December 16, 2024 • 44 mins
In this episode, Granger and Amber dive into another heartfelt listener question from a young anonymous listener in Utah who is struggling with lust, how it affects his personality, and finding redemption through faith. Granger shares wisdom on controlling natural impulses, God's design for marriage, and the path to fulfillment without shame. Plus, the couple shares a lighthearted update on Granger’s battle with poison oak—don’t miss Amber’s hilarious take on his “minimalist” wardrobe!
Don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments and if you got a question email podcast@grangersmith.com !
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for being here.
I saw so many people this week. I got back
from Lebanon, Pennsylvania and saw so many of you and
people that came up. Were speaking at a banquet and
a lot of people come up and they're like, hey,
we listened to the podcast. And other people said, how's
your poison oak doing? And at first I was a
(00:33):
little bit caught off guard because I just thought, how
did you know that I had poison oak? I was
actually suffering badly, And they're like, you said it on
your podcast last week, so thank you. Sometimes I forget
what I say. It means the world that you guys
listen and care and come back a week after week. Uh,
put the poison ivy or oak, I should say, is better.
(00:56):
It's now it's all on my arm four under my
right arm, and that's new. It was all over my
side on my left ribcage and horrible. Actually, never I've
been in the woods my whole life, I've never had
poison oak until now, and it was it crushed me.
(01:17):
I cut some seater and it had a little bit
of I remember seeing it. It was really bright and vivid,
and I remember seeing that vine inside the seater that
I cut, and I remember thinking, oh, that's it's actually
really pretty. The leaves were really red and pretty, and
it got me and my brother Parker had poison ivy
ironically earlier this year, and so he had a prescription cream.
(01:40):
That's the only thing that's gotten to be better. So anyway,
thank you guys. I mentioned it last podcast, and it
was kind of shocked that I went to Pennsylvania and
people remember that. I love that you guys listen and
come back each week. If you want to ask me
a question, email podcast at grangersmith dot com. Podcast at
grangersmith dot com. It does not have to be any
(02:00):
kind of certain subject. It seems like the past probably
six to eight months, there's a lot of these theological
questions and it doesn't have to be that. So if
you if you tun tune into this podcast and you
say Granger answers all these theological God questions, Hey, I'm
just answering questions that you send, so we could talk
(02:21):
about whatever you want and we'll walk through it. We've
been doing this now, y'all going on eight years. Can
you believe that in this podcast going on eight years?
I can't even believe that. I can't that I can't
believe that we could even see the horizon of a decade.
That's crazy to me. The first question comes from James
(02:43):
as we get into this, and I like to say, James,
I want you guys to ask a question like we're
just sitting in the cab of a truck and something
comes up because something's on your mind. We got the
windows down and you say, hey, man, could I kind
of run something by it? That's that's the format of
this podcast. James says, Hi, Grande, I work a full
time job. I coach my son's Little league team. My
(03:04):
wife and I are trying to start a small business
on the side. I feel like I'm constantly running from
one thing to the next, and I don't have time
to breathe. How do you balance work, family, personal time
without feeling like you're always dropping the ball. Any tips
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for being a good
role model, James, James, thank you, brother. Appreciate the email
(03:25):
and the trust with a question like this, and certainly, man,
it's it's everyone listening thinks to themselves. Yeah, busy. It's
funny in the most hectic days of touring with the
band would be a city after city after city. You
(03:48):
kind of start every every city just starts to look
the same, especially in the summers when we do these fairs,
and every fair ground starts to look the same. So
you're like in Ohio, and then you're you're in Michigan,
and then you're in Illinois, and then you're in Indiana,
and it's they all it's like a a some kind
(04:09):
of dirt track and grandstands and ferris wheels and everything
behind that, and you could smell the same foods, and
it starts to all blend in together, and you a
lot of times would be playing with these other bands
and the buses would pull in in the night time
and we would all be sleeping, and you wake up
the next morning and catering would have breakfast and we
(04:32):
would come out of the bus and you know, you're
looking for coffee, and then the right across, you know,
in the parking spot next to you is another bus
and that door is opening and a guy's coming off
looking for coffee, and and you haven't seen him in
you know, eight months or since whenever last show you played,
(04:52):
and hey, how's it going right there? Right there there's
this moment how's it going when the other guy would
say busy, and then he looks at you and he goes,
how about you guys, and you go busy? And I
thought about that so much. Always laughed to myself because
(05:13):
I thought, I thought, what if my answer was I'm
not that busy. Because if it is, what you're communicating
is work is not going good. Things are not going
well in the music business. That's what that answer would communicate,
not that busy. So we associate busy with work is
(05:35):
good because you usually would say something like it's busy,
you know, but it's good. But man, just crazy right now? Crazy,
And then you'd say, yeah, but us too, Man, how
about you guys? Us to say, where'd you guys come from? Dude,
I don't even remember Detroit? Maybe how about you Springfield?
I think, yeah, oh, crazy, crazy, busy. So it's just
(05:58):
like this badge of honor. Maybe this is an American thing.
I don't think I've talked to too many people worldwide
about this, but I feel like it's probably an American thing.
We just take so much pride in being busy and
there's almost no way out of it. In fact, you
have to really fight to find space, and if you
do find space, you're gonna fill it with something like
(06:22):
James says here with if you have time. For instance,
this is what James is thinking, putting words in his mouth.
He's thinking that I have extra time, I should coach
my son's little league team, and then there goes the time.
And then if you have a little time because you're
not coaching, you say, hey, we should start this small
(06:42):
business thing, and then there goes that time. So, like
he says, I'm constantly running from one thing to the next,
and I don't have time to breathe. He's James coming
out of the tour bus looking for coffee, saying busy.
And he's not necessairly complaining. But that's why. I mean,
everyone's listening right now going yeah, I got it, especially
(07:05):
this time of year. If you're listening to this podcast
in real time, it is December, and this time of year,
everyone is just busy. In fact, dear brother of mine,
his son has a piano recital tonight and he's been
asking me to go, and I'm like, I really want
to go, because especially if he asked me multiple times,
(07:26):
I know it's important to him. And so it's that therefore,
it's important to me to be there. And yet Lincoln
has a basketball game tonight, and so I'm texting him like, Hey,
if we go to this basketball game and still make it,
can we make it to your house at eight even
though the recital starts at seven fifteen? Would anyone still
(07:49):
be there? And he replies and goes, bro, I understand
everyone's busy this time of year, and he knows it's
not just this time of year, it's all the time.
That's what we do. So the question from James is
how do you balance work, family, and personal time without
(08:10):
feeling like you're always dropping the ball. It's actually interesting
that he uses that analogy. I've heard it said before
like this, that life and managing time could be looked
at as juggling. So you're juggling these balls, right, But
what we have to understand is that there has to
(08:32):
be priority in the balls that we're juggling. So in
order to establish that priority, think of that. Think of
these juggling balls as some of them are rubber and
some of them are glass. You don't want to drop
the glass ones the rubber ones. It's okay, it's okay.
(08:54):
To drop them, they will bounce, nothing breaks. It's okay.
For instance, this piano recital, my friend's piano recital. Although
it's important, it's a rubber ball that if I drop it,
it's going to bounce. He's not going to get his
feelings hurt and we're going to be okay as a family.
(09:16):
That doesn't mean it's not important. You know why it's
important because I'm juggling it. It's in the balls that
I'm juggling. If it wasn't important, if it didn't matter
to me, it wouldn't be in the five or six
things that I'm thinking about doing today tonight as I
record this podcast right now, there's five or six things
I need to get done today tonight, so that that
(09:40):
includes the rubber balls that are still important. Don't get
me wrong. It's it's important. It's important to him, and
it's important to me that we come to his son's
piano recital because I'm his brother and he's my brother
in Christ, he's a member at our church. So differentiating
(10:02):
the glass balls and the rubber ones, that's what you
got to do. So making sure that if my daughter
is going through something and she's not right now by
the way, but if she was going through some kind
of drama at school, there's something happened or something happened
(10:27):
in her friend group and it really hurt her spirit
and she needs her dad. That is a ball that
I'm juggling, that is glass. If I trade that glass
one for a rubber one and say the rubber one
is a friend is having to get together for a
(10:52):
Christmas party at his house, This is hypothetical, and it's
about a thirty minute drive and there's a lot of
people going and it'd be kind of fun. But it's
a rubber ball. The glass one is London who's having
the problem. I cannot drop that one that hurts the family,
that could actually do damage dropping the rubber one that bounces.
(11:15):
It's fine. No one thinks about it. We need to
know the difference when we're juggling, and once again, everything
we're juggling is important. So I can't answer for you specifically, James,
but you get the full time job, you're coaching your
son's little league, your wife and I are trying to
start a small business on the side. It's up to
you to figure out what is glass and what is rubber.
(11:38):
And I'm assuming that the full time job is what
is supporting everything else in this little circle right here.
So because of the full time job, your son needs
to play in a little league team and you get
to coach him. Because of the full time job, you
get to take time to start this small business with
(11:59):
your wife. If you take the small time, the small
the full time job out of the juggling, all the
other balls drop, regardless of rubber or glass. So recognize
that too. Recognize that if there's seven balls you're juggling,
which one of those, If you took it out, all
the balls drop. That's an important thing. So these are
(12:22):
things that you're gonna have to figure out, and you're
gonna have to figure out what gives How do you
balance work, family, personal time without feeling like you're always
dropping a ball? Recognize if you did drop a ball,
if more of them drop, and then recognize if you
drop this one and it's rubber, all the other ones
that keep on juggling and nothing changes. Start to recognize those, right,
(12:44):
So think through these things. Thankfully you didn't give me
a scenario like I'm trying to work through a full
time job and a small business and sharing a family
meal together, or attending church together. You're like, you didn't
give me that, or I would go, man, you gotta
you gotta find a way to have these family meals together.
(13:07):
If it's starting the small business interferes with that every
single time, then you have to push that to the side.
You have to kick that can down the road a
little bit. On the son's little league team. This is
this is something we all of us need to constantly
be thinking through kid's hobbies because most people that are
my age are older can think back and go, man,
(13:29):
I had some hobbies as a kid, but if I did,
mom and dad just dropped me off and said pick
you up at seven. You know, it's not like that. Today. Today,
our kids, our kids hobbies become the adults hobbies. And
it's never been like that in history. The kid's hobbies
have never been also the adult hobbies. Meaning whatever the
(13:53):
kid's doing, the parents are now suddenly that's that, that's
their whole world. Notice I didn't say that we shouldn't
care about our kids, or love what our kids love,
or be involved. I don't mean that. I just mean
I remember when I had a little league team, Dad
would just pick me up when it was, and so
(14:14):
were all the other All the other boys would just
get picked up when it was time to get picked up.
So sometimes, to finish this whole thought, sometimes we have
to learn how to say no, because, like aunt Man
said on this podcast several months ago, every time you
say yes to something, you are always saying no to
(14:38):
something else. Learn how to say no from the beginning.
Next question comes from anonymous. Hey Granger, I'm eighteen, still
in high school. I'm a Christian. What are your thoughts
on dating someone from a different religion? I am currently
a little bit puzzled on this. You have a great day,
(15:02):
all right, Anonymous, thanks for the question, buddy, your thoughts.
He's asking my thoughts on dating someone from a different religion.
I would first, I would say, if you weren't asking me,
if you're just asking in general, I would say that
(15:23):
wholly depends on what your idea of religion is, right,
Because if if your idea of religion is an NFL
team that you just really you're really into it, and
you're thinking about dating a girl that loves the New
(15:45):
York Giants and you love the Dallas Cowboys, I would
say you're gonna be okay. You're gonna have a lot
of rivalry in your family, but you're gonna be okay.
But if you're asking me and my thoughts on what
I know you're talking about, and you're talking about Christianity
versus then I would say the unpopular answer then that
is it would be absolutely devastating if you were a
(16:11):
Christian and believed in the Bible, then it would be
absolutely incompatible to be married to someone that didn't believe that.
And to date is to be preparing for marriage or
(16:34):
to be getting ready to marry. You're you're dating to marry.
You should say that way. You're dating someone so that
you could find someone to marry. I wouldn't believe or
advocate for like sport dating or just dating for the
fun of it, or just dating as a social habit
(16:54):
or something. I would say you would be dating to
find a spouse. I think most people would agree with that.
You would only really date, otherwise you would just be single.
We wouldn't put up with the hassle of just dating
knowing that it was always going to be temporary. So
you're dating for the permanent conclusion of marriage. And if
(17:16):
that's the case and the person was a different religion
and you were a Christian, it would be totally incompatible
with your faith, and it would just make a nightmare
of problems in the future of I attend church and
she doesn't, and the kid you know is raised with
(17:36):
this faith and she doesn't agree, and then eventually he
wants to get baptized or she doesn't want that. It's
an endless nightmare, especially when you're talking about kids coming
into the picture. So I would say, I would say, yeah,
my thoughts are absolutely not and I would double down
on what I've said many times on this podcast, and
(17:58):
that is that this idea we get stuck in our
heads that there is one person and one person only,
and that person's our soulmate, and we find them and
although they have these certain flaws that could be huge problems,
very incompatible with with a married couple, we say that
(18:21):
doesn't matter, no flaw matters, because this person's my soulmate.
And then we we end up with these huge problems
and the reality is there is no soulmate. This is
this is kind of just a romantic, made up idea
when in reality, you find someone that you're you're widely
(18:42):
attracted to, and you have a healthy amount in common,
and I would say a healthy amount not in common.
And you have the fundamentals right, like you worship the
same God. And then at that point you make a decision,
you say, I'm gonna I decide that I'm going to
commit to her, and I'm going to do it forever.
(19:04):
I'm gonna well, as long as I'm on this earth,
as long as I'm breathing oxygen, I'm going to commit
to her. That's that's really what it is. And it
sounds so old timey and and it sounds kind of
like a crude system because we believe in this, you know,
fairy dust soulmate thing, and it's not true. So if
(19:28):
you find someone that doesn't, that doesn't meet the fundamental
fundamental characteristics that you need, like worshiping a god that
you worship, then you would break this idea of soulmate
and go. Even though I am attracted, I do have
a lot of things in common, I'm not going to
pursue this any further. That's it. When you think about
(19:50):
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(20:11):
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(20:32):
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(20:54):
all lowercase. Go to shopify dot com slash granger to
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if you want to get a hold of me or
have me make you a video message from my phone,
as I always say every podcast, go to cameo dot
com slash dranger Smith cameo dot com slash granger Smith.
(21:16):
I will make you a video message custom to however
you want me to say it. This is great for
the holiday season. You got someone that you need a
gift for, or maybe you don't know what to get them,
or it's just too late, go to cameo dot com
slash granger Smith and I'll make you a personal video
message to them, say Merry Christmas or happy Birthday, whatever
(21:37):
it might be, and a little message from me. It's
super easy. Go to cameo dot com slash Grangersmith. Okay,
once again, if you want to email me a question,
email podcast at grangersmith dot com. A man, We'll take
your question. Put it into the cue. The next one
is Melissa, and Melissa asked this. My fourteen year old
(21:57):
daughter has been really distant lately and I don't know
how to connect with her. She's moody, spends all of
her time on her phone. She doesn't want to talk
to me like she used to. Do you have any
advice for a parent trying to navigate the teen years.
I don't want to push her away further, but I
also don't want to just give up on having a
(22:18):
relationship with her. Thanks for your insight, Melissa. Hey, thanks Melissa,
A great question. I think a lot of people could
be interested in something like this, including myself. Navigating a
teen is something It requires a lot of thought and
(22:40):
a lot of effort, and that goes against kind of
our natural state that we kind of just want things
to operate without really interfering too much. We want things
to be easy for us because everything else is hard.
You know, work is hard, the bills are coming in,
relationships with everyone else, it's hard. Friendships are hard, relationships
(23:05):
with our spouse can be hard. All these things weigh
in on us, and we just think, could our kids
just be easy? But in fact our kids end up
being the most difficult thing out of all of these scenarios.
And so we have a tendency, in my mind, a
wrong tendency to kind of just pacify our relationship with
(23:31):
our kids in ways that kind of shuts them up
and makes it go away with the little ones that
could be giving them a screen. Okay, you're driving me
crazy right now. Just let me type in a YouTube
thing for you and you just watch on loop. You
just watch YouTube videos endlessly because I know that's probably
(23:53):
not good for your little brain. But at least you
just shut up and stop bothering me, because I've got
all these other things going on, and with a specifically
a fourteen year old daughter that's not necessarily you typing
is something in YouTube and letting her go that's more
more so you just let her do her thing. So
(24:17):
and once again you're thinking, I don't think this is
probably not wise of me to just let her do
whatever she wants to do. But when I just let
her go, she's quiet, she doesn't need anything, there's no drama.
I don't hear from her, and I could actually relax
after a hard day of work, or I don't have
to think about, you know, finding something for her to do,
(24:40):
or finding a chore for her to do, or entertaining
her or cultivating some kind of thing that she needs
to be working on. Instead, I just let her go.
So that's kind of a default for parents. The default
is let the team go. But here's what happens. They disappear,
they come. Once they become distant, they only become more
(25:04):
and more distant. They don't on their own, they don't
become distant and then slowly start coming back in on
their own and when the distance happens, the connection is lost.
So that's what Melissa is saying. I don't know how
to connect with her, and that's a product of the distance,
and then another product. Then furthermore, she's moody, spends all
(25:25):
her time on her phone, doesn't want to talk to me.
So that just continues to grow. So let her go,
let her do her own thing. The connection's lost. When
the connection's lost, she doesn't want to talk because it's awkward.
At that point, there's no more connection, and then it
kind of spins out of control, and once again the
(25:46):
easiest part of the pattern for the parent and the team,
the easiest thing is just let it go. Hopefully she'll
just come back one day and we'll find some things
that we don't have anything in common right now. Maybe
one day will regain some ground, but right now she's
kind of gone. So you know all this because this
(26:08):
is what you're living. But you're asking for advice to
not push her away further, but reconnect and not give
up on having a relationship. So first of all, this
kind of goes back to the juggling. The juggling question
It's interesting how that kind of relates exactly to this
(26:29):
question with Melissa. This is a glass ball. Your daughter,
your fourteen year old daughter is a glass ball. You're
juggling a lot of things, and there's rubber balls and
glass balls, and she is a glass ball. Do not
drop her. It shatters and when it shatters, it is
near impossible to put it back together. So what I've
(26:51):
learned and what I've seen, not only with our team
but in talking with other parents, some things have been
really helpful. Ambernized journey and one of those was sometimes
we have to recognize when a team kind of disappears
and becomes distant. Sometimes that just has to do with
(27:14):
something that's not it's not personal. It just has to
do with the current rhythm that they're in. And it
would be the equivalent I guess of if someone came
to my house every day about First of all, I'm
an early I'm a morning guy. I'm not an I'm
not an evening guy. So someone came to my house
(27:36):
every day about ten thirty PM and they left at eleven,
they would probably after a couple weeks of seeing me,
they would be like, man Granger is just I don't know.
He seems kind of off. He seems kind of distant.
He seems kind of quick with his answers. He's not
(27:56):
he doesn't seem as compassionate. I don't know if I
don't know if he's eating very much. I haven't seen
him eat. He seems tired. I don't think he's getting
enough sleep. And if you think about it, how silly
that is. The reality is, that's just the end of
my day. You know, ten thirty to eleven, I don't
(28:16):
function very well. I'm just barely getting by, And so
you would make that assumption if that's all you saw.
So sometimes that's what's happening with the teen they're just
on a different rhythm. A good friend of ours had
a great solution to this, and she said, with her
(28:36):
teen son, she said, he seemed distant, he seemed to
be kind of in his own world, and we were
losing connection. He wasn't eating, and I missed the conversations
that I had when he was a little boy. Even ten, eleven,
twelve years old is so different in the conversations you
(28:59):
could have with a thirteen, fourteen, fifteen year old like
a different planet. But what she realized was he was
on a different rhythm, and so she had to make
an effort to change her rhythm. So she started staying
up later, even though she didn't want to and it
didn't work well with her schedule. In order to not
(29:22):
drop the glass ball, she started staying up later with
him and noticing that he would come alive about ten
thirty at night, eleven o'clock at night, when she was
just exhausted. That's when he would start to come to life.
That's when he would have conversations. That's when he would
open up. That's when he would talk about his day,
(29:43):
talk about his relationships, the friends he had, the girls
he might have been interested in. And then she learned
she could cook him a meal at eleven o'clock at night,
which sounds crazy, but she learned that because of the rhythm,
the difference in the rhythm, that she could like make
him a grilled cheese sandwich and come in there with
(30:06):
him and they would sit together and have these discussions
and he would eat the grill cheese sandwich, and because
of that, the connection came back and it started to grow,
and the distance started to close. She just recognized he
was just going through a season obviously a short season.
People don't. Teens are different. They're different creatures, you know,
(30:28):
and they don't stay like that forever. They will eventually
go back to a normal rhythm. But she realized and
I see the same thing with London, and I have
to fight that because she comes home from school and
she has her her routine, you know, sure she's got
her homework routine and the things that she that she
(30:50):
needs to get done. She does the chores around around
a little farm here, and she kind of she doesn't
eat a lot of dinner, and she might have some
kind of you know, volleyball or something. And then at
about nine o'clock, I'm like wrapping up the day. I'm
by nine o'clock, I'm wrapping up my day. I'm I'm
(31:10):
I'm getting ready to get rid of the kids. And
this is me and Ambers time. But now this is
when London is like coming alive. So she goes in
her room and she does her reading, or she likes
to take a long bath. I mean, I don't know
how she where she gets that from, but she'll take
an hour long bath and just sitting there like listen
(31:32):
to a podcast, and she's alive. At ten o'clock at night,
and I've noticed that if I go, then, if I
pursue her, then during this time she'll tell me every
She'll me, she'll talk about her whole day. She'll she'll
unpack all the problems of the world, and she'll tell
me the things she's interested in, and the things she likes,
(31:53):
and the things she wants in her future, the hobbies
that she's into, or the problem she's having with a
friend at school, or all these things. And I get
she comes alive then, and I'm thinking, my flash is saying,
I'm so tired, I just want to go to bed,
you know. But I'm also learning, especially with her, that
(32:14):
I'm not going to fix her problems at ten o'clock
at night, and she doesn't want me to. Instead, she
wants me to just listen. There was this moment I
had with London a while back, six months ago or so,
and she was having this issue with a friend, this
drama with a friend, and I'm telling her, I said, well,
(32:37):
let's don't be friends with her anymore. She's like, no, Daddy,
and I'm like, we'll avoid her at school. No, that's
not I'm like, okay, then let's call her right now,
let's try to reconcile some of these problems. No, I
don't want to do that. So I learned she doesn't
want me to fix it. She doesn't want me to
give her a suggestion on how this gets resolved. She
(33:01):
just wants me to listen to her. So I kind
of got into this pattern with her starting that night,
and I think I really unlocked something, but I instead
I just laid there and you know, right next to
her on the couch, and I was like, how does
that make you feel? And she'd be like, it makes
me feel terrible, and you know, all this stuff. She
(33:22):
would unpack this stuff and I would say, it's got
to be really tough. She would say, yes, it is.
It is really tough because I'm dealing with this and
I'm trying to figure out this. And then I would
say tell me more, and she said, well, there is
there is something else and blah blah blah. And I
would say, how does that make you feel? So I
(33:43):
just kind of repeated those the little mantra, how does
that make you feel? That's got to be tough, tell
me more in whatever order. I would say those three things,
and somehow we got this connection and the next day
she was like, Daddy, thanks for last night. That was
I really feel a lot better about everything. And I'm thinking,
in my mind, I'm thinking I didn't do anything, we
(34:05):
didn't fix anything, nothing's resolved. But in her mind, that's
what she wanted. She just wanted to talk it through.
That's something that literally in my mind as I was
on the couch and I was saying these things, I'm
I'm thinking, I'm so tired right now, and in my mind,
I'm thinking I don't care about this petty problem, and
(34:27):
what a what a horrible thing for me to think. Now,
I'm not going to not deny that that was happening
to me. I was thinking, I'm tired, I don't care.
This is the stupid problem. We could solve it with
one phone call or just avoid this person. Well, that's
that wouldn't be a good father, and that's not what
she wanted, and that wouldn't have been helpful. So I
(34:48):
have to I have to deny that part of me.
I say, I have to put that part of me
to rest and go out of my comfort zone in
order to pursue her. So Melissa, that's I don't know
what you can get out of that. But you have
to be creative. You have to deny your own sensibilities
(35:11):
and go out of your comfort zone to bring her
back in, and that connection will come back and the
distance will close. Let's go to another question. Another anonymous
actually says, Hey, Granger, I prefer to stay anonymous. I've
been listening for a couple of years now, and I
(35:31):
always look forward to hearing your perspective and your advice.
I'm seeking advice now on how to handle a family
member who is short and quick to anger with my
very young children. They are an in law, quote with
no blood relation to my husband or me. They state
that they are a believer. They are generally irritable and
(35:56):
quick to anger if things don't go according to their plan.
I feel as though I should confront their behavior, especially
in regards to my children, but honestly, I don't know
how to do so lovingly. I know it's better to
suffer for doing what is right than to suffer for
what is wrong. But I'm seeking advice on how Thanks
(36:16):
all right, Anonymous, A good question, and thank you so
much for opening up with this. Here's what's interesting. I
don't want to take anything out of context, especially in
the Bible, And so I don't want us to think
that the Bible is saying it's better to suffer for
(36:38):
what is right and then suffer for doing wrong, and
that includes watching our children get berated by this family member.
Like that's not that would be way out of context,
and that would be way outside of what we should
be thinking. So I don't know the scenario of what
(37:05):
short and quick to anger is with your children. Being
short with your children no problem, but being angry with
your children, that's an interesting thing. I would want to
know more about why this family member is angry with
your children. And maybe that's not what you meant, but
that's kind of what it sounds like. I'm seeking advice
(37:26):
on how to handle a family member who was short
and quick to anger with my very young children, Anonymous says,
And they're in law with no blood relation. I don't
think that matters as much no blood relation to your husband.
If they're in the family by marriage. I know it's difficult,
(37:47):
but I wouldn't prioritize if they were blood it would
be different, you know, I wouldn't say that. So I
think we're kind of okay either way there. And then
the fact that they say they're a believer. I think
you mean they're a Christian. I don't think that matters either.
I get where you're going. You're saying that a Christian
(38:08):
should have fruit of this by being slow to anger
and quick to listen. I know you're thinking that, but
this is probably not a time. Doesn't sound like you
guys have the kind of a relationship where this is
something you're going to discuss in detail. So you say
they are genuinely irritable and quick to anger if things
(38:31):
don't go according to their plan. All this is fine,
All this is normal. I would take out the context
of suffering for doing what's right. I don't think you're
being persecuted, and that's what that text would mean, that
you're going to suffer for what's right. And this doesn't
sound like persecution by any means that we would ever
(38:52):
know in the life of the church over the years
or in the world. So I don't want to overdramatize.
I think we could sometimes over dramatize things by using
biblical terms and saying things like, you know, I've got
this family member that's kind of like gets really irritated
if they don't get their way, but you know, I'm
(39:12):
just gonna suffer through this because you know, it's better
to suffer for what is right. It's like, ah, don't
you're not a martyr, Like you're not like the government's
not about to chop off your head. So I think
that really, if we don't mention love in this answer,
(39:32):
love is at the core of all this, and the
best thing you can do is love them and the
action that you're wanting from them, give that to them.
So if you're wanting someone to be slow to listen
and or quick to listen and slow to anger, if
(39:54):
that's what you're wanting, then do that to them. Make
sure that you're looking at yourself first and acting that
way towards them, And that might not just change them
right away, but but it certainly puts you in the
right heart position so that you're not playing defense, you're
playing offense here. But what I also want to address is,
(40:17):
don't it wouldn't be okay if someone was angry with
your young children and you're just letting it go and
passing it off as this is. You know, I'm just
going to suffer for this because they're family. It's totally fine.
Absolutely fine to be during a time of good terms.
(40:40):
You know, like you wouldn't want to just like you
wouldn't want to discipline a child when you're angry. You
wouldn't want to correct someone when you're you know, you're
in the heat of the moment. So instead, not in
the heat of the moment, wait till you have cooled
your jets. And I think there's nothing wrong with pulling
this person aside. At some point, you're taking a walk,
(41:00):
you're you're both sitting in the backyard, You're both you know,
in a lawn chair watching you know, the sprinklers, and
you say, you mind if I tell you something? Yeah, yeah,
what's up? Man? I don't want to. I don't want
to cause a rift between us. But sometimes I see
(41:24):
you get angry with my children, and I worry about that,
not because I think you're gonna do any harm to them,
but I kind of worry if if that's communicated wrong
to them. And I want I want them to see
you as the uncle, uh that they love, that they
love being around. And sometimes when you're you're you snap
(41:45):
at them and you're they don't understand. They're just they're
two and four. They they don't always understand uh you
you want things a certain way, and so I I
feel like when you snap at them like that, it
kind of gives them the wrong impression of the uncle
that they love. Is there anything I could be doing that?
Is there is there behavior things with them that that
(42:07):
I could be working on just to make this a
little bit better when when we're together as a family.
I don't think there's if you presented that, especially if
you said is there anything I could be doing? I
don't think there's there's much of an argument that they
could make by saying that they demanding that you discipline
your your children differently, or I think it's either going
(42:30):
to go one or two ways. Either gonna go They're
gonna say, oh, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just not good
with children. I'm better with teenagers, or I'm better with adults,
but I'm not good with young children. It's it irritates me,
and that's that's on me. I'm sorry, I'm gonna work
on that. They could go that way, or it could
(42:53):
it could go the opposite, and they could they could say, look,
I just I think your kids are are not well mannered,
or I don't think your kids are disciplined enough, or
you know, it could go that way too, but either way,
at least the conversation is now on the table, and
I promise you they're going to think about it the
next time and don't answer them in anger. But it
would be wrong, I think if you didn't at least
(43:14):
bring it up, especially if they were angry with your children,
and if they got to the point where they're yelling
or any or especially if they touched them physically and
grabbed them, you know, grab their arms or something. By
all means, at that point you step in and you hey, uncle,
I love you, but I will discipline the kids. Okay,
(43:35):
let me let me handle this, and you go back
to your you know, mahito, and I'll deal with the kids.
I hope that provides enough of an answer, Anonymous, because
I don't know enough about the scenario to give you
any more. But I think the core of the answer
is love. It's love, in fact, that's the core of this.
(44:00):
Ending this conclusion, I love you guys. Thanks for emailing,
and we'll see you next podcast. Thanks for joining me
on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys.
You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes.
If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that
little like button and notification spell so that you never
miss anytime I upload a video. YI
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for being here.
I saw so many people this week. I got back
from Lebanon, Pennsylvania and saw so many of you and
people that came up. Were speaking at a banquet and
a lot of people come up and they're like, hey,
we listened to the podcast. And other people said, how's
your poison oak doing? And at first I was a
(00:33):
little bit caught off guard because I just thought, how
did you know that I had poison oak? I was
actually suffering badly, And they're like, you said it on
your podcast last week, so thank you. Sometimes I forget
what I say. It means the world that you guys
listen and care and come back a week after week. Uh,
put the poison ivy or oak, I should say, is better.
(00:56):
It's now it's all on my arm four under my
right arm, and that's new. It was all over my
side on my left ribcage and horrible. Actually, never I've
been in the woods my whole life, I've never had
poison oak until now, and it was it crushed me.
(01:17):
I cut some seater and it had a little bit
of I remember seeing it. It was really bright and vivid,
and I remember seeing that vine inside the seater that
I cut, and I remember thinking, oh, that's it's actually
really pretty. The leaves were really red and pretty, and
it got me and my brother Parker had poison ivy
ironically earlier this year, and so he had a prescription cream.
(01:40):
That's the only thing that's gotten to be better. So anyway,
thank you guys. I mentioned it last podcast, and it
was kind of shocked that I went to Pennsylvania and
people remember that. I love that you guys listen and
come back each week. If you want to ask me
a question, email podcast at grangersmith dot com. Podcast at
grangersmith dot com. It does not have to be any
(02:00):
kind of certain subject. It seems like the past probably
six to eight months, there's a lot of these theological
questions and it doesn't have to be that. So if
you if you tun tune into this podcast and you
say Granger answers all these theological God questions, Hey, I'm
just answering questions that you send, so we could talk
(02:21):
about whatever you want and we'll walk through it. We've
been doing this now, y'all going on eight years. Can
you believe that in this podcast going on eight years?
I can't even believe that. I can't that I can't
believe that we could even see the horizon of a decade.
That's crazy to me. The first question comes from James
(02:43):
as we get into this, and I like to say, James,
I want you guys to ask a question like we're
just sitting in the cab of a truck and something
comes up because something's on your mind. We got the
windows down and you say, hey, man, could I kind
of run something by it? That's that's the format of
this podcast. James says, Hi, Grande, I work a full
time job. I coach my son's Little league team. My
(03:04):
wife and I are trying to start a small business
on the side. I feel like I'm constantly running from
one thing to the next, and I don't have time
to breathe. How do you balance work, family, personal time
without feeling like you're always dropping the ball. Any tips
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for being a good
role model, James, James, thank you, brother. Appreciate the email
(03:25):
and the trust with a question like this, and certainly, man,
it's it's everyone listening thinks to themselves. Yeah, busy. It's
funny in the most hectic days of touring with the
band would be a city after city after city. You
(03:48):
kind of start every every city just starts to look
the same, especially in the summers when we do these fairs,
and every fair ground starts to look the same. So
you're like in Ohio, and then you're you're in Michigan,
and then you're in Illinois, and then you're in Indiana,
and it's they all it's like a a some kind
(04:09):
of dirt track and grandstands and ferris wheels and everything
behind that, and you could smell the same foods, and
it starts to all blend in together, and you a
lot of times would be playing with these other bands
and the buses would pull in in the night time
and we would all be sleeping, and you wake up
the next morning and catering would have breakfast and we
(04:32):
would come out of the bus and you know, you're
looking for coffee, and then the right across, you know,
in the parking spot next to you is another bus
and that door is opening and a guy's coming off
looking for coffee, and and you haven't seen him in
you know, eight months or since whenever last show you played,
(04:52):
and hey, how's it going right there? Right there there's
this moment how's it going when the other guy would
say busy, and then he looks at you and he goes,
how about you guys, and you go busy? And I
thought about that so much. Always laughed to myself because
(05:13):
I thought, I thought, what if my answer was I'm
not that busy. Because if it is, what you're communicating
is work is not going good. Things are not going
well in the music business. That's what that answer would communicate,
not that busy. So we associate busy with work is
(05:35):
good because you usually would say something like it's busy,
you know, but it's good. But man, just crazy right now? Crazy,
And then you'd say, yeah, but us too, Man, how
about you guys? Us to say, where'd you guys come from? Dude,
I don't even remember Detroit? Maybe how about you Springfield?
I think, yeah, oh, crazy, crazy, busy. So it's just
(05:58):
like this badge of honor. Maybe this is an American thing.
I don't think I've talked to too many people worldwide
about this, but I feel like it's probably an American thing.
We just take so much pride in being busy and
there's almost no way out of it. In fact, you
have to really fight to find space, and if you
do find space, you're gonna fill it with something like
(06:22):
James says here with if you have time. For instance,
this is what James is thinking, putting words in his mouth.
He's thinking that I have extra time, I should coach
my son's little league team, and then there goes the time.
And then if you have a little time because you're
not coaching, you say, hey, we should start this small
(06:42):
business thing, and then there goes that time. So, like
he says, I'm constantly running from one thing to the next,
and I don't have time to breathe. He's James coming
out of the tour bus looking for coffee, saying busy.
And he's not necessairly complaining. But that's why. I mean,
everyone's listening right now going yeah, I got it, especially
(07:05):
this time of year. If you're listening to this podcast
in real time, it is December, and this time of year,
everyone is just busy. In fact, dear brother of mine,
his son has a piano recital tonight and he's been
asking me to go, and I'm like, I really want
to go, because especially if he asked me multiple times,
(07:26):
I know it's important to him. And so it's that therefore,
it's important to me to be there. And yet Lincoln
has a basketball game tonight, and so I'm texting him like, Hey,
if we go to this basketball game and still make it,
can we make it to your house at eight even
though the recital starts at seven fifteen? Would anyone still
(07:49):
be there? And he replies and goes, bro, I understand
everyone's busy this time of year, and he knows it's
not just this time of year, it's all the time.
That's what we do. So the question from James is
how do you balance work, family, and personal time without
(08:10):
feeling like you're always dropping the ball. It's actually interesting
that he uses that analogy. I've heard it said before
like this, that life and managing time could be looked
at as juggling. So you're juggling these balls, right, But
what we have to understand is that there has to
(08:32):
be priority in the balls that we're juggling. So in
order to establish that priority, think of that. Think of
these juggling balls as some of them are rubber and
some of them are glass. You don't want to drop
the glass ones the rubber ones. It's okay, it's okay.
(08:54):
To drop them, they will bounce, nothing breaks. It's okay.
For instance, this piano recital, my friend's piano recital. Although
it's important, it's a rubber ball that if I drop it,
it's going to bounce. He's not going to get his
feelings hurt and we're going to be okay as a family.
(09:16):
That doesn't mean it's not important. You know why it's
important because I'm juggling it. It's in the balls that
I'm juggling. If it wasn't important, if it didn't matter
to me, it wouldn't be in the five or six
things that I'm thinking about doing today tonight as I
record this podcast right now, there's five or six things
I need to get done today tonight, so that that
(09:40):
includes the rubber balls that are still important. Don't get
me wrong. It's it's important. It's important to him, and
it's important to me that we come to his son's
piano recital because I'm his brother and he's my brother
in Christ, he's a member at our church. So differentiating
(10:02):
the glass balls and the rubber ones, that's what you
got to do. So making sure that if my daughter
is going through something and she's not right now by
the way, but if she was going through some kind
of drama at school, there's something happened or something happened
(10:27):
in her friend group and it really hurt her spirit
and she needs her dad. That is a ball that
I'm juggling, that is glass. If I trade that glass
one for a rubber one and say the rubber one
is a friend is having to get together for a
(10:52):
Christmas party at his house, This is hypothetical, and it's
about a thirty minute drive and there's a lot of
people going and it'd be kind of fun. But it's
a rubber ball. The glass one is London who's having
the problem. I cannot drop that one that hurts the family,
that could actually do damage dropping the rubber one that bounces.
(11:15):
It's fine. No one thinks about it. We need to
know the difference when we're juggling, and once again, everything
we're juggling is important. So I can't answer for you specifically, James,
but you get the full time job, you're coaching your
son's little league, your wife and I are trying to
start a small business on the side. It's up to
you to figure out what is glass and what is rubber.
(11:38):
And I'm assuming that the full time job is what
is supporting everything else in this little circle right here.
So because of the full time job, your son needs
to play in a little league team and you get
to coach him. Because of the full time job, you
get to take time to start this small business with
(11:59):
your wife. If you take the small time, the small
the full time job out of the juggling, all the
other balls drop, regardless of rubber or glass. So recognize
that too. Recognize that if there's seven balls you're juggling,
which one of those, If you took it out, all
the balls drop. That's an important thing. So these are
(12:22):
things that you're gonna have to figure out, and you're
gonna have to figure out what gives How do you
balance work, family, personal time without feeling like you're always
dropping a ball? Recognize if you did drop a ball,
if more of them drop, and then recognize if you
drop this one and it's rubber, all the other ones
that keep on juggling and nothing changes. Start to recognize those, right,
(12:44):
So think through these things. Thankfully you didn't give me
a scenario like I'm trying to work through a full
time job and a small business and sharing a family
meal together, or attending church together. You're like, you didn't
give me that, or I would go, man, you gotta
you gotta find a way to have these family meals together.
(13:07):
If it's starting the small business interferes with that every
single time, then you have to push that to the side.
You have to kick that can down the road a
little bit. On the son's little league team. This is
this is something we all of us need to constantly
be thinking through kid's hobbies because most people that are
my age are older can think back and go, man,
(13:29):
I had some hobbies as a kid, but if I did,
mom and dad just dropped me off and said pick
you up at seven. You know, it's not like that. Today. Today,
our kids, our kids hobbies become the adults hobbies. And
it's never been like that in history. The kid's hobbies
have never been also the adult hobbies. Meaning whatever the
(13:53):
kid's doing, the parents are now suddenly that's that, that's
their whole world. Notice I didn't say that we shouldn't
care about our kids, or love what our kids love,
or be involved. I don't mean that. I just mean
I remember when I had a little league team, Dad
would just pick me up when it was, and so
(14:14):
were all the other All the other boys would just
get picked up when it was time to get picked up.
So sometimes, to finish this whole thought, sometimes we have
to learn how to say no, because, like aunt Man
said on this podcast several months ago, every time you
say yes to something, you are always saying no to
(14:38):
something else. Learn how to say no from the beginning.
Next question comes from anonymous. Hey Granger, I'm eighteen, still
in high school. I'm a Christian. What are your thoughts
on dating someone from a different religion? I am currently
a little bit puzzled on this. You have a great day,
(15:02):
all right, Anonymous, thanks for the question, buddy, your thoughts.
He's asking my thoughts on dating someone from a different religion.
I would first, I would say, if you weren't asking me,
if you're just asking in general, I would say that
(15:23):
wholly depends on what your idea of religion is, right,
Because if if your idea of religion is an NFL
team that you just really you're really into it, and
you're thinking about dating a girl that loves the New
(15:45):
York Giants and you love the Dallas Cowboys, I would
say you're gonna be okay. You're gonna have a lot
of rivalry in your family, but you're gonna be okay.
But if you're asking me and my thoughts on what
I know you're talking about, and you're talking about Christianity
versus then I would say the unpopular answer then that
is it would be absolutely devastating if you were a
(16:11):
Christian and believed in the Bible, then it would be
absolutely incompatible to be married to someone that didn't believe that.
And to date is to be preparing for marriage or
(16:34):
to be getting ready to marry. You're you're dating to marry.
You should say that way. You're dating someone so that
you could find someone to marry. I wouldn't believe or
advocate for like sport dating or just dating for the
fun of it, or just dating as a social habit
(16:54):
or something. I would say you would be dating to
find a spouse. I think most people would agree with that.
You would only really date, otherwise you would just be single.
We wouldn't put up with the hassle of just dating
knowing that it was always going to be temporary. So
you're dating for the permanent conclusion of marriage. And if
(17:16):
that's the case and the person was a different religion
and you were a Christian, it would be totally incompatible
with your faith, and it would just make a nightmare
of problems in the future of I attend church and
she doesn't, and the kid you know is raised with
(17:36):
this faith and she doesn't agree, and then eventually he
wants to get baptized or she doesn't want that. It's
an endless nightmare, especially when you're talking about kids coming
into the picture. So I would say, I would say, yeah,
my thoughts are absolutely not and I would double down
on what I've said many times on this podcast, and
(17:58):
that is that this idea we get stuck in our
heads that there is one person and one person only,
and that person's our soulmate, and we find them and
although they have these certain flaws that could be huge problems,
very incompatible with with a married couple, we say that
(18:21):
doesn't matter, no flaw matters, because this person's my soulmate.
And then we we end up with these huge problems
and the reality is there is no soulmate. This is
this is kind of just a romantic, made up idea
when in reality, you find someone that you're you're widely
(18:42):
attracted to, and you have a healthy amount in common,
and I would say a healthy amount not in common.
And you have the fundamentals right, like you worship the
same God. And then at that point you make a decision,
you say, I'm gonna I decide that I'm going to
commit to her, and I'm going to do it forever.
(19:04):
I'm gonna well, as long as I'm on this earth,
as long as I'm breathing oxygen, I'm going to commit
to her. That's that's really what it is. And it
sounds so old timey and and it sounds kind of
like a crude system because we believe in this, you know,
fairy dust soulmate thing, and it's not true. So if
(19:28):
you find someone that doesn't, that doesn't meet the fundamental
fundamental characteristics that you need, like worshiping a god that
you worship, then you would break this idea of soulmate
and go. Even though I am attracted, I do have
a lot of things in common, I'm not going to
pursue this any further. That's it. When you think about
(19:50):
brands that are doing really well like All Birds Skims, Sure,
maybe Ye Apparel. You think of this great product, a
really cool brand, good marketing maybe, but The often overlooked
secret is actually the business behind the business, which is
making selling and for shoppers buying simple. For millions of businesses,
(20:11):
that business is Shopify. They handle the checkout on your
website so that you don't have to deal with that.
You can deal with the creative stuff and have them
handle everything that has to do with taking credit card
or payment information, shopping card, shipping, all that kind of stuff.
Shopify takes care of it for you. That's what we
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(20:32):
So if you're wanting to grow your business, your commerce
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So upgrade your business and get the same checkout we
use it EEE Apparel. Sign up for your one dollar
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(20:54):
all lowercase. Go to shopify dot com slash granger to
upgrade your selling today shopify dot com slash granger. And
if you want to get a hold of me or
have me make you a video message from my phone,
as I always say every podcast, go to cameo dot
com slash dranger Smith cameo dot com slash granger Smith.
(21:16):
I will make you a video message custom to however
you want me to say it. This is great for
the holiday season. You got someone that you need a
gift for, or maybe you don't know what to get them,
or it's just too late, go to cameo dot com
slash granger Smith and I'll make you a personal video
message to them, say Merry Christmas or happy Birthday, whatever
(21:37):
it might be, and a little message from me. It's
super easy. Go to cameo dot com slash Grangersmith. Okay,
once again, if you want to email me a question,
email podcast at grangersmith dot com. A man, We'll take
your question. Put it into the cue. The next one
is Melissa, and Melissa asked this. My fourteen year old
(21:57):
daughter has been really distant lately and I don't know
how to connect with her. She's moody, spends all of
her time on her phone. She doesn't want to talk
to me like she used to. Do you have any
advice for a parent trying to navigate the teen years.
I don't want to push her away further, but I
also don't want to just give up on having a
(22:18):
relationship with her. Thanks for your insight, Melissa. Hey, thanks Melissa,
A great question. I think a lot of people could
be interested in something like this, including myself. Navigating a
teen is something It requires a lot of thought and
(22:40):
a lot of effort, and that goes against kind of
our natural state that we kind of just want things
to operate without really interfering too much. We want things
to be easy for us because everything else is hard.
You know, work is hard, the bills are coming in,
relationships with everyone else, it's hard. Friendships are hard, relationships
(23:05):
with our spouse can be hard. All these things weigh
in on us, and we just think, could our kids
just be easy? But in fact our kids end up
being the most difficult thing out of all of these scenarios.
And so we have a tendency, in my mind, a
wrong tendency to kind of just pacify our relationship with
(23:31):
our kids in ways that kind of shuts them up
and makes it go away with the little ones that
could be giving them a screen. Okay, you're driving me
crazy right now. Just let me type in a YouTube
thing for you and you just watch on loop. You
just watch YouTube videos endlessly because I know that's probably
(23:53):
not good for your little brain. But at least you
just shut up and stop bothering me, because I've got
all these other things going on, and with a specifically
a fourteen year old daughter that's not necessarily you typing
is something in YouTube and letting her go that's more
more so you just let her do her thing. So
(24:17):
and once again you're thinking, I don't think this is
probably not wise of me to just let her do
whatever she wants to do. But when I just let
her go, she's quiet, she doesn't need anything, there's no drama.
I don't hear from her, and I could actually relax
after a hard day of work, or I don't have
to think about, you know, finding something for her to do,
(24:40):
or finding a chore for her to do, or entertaining
her or cultivating some kind of thing that she needs
to be working on. Instead, I just let her go.
So that's kind of a default for parents. The default
is let the team go. But here's what happens. They disappear,
they come. Once they become distant, they only become more
(25:04):
and more distant. They don't on their own, they don't
become distant and then slowly start coming back in on
their own and when the distance happens, the connection is lost.
So that's what Melissa is saying. I don't know how
to connect with her, and that's a product of the distance,
and then another product. Then furthermore, she's moody, spends all
(25:25):
her time on her phone, doesn't want to talk to me.
So that just continues to grow. So let her go,
let her do her own thing. The connection's lost. When
the connection's lost, she doesn't want to talk because it's awkward.
At that point, there's no more connection, and then it
kind of spins out of control, and once again the
(25:46):
easiest part of the pattern for the parent and the team,
the easiest thing is just let it go. Hopefully she'll
just come back one day and we'll find some things
that we don't have anything in common right now. Maybe
one day will regain some ground, but right now she's
kind of gone. So you know all this because this
(26:08):
is what you're living. But you're asking for advice to
not push her away further, but reconnect and not give
up on having a relationship. So first of all, this
kind of goes back to the juggling. The juggling question
It's interesting how that kind of relates exactly to this
(26:29):
question with Melissa. This is a glass ball. Your daughter,
your fourteen year old daughter is a glass ball. You're
juggling a lot of things, and there's rubber balls and
glass balls, and she is a glass ball. Do not
drop her. It shatters and when it shatters, it is
near impossible to put it back together. So what I've
(26:51):
learned and what I've seen, not only with our team
but in talking with other parents, some things have been
really helpful. Ambernized journey and one of those was sometimes
we have to recognize when a team kind of disappears
and becomes distant. Sometimes that just has to do with
(27:14):
something that's not it's not personal. It just has to
do with the current rhythm that they're in. And it
would be the equivalent I guess of if someone came
to my house every day about First of all, I'm
an early I'm a morning guy. I'm not an I'm
not an evening guy. So someone came to my house
(27:36):
every day about ten thirty PM and they left at eleven,
they would probably after a couple weeks of seeing me,
they would be like, man Granger is just I don't know.
He seems kind of off. He seems kind of distant.
He seems kind of quick with his answers. He's not
(27:56):
he doesn't seem as compassionate. I don't know if I
don't know if he's eating very much. I haven't seen
him eat. He seems tired. I don't think he's getting
enough sleep. And if you think about it, how silly
that is. The reality is, that's just the end of
my day. You know, ten thirty to eleven, I don't
(28:16):
function very well. I'm just barely getting by, And so
you would make that assumption if that's all you saw.
So sometimes that's what's happening with the teen they're just
on a different rhythm. A good friend of ours had
a great solution to this, and she said, with her
(28:36):
teen son, she said, he seemed distant, he seemed to
be kind of in his own world, and we were
losing connection. He wasn't eating, and I missed the conversations
that I had when he was a little boy. Even ten, eleven,
twelve years old is so different in the conversations you
(28:59):
could have with a thirteen, fourteen, fifteen year old like
a different planet. But what she realized was he was
on a different rhythm, and so she had to make
an effort to change her rhythm. So she started staying
up later, even though she didn't want to and it
didn't work well with her schedule. In order to not
(29:22):
drop the glass ball, she started staying up later with
him and noticing that he would come alive about ten
thirty at night, eleven o'clock at night, when she was
just exhausted. That's when he would start to come to life.
That's when he would have conversations. That's when he would
open up. That's when he would talk about his day,
(29:43):
talk about his relationships, the friends he had, the girls
he might have been interested in. And then she learned
she could cook him a meal at eleven o'clock at night,
which sounds crazy, but she learned that because of the rhythm,
the difference in the rhythm, that she could like make
him a grilled cheese sandwich and come in there with
(30:06):
him and they would sit together and have these discussions
and he would eat the grill cheese sandwich, and because
of that, the connection came back and it started to grow,
and the distance started to close. She just recognized he
was just going through a season obviously a short season.
People don't. Teens are different. They're different creatures, you know,
(30:28):
and they don't stay like that forever. They will eventually
go back to a normal rhythm. But she realized and
I see the same thing with London, and I have
to fight that because she comes home from school and
she has her her routine, you know, sure she's got
her homework routine and the things that she that she
(30:50):
needs to get done. She does the chores around around
a little farm here, and she kind of she doesn't
eat a lot of dinner, and she might have some
kind of you know, volleyball or something. And then at
about nine o'clock, I'm like wrapping up the day. I'm
by nine o'clock, I'm wrapping up my day. I'm I'm
(31:10):
I'm getting ready to get rid of the kids. And
this is me and Ambers time. But now this is
when London is like coming alive. So she goes in
her room and she does her reading, or she likes
to take a long bath. I mean, I don't know
how she where she gets that from, but she'll take
an hour long bath and just sitting there like listen
(31:32):
to a podcast, and she's alive. At ten o'clock at night,
and I've noticed that if I go, then, if I
pursue her, then during this time she'll tell me every
She'll me, she'll talk about her whole day. She'll she'll
unpack all the problems of the world, and she'll tell
me the things she's interested in, and the things she likes,
(31:53):
and the things she wants in her future, the hobbies
that she's into, or the problem she's having with a
friend at school, or all these things. And I get
she comes alive then, and I'm thinking, my flash is saying,
I'm so tired, I just want to go to bed,
you know. But I'm also learning, especially with her, that
(32:14):
I'm not going to fix her problems at ten o'clock
at night, and she doesn't want me to. Instead, she
wants me to just listen. There was this moment I
had with London a while back, six months ago or so,
and she was having this issue with a friend, this
drama with a friend, and I'm telling her, I said, well,
(32:37):
let's don't be friends with her anymore. She's like, no, Daddy,
and I'm like, we'll avoid her at school. No, that's
not I'm like, okay, then let's call her right now,
let's try to reconcile some of these problems. No, I
don't want to do that. So I learned she doesn't
want me to fix it. She doesn't want me to
give her a suggestion on how this gets resolved. She
(33:01):
just wants me to listen to her. So I kind
of got into this pattern with her starting that night,
and I think I really unlocked something, but I instead
I just laid there and you know, right next to
her on the couch, and I was like, how does
that make you feel? And she'd be like, it makes
me feel terrible, and you know, all this stuff. She
(33:22):
would unpack this stuff and I would say, it's got
to be really tough. She would say, yes, it is.
It is really tough because I'm dealing with this and
I'm trying to figure out this. And then I would
say tell me more, and she said, well, there is
there is something else and blah blah blah. And I
would say, how does that make you feel? So I
(33:43):
just kind of repeated those the little mantra, how does
that make you feel? That's got to be tough, tell
me more in whatever order. I would say those three things,
and somehow we got this connection and the next day
she was like, Daddy, thanks for last night. That was
I really feel a lot better about everything. And I'm thinking,
in my mind, I'm thinking I didn't do anything, we
(34:05):
didn't fix anything, nothing's resolved. But in her mind, that's
what she wanted. She just wanted to talk it through.
That's something that literally in my mind as I was
on the couch and I was saying these things, I'm
I'm thinking, I'm so tired right now, and in my mind,
I'm thinking I don't care about this petty problem, and
(34:27):
what a what a horrible thing for me to think. Now,
I'm not going to not deny that that was happening
to me. I was thinking, I'm tired, I don't care.
This is the stupid problem. We could solve it with
one phone call or just avoid this person. Well, that's
that wouldn't be a good father, and that's not what
she wanted, and that wouldn't have been helpful. So I
(34:48):
have to I have to deny that part of me.
I say, I have to put that part of me
to rest and go out of my comfort zone in
order to pursue her. So Melissa, that's I don't know
what you can get out of that. But you have
to be creative. You have to deny your own sensibilities
(35:11):
and go out of your comfort zone to bring her
back in, and that connection will come back and the
distance will close. Let's go to another question. Another anonymous
actually says, Hey, Granger, I prefer to stay anonymous. I've
been listening for a couple of years now, and I
(35:31):
always look forward to hearing your perspective and your advice.
I'm seeking advice now on how to handle a family
member who is short and quick to anger with my
very young children. They are an in law, quote with
no blood relation to my husband or me. They state
that they are a believer. They are generally irritable and
(35:56):
quick to anger if things don't go according to their plan.
I feel as though I should confront their behavior, especially
in regards to my children, but honestly, I don't know
how to do so lovingly. I know it's better to
suffer for doing what is right than to suffer for
what is wrong. But I'm seeking advice on how Thanks
(36:16):
all right, Anonymous, A good question, and thank you so
much for opening up with this. Here's what's interesting. I
don't want to take anything out of context, especially in
the Bible, And so I don't want us to think
that the Bible is saying it's better to suffer for
(36:38):
what is right and then suffer for doing wrong, and
that includes watching our children get berated by this family member.
Like that's not that would be way out of context,
and that would be way outside of what we should
be thinking. So I don't know the scenario of what
(37:05):
short and quick to anger is with your children. Being
short with your children no problem, but being angry with
your children, that's an interesting thing. I would want to
know more about why this family member is angry with
your children. And maybe that's not what you meant, but
that's kind of what it sounds like. I'm seeking advice
(37:26):
on how to handle a family member who was short
and quick to anger with my very young children, Anonymous says,
And they're in law with no blood relation. I don't
think that matters as much no blood relation to your husband.
If they're in the family by marriage. I know it's difficult,
(37:47):
but I wouldn't prioritize if they were blood it would
be different, you know, I wouldn't say that. So I
think we're kind of okay either way there. And then
the fact that they say they're a believer. I think
you mean they're a Christian. I don't think that matters either.
I get where you're going. You're saying that a Christian
(38:08):
should have fruit of this by being slow to anger
and quick to listen. I know you're thinking that, but
this is probably not a time. Doesn't sound like you
guys have the kind of a relationship where this is
something you're going to discuss in detail. So you say
they are genuinely irritable and quick to anger if things
(38:31):
don't go according to their plan. All this is fine,
All this is normal. I would take out the context
of suffering for doing what's right. I don't think you're
being persecuted, and that's what that text would mean, that
you're going to suffer for what's right. And this doesn't
sound like persecution by any means that we would ever
(38:52):
know in the life of the church over the years
or in the world. So I don't want to overdramatize.
I think we could sometimes over dramatize things by using
biblical terms and saying things like, you know, I've got
this family member that's kind of like gets really irritated
if they don't get their way, but you know, I'm
(39:12):
just gonna suffer through this because you know, it's better
to suffer for what is right. It's like, ah, don't
you're not a martyr, Like you're not like the government's
not about to chop off your head. So I think
that really, if we don't mention love in this answer,
(39:32):
love is at the core of all this, and the
best thing you can do is love them and the
action that you're wanting from them, give that to them.
So if you're wanting someone to be slow to listen
and or quick to listen and slow to anger, if
(39:54):
that's what you're wanting, then do that to them. Make
sure that you're looking at yourself first and acting that
way towards them, And that might not just change them
right away, but but it certainly puts you in the
right heart position so that you're not playing defense, you're
playing offense here. But what I also want to address is,
(40:17):
don't it wouldn't be okay if someone was angry with
your young children and you're just letting it go and
passing it off as this is. You know, I'm just
going to suffer for this because they're family. It's totally fine.
Absolutely fine to be during a time of good terms.
(40:40):
You know, like you wouldn't want to just like you
wouldn't want to discipline a child when you're angry. You
wouldn't want to correct someone when you're you know, you're
in the heat of the moment. So instead, not in
the heat of the moment, wait till you have cooled
your jets. And I think there's nothing wrong with pulling
this person aside. At some point, you're taking a walk,
(41:00):
you're you're both sitting in the backyard, You're both you know,
in a lawn chair watching you know, the sprinklers, and
you say, you mind if I tell you something? Yeah, yeah,
what's up? Man? I don't want to. I don't want
to cause a rift between us. But sometimes I see
(41:24):
you get angry with my children, and I worry about that,
not because I think you're gonna do any harm to them,
but I kind of worry if if that's communicated wrong
to them. And I want I want them to see
you as the uncle, uh that they love, that they
love being around. And sometimes when you're you're you snap
(41:45):
at them and you're they don't understand. They're just they're
two and four. They they don't always understand uh you
you want things a certain way, and so I I
feel like when you snap at them like that, it
kind of gives them the wrong impression of the uncle
that they love. Is there anything I could be doing that?
Is there is there behavior things with them that that
(42:07):
I could be working on just to make this a
little bit better when when we're together as a family.
I don't think there's if you presented that, especially if
you said is there anything I could be doing? I
don't think there's there's much of an argument that they
could make by saying that they demanding that you discipline
your your children differently, or I think it's either going
(42:30):
to go one or two ways. Either gonna go They're
gonna say, oh, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just not good
with children. I'm better with teenagers, or I'm better with adults,
but I'm not good with young children. It's it irritates me,
and that's that's on me. I'm sorry, I'm gonna work
on that. They could go that way, or it could
(42:53):
it could go the opposite, and they could they could say, look,
I just I think your kids are are not well mannered,
or I don't think your kids are disciplined enough, or
you know, it could go that way too, but either way,
at least the conversation is now on the table, and
I promise you they're going to think about it the
next time and don't answer them in anger. But it
would be wrong, I think if you didn't at least
(43:14):
bring it up, especially if they were angry with your children,
and if they got to the point where they're yelling
or any or especially if they touched them physically and
grabbed them, you know, grab their arms or something. By
all means, at that point you step in and you hey, uncle,
I love you, but I will discipline the kids. Okay,
(43:35):
let me let me handle this, and you go back
to your you know, mahito, and I'll deal with the kids.
I hope that provides enough of an answer, Anonymous, because
I don't know enough about the scenario to give you
any more. But I think the core of the answer
is love. It's love, in fact, that's the core of this.
(44:00):
Ending this conclusion, I love you guys. Thanks for emailing,
and we'll see you next podcast. Thanks for joining me
on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys.
You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes.
If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel. Hit that
little like button and notification spell so that you never
miss anytime I upload a video. YI
Host
Granger Smith
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