[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
Hello, my friend, and welcome to this two-part series on A Call to Leadership. I'm Dr. Nate Salah, your host. I am so glad you are here. If you're a father and you've had trouble in the space of dadding, and I know I have, whether it's been through the trials we've faced as parents or the trials we've faced as children of parents, this episode will be life-giving. I've invited a dear friend of mine, Mr. Scott Reed, who has recently written a book called The Power of a Dad, and it is so, so encouraging, inspiring, deep with wisdom. He's going to share some of his principles that have guided him in this world and continue to help men, fathers become the dad that they are called to be. Can't wait for you to listen in. This is A Call to Leadership. Scott. Reed, welcome to the show.
[00:00:55] J. Scott Reed
Thanks, Nate. So good to be here, man. We've been trying this for a while.
[00:00:59] Dr. Nate Salah
I know here we are. I'm thrilled. And not only that, because you're just such an important person in this world. And I know that you probably being an introvert slash someone who doesn't like a lot of attention. It probably comes with a little bit of trepidation. However, our conversations often revolve around life and family and your involvement deeply in that space. And you wrote this super cool book. But we have to talk about because, you know, our listener knows that the role of the father is essential, and in our society, we've fallen so far away from the model for what a dad is, and you speak to that directly, not only your book, but also in your life. And man, I'd love to just take some time to unpack some of those principles and just some real valuable takeaways for the dad. Who perhaps is struggling to get past some challenges with a son or a daughter or perhaps the dad who's trying to identify what is a dad today? What am I supposed to do? Or perhaps it's the dad who didn't have a dad and trying to understand, like, how do I break this generational sort of curse, if we're going to use that terminology. But before we get into that, man, okay, you got a book. What brought this on?
[00:02:16] J. Scott Reed
Yeah. Well, a couple of things. One, I think it's been in me and on my heart for maybe most of my life, honestly, I think that, and we can talk more about this in a second, but just that calling of dad. And I think there's so much to being a good dad, but I think so much of it is in the DNA of every good man. It's the desire to serve. It's a desire to solve problems. It's a desire to fix things. It's a desire to like, yeah. Build people up and cheer people on and coach people to victory. It's like I truly believe in the heart of a healthy man It's in all of us. So I think it's been there a long time, but for at least 15, 20 years the majority of our marriage I would say often to Holly, and I talked about this in the introduction of the book a little bit I would often say to Holly, like man If I were to ever write a book, it would be about this thing. Now I would say that because I knew I'd never write a book. So it's easy to say stuff like that. So I'd be like, if I ever wrote a book, it would be about this. And then I would go on to tell some story that I just heard or point to the TV and a news article that was, or a new story that was flashing up there.
[00:03:22]
And it was always around centered around a son or a daughter. Who was either, had been either beautifully built up or unbelievably torn down by the dad or the lack thereof dad. There's lots of reasons for that, but it's either an abusive dad, a not present dad, or a dad that's there and yet is always busy and doesn't know how to, you know, engage. But all over media, I would get so frustrated with nineties TV sitcoms, you know, that were like making out the dad, like Everybody Loves Raymond to just be this blithering idiot. And it's almost like, look, we would actually rather you stay out of this because you're just going to mess it up even more. Right. And that just became the normal thing that we all bought as an American culture specifically. But the other reason I think we, that I wrote this book is that for the first time in my life, after almost 23 and full-time ministry. We moved to Los Angeles and the Lord kind of called us to, uh, something brand new that was pretty scary and pretty out there. And for the 1st time in my life, I had some margin to sit and like, start this thing. Because as you know, you've written books as you know, this. I don't know how people write books that have full time jobs, you know, so It was I was able to finally sit down and get after this thing And so that's probably the a long answer to the why
[00:04:46] Dr. Nate Salah
And i'm so thankful that you did and, and we'll make sure that the show notes Show how to get this very important book You mentioned something that I want to frame around because I think it hits home for many of us, especially The middle-aged dad, you know growing up In the nineties, so to speak, right. For those of us born in the seventies or the early eighties, we remember shows like married with children. And shows that really reflected the dad as a little bit of a buffoon. Someone who is out of touch and the joke of the family. And you're right, this is a common sort of theme. Whereas, you think about like the 60's dad. The leave it to beaver dad and the strong dad who has wise words. And that dad seemed to have disappeared. In a lot of ways in our modern culture. It's interesting. You bring that up because our influences our media influences certainly do influence culture and what we see around us. And I wonder how that's affected dad's identities in culture today versus those examples we had. In the earlier years of our television, and I wondered, I mean, you've been in the pastoral work for many years and you've seen probably more dads than a lot of people will see in terms of how they are interacting with their families and how these Children are raised and things like that through your observations. How has that informed some of what you put into your book?
[00:06:08] J. Scott Reed
Yeah, that's a big question because you're right. I've seen so many dads with so many different backgrounds and understandings. I think the major influence into the book from what I've watched from most dads is that whether they feel equipped, maybe they had a good dad and good examples in their lives or not, there's this Trepidation, we all feel based upon our own insecurity, our own pride. All of us struggle, all of us men struggle with not feeling like we're good enough. And I talk a bit about like that famous John Eldredge quote from Wild at Heart, which is, Every man is asking the question, Do I have what it takes? Am I strong enough? Right? We, we as men, And dads, we ask that question forevermore, right? And so I think a lot of the impetus of this book was, I want to say to all dads that have a level of health, and I make sure I caveat, there's some dads that need to get healthy before they start pouring into people because we don't need unhealthy, toxic dads pouring toxicity into sons and daughters, right?
[00:07:12]
But for the most part, dads that have a level of health, And a level of maturity. There is such an opportunity all around them to pour into sons and daughters with the heart of a good dad. There are sons and daughters everywhere. We see it in Los Angeles constantly. These young men and women, they don't even realize what they're missing. Until they experience a healthy mom, healthy dad, healthy family. And then they go, Whoa, wow. I've been missing that. And so I guess to answer your question, I think why me talking to so many dads along the way is I think all dads need a little bit of a kick, like, Hey, you got a lot to offer this world needs you, not just your own biological kids, maybe your biological kids are grown and gone, and you're kind of an old man now, and you feel like. What does anybody want to hear from me? We need your voice. We need what you have to say. You speak with a unique voice that mom can't speak with. You have a unique power. And so the book was meant to like kick dads in the pants and say, we need to get it back in the game. Stop being sidelined, you know.
[00:08:17] Dr. Nate Salah
Bro. And I'm going to read an excerpt from your book that speaks to that on page 33. I love how you wrote this. You said this quote, Being a dad and carrying a dad heart for those of us is a life-changing opportunity to which God is asking us men to say yes. Yeah. Tell me about the dad-heart.
[00:08:38] J. Scott Reed
The dad-heart is a deep well, but I would say that I think the most powerful thing in the heart of a dad is around this idea of identity. And I talk about one of the most powerful dad moments we see for sure in scripture, because I'm a, an apologetic believer and follower of Jesus Christ. So I would say that because of this, this is the most powerful dad moment of all time. But when Jesus comes out of the water after being baptized, it's in Matthew three and a half. Yeah. The heavens open and everyone that's there, this is a factual event because hundreds of eyewitnesses, the heavens opened the spirit of God descended like a dove and the voice from heaven. I mean, imagine that again, hundreds of witnesses, a voice from heaven audibly speaks, and he says, this is my son, whom I love. In him, I'm well pleased. And so I talk about that phrase. This is my son or daughter whom I love. And in them, I'm really pleased. And the power of that from a dad, it speaks confirmation of identity. And then it also speaks affirmation of identity. Not that we just love our kids, but we really like them.
[00:09:45]
And we're really cheering them on. We really see great stuff in them. I think dad voice more than any voice in the nuclear family unit has an ability to speak and to call out identity and sons and daughters. And if we look around our world today, and I know our viewers probably have come from various views on this and so agree or not, it's okay. I'm just going to say my opinion, but we look around our world today, man. And I think so many of the problems that we see in our culture is, are because of confused identity. Whether it's identity in terms of role, identity in terms of who we really are, identity in terms of sexuality, like there's so many confused ideas about who we really are and if Jesus needed to hear specifically from his dad, who he really was. Because he immediately went from baptism into the wilderness. What the enemy was trying to get at the most with Jesus was, Hey, if you really are who you think you are or who he says you are, right, our whole lives are spent with the enemy attacking that same thing in us, are you really? Who you think you are, you don't really think you're all that, do you? Right? Our culture is bombarded against our identity, and I think dad voices, more than anything else, are needed to speak who our kids, our sons and daughters, really, really are, in their core of who they are.
[00:11:13] Dr. Nate Salah
Man, that's strong. And it reminds me that our children are not the enemy because you've had teenagers and it's easy to get caught up in what happened to my child that was so loving and just like, Daddy's everything. They begin to form an identity and there's tension. There can be tension, let's say, between, especially males, let's call it, you know, males, children, the husband and the father. And sometimes, It's easy to be in the flesh and say, Oh, you want to challenge me or, Oh, This is my house. You know, and go down the list of, oh, but what's beautiful about the illustration in Scripture is that there really was no challenging. Jesus wasn't challenging the Father. He was simply fulfilling the will of the Father. And he was doing it because he was in unity with the Father. And at times, I think we forget that In this world, when the enemy or the adversary, and I just talked about this on another episode, whether you believe in a real adversary called Satan, or the adversarial nature of Satan, culture.
[00:12:20]
The point is, the adversary is the one who gets between. It is the divider. And this division causes us to not be in unity as a family. And where the scripture is, is that God is saying we are complete unity here. And I've found that in my own walk as a father, I have to check myself. And thank God for a spouse who is infinitely more wisdom than I am in this space with those aspects of femininity that I must consider in my own sort of natural masculinity. And just, just the other day. My son and I were having some, just a little friction, guy friction, and I was wrestling with how to deal with this and she had given him a hug and she kind of just did a little hand gesture for those listening, not seeing the social media, YouTube, just come in for the hug and I came in for the hug and. It was a bond and we bonded and connected and it was a moment that brought us back together when we were separated by the world, by life, by whatever it is, man. And sometimes, actually I watched a movie and I want to hear your opinion about this. Sometimes our head's not in the right space and our heart's not in the right space.
[00:13:37]
And then of course, our hands are definitely not going to be in the right space, our actions. So I watched, I don't know if you ever saw this movie yesterday, anyway, I don't want to give it all away, but it's a love story and it's very touching story, but I watched parts of it to bring myself into a space that was more receptive of the care that's necessary and not the conflict that we sometimes will gravitate toward when we feel that there's a competition.
[00:14:05] J. Scott Reed
Yeah. Can I talk to that? Cause I love how I have two real strong thoughts about what you just said. One of the things is this Malachi 4 thing that I write at the very end of the book, I call it the turning this chapter and it's Malachi 4 saying that God will send Elijah, who will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, the hearts of children to their fathers. Reconciliation of fathers to children is the heart of God. He knows that's the whole game of the enemy is to pull apart the unity of the family, specifically hearts of fathers to their children. I mean, if you want to know my belief so strongly, that's family unit is the catalyst for wholeness and health in our world. You want to see our culture improve. It's not going to be about who's president. It's not going to be about government. It's going to have nothing to do with policy. It's going to be, you get the family healthy again. And you'll see culture improve, period. I will stake my whole life on that. So God's true plan and his desire is for the hearts of fathers and children to be turned back together.
[00:15:13]
Now you're talking about is really interesting. The times we go into our kids or we're trying to connect with our kids and they're not giving us anything or they're giving us lip or they're giving us attitude or they're giving us the opposite of connection and it's frustrating. It makes us want to pull away. And so. One of the things I wrote, which I try to live by and please know, I was writing this book for me too, as a dad, there's no expert dad. I am not an expert dad. Dadding is hard, but one of the things I wrote is there's a big difference between a covenant and a promise, right? And so people think there may be the same things and there's elements that are similar, but a covenant is multiple parties, two or more parties. That come together around an agreement and both sides, all sides have obligations and responsibilities to uphold to make this thing happen when you married your wife, you and Tara got married, you both made obligations and promises. To each other that caused this covenant to happen with the Lord, right?
[00:16:16]
A promise is very different. So when we read about God's promises to us, this is unilateral. When he promises Nate something, it has nothing to do with your behavior. You could run away from him and he would still fulfill that promise in your life. That's the beautiful thing about who Jesus is and who the father is. Dude, here's the hard thing. This is the hard thing. We as dads made a promise to our kids. That was not a covenant. Right. So my sons did not promise me anything when they were born. This was not their choice. They got thrust into this world, into this family unit, into this life, but not even by their own decision. Right. I made the promise to the sons. So it is my responsibility to fulfill the promise I made to do my very best to be present, to love unconditionally, to give generously, to lay my life down for this son or daughter, and it has nothing to do with their behavior. That's the hard thing. Has nothing to do with what they, if they're, we all want them to be like, dad, you're the best. Well, you're so loving. You're so caring. You're so good. Even without that, it's still our promise to keep. And that's a tough assignment.
[00:17:30] Dr. Nate Salah
Amen. That ties into, I love it. That ties into grace, unmerited favor. And, if we haven't fully received grace, how can we fully extend it? If we haven't fully received love, how can we fully turn around and give it? That's the source. And I know this isn't necessarily Sermon Wednesday, but we have to figure out, we have to identify, understand what our sources are. For that life-giving promise to be fulfilling and to truly fulfill it, boy, that's a big question. And I like to actually turn the page to that because I think it's important to have the conversation. It's important to have the conversation around what we are surrounding ourselves with so that we can create an environment for ourselves that gives life. To our families. And I say that to say, you know, I've been friends for gosh, almost two decades now. And so you were about five years ahead of me on the father circuit.
[00:18:27]
And so when your kids were young, I was learning. Okay, well, here's some of the things you say you're doing. You had these phrases. One of the phrases I remember to this day, obedience first. I don't know if you remember that, but you would tell me that. And what a great phrase. In other words, when they're little, Rather than explain what all of the different aspects of what we're going to do, let's work through learning to be obedient and then having a trust in your father that I will then reveal to you the why I found that to be instrumental in those early years. Now, things change, of course. Now it's with Adolescents and teens, of course, and then adult children, things change, of course, different seasons. I say that to say, mentorship in this space of fatherhood, how important is that? How do we manifest it?
[00:19:17] J. Scott Reed
Wow, yeah, mentorship to our sons. Unfortunately, there are, I think, a lot of dads. That do that obedience first and to just explain more about what I used to tell you, I actually wrote about that in the raising chapter of this book, too, but that we were kind of the kind of parents, and thankfully, Holly and I had unity I know there's a lot of parents out there that do not agree on how to raise kids and that is An extremely difficult place. And I have a lot of compassion for parents that don't agree. Thankfully, Holly and I had a lot of unity, and we would just say to the boys when we'd ask them to do something that they didn't understand, and they wanted to talk about it or argue or push back, we would simply say, Here's what I need you to do.
[00:20:00]
I want you to obey and do it, and then we'll talk about it. When it comes to this idea of mentorship, this is a whole nother thing, a whole nother level of that. Uh, unfortunately, there are the dads that demand obedience and demand respect, and yet we all are hypocrites on some level. We all have things that we say we are, and we don't actually totally fulfill. So it's in all of us. But dads will demand respect, demand obedience. And yet they do not live in a way that their sons and daughters can grow up watching and saying, I want to be like my dad in that area, or I wish I was more like him in this or that.
[00:20:40] Dr. Nate Salah
Wow. Indeed to get that response from our children, particularly in areas where we are leading healthily and wholly and with great wisdom and gratitude. Absolutely. And as we round out this first. I am so thankful that you joined Scott and myself as we unpack this conversation, so timely, so needed about dads. I can't wait for you to listen to the second part of this episode in just one week as we go deeper and further with mentorship and the busy dad, unpacking that with some sage wisdom from Scott and his book, The Power of a Dad. Can't wait for you to listen in. I'm Dr. Nate Salah. And this is A Call to Leadership.