Welcome to the Smart Dad podcast where we help you lead well at home, in business and in life. I'm your host, Derek Moore. Smart dads are intentional, engaged and ever learning. Whether you're a seasoned dad who's been through it all, a new dad, still figuring it out, a supported dad with a great woman at your side, or a solo dad carrying the load alone, this podcast is for you, no matter your background, your challenges or your goals. Fatherhood is a journey of growth and we're here to do it together. Each week I'll share insights that I've garnered throughout my life of raising kids, building businesses and leading others. I'll definitely share some failures, some successes, and I'll even be able to show you tools and strategies that you can use to become a smart dad in your own life.

Today we're diving into a dimension of life that has shaped me more than anything else. Out of the eight dimensions, it's first on my list. Yes, that's cause I alphabetize things, but also because faith is foundational. Now faith is a universal concept. I don't know that I like just jumping in and not talking about exactly what we want to focus on today. So let me do some defining terms. Everyone has faith in something. Some people have faith in humanity. Some people have faith in themselves. Some people have faith in science or in reason or in God or Godzilla, whatever. But I wanna talk to you about my faith today because this is the Smart Dad Podcast. I'm Derek Moore and I want you to know a little bit more about me as we dive into life and we get a little bit closer along the way. I'm gonna share a couple of pivotal moments in my life, some big stories, some things that really, really affected me and I wanna see if you can relate to any of these things.

So before we start in, before we get too deep, let's define terms here. What is faith? I'd like to have a working definition here. So to me, faith is confidence in something or someone that shapes your thoughts, words, deeds, and actions.

So I was sitting at a restaurant the other day and I saw a couple of really big boys come in with their mom. The mom was tall, so I figured they were related. Sure enough, there was a high school freshman at least 280 pounds and his bigger brother, maybe a junior or senior, maybe a college freshman, I don't recall exactly, he was at least 300 pounds. I watched the freshman grab a wooden chair and pull it out from under the table to sit down.

but he kind of leaned on it, shook it a little bit and looked up at his brother, shaking his head side to side as if to say, I don't think this is going to hold me up. So he swapped it out with another chair that was solid, new, wider and more tightly held together. And when I saw that, it made me think about faith. That high school freshmen has probably been big since

first grade, kindergarten, middle school, somewhere along the way. He knew that if I just plop down into a chair at 250 plus, nearly 300 pounds, that could just collapse. It could fall apart right underneath him. Now the stained cement floors would not be forgiving. A restaurant full of guests might laugh, might gasp.

food in his hands or on his table might fall all over himself. So he took the wise choice to test the object of his faith. And I've experienced this firsthand in my faith journey. I didn't really understand what faith was, but then when I came face to face with the simple fact that I did not know what I believed, something had to give. So I was 12 years old and it was my first ever summer church retreat. I hadn't really gone to church much, maybe a year, year and a half, but this church was very particular about getting students to the beach, maybe six to eight students in a condo, and then one or two adults mentoring them and hanging out with them all week. And the idea was to keep them safe, small numbers.

The adults were all vetted, background checked, and really had led their lives in a way that the church could believe in them. So what I didn't realize is that each youth sponsor was going to interview, talk with, get to know individually each of the men in their condo. So it was about the third or fourth day and I was walking on the beach with my sponsor. We sat down, sun was shining bright down in South Padre, Texas.

He just looked out and he said, Derek.

What do you think you would say to God if a huge wave suddenly came and overtook us and crushed us and you died right now and stood before him in heaven? And he asked you a simple question. Why should I let you into my kingdom?

And James said this to me and I don't know, wasn't ready for it. We had been gone, going to services. We'd gone to the beach. We'd had games. We'd had some, some Bible studies, but I was just having fun with my friends and, the waves and the sand and the sun. And I've kind of fumbled around. said, well, I mean, you know, I, I mean, I'm pretty smart and I'm a nice guy. I'm a good kid, but I don't know.

And he said, Derek, let me tell what the Bible says. The Bible says you have to be perfect to get into heaven. And none of us is perfect. And I said, yeah, I'm not perfect. mean, had shoplifted, I had stolen. I mean, I'd done no axe murderer, death row stuff, but for a 12 year old, was not pristine as a wind driven snow. And he said, the only way who have access to God in heaven is through faith in Jesus Christ. And Jesus came to earth as a baby, grew up, lived a perfect life. Then he died a death that he didn't deserve in my place, in our place. And then he rose again to go back to heaven and he's waiting, he's holding a place for you. And when I heard that, James said, all you have to do is accept the free gift. wants to invite you and that's the only way to get in because then his blood will cover your sins and you'll be perfect and God will allow you into heaven. You know, this was very simple to a 12 year old mind. I didn't want to get rich. I didn't want to be successful. I didn't want anything else. I just didn't want to die and not know where I was going. So for the first time, my faith wasn't just something I knew about. I was a smart kid, but it was something that had personally apprehended. So right there with James, I prayed. He said a little prayer. I said, I believe these words. I prayed that prayer gave my life, all that I am, all that I have, all that I will ever be to God. And my faith journey, which was kind of wandering around, began in earnest, not as a set of rules, but as a relationship. And I want you to understand this is not just intellectual. This is not checking a box to keep my parents off my case. They had nothing to do with this. This is not just, I don't want to make the big man upstairs mad. This was transformational. And for me, it began the journey of studying what does the Bible say? In fact, I studied it. I began to study it in every language that it was written in.

for the original text, the Hebrew, the Aramaic, okay? I read it in the Koine Greek. I studied all the other religions of the world. I said, some of these look similar. I memorized portions of the Bible so that I could have them at my fingertips when life was hard. I could say, there is nothing, nothing that is coming at you that God hasn't prepared you for. You know, there's always a way out.

And God has been through greater things and suffered more greatly than I ever will. And when I'm sad, God gives me hope and restores my soul. And when I'm so excited and so proud, he keeps me humble because I'm so grateful. I have an attitude of gratitude instead of a heart of conceit. So the idea is my journey began. I studied. It was an intellectual endeavor, but it grew out of my heart. And even then looking back,

I realized I wanted to know what would it be like to be a dad who modeled my life after the Heavenly Father. I started studying the New Testament. I started studying the Old Testament. I started reading books on parenting. When I was a sophomore in high school and I said, how do dads treat their children? How do dads date their daughters? How do dads rough and tumble and challenge their boys?

And that's what I began to do when I was young man, very soon after this. That laid the foundation for what ultimately would become 15 kids. I was raising 10 daughters, five boys in this world. I'm halfway home. I've got seven more to go. Six girls, one son. It's not over yet. I'm right in the middle of it. But my oldest turns 30 this year. So I've seen a lot. I'll tell you what.

Fast forward to about 24 years old. I was working. Something I saw was opportunity to make money. I've always loved the opportunity to make money. I've sold, I've knocked on doors, I've recruited people to do things with me to help make them money. And when I worked for a cell phone carrier, had the opportunity to buy a franchise, technically it was a sub-agency agreement, man we were kicking it.

I worked with a partner I'd met at work. We ended up with three stores, one in the heart of the most, the wealthiest part of the city we were in, one inside of a store, a retail store that was approving people for credit. And then they would come get in line and we would essentially give them a free phone for $30 a month to sign up for our plan. $15 a month. It was very small. And we had a store way out in the suburbs and we were booming. We were making hundred thousand dollars a year all bills were paid we were crushing it but in all of my energy and all of my excitement I did not watch the books I trusted my partner blindly and it didn't turn out well. I got to say before I knew it, I'd lost everything. And more than that, $250,000 that I didn't even have. So I lost it all and have massive debt before the age of 25. You might think, well, so what people fail in business all the time. Yeah. I had three kids, nowhere to go. I had literally never failed at anything in life before of consequence. Sports, I was on the B team, but I was a good player. Academics, top of my class. Honor Society, president. Youth group, president. I worked 20 hours a week at my job in high school, tutored in college, tutored and taught students all along the way trying to help the community. I worked in the church in the summer camp and my kids had a great time, my little children I worked with. I had never...

I felt like such a loser. I felt like I had stolen. I felt like I had let everybody down. We had three stores, all these employees, and then just at the blink of an eye it's gone.

I was devastated and I don't know that I was a proud person, but at that moment I was so humbled and I met with a gentleman. I actually didn't know that well. He was a mentor and we had lunch. Really? I just sat there and listened to him. I told him everything going on. He said, let me give you some hope. have one job right now. Go forward. You can't sit anywhere.

If your life is a boat, push that boat out of the harbor, open the sails and start going. Let God direct your efforts, but you need to start doing something. So I left, I said thank you, he said he was gonna pray for me, and I didn't know, I just kinda felt like he checked the box and did his job as a quote unquote mentor. But I acted on it, I went to schools. went to my church. I went to places I knew people. And one day I was walking down a hallway at my church and I didn't even realize there was a school in the church. And you you kind of walk down a hallway and you look in rooms and there's kids in a classroom doing chemistry experiments and there's kids over there, you know, doing whatever they're doing. There was an open door and I looked and there was a woman working at a desk.

And right as I just about crossed past the threshold, past her door, she looked up and I stopped and I leaned back and I said, Miss St. Dennis? She said, Derek, what are you doing here? I said, well, I don't know, but one of these teachers in the other building said that someone around here might need a tutor. And I finished college in three years. you know, I'm really good at teaching kids. I've been doing it for a while. And she said, well, can you tutor AP classes? I said, I can do math and science and Spanish.

And she said, I have so many students for you. so within 30 days, I had 30 hours a week booked at 30 bucks an hour. And that was my full time dive into tutoring. And from my perspective, 100 % God's provision. Yes, I went out and did what I was supposed to do. Yes, I was working, but there's no way that was a coincidence. I'd seen this woman a few times years earlier. In fact, she taught in a class I rarely went to and she remembered me. We had a really good social connection and then boom, I was off to the races and that's how I built my tutoring empire from that moment. So how does this relate to fatherhood? Well, I want you to remember failure is not final. I want to fail frequently. I want my kids to fail frequently.

fail small, win big. And yes, a quarter million dollars felt like a billion dollars, but it wasn't. I was able to overcome it. And there are more details to that story, which are unbelievable in terms of provision. But faith also isn't passive. Notice that the mentor told me, don't just sit around and pray, get up and do something, get out.

Go do what you know how to do. And that's what I did. whether God honored that, whether that's just a rule in this natural world where I was in my walk, that was an answer to prayer. And finally, God provides. The Bible says give us this day our daily bread. We have to provide the effort that's like the left foot, and God provides the results that's like the right foot.

And in response to those results, we provide more effort. That's like the right foot, and God provides results. That's like left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. That's what we do, and that's all our faith journey. You know, interestingly, looking back, that cell phone failure was one of the biggest successes in my life. It literally put me full force into a tutoring career where I built a company with 40 tutors.

full-time consultants, a staff of five, and they were crushing it, serving everybody they could in the community. So just know faith is not passive, failure is not final, and God provides. We have to do the effort. Now,

I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't done what I did in high school because faith isn't automatic. Faith isn't just osmosis. You sleep on a Bible or you have sermons in your ears or you listen to the great motivational speakers, the greatest gurus. Maybe, maybe you have faith in Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins is a very powerful speaker. Right? Maybe you have faith in Joel Osteen. He's a very

powerful speaker, if you have faith in the Buddha or in Gandhi, whatever your faith is in, it's not automatic. My faith is in Jesus Christ. And what I learned is it requires work. I studied the Bible. I told you that when I was 12, I started studying the Bible. When I was what 14, 15, 16, I started reading books about how to apply my faith to my life as a dad.

When I started business, I realized I don't even know what to do with my money. And I was a giver. I really enjoy giving out of surplus, but also we give when it's meager. We give when it's tight. I know some of you might say, you know what? I'm not really into formal religion. Well, I get that. We've all been burned by institutions, by those in power.

We've seen them do horrific things in the name of quote unquote God. But you know what? We can get confused if we don't have a trusted advisor we can turn to. I was prepared for my future because of all the men who poured into me, answered my questions. Sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, 12th grade. There are women along the way, high school, college, who answered my questions and poured into me.

Faith plus fatherhood, they're just too important to wing it, guys. You can't just show up one day go, I'm gonna just figure this out, okay. But figure it out from the weapons, from the tools you have in your toolbox. So, I spent time, I recommend and exhort you to spend time, invest your time, invest your energy, invest your resources into building your faith. What do you believe? If you don't know,

Write down what you know you believe. If you don't know that, I would go to the book of Proverbs. It's kind of the middle of most Bibles. Proverbs is 31 chapters. I read one chapter a day, depending on the day of the month. If today is the 25th, I read Proverbs 25. If today is the first day of the month, I read Proverbs 1. It's got 31 days, so it covers all the months, and it's just a book of wisdom. If you have some faith,

The book of John in the New Testament is short, but it's also powerful and it appeals to the spiritual side. You can read the book of John, read it cover to cover. It's very short. Read it over and over and ask questions. See what's prompted in you. If you have faith and you want to deepen your faith, the apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans in the New Testament. Romans is some tough meat. As one of my friends said,

A little Romans goes a long way. That might be something you need to do, but put the time, the energy, and the resources into building your faith. And the reason this matters, gentlemen, in my life, what I've seen is I don't want to be the highest authority. I can't be the highest authority in my family, in my life, in my marriage, in my parenting. I want to appeal to a higher authority.

As a father, I've learned that if I am working to align myself, my thoughts, my deeds, my actions, my reactions, my emotions, my lack of emotions, all those things, if I'm trying to align them with what God has laid out for me clearly in the Bible, and my questions are answered,

When my kids have questions, I'll know how to answer those. But let's say you have questions about your faith. Let's say you believe in God, you believe in the God of the Bible. Then first go to the book. The one book that is uniform from beginning to end without contradiction and it exhorts us and calls us and gives us answers to tough questions. Go to the scriptures. Secondly, go to your faith community. If you have a priest, a pastor, a minister, if you have a rabbi or you have an imam or you have an advisor, go to that person and ask him, ask her the toughest questions.

See what they say. If you think this makes sense, adjust your life accordingly. Be ready to accept that you're wrong because being wrong is not the problem. It's being wrong and not changing. That's the problem. I'm wrong every day. I'm wrong constantly. I'll go down the road with my left turn blinker on and I'm listening to George Straight ocean front property in Arizona and I'm looking, ding, ding, ding, ding. I mean, how many people did I confuse?

because I got in the right lane, or I stayed in my lane, I had my left turn blinker on. That was wrong, I made a mistake for who knows how many miles. We make mistakes all the time. So what I do, I try to be aware when I'm driving my vehicle to make sure I turn my signals on and off appropriately. Now that's a silly example. You may have bigger problems than that with substances, with anger, with a lack of communication. You might have addictions.

and you might have things that are grabbing you and trying to drown you, go to your faith community, lean on a trusted advisor or two or three, see what they say. Finally, prayer. Prayer is having a conversation with the almighty maker of the universe. Through the Holy Spirit, God the Son appeals to God the Father. It's the Trinity, it's complicated, but prayer,

is both talking and listening. I've had answers to prayers that I can tell you about, and I've also prayed to say, God, help me position myself so that I am more patient with my children, that I'm more encouraging with my children, that I know each of them personally. I've prayed for my children, for their health, for their spiritual growth. I've prayed for their spouse or future spouse's health.

and spiritual growth and I've prayed for their children and future children's health and spiritual growth since I became a dad. I pray nearly every day by name for each of my children because I want them to be touched by God. I firmly believe, I firmly believe that my kids need to see me seeking this wisdom in these multiple ways, not just making decisions on my own.

So, what? So this is a lot. What's the close? What's the point here? What's the call to action? What's the final touch? One, faith isn't just a belief. It's trust in action. Two, the object of your faith matters almost more than the amount of faith you have.

Maybe you're listening today, you're in a season of doubt. You're in a season of sickness. You're in a season of failure. Maybe you're in a season of uncertainty. Dude, I've been there. I get it. I can't even tell you how deep and how hard it's been or how high and how blissful it's been, but I felt them both. I felt the loneliness. I felt the adulation.

I felt the tears and the cheers, the jeers from my peers, as they say. Faith is not just for the easy times guys, it's for the hard times as well. Death and sickness, divorce, financial ruin. That's when faith really shows up. So I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'd like to note specifically in a granular way,

how faith has played a role in your life, but more specifically in your parenting. Decisions you've made, things you've done, things you've not done. Shoot me a message, share this episode with somebody, find me, communicate with me, and let's keep the conversation going. This is the first of eight dimensions that I wanna cover, and faith is foundational. Let's do this.

We can do it together, gentlemen.

Thank you for joining us on the Smart Dad Podcast. Be sure to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. For resources, links, and more, check out the show notes. Also, if you like what you heard today, please leave us a five star review so other dads can find the podcast and be the dad they are meant to be. Now go out and be a smart dad today.