just a thing. I think what is helpful in our discussion is for our listeners to think, what was my relationship with dad like? What does that stir up in me as I listen to this broadcast? Are there any things that all of a sudden go, aha, that's the connection? Because some of these things that a person's feeling or acting out don't necessarily relate to a father, but I think for a lot of men, processing their relationship with dad can help surface some things they didn't get or things they did get that they were hurt by. And here's here's a yes for an illustration. Here's one that I heard where a after a talk I gave, a guy came up to me and he asked me if he could take me out for coffee. And so we go out for coffee and we sit down. He's a very successful doctor, okay, in our community. And one of the first things he said is he said to me, He said, You know, as I was listening, I started thinking back about my relationship with my dad. And I realized just all of a sudden, much of my success came through drivenness. And the drivenness, the constant work, the constant achievement, the constant goal setting was deep down inside. I was looking and hoping that my dad would look at my performance and say, son, I'm proud of you. But my dad never would say that. He said, when I graduated number one from med school, all my dad said, I hope you can get a good job. He said, when I became chief of staff at the hospital, my dad would just say, Hey, you just need to keep working. You know, he never would say, son, you've done great. I'm really proud of you. And he said, so I just worked even harder. And he said, I was sitting listening to you today, and I realized I'm on an endless treadmill. I'm never going to get him to say that. Never. So what do I do? So that was our starting point. Um, I think there are a lot of guys who the way they react to a wound, especially if they were working to get dad to acknowledge them, they overperform. So overperformance is one thing. Another thing, if the dad is always critical, he's always saying, son, you should have done it this way, son, you could do better, or whatever. A lot of those guys will grow up and they just kind of, they just feel like I'm no good. They tend to lose the will to even drive themselves because they feel like they're just going to fail at everything, because the message that they left home with from dad was that I'll never be good enough. So I would just simply say for a listener, when you think about your dad, what what comes to mind? I think it'd be great, you know, to tell your story, get a couple of guys together and just talk through your story. What when you when you talk about your dad, what comes to the surface? What do you start feeling? And let another guy or guys just ask you questions. And sometimes all of a sudden, you have what I had for myself. I had these aha's. For me, I remember I just felt when I really started thinking about my relationship with dad, and I finally made that connection, I just began to weep uncontrollably. And I went through several hours of just weeping and crying out for my dad. It didn't make sense to me. It was all primal emotion. But what I wanted my dad to do was just to tell me he was proud of me. And I go, that's that may sound strange to a listener, but when you take off what I call the manhood cover that a lot of guys have over their heart and start going down into that dark chamber, you'll find emotions that have been repressed for years and years and years, all the way back to maybe a preschool moment that you had with your dad. And it it kind of sunk deep, and you began to believe that message that he gave one day just because he was tired, irritated, and he said, Son, you're nothing. And you heard that nothing the rest of your life. So I would just simply say the father wound is some deficit you suffered, and when you left home, you didn't leave dad. Dad and his messages went with you in your heart, covered up with denial, and then you had to figure out another way to try to heal that wound. And usually it was some overperformance, underperformance, depression, overexcitement, trying to conquer things, to give yourself a message that you're never going to give yourself, that message you needed your dad to give you. That's the father wound.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

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. Thank you for sharing that. And if a guy is processing right now and hearing what you have to say, you've set up the the next question is what must I do to get rid of this father wound? How do I get healing?

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Yeah, that's a good question. I think, I think what we just did, I think the biggest, most important thing any man can do is first of all, recognize that some of what's going on in me is because of what I did or didn't get from dad. I got to connect the dots and go, okay, so I got hurt by dad because he was constantly criticizing me, or I got a love deficit because dad never expressed any emotion or affirmation in my life. So that has impacted me. I don't think a guy on his own is going to know how fully to figure that out. But the first step is just simply to recognize something's going on in me because of what I missed or what wound I got hit with from dad. That's the first thing, is just recognition. The second thing is I need some way of processing that. And the best way to process it is out loud with other men in some kind of group setting. That could happen with just some good friends at breakfast over bacon and eggs, and we just start talking about our dads. And as we do that, emotion starts surfacing. And a guy asked me a good question about, so your dad never told you he loves you. I remember when somebody asked me that, I remember, and I could say it deep in my gut, my dad, I never ever heard my dad say, Robert, I love you. Now think of what that means long term. That that that goes in there and gets infected. It gets embellished at these huge in these huge ways that are not reality, but you feel it. And then you begin to act subconsciously off of that hurt in ways that are really they're ways of trying to compensate at a at an emotional or uh mental level that are trying to do away with these wounds that you haven't even recognized. You've got to mention them, you've got to acknowledge them, feel them, and then process them with somebody. Now, if they're, as I told you, the wound takes on different levels. It could be super severe, it could just be a few things that you wish you'd gotten from your dad. Based on the level of hurt, you may need a counselor to work all this through. Or on the other hand, you may just need some friends that are good friends that you guys can talk real openly about things going on in your life, and this is one of them. And as you talk them through, you have ways of coming to terms with it without even having a conversation with your dad. You're able to forgive and express that forgiveness and let it go. Or it could be something that I've had to do with some dads, where it becomes a much more deliberative, I've got to go talk this through with my dad. And I've got to tell him I forgive him, and I've got to ask him for things that he didn't give me, and that's going to take a lot of courage.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

You said something to me, and thank you for sharing, by the way. And man, I've got so much that we could go down. But I remember you mentioning something to me last time that I think is profound, and I think our listeners really need to hear this when it comes to getting healing. You mentioned to me last time that we chatted that if you haven't heard and your dad's still alive, these words, you go chase it down. Would you mind resharing what you shared with me? Sure. And then tell a dude what they have to do.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yeah. Well, you know, the the scripture says the glory of sons is their fathers. And the word glory in Hebrew at the root of it, it has a connotation of a weight. So if you think about it, the weightedness of a son, the stability of a son is his dad. His dad gives him stability in life early, and he carries that emotional and spiritual stability out into life. If dad didn't give him that weight, he's unstable. Things can rock his world much easier. You know, I don't know if you have seen those big bullet, those big air dummies that you can say. Up and hit them real hard, and they go over, they can fly away. The ones that have no weight in the bottom, you can just knock them anywhere. But the ones that are weighted at the bottom, you can hit them as hard as you want and they'll go down, but then they pop right back up. I've always thought of that as a son who has the weight of his dad in his life. It gave him stability in his adulthood. And no matter how tough life comes at him, he'll pop up because of the weight dad gave him growing up. On the other hand, if a guy has none of that, it just blows him away. He goes anywhere. So, what is foundational for every son? What is the glory of the son? I think you can look at Jesus and see what he needed by what his dad did for him. And in the scriptures, you see the Father speak to Jesus the Son out loud, three or four times in Scripture. And each time it happens, the Father says the same thing to Jesus. He says, This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Now he's saying it out loud, so others are hearing this. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Now let me just break that down for our listeners. Let's break each phrase. The father is telling the son, I love you. This is my beloved son, I love him. So he's telling him, I love him. And you know what? Jesus, the man, needed to hear his father say, I love you, son. Then he says, in whom I am well pleased. He told Jesus as he was living his life, and this is towards the end before the crucifixion, but he was just reminding Jesus, I am proud of you, son. I'm proud of you. I am well pleased, and I want others to hear it. And then he told the people around, listen to him. And that was a statement of affirmation because the father was telling those around Jesus, this man who you're following, he is really special. So listen to him. And I've always said that is core, that's the core blessing message that every son needs to leave home with. So they're trying to come out of their own woundedness. But if a dad will just do it once, here's what's going to happen: rivers of living water will start flowing between father and son, and he'll find it easier and easier to walk up to his son, not once, but regularly. Put his arm on him and look at him and say, Son, I love you. Son, I'm proud of you. Or coming up and say, son, you're the best at this. And I just really admire this in you. That just becomes rivers of living water and affirmation to a son that a dad can do hundreds of times when the son is growing up under his dad. And you know how he leaves? He leaves the home at that point to face life firmly weighted emotionally, socially, and spiritually, because of the blessing his dad gave him in that blessing and all the things that spring off of him. You know, tonight I'm going out and celebrating my son's 44th birthday, and uh taking him and his whole family, and we're gonna go out and celebrate. And I can't wait to sit down at the table and in front of his two sons and daughter and wife, and say to my son again, for the umteenth thousandth time, Garrett Lewis, you are a man, and I am proud of you. I'm proud of you. You're a great man. I love you, and let me tell you, I know very few people who are as smart as you, as kind as you, and as invested in you as you are with your family and friends. Happy birthday.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Matthew 3, 17 is one of the passages you just shared with our dudes. Thank you for sharing that. You unpacked, you unpacked that like gold. And so I want to make sure that anybody who just hears this, and this is what I do with my my sons now, as a result, I did not know what you just told me until maybe a few months ago. It was Brian Doyle. I was chatting with him, and he asked me, you know, some questions and he referenced that Matthew 3 17. And I have read it over and over and over again. And now when I look at my sons, I have three, I say this exactly. I look at their head, I I grab their heads, their little, the little ones that grab their heads. There you go. I look at them right in the eyeballs, and I'll say, You are my son.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Incredibly good of you, and I love you. Once you learn the language of God, you then have the ability to speak it right into your children's lives. And that's led that leads me, Robert, to the question: how do we make sure that we don't pass on? I've met a lot of dudes, they're afraid of having children, they're afraid they're gonna pass on, or they're not sure how to be a dad. How do they make sure that what has been instilled in them doesn't get passed on to their children?

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Yeah, well, that's a great question. First of all, let me just say all the social surveys say the happiest men are men who are married and have kids. So if there's a guy listening and he said, I don't know if I want to have kids, I might mess up or be married. I just want them to hear you're keeping yourself from some of the greatest happiness in your life. Is it going to be a challenge? Sure it is. But do you know anything that's not great that doesn't challenge you? I just want them to know that being a dad is one of the greatest satisfactions of life. And will you know how to do it? First thing you need to do is just hold up your hand and say, No, I don't. It's a learned skill. Being a dad is a learned skill. Nobody just automatically knows how to do it. But because it's so valuable, there are all kinds of resources and groups of men who can sit down and talk the language of fatherhood, and you can learn those skills and then practice them. But here's what I want the hearers to hear. Once you practice any of these skills, it kicks in something in your soul that just comes alive, you'll be forever changed. And what we just talked about in a minute ago, giving the blessing to your son, a lot of guys don't even know what the blessing is. What we talked about, that's the blessing. That's what Jesus, the man, needed from his father. And I go, once the dad does it, from that point on, it's not going to be that hard because he learned a skill. But if you want to see a transformation, get some dads in the room who've never done it, teach them that, bring their sons in, have them call their sons up and do what you just said, have them walk up to their son and look at him and say those words, and you see all this emotion explode between the dad. We used to do retreats where at the end of the retreat we'd have a father call call his son up in front of the other ones, and he was just instructed beforehand put your hands on your son's shoulders and look into his face and give him the blessing. And beforehand, the dad wasn't sure he was insecure, but the minute he put his hands on his son's shoulders and looked into his face, it just flowed out of him, and so did the emotion, and you could just see the sun swell up, his chest stick out, his eyes began to water. He looked at his dad, and there was this magical spiritual chemistry in that moment that well, you never see it like that, other than in that moment. It's like there's a healing between the father and son that will be forever there because the dad gave the blessing. So I would just simply say, for guys listening or thinking, I don't know if I could be a dad, I would say press into that fear with courage, knowing on the other side of it are going to be some of the greatest blessings of life. And don't press into it thinking you know how. Press into it with humility, saying, I don't know how, but there's plenty of things, resources out there, and men who can get together and show you how.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Thank you for sharing that and and it's gold. And what you're talking about are the most pivotal conversations that we'll ever have on the planet. As it relates to being fathers and sons or you know, daughters, I don't know if there's more heavy of a conversation that we really need to be professionals at as it relates to the language of a father, the language of how the father speaks to us and how we ought to speak to others. There was one thing I do want to go back, and then I'm gonna ask you the final question for today. Okay, and it was I have you know, we just hired a new kid uh at Brown's Pressure Washington uh in Nashville, and we I've been chatting with him for the past few months prior to him coming on, and I asked him the question and said what you told me, now I'm reproducing what you've told me, okay? I said, because I asked him, I said, Does your dad love you? He said, I think. I said, Well, have you heard him say I love you? He said, I don't know. I said, I want you to go get it. When is the next and that's what you told me the last time we chatted? I said, I want you to go to your dad, and I want you to say, Dad, tell me you love me. If your dad is still alive, you gotta go get the blessing, you gotta ask for it. He said this this is gonna be the scariest thing I've ever done in my life.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Why is it so scary?

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Well, because there's a deep fear that the dad won't say that, and uh it is a deep hurt when you get in touch with it. But let me let me just say to our listeners, I've been literally with hundreds of men in small groups in different varieties where they've said, I've never heard my dad say he's proud of me, I've never heard my dad say he loves me when we've talked about those things. And so we'll say, Is he still alive? Yeah, he's still alive. Where is he's he lives in another state or whatever, he may live across town. We say the most important thing in healing your father wound is you've got to close the loop on dad, and the best place to tie the knot as at the blessing level, what we just talked about. So you need to go to your dad, and it doesn't have to be real awkward, just go in and just say, Hey dad, you know, I've been I've been thinking, and I just want to ask you, and then you just simply ask him, you're matter of fact, Dad, do you love me? Dad, are you proud of me? What do you like in me that I do? You can ask those questions, and the dad, I here's what I would say to the son. In a number of cases, the dad, because he's not he doesn't know how to speak the language, it's like saying, Dad, would you speak Arabic to me? He's at first, he's gonna look awkward, so you have to give him a little moment to adjust, and he may throw back something like, Well, you know, I love all my kids. And then you look at him and say, No, no, dad, that's not what I'm asking you. I'm asking you, do you love me? And in that moment, what I have found is most of the time, the thing we fear no most is that the dad won't respond. The dad will say, Well, Joshua, I do love you. So you love me, dad. He'll say, Yes, I love you. And then you say to him in affirmation, Dad, I've been waiting to hear that from you because I love you. And then the son needs to affirm the dad. But but here's what's incredible. Once that little phrase barrier is broken, the father has no trouble from that point on telling the son, I love you. Same way, dad, are you proud of me? I I would ask him directly, Dad, what do you admire in me? And let the dad articulate because the dad, and here's the thing, the dad doesn't know how to speak the language. The son is kind of helping him learn. And it's not that the dad, in 99% of the cases, it's not that the dad doesn't want to tell the son, he himself just doesn't know how. He's never gotten in touch with it himself. So is it going to take courage? Let me tell the son listening right now. It's gonna take great courage for you to go ask it. And rarely does a son just listening to a broadcast do it. I usually ask the sons to get some other dads together to pray for them, to cheer for them, and encourage them to go do it so they can be held accountable, so that when the son goes to talk to the dad, he knows he's got some men that day, that moment praying, that that will be a healing, powerful moment between father and son. And Joshua, I've seen that work hundreds of times. And from that point on, it doesn't mean that dad and the son are gonna recover everything that they lost, but they are going to be healed in that most basic, primal way, and that is the blessing that brings the glory of the father to the son and deposit it, and deposit it deep into his heart, and the son will carry it from that point on.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

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 doeswithout 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. If you're listening to this and you're on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or whenever you're seeing this, do me a favor, like, subscribe, share, comment. Because even if it's something that you don't need, there are people, I promise, in your communities, in your networks, that desperately need this conversation. And Robert, I'm gonna ask you your the final question for today. You told me something, and now I've also heard um better man share it multiple times with Chris. He has said, and you've I think it's actually something that you said, is that you can't become something that you can't define. So let me ask you the question you have said that every man must answer. How does the Bible define manhood?

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Yeah, isn't it interesting that we live in 2026? And the big question is, what is a man? What is a woman? And nobody will seem to want to venture out and nail that down, and yet we're suffering from that curse of a lack of a definition all throughout American society. I mean, it is it is a plague that most men growing up today and most men in our society today still have questions about what a man is. And most churches are sitting there talking about manhood and womanhood, but then when you ask them, well, what does that mean? They can't tell you. They can't give a specific definition of manhood. And let me tell you what that is that is a curse. That's what that is. Because the Bible starts with the Father, even before Eve comes along, interacting with the Son at four critical junctures that if you just look at the story, the story gives you the definition of manhood. Okay? So if somebody were to come up to me and say, Well, Robert, what is a man? I'd go, well, let's remember how the father interacted with the son. The first thing that he did is he came and he created the son, and when the son became conscious, he let the son know he was living in a lethal, dangerous environment. And he needed to listen to his father and what the father had to say, because if he didn't, he would die. So that was the first pillar of manhood right there, and that's this son, you've got to courageously follow my word. That's what a man does. He courageously follows the word of God because he's going to be living an environment that's going to come intimidating, threatening, seducing, and whatever. And the only way he can stand up to that is to courageously recommit to follow God's word. The second thing is in the garden, God brought a woman, it was the first wedding, to the man and gave the man that woman, and what you can feel in that is the father was giving away his treasure, this daughter, to a man, but with the message, your job is to protect, to love and protect her. Now, the sad thing about the story, if you carry it on out, that's one of the areas that Adam failed that brought the curse on the earth, is that he didn't love and protect his woman. But that doesn't mean that that responsibility to every man is not still in force. Every man is called to love and protect a woman. And that starts with his mom when he's a boy and needs to be taught that. It's taught by the father to his son when he starts dating. Your role is to love and protect and practice that with the girls that you date. But you'll carry, if you do that, you'll carry all those assets into your marriage and build on them in loving and protecting a woman for a lifetime. That's the second responsibility. The third thing is if you remember the story, God gave him a work to do. He gave him a garden, and it was really kind of an apprenticeship to start in a garden that eventually Adam would be steward over planet Earth. But he needed to start by really working hard, listening to his father, and working well. And so the third pillar of manhood was to excel at your work. Work wasn't a curse, work was a gift. And what you need to do is do your very best at it, and your father will help you. But that is a responsibility of manhood to work, and that provides and protects for your family. And then the last thing is he told Adam, Adam, I want you to go out and rule and subdue the earth. This earth is yours to make better. So I want you to better the world, and you can do that by contributing yourself to the community, to the Church, whatever it is, your gifts, over and above your family and your work. And when you take those four, and those were the four interactions specifically with Adam, by God the Father, with God his first creation, his son. And by that, you can just take those, that story with those four interactions, and you've got the definition of manhood standing right in front of you, and that's this that a real man, not the men we're producing today that are really kind of tragic caricatures, but a real man is one who grows up with his northern light, saying, your job as a man is to courageously follow God's word, love and protect God's woman, excel at God's work, and better God's world beyond just your family. That is what a man is. And if he has that definition, he can continually evaluate himself in even a second. Just like men's me saying it, you know, here in this podcast, I can be a guy driving down the street listening to that, and I can evaluate, am I a man today? And all you have to do in a second is go, well, am I courageously following God's word? Am I loving and protecting the woman in my life? Am I excelling at God's work? Am I better in God's world? Those are the four headlights. And if I'm doing that, I can rest and go, I am a man. If there's any of those things that are blinking yellow and saying, there's something wrong here, that's where I need to turn my attention. But that's what a son needs to hear early on from his dad, what a man is. A dad needs to call his son to that so that when the son leaves home, he forever has that North Star in his life to evaluate every day how he's living as a man. Because what I just told you, that is the definition of manhood.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Mic drop. Robert, thank you for sharing that. If this is new language for anybody and they want to go deeper, they want to learn more. Is there a website? Is there a book where they can find out more about what you're doing, what God's doing, and and what it means to be a godly man, husband and father?

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the the best way to get all the things we've talked about and more would be at the men's ministry. I'm a part of out of Dallas, Texas. It's called Better Man. And all you have to do is to go to betterman.com. Everything we've talked about and more is there at the website. There are all kinds of resources and studies, curricula, and everything that you can get. And the best news is because of generous donors, everything is there for anyone, absolutely for free. For free. You can get it all. The videos, the workbooks, everything is for free. It's been provided. We have right now hundreds of thousands of men in these small Better Man studies all over America and in 80 countries. So I would say the first thing would be to point men to a fundamental manhood that's right there on that website called Better Man. The second thing I'd mention is for dads. I've written a book that's become an ongoing bestseller, and it's easy to get, go to Amazon.com and look for raising a modern day night. Raising a modern day night is just simply a story of myself and two other dads who raised their sons with what we just talked about and how it turned out when they got to be adults.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Robert, thank you for sharing your time, your wisdom, your experience and knowledge with me and our guests. And if you've enjoyed or if you've listened to this podcast, please do and help us get this word out because our country is in desperate need of what an image of a man looks like. Just scroll through your reels, scroll through Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, wherever you're at, and you'll see men doing things that need to be changed. And you can be a part of the change by first becoming a better man. Robert, thank you again for your time today.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

Thank you. It was an honor. And uh for you men who are listening, remember you can't become what you can't define.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

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