Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I’m your host, Chris Granger. Let’s jump in. All right, guys. This is your fun Friday episode. I know you’re excited to be here. You made it through another week. Hallelujah. Before we go much further though, you know we’re gonna start, we’re gonna start in God’s words.

We’re going straight to to, to the book of Hae this month. Okay? This, this week rather. And we’re gonna be in chapter one verses five and six. I’m just looking at two verses, but they have a lot in them guys. Okay? So it says, now this is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. You have planet much, but harvest it.

Little you eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your feel. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it. Guys, a lot of scripture that, that we can actually apply to our lives right now. Go back and listen to the spiritual kickoff for sure.

Spend a lot of time trying to take that one and unpack it a little bit for you guys. Cause I’ll tell you what, if we are not careful of our ways, man, so many things can happen that are just not in alignment with what God desires for you. Now, if you missed the episode on Wednesday, the meat episode. Spend some time talking about quality time and does that even exist anymore?

So shout out to my little, to my oldest Chloe, for challenging me with this one, uh, with this idea and for me to take, to take the time to unpack it. And I hope that helped you guys. Cause I really talked about quality time for yourself. What does that for yourself look like? And he’s gotta start with your time with God first and foremost guys.

Then we talked about quality time with our spouse. And not just time, actual quality time with our spouse and how we can make intentional efforts to improve that. And we talked about quality time with our children, you know, so for those that have kids, you know, I know it can be stressful, it can wear you out.

It’s one of the hardest jobs on the planet, so how can we take that from just busy quality? We really spent some time unpacking that. And then finally we talked about how do we need, have, have quality time with other. Guys, I’m telling you, if you’re out there and you’re trying to do this whole thing called life by yourself without other brothers around you, you’re going to have a hard time.

You’re going to struggle. You’re just going, you’re gonna hit the wall. You gotta have a group of men that are helping you. That’s all we talked about, the lions, then the lion within us, the things we’re doing within our community to help serve Christian men. So I pray guys, that you take some of those things that we talked about in the, in the Quality Time episode, and you apply.

In whatever area that you want to work on the most right now. Maybe it’s you, you just need to work on your area, your, your quality time for, for taking care of yourself. Maybe you need to start taking care of yourself physically, more mentally, more. Maybe you need to spend more time in the word more. Guys, go back and check that one out.

Cause I really gave a lot, put some effort in that one, trying to give you guys some insights and do some tips to actually make an. All right. So for a fun Friday though, you know what we’re gonna be doing? We’re gonna be focusing on a health tip, a wealth tip, and a self tip, and help you guys be the leader you gotta call has called, intend you to be.

So now a health tip. This is, I was thinking about this and my wife actually, this is her idea and, and something that I’ve been trying to do more and more, particularly for you guys that work from home. Now, for you guys that don’t work from home and you have a commute, this is for you as. But you need to focus on that transition from work to home.

There isn’t, there’s a transition that needs to happen there. Now, for some guys, that means you need to actually, you know, put your phone in plane, airplane mode when you get home. That’s not always, you know, the, an option for you guys. So what you do need to do is work on whatever that transition looks like now where you work from home.

Guys like me, my wife had a great idea. I started doing it. I work to a to a designated time. Usually it’s five or after 5, 5 30, 6, whatever that time is, and instead of coming straight to the kitchen table for dinner, I’ll actually go out, shoot basketball, or I’ll go do some pull-ups or I’ll just go outside and get some fresh air.

But it’s usually about 10 or 15 minutes of intentional unplugged time to where I can get out of that work mindset. And start transitioning to, okay, husband, dad, you know, not the lion. Not not all the things, all the things that are happening. How can I transition to be there, to be who they need me to be in those moments so that when I’m there at the dinner table, I’m not just there physically, but I’m there mentally as well.

I’m checked in. So you need to work on that transition. I know one of our members, uh, talked about, uh, you know, sometimes on his drive. He mentally go through an exercise of, of basically closing up everything from work. That way when he got home for that drive, he’s there. You know, maybe that means on your way home, maybe you listen to a podcast, maybe you listen to the Lion or other podcast, maybe you listen to some worship music, whatever you need to do and make that transition happen.

So if he brought, brought work into to the homes way too, it’s way too easy guys. And then they. The, the worst of us. Cause I think about it, at the end of the day, a lot of you guys are tired. You, you’ve busted it all day. You got things to do, your calendar’s busy and they get the worst version. We gotta learn how to make that transition and that transition with intent.

Okay. Transition with intent so that we can get home, that we can ready and we are ready to serve. We’re ready to, to be that leader that we’ve been, uh, God intends us to be. Right. I know you’ve been called to lead your. You have been handpicked by God to leave your family, so to lead your family. So do that.

Do that and make that transition so that when you’re there, you can be effective, strong and be the one that they need you to be. Now, for your wealth tip, for you guys, that’s, this is, this is kind of interesting one I think he has some fun with, but go find a compound interest calculator you to Google it.

You can find compound interest calculators all over the. And then get your kids, particularly if they get of, you know, late elementary, middle school, high school for sure. And start playing with the calculator and show them the power of compound interest. Cuz you hear this talk all the time about compound interest, compound interest, compound interest.

And until you start actually doing some math and showing them that the power that it has, the light bulbs probably not going to go off, but. When you have a compound interest catalog and you show them what, maybe a hundred dollars or $200 of investments per a month compounded over time could yield, man.

Next thing you know, you’ll, you’ll start opening some eyes, and the whole idea around this is we want to create better stewards. Right. Better stewards. Stewards, just someone who managed this, what’s somebody else has given them. So God’s given us provision. He takes care of us. We need to be good stewards.

So use a compound interest calculator and have some fun with it. I’m telling you, this could be a fun way that you actually open the eyes of your children and give them an opportunity to see what the power of, of, of compound interest could do for. And it may make them be a little more intentional around saving and investing in the future.

Which, you know what, we don’t have enough of that being talked about right now. Definitely. It’s not being taught in our schools. So we need to, to have opportunities and, and, and anytime you can find fun ways to do it, Hey. You’re playing with fake money. Just have some fun, Hey, here’s what I do if I invested a million dollars, you know, make some big numbers up to watch it really, really jump.

But just have, get out there and show them how that can work for them. And if you get to this point where you wanna show them how it’s worked for you directly, that’s even better. Alright, now our self tip for the week, and this came from our, one of our recent Ask Me Anything event. And our member, our speaker rather brought up the idea of a weekly staff meeting.

Okay. Now, the weekly staff meeting is where you, you check in with your, your spouse and your family. You can do it, you can do ’em separately or together. I like to probably do the, the spouse one-on-one. And then you bring in the family for a weekly staff meeting to, uh, go over what you and she have agreed upon.

Right? But what you’re doing in these staff meetings is you’re having that intentional time to. Get to get aligned on the calendar, on the logistics of the week, as well as this is an opportunity to connect with her. Specifically just about your, your relationship, how are things going? Are there areas you need to work on?

Are there areas that that she is concerned about? Are there areas you’re concerned about? What would you like to start planning for? Is, is just a good check-in time. Now you hear me talk about a lot having that weekly, that, not the weekly, the monthly budget meeting. That budget committee meeting. That’s super important because the families that budget together, you know, thrive together.

But I’m telling you, this is another w really important way that you can keep aligned. On, you know what’s going on now, I know a lot of you guys have calendars. You have digital calendars. You have, you know what, you know, the old school calendars, maybe dry erase calendars that you’re keeping up all the different family activities, and that’s great, but don’t miss this opportunity once a week.

Just be intentional. Hey, let’s just get, let’s just get synced up here. It’s super important just to get synced up, particularly as your family grows, as you start doing more, more activities, you start serving more, you start doing more things at church, whatever it may be. It gets busier and busier. So be intentional.

You’re gonna have to put some some effort into this to have. If you wanna call it something else, fine. Uh, weekly check in. A weekly, but weekly staff meeting is what we, is what was brought up in a community. So I thought it made a lot of sense. So I have that. Now. Again, this doesn’t happen unless you actually plan it.

So you need to find a time and a day during the week that it’s gonna be least likely where you’re gonna cancel it. So it may be like a Saturday night thing or Saturday afternoon, or it could be a Sunday, have a deal. Maybe it’s the first thing Monday. I don’t know. Usually by the time Monday starts, like you’re into your week, my recommendation will be sometime over a weekend be consistent with it.

Maybe it’s an early Saturday morning thing and you, you know, you get up and you and your, your spouse are having coffee together and you just. All right. Here, let’s get, let’s get a line on what’s going on. Well, maybe it’s Sunday afternoon after you had your Sunday afternoon nap and you’re chilling out and you’re having dinner.

Maybe you and her sit, take 10, 15, 20 minutes and get a line. Whatever that looks like, you have to figure that out. But be intentional about it. Okay? So they’re your tips for, for your health tip. Focus on that transition from work to home. Work from home. You gotta transition. Self tip, take some time, have some uh, get compound interest calculator and show your kids the power of that and your self tip.

Let’s start implementing that weekly staff meeting to stay aligned and connect it with our spouse. Alright, now your book of the week. This week I want to call this one out. This is actually called Relation Shots, a practical Guide to Relationship Success. 52 weeks of intentional, couple of, of intentional growth for couples.

This is from my friend Eric Wooten. Eric Kimbo. He was on our show earlier, uh, when the Lion first was getting going. He, he came on and shared about the magnetic marriage. So he was one of our recent Ask Me Anything guest. Probably one of the most powerful ones we had. We had a bunch of spouses that joined in on that show as well.

Uh, on that show, on that, on that, on that, uh, event as well. It was really great. Eric did a phenomenal job. He answered a lot of new questions. This is his most recent book. What he has here is basically, it’s, it’s, it’s a chapter. You can use this as like a chapter a week, and he’s just given you practical ways that you can improve your relationship over.

And, and, and I’m telling you, there’s a lot of really good things in here, a lot of really good tips. And they all come with, he gives you a little thing you can watch. He gives you some, he gives you a little bit of of context to that you can understand. Then he gives you a call to action. Okay. A little call to action that will help you and your spouse move this thing forward.

So I’m telling you, there’s a lot, a lot to unpack here. A lot of videos, a lot of questions, a lot. If you’re looking for a good date night activities, you could take this and work through a chapter and maybe you, you work through a chapter a week or, you know, or, or just spread it out over or, or a longer period of time.

But take this cuz you never know if you’re intentional about your relat. It’s amazing what, what God will do and how things will grow. So again, relation shots from Eric Wooten. Make sure you check out the link in the show notes. We’ll have a link to that for you guys if you want to add this to your library.

Eric’s a great guy. I love him to death. Uh, just, he’s just such a cool dude. Uh, very laid back, very chill. Uh, he’s got an online community as well where he tries to. Couples. So guys, just check him out, uh, and check be for sure. I’ll put a link in his show notes as well for his YouTube channel. Subscribe to that.

I definitely highly encourage you guys to, to get on that. All right, now for your dad jokes this week. That’s gotta got two dad jokes this week. Hopefully you’ll enjoy ’em. Dad joke number one hat does the moon cut his hair ec clip? Right. That’s it. That’s it. And number two, I bought some expensive laxatives.

Dave gave me a good run for my money. So that’s probably for my oldest daughter. We’re stealing into the potty humor thing around here, so that’s, that’s for her. But number one, how does the moon cut his hair? Eclipse it. Number two, I bought some expensive laxatives. They gave me a good run for my money. So I know my wife is somewhere rolling her eyes.

She can’t believe I pulled number two out. But hey, I put number two s. Number two. There you go. That’s the gift that keeps on giving fellas. So hopefully you enjoy that one. Let me know which one lands best. For sure. Remember I rolls count. Uh, so, so definitely if you have a dad joke, Jumping through the community.

Well, I think I, I get a lot of these submittal from the guys in the community, so would love to, to get your dad joke. All right, so your question this week guys, we’ve been talking about where does quality time fit on your busy schedule? I’m telling you, your calendar’s a jam full. I know they are. I know they’re jam full, but busy does not mean quality.

So how can you start putting quality time on your busy calendar? Hopefully this week give you some ideas that you can start implementing to make a really a big. On your calendar, not just your calendar, but unpack an impact on others. It’s all about relationships and growing relationships and loving one another.

If we’re not intentional about what we do, the steps we take. Guys, you’re never gonna build relationships this way, the way that you want to. I know the way that you desire to. So hopefully this enj, you’ve enjoyed these tips. Come back again. On next week, we’ll be serving you, trying to do some, some more things to get out there and help you be the leader to God intends you to be.

God, if you haven’t given us a rating review yet, please do that. If you, if you wanna be a donor, please, we, we, we’d love your support. Hop on, be a, a, a monthly donor for line with Dennis. Any amount helps. I tell you, any amount helps us do the work we’ve been called to do. Maybe you haven’t joined that community yet and you want to jump in and check it out, but you just haven’t jumped off.

Got off the fence yet. Tony, what are you waiting on? We’ll give you a free 30 day trial. Hop the end. Let’s have a conversation, maybe show you how we serve others. If it doesn’t serve you, that’s fine. Hop out. It’s all good. There’s, you have 30 day, you have a month fell. It’s a month to try it out. So go to the line within.us, join that.

Join us for free. Hop in there. Let’s see how we can serve you. Let’s see if you like the events that we do, the different type of resources that we’ve built to help you grow. Be the leader God attention to be Now. Pray you come back next week. Uh, maybe if you want, come to the website, the line with us. Go check out our merchandise.

We have our never retreat shirts out there. They are hot, they’re off the press, they are ready to go. We have our, our line within us hats, we have decals you can hook up on the back of your car or your truck. I’m telling you, we have some fun stuff out there on our, on our merchandise store that you wanna check out.

And then speaking, starting to do more and more speaking guys. So, Go to the line within us, go to our speaking page. You’ll see that that dropdown menu, and you’ll have an opportunity to see the different types of talks and presentations that we have ready, and if it’s something that we could help serve you and your men’s group or just your church in general, or maybe your small group, whatever it may be, a lot of those topics are pretty open.

Let me know, reach. You can ac take action right there on the website. You can book, you can, you can request more information and we’ll be there looking forward to getting out and sharing the good news of the gospel with others and helping more and more men understand. Look, it’s really about just growing in Christ and under understanding how we can simplify and apply this and, and apply it to our life, to our walk, to our marriage.

I’m telling you, fellows, to your career, that’s what it’s all. That’s that to me, that gets so fired up on this stuff. It just, it really is something that I see that God is, is, is why he’s created the line within us. Why we do what we do each and every week, help each and every one of us grow. So I see you guys back here on next week.

Get after this weekend, have some fun. Do whatever he calls you to do. Be obedient and unleash the lion within. Does your men’s group feel stale? Is men’s ministry at your church simply going through the motion? If the answer is yes, the lion within us is ready to give you the kickstart you need to get moving in the right direction.

We have a host of topics from marriage, parenting, finances, and leadership that I am delivering myself to help your team start doing the work God has called you to do. So I’m ready to come serve your groups in person and to get started visit Delion. US slash speaking, that’s the lion within us slash speaking there.

You can contact us directly or share the link with your church leadership to get started. Again, that’s the lion within us slash speaking and I look forward to helping others unleash the lion within.