Making the Most of Your Youth

Knight & Rose Show — Wintery Knight and Desert Rose

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Making the Most of Your Youth

December 20, 2024

Knight & Rose ShowWintery Knight and Desert Rose

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose offer advice to children, teenagers and young adults about how to get the most out of their young years. They talk about their own experiences, positive and negative, and what they learned from those experiences that may prove useful to others. They also discuss best practices in the areas of education, work, finances, character formation, spiritual formation, sports, and relationships.

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Show notes and transcript: https://winteryknight.com/2024/12/20/knight-and-rose-show-56-making-the-most-of-your-youth

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Music attribution: Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Transcript

Welcome to the Knight and Rose Show, where we discuss practical ways of living out on authentic Christian worldview. I'm Wintery Knight. And I'm Desert Rose.

Welcome, Rose. So today, we want to give some advice to children about how to get the most out of their childhood. Yeah, so let's start with a definition of wisdom, because that's really what we want to pass on and communicate.

So wisdom is knowing what practical steps will achieve a good result and which practical steps won't get you where you want to go. So we have lots of different topics that we want to talk about that when applied, they will result in the direction you want to go. Okay.

So like one of the areas where you really notice the importance of wisdom is, when you're a child, typically you get influenced by other children. And those children, your friends and the people around you, they just don't know as much as grownups about what steps you need to follow to reach goals. And they also lack experience at it.

You know, you can imagine saying one day I want to drive a car and you know, your same age peers, kids, friends, they don't know the steps to do that. Your parents know and they can tell you. But if your friends just said, well, you just need to get the keys and turn it into the thing and then push this or push that.

I mean, they don't know, you know, you'd probably end up in a car crash. So that's why it's important to not listen to your same age friends so much. Yeah, I think it's important to not let other children determine what you do, like you just mentioned, or even how you see yourself.

You know, we talk about how in other shows, how God tells us who we are. He also tells us what's right and what's wrong. He created the world.

He knows what's best. And so that's where we should be getting our cues about how to behave, about what is good. You know, oftentimes, what is desirable in childhood and what makes other kids look up to you are actually things that are going to cause you to be undesirable and even to fail miserably in adulthood.

And adulthood lasts so much longer. Oh, yeah. So it's fine to be unpopular as a kid among other children who don't know what they're talking about, don't know what is good, what's worth pursuing, what's not worth pursuing.

I've shared with you, Winter Night, numerous times about how something that contributed greatly to my preparation for adulthood was the fact that I really did not care what other children thought about me when I was growing up. I had a pretty low opinion of other children's knowledge and wisdom and understanding of what is right and good and worth pursuing. Yeah, I think even beyond your friends, people are getting a lot of influence from the internet now and social media.

And so you just want to be careful again. I think parents need to help with this, honestly. You may be listening to people who you find attractive, you know, because of how they look or something like that, or because they appear fun or they have happy music playing in the background, but they don't have the ability to reach goals themselves.

They don't know the steps and they haven't done it. So you can imagine, you know, somebody who's like a relationship expert who has like five divorces and they're giving you this advice and you're taking it because you like their makeup, you know, you like their clothes. So just be careful with social media.

Don't look at TikToks. If you want to learn how to do something, ask your parents. That's number one.

And then your parents may refer you to a grown up who has achieved this, you know, thing in life. So you want to make a million dollars, your parents will send you to somebody who has saved a million dollars, you know, and they'll say, are you going to talk to them about how to do it? Yeah, I think especially in today's internet age, when everybody has cameras all the time, you know, one stupid party or one really bad decision caught on camera or posted on social media can really do a lot of harm to your future. So kids have to be wiser than I think when we were younger and they, you know, you could kind of get away with a little bit more.

Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I think mentoring from somebody who has been there and done that in real life is much, much better than being taken in by a pretty face that's talking in front of a camera.

So just be aware achievements matter and authenticity is better gauged in real life, especially with your parents involved. So one other thing. So if you just think about schools and the culture, there's often a lot of weird beliefs out there in schools and in the culture, you know, they'll tell you things like men can get pregnant, you know, and, you know, the teachers may say that or you can choose if you want to be a boy or a girl.

Yeah. Yeah. And just so just be aware that you really, you know, as children really need to listen to their parents about what they learn in school and what they hear in the culture, because not everything everything you might think that it sounds really good because of how it's being presented, but the parents know better and they have to help you process these things.

And it's a good way to get along with your parents too. One thing that you've talked about quite a bit in our conversations is learning from classical literature. You want to say something about that? Oh, yeah, definitely.

So my biggest problem, one of my big problems when I was growing up was I kind of I was probably like most other boys. And I thought that the most important thing about girls was how they looked. And I thought that probably didn't really matter, you know, what their character was like and whether they were nice to people and so on.

So I had a few kind of embarrassing situations where I kind of got crushes on women who were very attractive. And of course, that didn't, you know, work out well, because usually when women are really attractive, they have a lot of boys, you know, trying to chase after them, and they don't feel the need to be any nice to any particular boy based on his his character, because young people just aren't looking for the most important things about a partner at that age, they're thinking, are they fun? Obviously, being able to be protective and caring and keep your commitments is much more important. And that's what you realize when you get older.

So the classics are really good, because I read a book called Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. And in that book, there's a young boy who was foolish like me called Pip. And he is asked to play with a young girl named Estella, whose adoptive mother, foster mother, was left at the altar.

And she has this hatred for all men. And she's adopted Estella to enact a revenge against men by breaking their hearts. And so she brings Pip over, Mrs. Havisham brings Pip over to her house to play with Estella, he falls in love with her for her good looks.

And she's terrible to him. So it's as soon as I read that, I never did that again. I immediately started, you know, saying, Oh, I can't be stupid like Pip, I've got to make better decisions or I'll get hurt.

Yeah, excellent. Yeah. And unfortunately, children are just not likely to learn that in the culture today.

They're not likely to learn that in school, the books that are being assigned, as far as I understand, are just not of that quality, the lessons like you took from great expectations are not necessarily pointed out. There's more of kind of a don't ever judge, just be nice. The books are all about don't judge.

Nothing is the classics. Right. Whereas the classics are more all about make good judgments, judge, do judge.

Why are the classics the classics? Because they teach you how to not make mistakes. How do they teach you how to not make mistakes? The people in the books make mistakes, and then they get judged for it. And then you say that's not going to be me.

Exactly. All right, one other thing about school, I think it's really important for kids to understand that they need to take their STEM classes. That's science, technology, engineering, math, and later on, maybe medicine.

They have to take those courses seriously, and parents need to teach them that these are not optional. And one reason why is because all that stuff is going to become useful for Christian apologetics later. You don't know what the teachers will never tell you this, because they're not Christian apologists.

But they're never going to tell you this. But later on, you're going to find out, oh, I wish I had listened in chemistry class. Exactly.

That's, I can attest to that. I mean, I disliked most STEM classes. I liked math, but I disliked most of my STEM classes until I became a Christian.

And then I was like, oh my goodness, this is so important. I wish I had a do over. And so I've had to kind of go out of my way to revisit high school level chemistry and biology and such as an adult.

So yeah, pay attention to those subjects now during your childhood when you don't have a whole lot of other responsibilities besides learning. Yeah, if the parents can pick up a book like comprehensive guide to science and faith or something like that and realize the importance of biology, chemistry, and physics for making arguments from intelligent design or the origin of life or the cosmic fine tuning, then they're going to say to the children, we need A's in every one of these classes all the way through school, because this is going to affect how well you can do apologetics. Yes, I just gave that book to a teen at martial arts just last week.

He was so excited. Yeah, that's so good. Which guy was that, Andrew? Matthew.

Matthew, I always call him Andrew. Yeah, you do. You know, I think if the parents say there are going to be rewards for you for getting A's in these STEM classes, because they know how it's going to be used later, this could be very useful.

I have got people to switch their majors by giving them birthday gifts and steam games and stuff like that out of like German language and into geography information systems. I mean, it took a little more than that, but I'm just saying parents, this is your time, you know, to help these kids understand where they're going to need to be later on. And that math and, you know, chemistry are really important.

Yeah. And I would say, you know, I know that this isn't up to children. So, if there are parents listening, homeschool, if at all possible.

Actually, I was talking to a young man at martial arts earlier today who was saying he wishes he could be homeschooled. He's been asking his parents to homeschool him for a few years. I made reference to public schools as Caesars indoctrination centers, and he was like, yes, that's exactly what it is.

But this, you know, the most public schools today in the West are not a place to have your worldview shaped. They are not going to give you a Christian worldview. And the point of an education is not to try to isolate out math or English or science.

Every teacher has a worldview and that worldview is communicated whether they know it or not. And, you know, for the most part, I say, I tell parents, keep your kids away from the public schools. But I will say that, you know, we have a friend, Katie Faust, who whose children have all gone to public schools in a very, very leftist city.

And they're all doing great. But the her children are they have very strong personalities. They have been trained in truth by Katie and her husband.

So they're not. So the Fausts are not just, you know, dropping. They're not seeing the public education system as a substitute for someone else to raise their children.

They're saying, OK, we are going to teach our children, train our children. And then when they go into the schools, that's kind of the their testing area where they can work out the worldview that we've taught them at home. So but generally, I say, you know, kids generally should be kept away from public schools.

Don't come home and your parents ask you what your day was like and say, fine, don't don't do that. Exactly. Tell your parents everything that you learned in every class.

Yes. And let your parents comment on it. Show them your homework.

Show them your tests. Yes, definitely. And parents read the books that your children are reading.

If you've never read them before, talk to the kids about them. Look at the lessons are being taught overtly or or just kind of by osmosis. I do.

I'll go ahead. This isn't going to be popular, but I'll go ahead and say as well, I want to caution people about private Christian schools because a lot of times these are just the same education, but with a Christian label slapped on it, you know, and a large fee. So, you know, no kids from poor families to be exposed to as if, you know, that's some sort of great thing.

No extremely disruptive kids, which is a great thing, but your kids are still learning the worldview that other children in the school have. And just because those children's parents or even teachers may be Christians, the other children you're surrounded by are almost certainly not going to be Christians. And sometimes the teachers may not even be.

So just a word of caution. And I would say to to young people, find a Christian mentor, ask for good books to read, to combat the lies of the culture. Watch Christian debate on YouTube.

Be very proactive and intentional about your own education. This is your time to have virtually nothing else to worry about, except preparing, equipping yourself for life, and make the most of it. Yeah, definitely.

Okay, let's move on to another area when I love work. I think that the A's that you get on report cards can be really dangerous. You do need to do well in those classes, but it's not a substitute for learning valuable skills that help other people.

Right, exactly. Yeah, it's important to gain experience solving real world problems and producing results. I've mentioned martial arts a few times.

There are three teenagers at my martial arts school who are they're excellent students. And they're also in training to be assistant instructors. And so in and they're black belts.

And so, you know, in about four or five months, these teenagers will be able to start earning an income when they turn 16 and gaining experience. And then they'll be able to put on their resume when they go to college that they've been assistant martial arts instructors. One of those three teenagers is the son of legal Venezuelan immigrants.

And he also works a couple days a week at the family fish market with his uncle. So he's earning money. He's gaining experience.

He's learning to provide a valuable skill to people to two different skills, actually. So you don't want to waste your spare time that you have in your youth just, you know, watching TV or even just playing video games from the time you get home to the time you go to bed. It's really important to be looking for opportunities to gain real skills and help others and solve problems.

How early did you start working for money? Let's see. Actually, when I was nine years old, I went up to the senior head tennis instructor at the tennis club where we were members. And I asked him if I could pick up baskets full of tennis balls for him so that he didn't have to have his lessons interrupted.

And then he could offer more value as an instructor by not having to stop every 10 minutes to pick up balls for five minutes. I could just be picking up all the balls for him. And I asked if I could do that for a dollar a basket.

And he was thrilled and started paying me. So I just kept track of how many baskets of balls I picked up. And these were huge, huge bad.

These were like grocery store carts full of, you know, me, I started programming at age 14. My programming system I was doing that was something called D base. And I was writing scripts in that.

And then I got a job in a real software company for a summer doing unique shell scripts. This was a telecom company. I got picked by the school to be the only person from my grade to do this.

So why is this so important? I think I think being a Christian is really hard. And it's not always going to get the approval of everybody. So if you can make money, and then you don't have to kind of care what your employer says, because if they say, Oh, I don't like the things you're saying, I don't like you, you're fired, then you say, Oh, that's fine.

I actually have a bunch of stem degrees, and I'm going to go on work with a competitor. So this is the reason that we make a big deal out of this. So you want to start adding to your resume, references and work experience as soon as possible.

And I really recommend a really good book about the importance of having good education and good skills for not getting canceled and fired. There's a my, my hero is a guy named Dr. Walter Bradley. And they wrote a biography about him called for a greater purpose.

And if you want to find out the importance of being the best at what you do in education and career, I would check out that book, because this is a guy who had a fully public Christian ministry of debating and not debating, doing lectures, and he just paired it with amazing scientific research. And he can never get fired, because he was just bringing in so much research money to the universities and so on. Nice, nice.

Yeah, so we've talked about education and work, and you you bring up finances, which is a third area we want to talk about. I think it's important to ask the basic question, what is money for? You'll get wrong answers from schools, from the culture, maybe from your parents, depending on your situation. But the world, as you said, is a dangerous place for Christians, you know, like we read of in in the scriptures, there, there may be many years of famine and drought like there were in Egypt for the Hebrews.

Well, for the for the Egyptians and all around them, including the Hebrews. And so we don't want to be spending money on everything that catches our eye and every shiny thing. We don't want to spend money on bad things.

We certainly don't want to support and encourage things that are that are immoral. We want to save up for the lean years and and be equipped to to find our own further development and to be able to invest in others, give to others joyfully and abundantly. It is fun to give.

And I love it. And so, you know, also, I'll go ahead and mention for the last four years or so, our the physical the fiscal state of our nation has been, you know, increasingly bad because we've had some pretty ignorant people in charge. And so we have to be prepared for hard times.

The ministries I'm involved in have seen giving go down. And of course, that's going to happen during when when the prices of everything are going up. So, again, we need to we need to save.

We need to be wise with money, not like not like super cheap so that, you know, people just think, oh, Christians are horrible and no fun. And so we want to be joyful, generous givers. And that's a lot of fun.

Yeah, definitely. What I would say is, you know, parents may underestimate how dangerous a $36 trillion deficit, you know, sorry, debt and a $1.7 trillion deficit and $1 trillion in interest, you know, every year on our national debt are for their kids. And so even more than in the 50s and 60s and 70s, you know, you really have to teach your children the importance of saving money.

And again, just like you said, in Philippians, that the goal of Christians with respect to money, or at least a goal, is to be able to partner with other Christians for the truth. So if you don't spend the money on what the TV is telling you to buy with their advertisements, oh, you need to buy this, so you'll feel good. Your friends will like you.

You know, no, don't listen to the TV, don't listen to their ads, but save your money. And then when you see an opportunity to speak into the life of someone who could be potentially good for the kingdom, you know, somebody who's curious about about these things, and we're not even a Christian, or someone who is a Christian and wants to grow, then you can do it. Yes, yes.

And you are living out what you just encouraged others to do. I think of just really recently, you bought a computer for one of my neighbors, who is a young boy who wants to learn coding and wants to have good, excellent skills, and who's in my youth apologetics group and wants to be an excellent Christian, an excellent ambassador for Christ. And he's taking seriously his responsibility to train up himself to be equipped to make a difference.

And so, you bought him a laptop that would be- Yeah, to learn to code early on. I mean, you can be starting even earlier than me. I want to impress me about this guy, is like you said, he's fully engaged in learning to defend his faith.

So, this is the kind of guy who could really produce big dividends for us in terms of the kingdom in the long run. So, we want to get in on the ground floor and make sure that he's got the equipment he needs to learn the skills that are going to insulate him from any kind of pressure that he's going to feel from the office and the workplace to change what he believes. He's going to be able to say, no, I've got tons of skills.

If you don't like me, I can go somewhere else. And I'm not hurting for money because I've got a good job. That's what I'd like for every young Christian is for the parents to make sure that they're going to be kind of insulated from that pressure to conform.

Exactly. I love it. I love it.

Yeah. And it's important to learn basic economics. One of the things that I like to, one of the areas where I like to equip kids to grow is in knowledge of basic economics.

And this is in part to counter the temptation toward emotion-based persuasion. We're not teaching, kids don't need to learn economics so that they can gain lots of money to feel happy right now and have every single immediate desire met quickly or to impress others or to again, get every shiny thing they see on the shelves. It's important to know economics and to utilize finance as well.

So they have the freedom to obey boss. And I think of acts, I think it's 529 and it happens actually in chapter four before this, but in a few different times in early in acts, Peter and John, I believe it is, are told to be quiet and stop sharing the truth about Jesus. And they say, well, you know, I'm going to have to obey boss.

I'm going to have to obey God rather than men. Sorry. Well, if you have skills, if you have some savings, if you have something to offer and you're not just relying on people to just give you what you need, then you have more freedom to take more risks and to speak the truth without as many concerns.

So someone, you know, I'll go ahead and mention my favorite economist slash philosopher is Thomas Sowell. I love every book that I've ever read of his highly recommend Thomas Sowell. Of course, for kids, since we're talking to children right now, I would say look at, get all the Tuttle twins materials.

They have a series of fun kids books written at an elementary school level. They've got middle school and high school level fiction books as well, including a high school series of choose your own adventure, basically. And so you make decisions as you go.

And then you find out how, how life turns out based on the decisions you've made, which is really cool. But they also have nonfiction, economics curriculum that parents can buy for homeschooling, teaching their children. And you don't even have to homeschool.

I mean, if you're willing to spend 40 minutes with your kid after school teaching, I highly recommend those books. But it's really important also to vote for physical conservatives who will not, you know, be stealing your money legally. We need the finances that we are in for biblical purposes.

The government spends it for unbiblical purposes. And so also, while we're talking about economics, go ahead and listen to our three economics episodes that we've done so far, if you haven't already. And we plan to have a lot more to come actually on that topic in the coming year or two.

Yeah. Like you say, books are really important. I'm going to recommend one right now.

I really like this book called The Millionaire Next Door. Yes. And basically it talks about it surveys the two authors survey all the people who have a million dollar net worth in America, or not all, but a lot.

And what it turns out is that they, they are regular earners, but really careful about not spending money to show off. And so I recommend to parents, read The Millionaire Next Door or something like it and teach that to your kids so that they don't feel any pressure at all to communicate wealth to other people. It's just so dumb.

It's not even Christian. Exactly. And the other thing is, is if you're not already savers and investors of some sort, then that's a really good thing to teach the children because they have more time, you know, so even the little bit that they save is going to make a big difference over the long haul.

Anyway, let's switch to a different topic. So I think children, their character can really be impacted by the experiences that they have. And so what I want children and their parents to understand is that if we're expecting the children to act with character when it counts, we have to prepare them by helping them to consume material that show people who have displayed exceptional character, whether it's books or, you know, movies or something, and also teach them that character doesn't really come from your feelings and desires.

You have to kind of learn what it means to have good character from others and train yourself accordingly. So one of the ways that I do this is I read a ton of military history. And what learning about the great heroes of the past American military history teaches me is three things.

It teaches me humility, because I learned that there's people who are better than me at sacrificing their own interests for others. It teaches me to be patient, because when you're reading about people who are fighting, you know, in wars, it's cold, it's nasty, it's not comfortable. And I always look at my circumstances and think it's not as bad as that.

It teaches me to persevere, you know, in difficult circumstances, because that's what these guys did. You know, think of the freezing cold in the Korean War in December and January of 1950, record cold temperatures. And these guys are, you know, being tasked with turning back the North Korean aggressors.

A really good book about this is called On Desperate Ground, if you want to check that one. That's a five star book. I love that book.

And finally, gratitude. You know, you're very thankful for what you have, because you think about all the people who, you know, didn't even maybe they died when they were 20 or 19. And they never got married, they never had kids and never had anything.

So, I think that's military history for me is a really good way to read about people. It will improve your character by teaching you that, you know, you're not all that. And you should be thankful what you have.

And be patient when things are difficult. Absolutely. Yeah.

And I think reading a lot of church history and biographies, especially of Christians who have gone before me, has served me similarly and helped me to understand and appreciate perseverance, humility, gratitude, just like you mentioned. You know, I was reading one of the people who displayed this recently that comes to mind is a professor named Clay Jones. I think you know who he is.

And he's been battling cancer force for I think a few years now. And every one of his updates tends to be, you know, the more difficult things that he's been through, but still at the same time filled with gratitude. And it really always stands out to me as so encouraging and incredible.

And his most recent post about his difficult journey with cancer, he talked about, and he often does, about those who have gone before him who have had it much worse, who have had to endure much, much worse. Recently, he was talking about how he read all about Richard Wernbrand, the founder of Voice of the Martyrs, when he was younger. And he's been thinking about Wernbrand recently, and all the suffering he went through in his imprisonment and everything else just for being a Christian.

And Clay, Dr. Jones is drawing strength and knowledge and his expectations before life, you know, from those people who have gone before him who have endured great suffering. And now he's drawing from that and it's helping him to persevere in his own challenges really well with excellence. Definitely.

Let's move on to spiritual formation. Which verse of the Bible do you think kind of encapsulates what it means to build your biblical worldview? I would say probably Romans 12. This was one of the first passages I ever learned shortly after I became a Christian at 21.

Romans 12.1 and 2, it says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Okay, so we are a living sacrifice. It doesn't say get ready for everything to go smooth and easy and be like Disneyland.

You are a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And it says, and then this is kind of the key, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

And so here, what we see is that we are responsible for putting excellent material into our mind, filling our mind with truth, like biographies, military history, the scriptures especially, the truth that God has given us in his word. And as we are filling our mind with truth, the Holy Spirit is transforming us into Christ likeness, which is also preventing us from being conformed to the likeness of the world, the culture around us, which is kind of the default. And so that's probably my favorite passage on that because it tells me what I can do and then offers promises of what God's going to do in the midst of it.

Yeah, so I've noticed that when sometimes when I go and listen to a sermon, the pastors usually try to present like three points. And I think that that's a good way to kind of get people to remember what the sermon is about. So whenever I hear a good sermon, or if I'm being attentive, I try to write down the three points.

And then I can say, you know, my friends say, Oh, so how did church go today? Or did you watch a sermon at home or whatever? And I say, Oh, yes, and these were the three points. And then we can have a good discussion of it afterwards. And I think the discussions that you have kind of cement it for you, you know, so that it becomes a basis for action.

Yeah, that's, that's, I mean, that's, yeah, absolutely. That's a great idea. I am not a fan of being handed kind of a fill in the blank note at church.

I like to take my own notes and, or at a minimum, discuss the points that were made in the sermon after church on the way home or online. Because when I share what I've learned, I listen, you know, I remember it a lot longer. So yeah, we, I'd also say, well, it's, it's really valuable, of course, to read the Bible and think about it and find points to discuss.

It's also, I think it's, it's helpful after you've thought through what you've actually read and what it, what it means and how you can apply it today. I think it's valuable then at that point to look at, consult some commentaries sometimes, not as a substitute for thinking and for asking the question yourself, what does this mean? What, what is the point and how does it apply today? But just to get to, after you've done that, to gain some additional insight from theologians and scholars who have gone before us again. Yeah, that's what you and I do.

Like when we have a Bible study, we have a chosen commentary and we both email each other the two to four points that we got out. And then when we meet, it's a short, you know, short meeting because we're just going through our points and discussing. Yes, I love it.

It's so much fun. Yeah. I'd also recommend reading systematic theology books, reading books on character formation, reading really any theology books.

I know theology sounds like a big scary word. And especially with like a systematic theology book, there is a bit of a learning curve upfront. That's a bit steep because there are some new words that you may not have ever heard before.

But once that, once you kind of learn the language, I think theology is just, it's so important. It's so valuable. It's so much fun.

And I think it's really critical to ask the question, whenever you're reading theology, what difference does this make? My seminary theology professors really instilled that in me. It's made all the difference. You have to ask, so what? Yeah, that might be a little bit of a big ask for children and young people.

But I think definitely for the sermons and the Bible study, you should be writing down your points. And even so, Wayne Grudem and R.C. Sproul both have like easy introductions to theology. So, you know, maybe okay, maybe a little older, you know, when they get a little older, but definitely they should write down their points in Bible study and say, this is what I got out of it.

I was really listening. Let's talk about this. Exactly.

Yeah. And feel free to ask your parents, like, hey, I was reading, I heard, or I was reading, or the pastor said or whatever that God is a Trinity. Like, what's the difference? So what does that even mean? And what does it have to do with me? I've never even heard this word.

So what if God's a Trinity? And parents, when your kids are asking questions like, so what, what difference does it make? That's a good thing. Get excited and look it up together. If you don't know, so what? I mean, so for example, so what the word Trinity, what would I say? Well, for one thing I would say, well, it demonstrates that we're made for relationship, right? Because God, we are made in the image of God.

God is in, has been in relationship for all of eternity past. He didn't start to have someone or something to relate to when he created. He has always been in relationship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons, one God.

And so, you know, that's an example of how we are not made to be isolated or to try to live the Christian life alone. It also shows that roles don't determine our value. And so I, you know, I mentioned the image of God, we're made in the image of God.

So what? Well, if we're made in the image of God, that means we have intrinsic value and worth and dignity. And so we need to treat others no matter who they are, no matter what their education is. If we perceive, you know, if their education is way lower than us, if we think they're just outright dumb, if we think they, you know, they seem silly or foolish or useless or whatever we may perceive them others as, they are made in the image of God.

And so we need to treat them well. It's also the foundation for inherent human rights. There's a reason why you don't find basic human rights in Muslim countries, for example.

And so they don't have this. Yeah, they don't have that. And so these things matter.

These theology doctrines make a huge difference. Yeah. Something that was useful for me was like, I had a huge pride problem as a kid and I inherited it from my parents.

I want to add, there's just a constant flow of negative stuff about other people in my house. My parents aren't listening, I'm sure. But I had this massive problem in school and I discovered C.S. Lewis and he totally annihilated my parents, you know, teaching me to compare myself to other people and look down on other people.

So it turns out, and this is really important for kids. I read the C.S. Lewis and teach this to your kids about how to view other people. So everybody you meet is made for eternal life.

They're made for a relationship with God. So it doesn't matter whether they're smart, thin, tall, you know, anything. This is how it is.

So everybody, first of all, you can make anybody better on their journey to being reconciled with God if you invest in them. And this is point. This matters this matters to God.

This is really what you're here to do. So if you say, oh, this person is not very attractive. This person is not very smart.

And you still say, well, are you interested in hearing about spiritual things? Are you interested in growing? And they say, yes, that means that they're the smartest. They're the tallest. They're the hottest.

That's who you care about. That's the best person. Okay, that's the person that God is interested in.

And he's picking you to do the work of growing this image bearer. So you could have action any day of the week at any time. And the best way to do that is not to prejudge where a person is at, but be open to the fact that this person could be the best person for an adventure, only because they are interested in spiritual things.

Yeah, you know, one of the things that we that our owner says at martial arts all the time is that every single day, everyone we interact with will, throughout the class that they're in, grow one step closer to black belt or one step closer to quitting. And a lot of that has to do with how they are treated and welcomed and such while they're there. And I just was thinking of that as you were talking, like when we interact with people as a representative of Christ on this earth, we are showing people kind of, you know, whether they may want to grow one step closer to God or one step closer to walking away from him.

Yeah. And one of the reasons why you and I like apologetics, and we think that, you know, kids should make the effort to learn it too, is because it's much easier to take that obligation seriously when you have done the work to confirm that the Christian worldview is true. It's a lot easier to do the right thing against your self-interest when you've put in the time to watch debates, read the books and prove this out.

Then you go, oh, yeah, this is the way the world is. And I'm just acting consistently with it. Exactly.

And then when we confirm who is God and what he has revealed about himself and truth and goodness, we need to follow his priorities because his priorities are better for us in the long run than chasing after temporary happiness that usually only leads to regrets. So, you know, authentic Christianity is likely to require some social disapproval and it's definitely going to require some self-sacrificial love, but it is absolutely worth it. It is so incredibly fun and adventurous and fulfilling, and your Christian actions are going to be based on the effort that you have put into it.

Yeah, your capabilities. Right, exactly. There's no way to beat up a bully unless you have that black belt in your hand first.

You don't spontaneously figure out, you know, how to defend yourself and others around you by having feelings about it in the moment. It's just not going to work. Exactly.

Well, what about sports? That's something that's been important to you. How should young people, children and young people, interpret, you know, their parents, you know, getting them into sports? How do they get the best out of that? Yeah, well, one thing that was really valuable for me was setting goals. I was taught early on, like at age eight, I think, maybe nine, to set long-term goals, intermediate goals, and short-term goals.

The long-term goal is kind of, you know, where I want to end up several years from now, the intermediate is, you know, those were still pretty big goals, but they, you know, they may be a few years away instead of, you know, five or ten years away, but the short-term goals were like quick wins, you know, that I tended, I tend to have more control over, you know, hit this, you know, this many serves in a row in the box, you know, at such and such a speed or whatever, you know, and so, or, or run, you know, get my mile time under seven minutes, things like that, you know, so I think setting goals is, is really important. It's really valuable. So you can see the progress that you've made and you have something to keep you focused, to continue to strive for.

I learned that in sports, but I'm advocating that you apply it to all of life. It has helped me in all of life. Another thing is, you know, if your parent, if you don't feel like going to practice sometimes and your parents say, well, you need to go anyway, you need to trust them and go anyway, because it is so easy to quit just because you don't feel like going or just because, you know, it's always easier just to stay home and keep doing whatever you're doing, take a nap or watch TV or play games or do what your friends are doing.

But there's a reason and it's incredibly character building and excellent for you to persevere even when you don't feel like it. If you're going to step away from a sport, let it make it be on a high note, not because you're discouraged and you're just giving up and quitting. Yeah, I think the reason why people should be careful with their sports experiences to get the most out of it is just just what you like.

It's easier to be motivated if you understand why you're doing this. So even if you don't win or become like an NCAA superstar, you can still learn truths and you learn them by experience in the sport. So you learn the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle.

Okay, if you if you spend all your time practicing and then you play a game, you're going to play a lot better. So that you have to learn that you don't just read it. You don't just read this in a book.

If you experience it, then it clicks. And the second thing is sports is one of the best places for you to learn leadership. So what you do is you learn how to get people to follow you leading from the front.

You learn to convince the people around you to want the same results that you want. You learn how to delegate tasks so that everybody feels involved and nobody is left out. You learn to praise others.

You learn to own when you make mistakes. These things go with you into the workplace. And that's what we mean when we say people skills.

Absolutely. That's why you don't stay home from practice. You don't stay home from sports.

You got to get these things out of the sports. That's what you're that's what you're there for. Okay, it's not not to score points and impress people.

Exactly. Exactly. And and it teaches humility, you know, like you mentioned to, you know, accept your mistakes.

One thing that I just became accustomed to over time was being able to take constructive criticism well from others being able to be led by others who knew more than I do. I still think if you ask anybody who knows me well, or who watches me at martial arts or in any other area, when people are coaching me or giving me input or telling me how to do something better, I am listening up. I am taking notes.

I am enacting what they have told me because I want to be the best that I can be. I don't want to just be praised all the time, no matter what. This is one of the best things about you that I like is there's an epidemic of young women today, not handling male leadership, especially in spiritual and moral areas.

Well, and I've never met anyone other than you who was as good at getting the best out of people, men who were skilled, you know, wanting to teach you and lead you. So, it's just something that I admire about you a great deal. And I would say young men, that should be one of the biggest things that you're looking for in your female friends is that they don't... Yeah, teachability and just respect for the things that you can do that she might want to learn, you know? Definitely.

Yeah. And you know, you mentioned the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle. That's so true.

I saw that over and over in tennis. Obviously, I see that in martial arts, but that's true in apologetics too. And in every area of life, you know, I enjoy conversations with people who disagree with me because I have put so much time and effort into learning the evidence.

And so, it's fun to engage with people. That's going to be the case in every area of life. The harder you work to prepare, to perform with excellence, the less harm you're going to take when it matters.

Yeah. There's nobody who shows up at a concert hall and steps on the stage and plays the piano without a lot of practice for us. So, just understand that.

There's nothing good that happens without a lot of unhappiness beforehand. Okay, let's move on to the last area, which is relationships. Yes.

What do you think about... What should children and young people think about relationships at their young age? Well, you know, when I was a kid, I was extremely introverted. I was very focused and task-oriented and driven. And I thought of people as just kind of a barrier that I needed to jump over or get through somehow to push out of the way to attain my goals.

But I would say that it's actually very important to invest in others, to be a good friend to others, to care about others, to ask, for example, open-ended questions and listen well. Listen for what their concerns are, for what their interests are, their hobbies, what they read on their own time. Ask these questions.

Hey, where do you go to church? Hey, what do you like to read? Hey, what are your hobbies? And look for opportunities to encourage others to affirm what is really genuinely good in them, affirm their good character, affirm unpopular people, and listen for opportunities to have spiritual conversations as well. Because, you know, a lot of people ask me, hey, how do you get into spiritual conversations on such like a daily basis? Thank you. I really think it's because I read a lot and then I ask people good questions.

I listen for their interests, their concerns, their, you know, heart and mind. And then I just see because of the combination of reading, studying, you know, and listening well to them as individuals, I see how spiritual things relate to every different area of life. Whatever it is that your hobby is or your concerns are or your hurts are or your celebrations are or, you know, whatever's going on in your life, I can relate that to the gospel and have a fun, awesome conversation that you will care about, whether your interests are science or history or sports or character or naps or whatever.

It doesn't matter. Yeah. I would just say that I'm going to reiterate what we've presented before in our previous podcast about the purpose of male-female relationships.

And that is that the purpose of male-female relationships is to produce a return for boss. So it's not to entertain yourself or make yourself happy with this other person. And the most important thing about that other person is going to be whether you think that an affiliation with them is going to produce something beneficial for your boss.

So I recommend reading The Sacred Search. I think I'm going to forget the guy's name, but it's The Sacred Search, first edition. I haven't read the second edition.

I love the first edition. And I also want to say that it's important for young men today to, I think, I don't know if I want to use this word, but don't be a simp, okay? And that is don't give free attention, gifts, money to girls just because they're physically attractive. And don't let a girl's physical attractiveness make you hide who you are spiritually and morally.

In fact, the most masculine a man can be is when he doesn't let a woman's attractiveness get him off of his prior responsibility to boss. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Invite your girlfriend over for Bible study, you know, read and study the Bible together. I'd say volunteer together, go donate blood together, or help a widow together, or whatever you think sounds fun that will be helpful to others.

And that will help you get to know the other person better, too. If they whine and complain the whole time and act like a spoiled brat, well, then you know, oh, okay, well, you know, maybe I can try to be a good influence on this person, but this is not someone I want to, you know, be attached to or consider for marriage or anything like that. And I would say, you know, some advice to boys, I would say for girls, don't give physical intimacy to boys prematurely.

You will you are harming your own readiness for marriage when you have bad breakups. When you're giving men things that or boys things that ought to be reserved for marriage. Giving those things to the other person is really in the context of serving boss, like, then it makes sense.

There's a commitment, you know, and a purpose. Otherwise, what are you even doing? There's no reason, you know, for this. Exactly.

And, you know, men don't like women who are distant and hardened. They don't like women who are disrespectful and hate men or are, you know, unappreciative or bitter or unwilling to accept help from men. And these kind of bad breakups and stuff is what causes that.

And so don't put yourself in a position to become a hardened, bitter, angry feminist. You know, young women today are trying to win young men with their impressive jobs and their impressive incomes. But men are not actually impressed by that.

As far as I have learned over throughout adulthood, they care about femininity and innocence and sweetness and kindness and a great mother for their children who uses her mind for God's glory and to build up other people, to build up their children. You know, they value a gentle and kind spirit. And yet at the same time, they value women who are able to fight bad people on topics that are important to the men, you know.

Don't do anything in your childhood that is going to diminish your ability to commit to the right person for the right purpose. Exactly. Well put.

Yes, definitely. Before we end today, I just want to remind people that we've done a ton of related episodes on this. I loved our movie episode, which was classical movie wisdom, great art for Christians, which was number 12.

And then number 18 was the Bible study that we did the episode on Bible study, sorry, which is Bible study, basic Christian beliefs and Philippians. Number 24 was making wise decisions, a life without regret. And number 29 was commitment issues, searching for love with purpose.

So check those out. That's a good place for us to stop for today. If you enjoy the episode listeners, please consider helping us out by sharing this podcast with your friends, writing us a five star review on Apple or Spotify.

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