TLP 396: Three Desires and Your Parenting | Dave Bender Interview

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00:00

I've never had that, I don't know what you're talking about. Or they're liars, sorry.

00:08

Yeah, right. It's because you're the perfect parent and the rest of us never could, yeah, okay.

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About that. Welcome to Truth. Love. Parents.

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Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents. Here's your host,

00:25

A .M. Brewster. Welcome to today's show. I am A .M. Brewster and my special guest today is Pastor Dave Bender.

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He is a biblical counselor and the counseling pastor at Bay City Baptist Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

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Now any of you who know me for any period of time, you know that I've spent a lot of time north of Green Bay and I've had the pleasure of sitting under his ministry and being encouraged and challenged by him on a number of occasions.

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Now if you're new to the show or maybe you just forgot, you can watch our interviews on our YouTube channel or at truthloveparent .com.

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I always really enjoy watching interviews myself because the additional visual component really helps the overall communication.

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I think I just learn it better sometimes. Either way, whether you're listening to the podcast or the video, we're very glad that you're joining us today for this bonus interview.

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We post our main episodes on Tuesdays every week and we publish our special guest interviews on Fridays as they come.

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And we have an amazing opportunity for you today. I wanted to get this episode out as soon as I possibly could, and we'll mention the opportunity here at the beginning of the show, and then we'll give you more details at the end of the show.

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But in between, we hope to equip you to parent like Christ, and I'm very excited about that as well. So let's go ahead and get started.

01:37

Welcome, Pastor Dave. Please take a moment to introduce yourself, introduce your family, introduce your ministry. Just tell us all about yourself.

01:43

Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Thanks for having me, Aaron. All right. So I'm married to my wife,

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Julie, for about 34 years now, a little more than that. And it's been great. She's been good to me, and we certainly enjoyed our years together.

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We have three children. They're both, they're all three in their 20s. We have a girl, boy, girl.

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Our oldest is 29, almost 30. I have two grandchildren with our oldest child, a middle boy, and then a younger daughter who's,

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I think she's about 25 now, 24, 25. Well, I hope I get that age right.

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But she got married. You're in trouble if you don't. Unless she never sees this, right? Very true.

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But yeah, she got married a year ago. She lives in California, and her husband is a sheriff out there, sheriff's deputy, and they don't have any kids yet.

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Our middle child, our middle son is not married yet. But yeah, so three kids. I'm at Bay City Baptist Church in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

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And I head up our counseling center here. And of course, among varying other responsibilities that every pastor has to have.

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We started that counseling center in 2013, and we've grown every year. Last year, we had right around,

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I think, 430 appointments, something like that. 70 % of those are from outside our church.

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People coming from as far as two hours south in Milwaukee, two hours north,

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Iron Mountains, out to Wausau and Antigo, and out by the lakeshore. And of course, most of them centered around here, around Green Bay.

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But it's been kind of cool to see people have such a great need that they want to come and have actual biblical counseling.

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And so this year, as far as our counseling center, we're on pace for about 450 appointments or so.

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And so I just really enjoy serving the Lord. I love sitting down with people and just talking to them, getting to know them.

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But that opportunity to help them with God's word, it's just incredible, you know, to sit down and know that I have the answers to share with people right over at these chairs over here in my office.

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It's just an incredible opportunity. I'm just grateful to be serving the Lord. Well, I know exactly what you're talking about.

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I sense and I experience the exact same exhilaration because I honestly believe this is how

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God created it to work. My wife and I were taking a walk this evening, and we were talking about the fact that, you know, to refer to somebody as being a trained biblical counselor is appropriate.

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There are things that we learn. Of course, we spend most of our time learning God's word. And you know what?

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That's what every Christian should do. Everyone should be knowing God's truth to be able to do the one another's.

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And the one another's include admonishing and rebuking and correcting and encouraging and edifying. So I think we get such a thrill from it because it's how

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God created the body of Christ to function. Ephesians 4, 15, we're sharing the truth and love so that we can grow up together into Christ.

04:43

And I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Great. Now, I think it was, was it this last year or the year before that my family and I and the guys from Victory showed up for that special counseling emphasis

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Sunday you guys had. Sure. Yeah. That feels like it was like a year and a half ago or so,

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I would say, roughly, so middle of last year, maybe. Yeah. It sounds about right. I think it was last year. Yeah.

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And that was the last time we bumped into each other. Yeah. I remember that day well. I think I had to do a truth love parent business card, which

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I'm sure you have someplace prominent in your office. Oh, I'm sure. Here it is. Let me find that for you. Keep looking.

05:22

All right. Now, as I understand it, as part of this, the ministries of the church, maybe it's the counseling ministry in particular,

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Bay City has been hosting a family seminar over the past three years, I think you said. And this year is different because you've just, it's the same seminar, but you've decided to open it up to an online audience.

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And I'd love for you to tell us about that. Okay. Yeah. So we call that the, we call it the

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Three Desires Seminar. And as I was, um, as I was working with people and working with myself, uh, you know, there were some things that I learned from God's word that I thought were super helpful and specifically about diagnosis.

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And I wanted to find a way to do sort of, um, uh, group counseling,

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I guess you would say where you can sit down with a larger group of people and show to them some of the things that I think are incredibly helpful in God's word, but a lot of people don't really get or haven't stopped to think about.

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And so we, we put this seminar together again, Three Desires Seminar to help people to diagnose themselves if they've got marriage, parenting, or relationship problems.

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And um, so it's specifically related to, you know, diagnosing our, our, our own heart issues.

06:41

Okay. So, um, you want me to talk more about when the next one is coming up or yeah.

06:46

So the next one's coming up here in October, right? Yeah. So it's October 10th. It's a week and a half from when you and I are talking here.

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Um, but, uh, so it's October 10th and it's from 10 AM to four 30. And kind of the cool thing is we've always done it on site here, but we're being forced now, uh, to, to do this in everyone else.

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Yeah, right. Exactly. So we're being forced to do a webinar. We are going to do it on site as well.

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So there's two ways people can register. So people can go to our site, three desires .org

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that tells you all about the seminar and just promotes a seminar. It gets you kind of thinking about what it's all about.

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And people can register for the in -person seminar to be right here at Bay City Baptist or they can, they can register for the, the webinar that, um, that we're going to host as well.

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It'd be our first webinar. And so it's helpful for, uh, as, as I just said, it's helpful for people in marriage conflict, in parenting problems and any kind of relationship problems.

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And I would also add to that, that it's also helpful for people who are just trying to there, you know, they're wrestling with themselves or kind of in a struggle with themselves.

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They can actually diagnose themselves and what they're actually, what they actually want. And I'll, I'll just give you one quick analogy here.

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Um, so there were these, uh, there were these two fish and they were swimming in the stream one day going along the stream and this older fish swam by them.

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And he says, he says, uh, good morning, boys. How's the water? And so the other, the two younger fish, they swam farther down the stream and one of them turned to the other.

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And he said, what's water? Well, I think people are swimming every day in their own desires and they're moved by their desires, but they don't know what they are.

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They don't know they're being moved by their desires every single day. And as we've done this seminar, you know, to watch people, you know, take all these notes on legal pad and flip the page and take more notes and flip the page.

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It's kind of cool as they, they start to see themselves and their problems at a different level.

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So it's been kind of cool to, to be able to present this seminar over the last three years. I know exactly what you're talking about.

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I actually have a number of people who follow truth love parents, uh, who aren't parents or who aren't even married.

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They don't have kids. They don't have even a prospect for someone to, to get married to. And they still follow the show because as you're saying, the elements that we talk about in order to help a family and the individuals within a family are the exact same things that all individuals need.

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So yes, definitely. And what you just described there with those fish is the perfect analogy for where most of us are.

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I did an episode, an interview with Tim Challies a long time ago, and we talked about parental blind spots and I asked them over the course of the interview, um, so what are some blind spots in your parenting that you've, you know, you, you kind of discovered he goes, well, uh,

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I don't know, cause they're blind spots and you really don't know what you don't know.

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We know that we don't know things, but we don't know what we don't know because the moment that we learn what we don't know, we now know it.

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And so that's all of us. We're swimming out there having no clue what's going on, what's really going on and what seminars like this and what, uh, all of the books and podcasts and sermons out there are, are, are created for in many ways, just to open our eyes to the need so that we can then do something about it.

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So, uh, we're going to talk more about this seminar later on because, um, obviously you can tell you, you found, you heard the surprise, uh, the seminar is going to be offered online, which means that you guys have an opportunity to access it.

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You have an opportunity to watch it. Now there is a cost associated with this seminar, but we have a very special surprise for you that we'll share later on in the show.

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For now though, I want to transition, uh, to kind of continuing on this theme about struggles that we have and the issues that we encounter in our lives and not knowing about it and whatnot, and specifically asking that I'm assuming you alluded to it before, if I heard you correctly, that this content for the three seminar, uh, sorry, the three desires seminar has, um, grown out of the work that you've been doing as a biblical counselor.

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Um, can you give us a little bit more insight into that? Because I think, I think, again, I understand exactly where you're coming from when

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I preach, I rarely am preaching to anyone other than myself. This is just what God has been, uh, impressing upon my heart and I'm sharing it with the people in front of me.

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And I'm curious, I kind of think that the three desires seminar has kind of been that same thing for you. This has been maybe less, more so about what

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God has even taught you in your counseling practice. For sure. Yep. So I grew up in a Christian home and, uh, man,

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I tell you when you grow up in a Christian home and you're on Christianity and you go to Bible college, you must hear 10 ,000 things, you know, that you should be doing and 10 ,000 things you shouldn't be doing.

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Right. And, uh, you know, you, you're kind of wrestling with yourself.

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When you grow up in a Christian home, you want to do the right thing, right? If you, if you know, Christ is your savior. And, um, it was when

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I was roughly about, I would say I was maybe 25, 26, somewhere in there,

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I'm 59 right now. And, um, I came across something in the scriptures that finally struck me as, oh, that's why you deal with what you deal with.

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And as I, as I saw this in the scriptures, I was able finally, um, to diagnose myself at the lowest possible level.

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And so that's where it really started for me. Then it, for, I was a youth pastor at the time.

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Um, I was able to develop some materials that was helpful for parents of teenagers who were in rebellion.

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And so this material was designed specifically to help parents of teenagers, um, who were rebelling.

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And when they saw the material, they understood, okay, now I, now I know where I have to get to, to be able to deal with this, uh, with my teenager.

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But more than anything, this has been helpful for me, uh, because I want to catch,

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I want to catch temptation and I want to catch desire at its lowest possible level so that I can walk before the

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Lord with, um, you know, in peace and joy and knowing that my heart is clean.

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And so really, yeah, like you said, it, it started, it was for me first, and then

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I found it to be helpful for other people. It's especially helpful for me in marriage counseling, well, all kinds of counseling, but especially for marriage counseling, um, this material is super helpful.

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Um, but then for parenting as well, uh, working with, uh, with parents that are struggling with their kids, it's also super helpful.

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There is, does that answer your question, Aaron? Oh, definitely. And it's exactly what I expected to hear. You know, just how, uh, you found, you found answers.

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You found hope you found, uh, God's sanctification in his word. And you were so excited about implementing that into your life.

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How could you not want to share that with the people he's brought into your life? Definitely. And, uh, that is exactly how it should be.

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We should all be doing that. You know, we should be doing that with our kids as we learn more about God, excited to tell them about this.

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We should be sharing it with other young families that we know and God brings into our lives. This is discipleship. And, uh, that's exactly what

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I expected to hear. Now, speaking of, uh, helping families and counseling and whatnot, I'd like to pick your brain, uh, some more about a topic really of kind of,

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I'm going to call it parenting issues that come up, uh, in your personal counseling ministry. I, again, as I mentioned,

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I too counsel many families and I've been doing so since the early two thousands, and it's always personally amazed me how similar counseling scenarios can be from family to family, from year to year.

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Now, obviously anyone who happens to be listening, uh, you know, like, Oh no, is pastor Dave going to talk about our counseling?

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No, we're not going to disclose any personal information. Of course not. But, um, we're just going to look at the, the high level threads.

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I'm going to call them that, like these common threads that are woven throughout every person's life, um, and that crop up a lot in your counseling, um, because really

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I have a feeling that what we're going to find is that the stuff that you are addressing and counseling are things that we likely can identify in our own homes.

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So what might some of those things be that you should see a lot in nearly every counseling case that comes across your desk?

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These things tend to pop up. Okay. That's pretty tough question. Even though it's so broad, it's a pretty tough question.

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How about let's do this? Um, uh, I would say that probably every parent has dealt with, uh, a child who does not want to keep his or her room clean.

15:50

Okay. I've never had that. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, that's because they're liars.

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Sorry. Yeah, that's yeah. Right. Yeah. That's because you're the perfect parent and the rest of us never could.

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Yeah. Okay. About that. Yeah. Right. So, um, now I'll, and I'll, let me just say too, before I flip back to that, uh, in specifically in marriage counseling,

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I find that, um, the problems that married couples have, it's usually only two or three issues that keep coming back up and back up and back up.

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It's not, it's not 15 or 20 things. It's just a few issues that they need to work through. Now it tends to be the same with parenting as well, because let's just say you have, uh, let's say, let's just say you have one child that is extremely resistant.

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Okay. Now let's take, let's talk about that child. And trying to get that child to try to clean their room.

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Right. Okay. So that would be a common thing. Um, and of course, most kids, you know, uh, how about this?

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Who really likes to be told what to do? Right. Um, I don't right.

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And, and I'm not a child anymore. Um, so children just don't like to be told what to do, period.

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Okay. So when we get down to the, when we get down to the reasons for that, now we're actually able to disciple our children, um, specifically related to that rather than, uh, rather than going after kind of a behavior modification kind of thing.

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Right. Where, um, you know, when it comes to, you know, if a child just is constantly disobeying, um, you know, are we just going to, uh, tighten down the screws?

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Right. Um, and make it so painful that they've got to obey and we're not doing any discipleship along with that.

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Of course, we know that God does work through discipline. Hebrews 12 is, is really clear about that.

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But then a lot of the Bible talks about there's teaching and there's admonishing and there's encouraging.

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Um, you know, they're speaking the truth and love. And so there's more to it than just discipline.

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So I'm not sure if I'm getting to exactly what you're looking for, but maybe you can help me hone that a little bit.

18:21

If you're looking for something a little different. No, I think you're hitting the nail on the head in many ways. And this is something that I think, well, for, from my perspective,

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I think something I oftentimes see is it's not just that people don't like to be told what to do. I think if you boil it down a little bit further, from my experience,

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I've seen that people don't want to be told that they're wrong. To tell them what they need to do. If they agree with you, they don't have a problem, you know, eat this ice cream.

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Okay. Uh, but to tell them to go clean their room and they don't want to, well, that's where they get some pushback.

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And ultimately it, it grates against the, the, the part of us that hates to be told that we're wrong.

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Cause we know what's best. You don't. So how can you possibly tell me what was best for my life? I think we're seeing that in our culture.

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I know we're seeing that in our culture right now. Don't you dare try to tell me that I'm wrong. And I think one of the big issues associated with that is that it seems so simple because it's rampant, it's everywhere, the smallest child does that, the oldest adult doesn't.

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But that is the root oftentimes of the most heinous sins, whether a mob is burning down a city or a child's refusing to eat his vegetables.

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Uh, recently, recently my wife and I were a witness to an absolutely explosive encounter from a child who had to have been maybe somewhere between seven and 10 and, uh,

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I mean, just, just melting down in Walmart over not being given a toy throwing them. It was, it was fantastic.

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It was probably the most amazing portrayal of child terrorism I have ever seen in my life. And, um, the child did not want to be told that his way was wrong.

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And, uh, and so that's what we're seeing in our world. And the thing I'm getting to is that we all have that in our home.

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I have that in my home. I have that in my heart. I have that in my life. You have it in your home. And what ends up being the issue is that we don't deal with it.

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And it grows and it grows and it grows. And now all of a sudden we've got these, this huge behavioral problem that seems like a big, big, big issue.

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Now we can handle the kid not wanting to eat his broccoli. We can handle, uh, potentially people breaking curfew, but when it crosses our own line, our own little threshold, well, now we have an issue and now we want to deal with it.

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Now we go into what you were talking about. That behavior modification is let's just squash that at least lower the threshold back to where I'm comfortable, but it never deals with the problem that we are prideful, arrogant, selfish demigods who just want our own way.

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Right. And, um, so I guess if I'm, if I'm extrapolating out what you were saying, would you agree with those observations?

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Yeah, absolutely. I'd absolutely agree. And that would go with the, um, what we call the third category of desires as we work through the seminar is, um,

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I'm, I have, uh, labeled it as desires for glory, superiority and control.

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Okay. Now, and so let me just take it to the little step further. We, we really have to, as parents, we really have to go after that with our kids and we, we can't let them have control.

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We know that, right. But how are we going to approach that? Well, we got first, we have to stop the behavior, right?

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But then don't we need to help our kids to see, look, you're dealing with these desires for glory and superiority and control, which that's, that's not the three desires, by the way, that's the third of the three categories.

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But, um, now if we can help our children to see that that's what they're wrestling with, then we're not just like pointing a bony finger in their face and saying, this is what you're dealing with.

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All right. What we're gonna do is we're going to come up, come alongside of them. We're going to put an arm around them and we're going to have some compassion.

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I'm going to say, Hey, you know, hopefully that they've been taught some of these things, right? Uh, Hey, uh, you know,

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Johnny, um, really seems like in this moment, you're dealing with these, some really deep desires for glory and superiority and control, and this isn't easy for you in your heart, is it?

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And when you're having a conversation like that in a time of non -conflict and then you're praying with your child and, you know, you pray for them.

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They can, they can also pray for themselves in that same moment. Now you're discipling them and you're teaching them.

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And it's not just, um, it's not just behavior modification. And I think that's one thing that's missing for parents is parents helping their children to see the desires that are in their heart that are, um, that moving them and advancing them on a day -to -day basis.

22:57

Um, yeah. And I'd say that, that, that again, dovetails perfectly with something that I see a lot in counseling where I'm noticing that every time

23:06

I gesture, my camera goes out of focus. If you're not, if you're not watching the interview, you're missing it.

23:11

It's an amazing show. I'm just, I go blurry and I'm back again. Sorry about that for all of you watching. If you're getting motion sick or something, got to figure that one out.

23:17

But anyway, so I, in my own counseling, I've noticed that one of the issues that we face is that we have a parent who has correctly identified that the behavior is wrong.

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And then, um, sometimes they've even correctly identified, uh, the deeper issues associated with that.

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But as they try to motivate their children to do what's right, um, I find that oftentimes, cause it's just a natural human issue, uh, that we motivate for the wrong reasons.

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And the way I've described it as this, um, I'm trying to convince my child to do what

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I want them to do because I want them to do it, uh, for my reasons. And, um, and I tell parents in that situation,

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I say, listen, your child is disobeying, which means clearly they're not interested in worshiping

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God. Why are you trying to convince them to worship you? I don't see that working very well.

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And that's so often what we're trying to do. We're pushing our kids to do what they're doing in order to please us.

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And so that's one of those things. Oftentimes when I'm working with families, when the parents see that in their own heart, that their desires are off, uh, that their heart, uh, you know, they're wanting something that's good, right?

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They, they want their child to obey with the right heart, but, um, they're, they're really, their motivation, their deep motivation is, is all for, you know, just, it'll remove their headache.

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It'll make their lives easier. They'll feel better about their child's future. Then when they realize that that's their deeper motivation, it really starts to open their eyes and they start to see themselves as somebody who, who needs the exact same counsel as their children do.

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And at that point, what you start to see is that the children and the parents both, uh, are learning and growing together.

24:59

And those are the homes where exciting things happen. Yeah, I agree. Completely agree. Yeah. Well said,

25:05

Aaron. Well said. Um, and, and I know I just said this, but it's extremely important for us to.

25:13

Now, maybe I'll say a little different this time, but it's extremely important for us to know why our kids do what they do.

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And it's not, it's honestly not that hard to figure out once you understand what the Bible, how the Bible talks about desires, you know, find out why they're doing what they're doing.

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Once you know what that is, then you can approach that very, um, yeah, it's probably a better way to say it, but in an educated way and in a way that makes a difference and in a way that, again, you're coming along beside them, putting your arm around them and helping them to work through it with compassion.

25:50

Because everybody's wrestling with themselves, right? Aaron, everybody. I know

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I am like right now I'm wrestling. Well, and, and as we're talking about this, you know, we're not solving anything.

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We're just discussing the issues, right? We're talking about, yeah, there's, there's this type of problem and there's that type of problem.

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One of the things I notice quite often, uh, in addition to, you know, basically not liking to be told that we're wrong, uh, in addition to, uh, trying to motivate people to do what we want them to do for the wrong reasons, uh, there are a lot of other things that happen in parenting and in marriage and family issues, oftentimes mom and dad are on two different pages, right?

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They both have different desires. They both have different motivations for what they're doing. And they're trying to lead the family in different directions.

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That's oftentimes something that comes up, but we're pointing out all of the problems and we're not producing any of the answers and we're doing that on purpose and I'll tell you why.

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I really hope that everyone is being super honest right now with themselves about their family situation.

26:47

All right. I myself can see all of them. I'm being silly. I'm joking with Dave and you know that I'm joking.

26:53

Okay. Because I can see all of these issues rearing their ugly heads in my family. Right. I can bring up countless examples over the past couple of days, uh, where these issues have shown themselves to be a real problem in my family.

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And I think we need to realize these things and we need to be honest with ourselves about these real issues for three reasons.

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Number one, these issues come up in counseling so often because they are foundational problems that all human beings have.

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No one's exempt from it. Second, the fact that they show up so often in counseling is an evidence of the fact that when they are left unattended, like I mentioned earlier, these issues grow into significant family problems.

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They don't look like that big of a deal when they're a tiny seed, but when they become an oak, we're like, oh man, I wish I had just pulled that sapling out of the ground versus having to tear up this oak.

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And the third observation I have early from this discussion is that we would be wise, all of us would be so wise to acknowledge and address these areas in our lives before they become a problem.

27:54

All right. We should want to do this. Uh, it's, it makes sense, but we should want to do this first and foremost because we acknowledge that they are sins against God.

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All of these things that we've talked about more, they're sins against God. That's, that should be the main reason we want to deal with them. But we should also seek to address these issues from the

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Bible because that is the only way we will ever truly gain victory over them. And there are a number of ways of doing this.

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All right. Uh, we're talking about, I want to change this. I want to, I want to, I know that I need to look to the scriptures for the answers.

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Well, what are some things that we can do? Here, not, these are not specific answers to the problems that we've discussed, but these are general ways that we need to approach all of the issues in our family.

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As part of the priesthood of the believers, which every Christian is, you can approach the throne room of God in prayer by yourself and you can seek his face in his word.

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And that really should be the daily posture of all followers of Christ. That should be something that we're doing anyway.

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But there's other things, something else you can do. You can also seek out what we call biblical counseling.

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Okay. I've mentioned it before. Uh, in fact, I have my association of certified biblical counselors mug right here, uh, the association of certified biblical counselors webpage, which is biblicalcounseling .com

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has a fantastic find a counselor tool. They not only list biblical counselors geographically, they also list those who counsel using online programs like zoom and Skype.

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So if there are no biblical counselors in your area, you can still connect with someone somewhere in the world. In fact, that's what the

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TLP counselors and I do most of the time in our counseling process, our counseling process. But there's one more really fantastic way that I think that most people don't consider when it comes to, uh, starting to address these issues in our home, taking care of the sapling before it becomes an oak.

29:38

Okay. And that fantastic way is to use the, um, the, the general training and the general resources that God's people make available to us.

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I mean, we've all read books and obviously you listen to this podcast. And those are fantastic ways too.

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But there's this other fantastic opportunity coming up here for you in October, right? And it is the three desires seminar.

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So if you're, if you're looking at your life and you're saying to yourself, you know what, there are some issues here. Um, my family members, they, we struggle because we just hate to be told we're wrong.

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Uh, we struggle because the, the behavior is out of control and I don't know why. We struggle because I don't think my family and I are on the same page.

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Those are fantastic observations. Praise the Lord that you've seen that now we need to take preventative measures to address those common counseling issues, uh, before they become an issue.

30:29

So Dave, I'm really curious, getting back to this idea of this seminar. Okay. Please share with us, uh, how you believe this upcoming seminar is going to help our listeners actually start dealing with some of these common counseling struggles that we've discussed and no doubt many, many more.

30:43

Yeah. Okay. So, uh, my hope, uh, is that people who attend either in person or by, by way of the webinar, well, number one, they will first understand themselves.

31:01

Okay. Because, uh, you know, look, if we didn't have desires, we would wake up in the morning and our eyes would kind of flutter open and then we would just lay there, but we want something.

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And so we get up out of bed. It might be something as simple as coffee, right?

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It might be breakfast. Um, we want to get ready for the day. Um, there's a reason why we're doing the things that we're doing.

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So I want people number one, to be able to help themselves and to, um, and to grow in their relationship with God by, by getting smarter and wiser at catching their own tempt temptations at the bottom most layer.

31:46

Okay. And then after that, secondarily, I'm hoping that married couples who attend will be able to understand why they're having problems.

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I hope they'll be able to diagnose themselves, uh, for the deepest reasons for conflict.

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You know, James four is, is a familiar passage for us, right? Starts out basically with why are there fights?

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And then, you know, it just, it basically goes on well, isn't it because of the desires and then it kind of fills in some stuff and then everything that kind of goes all the way down through verse 12 is talking about those, uh, three categories of desires.

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Okay. So I want people to be able to diagnose themselves, uh, you know, seeing that seeing themselves grow in the

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Lord and grow stronger and seeing them be more sanctified before the Lord.

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I want to see, uh, married couples. I've diagnosed their problems and, you know, I could make, you know, say it as simple as this and get along better, which is all about the glory of God ultimately, because marriage, uh, marriage is about the glory of God ultimately and about the church.

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And then I want, I want to see families, you know, speaking now to parenting.

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I want to see families getting along better. I want to see parents better able to work with their children in discipline, but also in discipleship.

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Um, so I just want to see marriages and families and relationships strengthened. So does that answer the question you're looking for there,

33:19

Aaron? Definitely. I can, I totally understand that. And I hope you, uh, audience members are listening well too, because really the, the main reason that we're doing this episode is that we want to equip you.

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We want to provide you with yet one more fantastic resource that will help you to practically understand who

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God is, who you are, and what you can do in your life to glorify Him more.

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That's really what we're trying to do. And, uh, this is another good resource for you to do that. I trust, um,

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Pastor Dave, and I trust the ministry that he's doing there, uh, at Bay City Baptist. And I believe this will be a fantastic opportunity for you.

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And the great thing is you don't have to travel to Green Bay. Now, if you're a Packers fan, you might want to do that. And everyone else doesn't, but either way, you have an opportunity to connect, uh, to this seminar online.

34:06

So let's talk about that. Let's just give people the information that they need. Again. I think you mentioned it earlier at the beginning of the show where they can go.

34:12

Uh, but let's talk a little bit about the registration and the fantastic way that you are hoping to make this even easier for our particular audience.

34:21

Yeah. Okay. So we're doing it in person, as I said, and as a webinar, um, and they can go to three desires .org.

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And there's a couple options to register at the top there. Um, one being the webinar, one being the in -person thing.

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And, um, do you want me to talk about the promo code here? Yeah, that's fantastic.

34:41

Okay. Well, I'll just, I'll just say this pastor Dave had this idea. It was all his, it was an amazing, generous offer.

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Uh, we were talking about how much it costs to, uh, to visit or to go to this seminar or to stream it online.

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And he mentioned, Hey, how about we, uh, we do a discount for your listeners and I was like, that's an awesome idea.

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So yeah. Tell us all about that. Okay. So normally it's, it's $59 per person.

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And the reason why we charge something for it is because we pay for radio ads around the area. There's some other costs that we've got as far as bringing

35:12

Adrian in from, uh, from Cleveland. I always get the city mixed.

35:17

I always get Cleveland, Cincinnati mixed up, but it's Cleveland. So we've got all these costs. And so we're trying to cover those costs.

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I would love to do it free, but we got to try to cover our costs. And by the way, we never, we never have,

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I think on the last one, I think we lost $3 ,000 on the last one. Okay. But that said, okay.

35:36

So we want to give an 80 % discount to the listeners of TLP, the

35:42

TLP podcast. Hope I said that right, Aaron. Definitely. Yeah. So those are going to be important letters to remember too, because that's how they're going to get the discount.

35:50

That's exactly right. So it's T L P, uh, just enter the promo code T L P when you register and that'll take 80 % off of the cost and it takes the cost down to $11 and 80 cents, uh, which

36:03

I think is pretty reasonable in green Bay here, if you were to go get counseling, it would cost you between 80 and $200 for an hour.

36:11

Okay. So this is five hours of teaching, uh, for 1180.

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And I sound like such a salesman right now, but you know what? I, I'm glad you're pointing that out.

36:23

I'm really, I'm glad you said that because I think sometimes we need to put things into perspective. Again, those numbers you shared right there were, were very accurate.

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Um, that's how much you're going to expect, uh, to, to engage in counseling, whether, and if it's actually, if it's, if it's secular counseling, it's going to be way more than that and a whole lot less helpful.

36:41

Um, but, uh, I, it's important that you express the need that obviously you want to be good stewards of the resources that God gave you, and I'm so glad that you're doing all the ads that you're doing.

36:50

And I'm glad that you're putting this out here. Um, but definitely it's, it's definitely worth the cost. As Paul said, uh, that the, uh, the, the elder, sorry, the, um,

36:58

I can't think of the exact word, the labor is worthy of his hire. There it is. The labor, um, definitely the labor is worthy of their hire.

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But yes, $11 and 80 cents, uh, for five hours worth of training is going to be a fantastic experience.

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I just signed up for the ACBC conference and it was significantly more than that. And this is going to be online this year.

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And it's, uh, it's, it's worth it to me. I want to learn. I want to grow. So for all of you right now who are out there jogging and driving, and of course you can't write any of this down and you're trying to remember threedesires .com

37:27

and all that. Um, I'm going to include this information in today's show notes. Okay. Which are of course linked in the description of this episode, but I'll also include

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Dave's very generous discount code and the necessary links on the giveaways page. Okay.

37:42

So just in case you can't remember what you were supposed to do, just go either to today's show notes or go to our giveaways page at truthloveparent .com.

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And you can find all the information you need to be able to register and to get that discount. Now, one of the nice things, one of the really only nice things about being forced to stay indoors is that opportunities like this, which would only have been for people who live in and around green

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Bay is that you can now attend it virtually from the comfort of your own home. That is a massive blessing.

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And it removes so many of the excuses that could keep us away from training opportunities like this. So allow me to please remove one more barrier form from you.

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Okay. I really believe in this and I believe that we need more of this. We need to be students just because you have kids or grandkids doesn't mean that you're done learning.

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Okay. We can always grow more into the image of Christ and do better. So I want to remove one more potential barrier from you.

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Okay. I know that times are tough right now. I know that money is tight and I greatly appreciate this amazing discount courtesy of Bay City Baptist Church.

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But Team TLP and I want to be a blessing too. If you honestly, before God, cannot afford the $11 .80,

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okay, to attend this online seminar, and I believe that there are people listening today who, who definitely fit into that category, please send me an email to teamTLP at truthloveparent .com.

39:04

Explain your situation. Even with the discount, you say $11 .80. I just, I, it would be, it would be a poor stewardship for me to do that in our financial situation.

39:13

All right. The financial expense is too great. And Team TLP is going to cover that cost. In fact, we will cover that cost for 10 people.

39:21

Now, Dave, it's $11 .80 per person, correct? That's correct. Okay. So that's five couples, that's 10 individuals or any mix of the above.

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And we'll do this on a first come first serve basis. Now, I know that the vast majority of people listening today can easily afford $11 .80

39:39

for biblical training. That's going to equip you to be a better parent and spouse. In fact, there are many of you who the, the full cost of the, the seminar would be not that big of a deal for you, and you're happy to not even use the promo code because you want to be a blessing to Bay City Baptist.

39:53

And that is fantastic. But for those of you who are in some kind of financial distress, but you still want to learn how to be a more

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Christ honoring parent and spouse, we really do want to help you. Uh, now this is the only place

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I'm going to mention this. I'm not going to put it down onto the giveaways page. So don't forget it. Okay. If you promise to attend this seminar and you can't cover the $11 .80,

40:14

please send an email to teamTLP at truthloveparent .com explaining your situation. And we will cover that cost for the first 10 people to contact us.

40:24

All right, Dave, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for putting together this training opportunity for families.

40:30

Thank you for sharing this discount. Thank you for serving the Lord the way you are. Yeah. Thank you.

40:36

Thank you, Aaron. I appreciate that. And I'm just happy to help people. I just, uh, I just enjoy helping people and I hope we get,

40:43

I hope we get all kinds of people to sign up. I'd be really excited to just to be a part of their lives.

40:49

And me too. I'm hoping that too. So everyone listening today, what can you do? Well, make sure that you please subscribe to truthloveparent .com.

40:57

You can share this video all over social media so that more and more families all around the world can learn about these common counseling issues and so that more people can have the opportunity to attend this virtual seminar.

41:09

All right. Check out takingbackthefamily .com. And of course, truthloveparent .com forward slash giveaways for all of the registration links, share things like crazy all over the internet.

41:19

And of course, if you happen to find this video or this podcast, and you're listening after October 10th, 2020,

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I still want to encourage you to go to truthloveparent .com forward slash conferences to learn more about attending and hosting

41:33

TLP family conferences in person or online. And of course you can always send an email to counselor at truthloveparent .com

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or call us at 828 -423 -0894 for unique family help.

41:47

Remember, if we want our children to grow up into Christ, we must be equipped to parent in truth and love.

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So to that end, please sign up for the Three Desire Seminar and join us next time as we look at how children understand justice and injustice and how to teach them to think biblically about it.

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Truth, Love, Parents is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's word for the truth your family needs today.