S1E10 - BONUS Q&R: Substance Reliance, Phone Addiction Conflict, Failure in Spiritual Leadership, and Establishing Covenant Friendships Q+R
The Intentional Fatherhood PodcastShow Notes
In this bonus Q&R episode, we tackle real and honest questions from listeners — covering everything from anxiety and reliance on substances, to conflict with our spouse around phones, to the challenge of leading spiritually at home, and choosing to parent differently than we were raised.
We talk about the importance of practicing healthier rhythms instead of swinging between extremes, and how bringing your spouse into the process creates space for humility and vulnerability. We also look at how to approach conversations about excessive phone use with empathy rather than shame, and how curiosity can open the door to honest dialogue.
From there, we explore what it takes to move surface-level friendships toward deeper, covenant-level connection, and how vulnerability breeds vulnerability. We also discuss the awkward but necessary work of starting new spiritual habits at home — pushing through the discomfort to create rhythms that will last.
And finally, we talk about the desire so many of us carry to parent differently than the way we were raised. The hope of the gospel is that we don’t have to repeat the cycles we inherited. Jesus interrupts generational patterns, opens the door to repair, and empowers us to create new legacies of honesty, humility, and grace for the generations that come after us.
Books Mentioned: The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place by Andy Crouch, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt + Made for People: Why We Drift into Loneliness and How to Fight for a Life of Friendship by Justin Whitmel Earley
Submit Questions: Send a voice recording to [email protected], mentioning your name and where you’re from.
Intentional Fatherhood Website (for Diagram of Framework)
Follow @intentionalfatherhood_ on Instagram
Watch + Subscribe on YouTube
Intentional: Website + Instagram
Justin Whitmel Earley: Website + Instagram
More from The Intentional Fatherhood Podcast
This is the episode we were nervous to record. Justin admits greed might be a blind spot, something he’s still in the middle of figuring out. So instead of teaching, we asked some revealing questions and answered them honestly.
Our Seven Deadly Sins series continues with gluttony: the desire to consume beyond what we actually need. That certainly shows up at the table, but also in our scrolling, shopping, and substance consumption. Gluttony is sneaky and easy to dismiss, and since your metabolism can hide both your sins and your virtues, it can go unnoticed for a lifetime. So this conversation is really about the heart. Are you eating to delight in God's creation, or to cope? Or a better question might be: What do you reach for when you're hurting?
As we continue our series on the seven deadly sins, we pivot to the more outward, consumptive sins: lust, greed, and gluttony, specifically focusing on lust in this episode. Pornography often comes to mind first, but it's only one of many ways lust can show up in our lives. Since most of us have heard plenty about what not to do, we start with a better question: what is sex actually for?
We don't usually call it envy. We call it "just being honest," or "I'm not jealous, I just wish things were different." But envy is sneakier than that. It's a refusal to be content with the life God actually gave us, and it shows up as comparison, insecurity, gossip, and pushing people out. This week continues the Seven Deadly Sins series with a hard look at where envy starts, why it hurts the person feeling it most, and how to fight it with the one thing strong enough to counter it: love.
Anger might be the quintessential sin of fatherhood. It's the one that shows up at bedtime, in the car, in the moment a kid won't listen for the fifth time, and it's the one our kids are most likely to watch us model and then repeat.