The Father Your Family Is Still Waiting For

 Father’s Day is more than a celebration, it’s an invitation to take an honest look at the man your family experiences every day. In this special Father’s Day episode of the True Man Podcast, Mike challenges fathers to close the gap between the father they intended to become and the father they are becoming, while embracing the grace, purpose, and calling God has placed on their lives. #truemanpodcast 

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https://www.americanfamilyrenaissance.org/ 

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https://www.truemanlifecoaching.com/truemantrueways 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the True Man Podcast. This is an invitation to radical reconstruction of a man's masculine heart and soul in a place of safe community where we dare to ask questions deep-seated inside a man and explore ways to help you become a better man, a better son, a better dad, and a better spouse. Well, welcome back to the true man podcast. Certainly a special edition here today. Happy Father's Day! We celebrate the men that help raise us, the grandfathers, the grandparents out there. Today is your day, men. Happy Father's Day. And I hope you're having an exceptional time with your family. Now, we could probably argue that every day should be Father's Day, but perhaps that's a debate for another day. Now, Father's Day is truly a day to celebrate, and it can also be a day to recalibrate, as we're going to talk about in a second. But I also know this can be a terribly difficult day for some men. Maybe your dad or your grandfather is no longer on this earth, and I know you miss them, or maybe you just flat out have not had a relationship with your earthly father. And my heart goes out to you. And your feelings about this day are understandable. And if that's the case for you, you know, bear with us today as we talk about fatherhood. But today, yes, we celebrate Father's Day. Happy Father's Day. And I mean that. If you're a father, if you're in it, you know, showing up trying your best today is for you, and you deserve to be honored. This is hard work being a dad, and most men are doing it without some kind of roadmap. In fact, most of us have uh not had that kind of map. Uh, or maybe you've done it without a mentor or without nearly enough people in your corner telling you the truth. So before anything else, I see you, I see you out there, and what you're doing matters more than you know. So give yourself a little grace today. But I want to ask you something, and I want you to let it land before you answer it. Not, you know, the polished version, not the answer that you'd give at church, the real answer. So here's the question: Are you the father your family has been waiting for? Or are you still becoming him? And it's okay if you are. Sometimes these things take time. Maybe that question stings a little when you hear it. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe you're somewhere in between. A man who's doing better than his own father did, but honest enough to know that, hey, maybe there's a little bit more in me. More, more presence to give, more courage to show, more of yourself to bring to the people who need you most. Now, if that's you, boy, this episode is for you. Because Father's Day is not just a day to be celebrated, it's a day to be reckoned with. A day to look your life square in the face and ask, Am I building what I said I would build? Am I becoming the man my kids will point to one day and say, Yeah, you bet the man changed the direction of our family? That's the question on the table today. So let's not waste a second. Let's get right to it. Here's what most Father's Day content will give you today a less a list of grilling tips. Oh boy. A roundup of gift ideas. Doesn't that sound fantastic? Maybe a feel-good video montage set with some kind of acoustical guitar. And you know, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm having fun with it. Uh, but enjoy your steak, accept the card that your kid colored in at school. Let your family love on you. Be cool with all of that. But I want to offer you something different today, something that will still be with you on Monday morning when the cards are in the recycling bin. And guess what? The world is moving again. You know, Father's Day at its core is a mirror. That's right, you heard me. It's a mirror. It's a once-a-year cultural pause that says, look at your life as a father. No, really look, not at your intention, at the actual lived experience of the people in your home. And most men, if they're being honest, feel a complicated mix of things on this day. Pride because they're trying, because they love their kids fiercely, because they're doing more than their own father did in at least some ways. And underneath that pride, if they dig something else, a quiet conviction, a low grade awareness that there are places they've been absent, places they've been checked out, things they said they do that they haven't done, versions of themselves. They promised their kids they'd become. Now that's not guilt meant to ruin your day. That's the voice of a man who still cares. You see, the men who have no conviction on Father's Day are the ones who've stopped caring. You're listening to this because you have it. So here's what I want to give you today. Not a guilt trip, not a performance review. You don't need another one of those. A vision, a clear picture of what's possible of what the next chapter of your fatherhood could look like if you decide today to close the gap between the father you've been and the father your family is still waiting for. How does that sound? Because that's that that man, he's not a fantasy, he's not some other guy who had better advantages, a better model, a better start. He's you. Surrendered, sharpened, stepped into the fullness of what God put you here to do. So let's build that picture together for a moment. Why don't we? So I want to tell you about a moment I'll never forget. My son was young, old enough to understand, young enough that the words hit different when they came. You ever had that happen to you? So we're in the car, just the two of us, and I asked him a question, and I wasn't full fully prepared to have that I wasn't fully prepared to have answered. I said, Hey man, what's something you wish we did more of together? And he didn't answer right away, and he looked out the window for a second, and then he said something so simple it almost knocked the wind out of me. He said, Man, I wish you weren't always thinking about something else. He didn't say it mean, it wasn't done accusatory, just honest. You know, the way that kids are honest when you give them the space for it. And I sat there for a long time because he was right. I was physically present in more moments than I wasn't. I was a good provider, I loved him deeply, but my mind, my actual attention was somewhere else more than I knew. I was there, but I wasn't there. Have you ever experienced that? And that moment became a real turning point, one of the many for me, not because it destroyed me, but because I let it do what truth is supposed to do. It redirected me. Now, here's what I know. Every father has a moment like that. Maybe it comes from your kid, maybe it comes from your wife, maybe it comes at 2 a.m. when the house is quiet and you're start staring at the ceiling, and the scorecard of your own fatherhood is running through your head, uninvited, of course. Now, the question isn't whether the moment comes. It always comes, doesn't it? The question is, what do you do with it when it happens? You see a man who lets the moment convict him, who doesn't defend against it, doesn't explain it away, doesn't wait until he feels more ready. That man is on the edge of something. Not the edge of failure. He's on the edge of transformation. And transformation doesn't require you to be a different person, it just requires you to be more the more honest version of the person that you already are. So here's the first question I want you to sit with today, and I mean really sit with it, not just process it and move on. If your child or your wife could speak one honest sentence to you today about what they need most from you as a father and a husband, what do you think they'd say? Now you might already know the answer, and if you do, let that answer be today's turning point. Here's something I've come to believe after working with men. Every man walks around carrying three fathers inside of him. The first is the father he had, for better or worse. This man is in you, his voice, his patterns, his strength, and his wounds. You see, the way he handled pressure, the way he handled money, the way he showed or didn't show love becomes a part of you. You absorbed it all before you were old enough to evaluate it. And it's running in the background of your fatherhood right now, whether you've examined it or not. The second is the father he swore he'd be. You see, this is the father you designed in reaction to be the first one, the version you promised yourself you'd be in the 20s. Maybe at the altar, maybe when you held your firstborn, maybe in a quiet moment of reckoning. This father is generous, present, patient, and strong. He never does what your dad did, he always does what your dad didn't. The third is the father he's actually becoming. And this is the one that matters. This is the composite, the real live, daily version of you as a father that your kids are experiencing right now, shaped by the first, measured against the second, and either moving toward the man you intended to be or slowly drifting away from him. Most men live in the tension between Father Two and Three, between the man they promised they'd be and the man they're actually showing up as. And that tension, when they refuse to examine it, becomes shame. And shame, well, that makes men high. And hiding makes them less present, and less presence is exactly the thing you'd swore you'd never, never become. Now, here's what breaks that cycle: honesty, not confession for its own sake, the kind of honest reckoning where you look at all three fathers. The one you had, the one you promised, and the one you're becoming. And you tell yourself the truth about the distance between them. Not to condemn them, but to close the gap. Because your kids don't need the father you promise to be someday. They need the father who's closing the gap right now, today, in the next conversation, the next dinner, the next hard moment where you could check out, but you choose to stay. So here's the question: looking at those three fathers, the one you had, the one you swore you'd be, and the one you're actually becoming, where's the biggest gap? And what's one thing that would begin to close it? Write it down if you need to. In fact, I encourage you, journal about it. The answer is worth more than any Father's Day gift that you're going to receive. Now, let me tell you about where your kids or what your kids will not remember. They will not remember the car you drove. And they may. I remember a couple, the house you lived in, the salary you earn, the deal you close, the level you achieve. I'm not saying those things don't matter. Provisions are real. Stability is a gift you give your family. Work matters. It actually sets a great example. But it will not be what they remember. Here's what they will remember. They'll remember whether you showed up to the things that mattered to them. Even when your calendar said you had somewhere, quote unquote, more important to be. When you called them. Whether you named what you saw in them, the courage, the creativity, the specific God-given qualities that only a father who's really paying attention gets to see and speak over his children. They'll remember whether you stayed, whether you kept your word, whether you were the kind of man who, when things got hard and things always get hard, held his ground and chose his family. And here's the sobering truth about memories. Right now, today. Not that someday when you have more margin, more time, more capacity. Right now, in the ordinary moments of this ordinary Father's Day, your kids are writing the story of who their father was. What chapter are they writing today? That is not a question meant to load you with pressure. Lord knows you don't need any more of that. It's actually an invitation. Because the beauty of fatherhood, the stunning redemptive grace of it, is that today is still a day you can choose. You haven't run out of time. You haven't missed the window. The story is still being written. So what do you want the next chapter to say? Think about one specific memory you want your child to have of you. One moment, one feeling of truth about who their father was. And now ask yourself am I creating the conditions for that memory to exist? I want to close today by taking you somewhere that I think most Father's Day content never goes. I want to talk to you about how God sees you as a father, not how you see yourself, not how your kids see you on your worst day, not the voice in your head that runs the highlight reel every time you've fallen short. How God sees you. You see, scripture tells us that God is a father and not a distant, hard to please, disappointed in you, father. Jesus describes him as the father in the parable of the prodigal son, the one who sees his boy coming home from a long way off and runs, runs, doesn't wait for an apology to be finished, doesn't require the performance to improve. He runs towards his son and throws his arms around him. That is the posture of the father toward you today. On Father's Day, with all your gaps and failures and the version of yourself that you're still trying to become. They father differently. They lead from security instead of fear. They give grace because they know what it is to receive it. And they stay because they've been stayed for. They speak life over their children because someone speaks life over them. And the most powerful thing that you can do for your family today is receive what God thinks of you, not what you've earned, but what He offers. You're not disqualified, you are not too far gone. You are not defined by the template you were handed for the failures you've accumulated. You, my friend, are a son, loved, called, equipped for every hard and holy thing fatherhood asks of you. Now go live like that man. So here's what I want to leave you with on Father's Day. You are going to be celebrated today, and you should be. Accept it, receive it, let your family love on you. And then tonight, when it's quiet, when the day winds down, make one decision, just one. Decide who you're going to be as a father for the next 12 months. Not a list of goals, an identity, a declaration. Something like this. I am a man who shows up, who tells the truth, who stays in the hard conversations, who prays for my kid by name, who calls out the greatness in my family before the world gets a chance to call out the weakness. I am a man who is closing the gap every day, one decision at a time between the father. I've been and the family, and the father my family deserves. Say it out loud. Write it down and come back to it every time you feel the pull toward the easier, smaller version of yourself because your family is worth worth the fullest version of you. And so on this Father's Day is God's call on your life. What is it? Experience it. Let it flow. Happy Father's Day, men. I appreciate you being here this week. And if you know a man that needs to hear this podcast today, just grab your phone right now and fire off this podcast to him. It's really that simple. And if you enjoyed listening to me today, give me a great review on your favorite podcast channel. Help us grow the True Man podcast and help us grow the American Family Renaissance. Just go out to American FamilyRenaissance.org. You're going to find all kinds of information out there regarding our upcoming summit, the True Man Podcast, and everything going on right now in the True Man community. I gotta say, I I thank you so much for listening. Dad, thank you for listening as you're probably out hoofing it on your walk again today. Thank you to all you wonderful fathers out there. Thank you to all you wonderful men. Thank you for putting in the work to become the man that you want to be. Don't thank me. Thank your kids. You're doing it for your family. Thank your wife. Thank your wife. And I hope you have the most exceptional Father's Day ever. God bless you and thank you so much for listening to the True Man Podcast.