Starting Your Day in a Better Way

form relationships with Christ. Now the animated adventures in Odyssey film journey into

the impossible will reach a new generation of families. But we need your help to finish the film and launch it in theaters. Your gift will be matched dollar for dollar before May 1st. See the trailer and donate today at focusonthefamily.com/impossible. That's focusonthefamily.com/impossible. How is it that if God has so opened my eyes to His grace? I can't help to take that grace to other people and what opportunities do I have today to spread hope and lies

“of other again? They are bombarded with doom. What if not living in denial of that pain?”

What if in the midst of that pain? I can bring some good news as well. Well Kevin Thompson joins us today on focusonthefamily with Jim Bailey. I'm John Fuller and thanks for being with us.

John, I think it's good to say how do you start your day? You know, Gina and I really

sense COVID have gotten into that habit. We do RVL Ray Vanderland discipleship series. So in the morning it's about a 15 minute little clip you can get from focusonthefamily and we have a cup of coffee and we pray together and you know hear what Ray has to say, refer to scriptures, etc. do it devotional and we get on with the day. That's most day is not every day because there are things that crowd that but how do you start your day? It's a good question and oftentimes there's that

desire to look at the phone and look at the news and I do that too. Don't get me wrong. I'm no saint or angel but there is that habit to kind of start our day with the worst possible news

“with a fine right? Good observation. But when you stop and think about it why do that?”

Let's start with the uplifting news of what's eternally true rather than the temporary news of what will drag us down. Yeah I remember I was taken one of my boys to a school and he wanted to hear sports and I just say hey truth before trivia let's let's listen to something on the radio or a podcast with the Bible in it and he looked at me and like why? You don't do that? Well he didn't say it but I felt it so yeah I'm tracking with you and I'm really glad that we have

Kevin Thompson here to really unpack this Kevin is the married life pastor at Bayside Church in Roseville, California. A beautiful look at it is isn't it and he and his wife Jenny have two children he's a marriage and parenting conference speaker he's an author and we're gonna be dialing into his book hope scrolling 31 days to a better way and I'm looking forward to learning about this myself Jim is obviously I've got some room to grow you can learn more about Kevin and his other books and this

terrific resource hopes scrolling at our website we've got the link in the show notes. Kevin welcome

back to focus on the family. Always good to have you. Thanks for having me great sleep here's fun.

This is really good let me just ask you upfront I mean the doom scrolling is what everybody calls when you pop up and you start looking through YouTube feeds and whatever your social media preferences where you come up with hopes growing. Yeah so just Jim and John two hours from where I live there are four or five just mega companies who are spending billions of dollars every single year to try to figure out ways to get our attention that's their goal and what they

“figured out is the best way to get our attention is not by giving us good news not by filling”

our hearts and our souls and sending us out into life because the truth of the matter is hope filled people scroll less interesting so they make less money. You know what I heard in it finishes thought but I just want to interject. Anger is the greatest motivator for clicking. Isn't it crazy? Well I found that during 2020 one of the things I really found was there was a correlation between obviously as a married life pastor I know some insights in the people's

lives right and so I found a correlation between the men who had the worst marriages tended to be at church the most outspoken in critique of how we were handling different political and social situations of what was taking place and it just shows that that dissatisfaction underneath and the heart expresses itself in some ways. And so these major companies Google Apple YouTube Twitter they're spending these millions and billions of dollars to get our attention

so that they can sell us to other people and then so they can sell to us. And so this book is primarily just my own kind of conviction, kind of my wife pointing out to me my own patterns and how it she is so diligent and she gets up the morning. She wakes up before I do, she goes downstairs, gets her Bible and makes sure that she has the time to such an extent. Sometimes I come downstairs and she's like you're already up like no don't you more sleep like that right? At the time of the

Lord's rule because they're going to be needy in some way but just to begin to make this subtle shift now into what what story are we going to enter into? We're going to live our lives with two stories to his Christians. We're going to have the higher story of the gospel and the truth of

what the news is pressing to us. We have to live in both of those things but which one is going to

dictate how we interpret the other and generally speaking whichever story we enter into first

is going to be the story that sets our perspective for the rest of the day and so why not focus more on the hope of the gospel rather than the doom of culture? Let me ask you in the book you mentioned

“a research study or survey that fellowship a Christian athlete did. Yay to them that's how I became a”

Christian was through FCA but what was the findings and what was the study? So six or seven years ago FCA came up with an app and where you had this daily interaction with scripture and so they ran this over a period of time to watch because they would give you an assessment beforehand of how you scored in various areas and then based on that they would feed you very specific scriptures to try to help you and whatever areas those students were struggling with whether it was sexual sin,

impurity, issues or discouragement, anxiety, all those things and then after a year they would

feed you that same assessment so they had all this data coming in to see what was the transformation that took place but not only that probably something the students didn't know is they had the data of how often those students were actually reading the text message. So they would send you a text message if you clicked on it it would take you then to the passage of scripture if you didn't click on it you would know who it was read and what was unread and what they found was something extremely

interesting is there was a dramatic change in scores at one specific threshold so students who who clicked on the the app and found the scripture two or three days a week their scores didn't change one bit but the moment you got in the pattern of four days a week there was a dramatic change scores and it begins to show not with perfection but with this rhythmic discipline that if you can enter into God's story on a regular daily basis it will begin to impact how you see yourself and

I think how you see this world but so true and it's so self-evident if you're reading the word and praying and doing that together with your spouse ideally there should be a difference right and when you don't do those disciplines there is in a difference and that's the truth we see that in our own

“research here it focus on the family you have to apply spiritual truth in order to receive spiritual”

blessing I think yeah in that context have you seen this in your church too is it playing out that way oh there's no question I mean even back if you look at that five to six years you got six years ago now with with 2020 I saw a dramatic difference in the cultural turmoil that was going on with the church members who I knew were in a a discipleship group that were strategically reading through scripture versus those church members who were not involved in a regular Bible saying

now they might have been doing something privately on their own but I don't I don't know that but there was just a dramatic difference and here's Jim I think one of the things that's interesting to me is I think part of it is if you do not read the minor prophets you might struggle to truly understand some of the issues going on in our day-to-day and so if all you do is kind of cherry-pick aspects of the gospels here you know the good parts of the Psalms

let's not read the bad parts right and then you I think you can really struggle with this contrast between this really good God and the sorrow that we see and there can be almost this angst of a blame toward others who don't believe in Jesus and go oh societal problems are there fault but whenever you begin to read the prophets specifically you see the charge that God's people have of now influencing their culture to such an extent that we have a responsibility to what's going on and so

I just found during the the whole 2020 craze that those who were in a strategic interaction with the whole of scripture responded in a radically different way than those who weren't yeah you observed to one simple fix for most couples works to improve their trajectory what is that one simple fix everybody's going yeah what is it yeah I had a couple come in to me one time and they're right in the throws of life of of kids and careers all that thankfully I'm just a decade beyond that right

right and so their marriage wasn't horrible but it wasn't where they wanted it to be and so it's interesting as we're saying they're talking I just noticed that one the credibility of that couple seeking help now and not waiting till it was horrible and so I applauded them for that it's

that here's what I want you to do that he had a very busy job I said every day at two o'clock

I want you to send a alarm on your phone and when that alarm goes off I want you to take two minutes and simply think about your wife think about what she's going through with her kids at home and she's about to go pick up the little ones at school she had the smallest one that's still at home think about her day think about how and just a few hours whenever you go home how can you best

“contribute to her and what mindset do you need to get in to enter into that house in a proper way”

then I told the wife I said hey it can't be a strategic with you you got little kids at home and at school but when you put the smallest one down from that as that one is drifting off to sleep

what's his day what's his pressure all that I just want both of you to take two minutes and let's see how that goes six weeks later I'm at church I happen to run into the wife and she comes up to me and she goes hey you know it's been a while and I thought oh yeah oftentimes I don't get the check-up like what happened here did my it was my advice horrible and I asked her I said how are things going and

she said Kevin it's amazing nothing has changed but everything has changed and I said really

she goes it's amazing how just that reality of two minutes of fixating on one another and thinking about each other now whenever we we he comes home we connect in a meaningful way it changes our interaction at night it gives me compassion toward maybe it becomes home frustrated it gives him compassion if he comes home in the house it is in chaotic just taking that intentional time of

“attention now has changed everything I think it's true in marriage I think it's true with our relationship”

with Jesus in this book Hope's growing 31 days to a better way you talk about three questions the first is what's the hope yeah and this is in everybody's heart what is the hope yeah so what I love about Hope's growing here's here's a little bit of a danger of devotional books it's sometimes devotional books cannot actually point you to scripture and so my my goal with Hope's scrolling is I want you in scripture and oh by the way here's the words that might help you get there in some way

so each of these 31 days just takes a simple passage of scripture then one of the first things I want you to do is as you read it go in and just every time you see God mentioned Father Sonner Holy Spirit just mark that no take that some way physically in the book in seminary we always learn the triangle is the symbol of the Trinity and so I would just take that and every time the Father Sonner Spirit mentioned I just draw a triangle over that word and it begins to show you how the Bible is about

God is not about us how he's popping off the page so the very first question I always want to ask

“whenever I'm reading scripture is what is the hope about God where is his character his nature”

who he is let's begin with him then we can get to us then we can get to other but let's begin with who God actually is because we'll have that perspective about God's sovereign power his control his love his holiness it will begin to impact now how we view everything else it Kevin let me ask you this you mentioned a story about this prisoner that you befriended now first of all wait to go to do a little prison ministry but I've done a little bit of that but that's a lot of commitment

but what happened with this prisoner that you know yeah so so Jim you know it's been about six years since I've been coming here to focus what a privilege it is and so six years ago I transitioned from Arkansas here to where I am now in California but back in my old life in Arkansas I just noticed at one point that I in the past I wasn't spending a lot of time around non-Christians so I began to figure out how can I spend more time around non-Christians it's a one opportunity

was the local university and it was a need of adjunct professors of speech and so I thought oh that would be fun I'd love communication that the study at I thought I'll go teach these 19-year-olds intro to speech and so I walked into my various first class 24 19-year-old to walk through the room but then there was one 35-year-old who came in who was my same age as me and over the time we built a very significant relationship in part because we were kind of making fun of these 19-year-old

kids and the foolishness that was going on in class but kind of find out that we'd grown up in very similar ways and gone to school and all those things and then our lives took a minor divergence from one another I went to seminary and he got addicted to heroin so just a minor change between the two and those poor decisions eventually led him into prison and so while I was pasting a church he was serving his time well he had gotten out and was putting his life back to

“he had then that's how he ended up in my speech freshman speech class and we built a good relationship”

he was uncertain about faith but he was intrigued about faith and so I invited him to church and over that course that semester then then even beyond that after he's outside of my class with the two years that he was there at the school we had a great relationship I did a couple of funerals

from family members of his but he just never would cry cross the line of faith he was so close

he wanted to believe you could tell you wanted to believe it's just couldn't quite process it he did a great job turning his life around eventually moved out of state well then I moved to California I lost track of him and I've always wanted to kind of what happened with him well last year whenever I was sitting in my office I got a letter from the Arizona Department of Corrections and I I thought I don't know anybody in Arizona that's in prison and I open that letter

and the letter began that cavity may not remember maybe but I took your freshman speech class so many years ago in Arkansas and he said I'm writing this with a trembling hand at this moment I totally understand if you don't want to ever respond to this letter ever if you don't want to even know or say that you know me because what happened is he had relapsed in this addiction and made a horrific choice and that choice eventually landed him in the Arizona Department of Corrections

and all likely it may be for life because of his prior convictions that took place as well but he told me about that the night before he was just laying in bed thinking about faith

that there is no way that God could truly love him and be real and powerful and sovereign

with where his life had ended up that it's just impossible and so he made the decision he said tomorrow whenever I wake up I'm going to decide to be an atheist and from that point forward I'm going to be an atheist so the next morning he woke up he made the decision to be an atheist and he went back to the library that you could rent stuff out at the prison and he took the Bible back that he had leased out and he gave it back he said I felt so good about myself I had a direction now

I kind of just felt this freedom now in my atheism and he said he checked out a radio that you could have for maybe an hour or so got back to a cell lay down his cot reached over turned on the radio now going to spend his first kind of relaxing nap as an atheist and the first voice he hears is mine as I am talking to the two of you about stay in your lane and I mentioned in that moment remember stay in your lane is this idea of you're supposed to control everything that belongs to you

“but then you have to accept what belongs to God and so in that conversation the three of us talked”

about you have to control you have to own everything that you have done you can't blame anybody else it is fully your responsibility you cannot live and denial of what you have done but at the same time don't live and denial of what God has done for you and you can live in the reality of both of those things the consequences of your own sin and the beauty of God's grace and he wrote that letter and he said Kevin I was an atheist for 30 minutes and now I believe that's amazing

focus on the family reaching in everywhere but that was great that you were on the program

that had to blow his mind he said in the letter he said here's what I don't understand Kevin

is I am in Arizona and the first voice I hear is a voice from Arkansas that's moved from California that's taping in Colorado speaking to this prison in Arizona but that's the beauty of God that's the hope that we have that that's the power of why we need to on a daily basis in or back into scripture because let's face it the first thing that I do this morning is I scroll the news I'm gonna feel so desperately hopeless and almost helpless in what I can do but when you

“and I remember the power of a present loving compassionate God that invades our lives and then we”

begin to see God's gonna show up somehow today and I want to be there when everybody does it's incredible that's a great story and we're privileged to be a part of it really so that's the what's the hope the hope in Christ the hope I agree circumstance the next hope of the hope questions is how is that hope for you yes and that's grammatically a little odd to me but to explain the question so so the so the quite we want to begin with what is the hope about God how how did this every single

passage is going to show me something about the character and nature of God that exudes a concept of hope right so after we see and discover what that is it doesn't just stay there in God's character now it wants to invade my character so the question that becomes how is this good news for me on this day whatever I'm experiencing so whether you are sitting beside your spouse in a hospital room right now and you're reading scripture or you're celebrating this great merger that's about

to take place you're gonna sell your business and your retirement is about to take off your student who's on their way to school this morning and you haven't studied for the test and you're

scared about it or yeah this is your first day at at at cheer practice and you get to be the captain

and everything's right no matter where you are in life you take the character nature of God has found in scripture and say okay how does this apply to me and how is this now going to change my world and you you have this makes it basically this transformation allow the Holy Spirit to transform your heart and to encourage you as you're launching into this day so that you can be the salt and light that God wants you to actually be yeah that is so good and again this is the backdrop of

how you create discipline spiritually to be able to see fruit in your life you know beliefs well really values then beliefs and then behaviors that come out of that and there's where you know if you're living a spiritually light life you may not enjoy the fruit of that journey because it won't be rooted in the right things right no that's exactly right and I think about this is

“what we know we've experienced here's the thing about the three of us we've experienced the goodness”

of this of what it's like whenever we have a character that exudes Christ in the impact that we can have we've also experienced the other side that we have been void of Christ we have we have done to doom scrolling we've walked into a room and brought it more down than we have brought it up and so what we want for our listeners is not this judgment or all man he need to do better right it is this invitation into a much better way yeah just think about go back to to the fruit of the

spirit you quoted earlier just think about that idea of love joy piece hope patience kind of goodness faith most gentleness self control think about the goodness that is there that's a better way to live life and that is literally offered to every single one of us today on the table

you are going to get it as you humble yourself experience Jesus in the midst of scripture and then allow his spirit to penetrate your heart and begin to change who you actually are. It's so true you move from Arkansas to California you observed that in California the church community that you're engaged with had a kind of a harder edge toward California the politics of California what did you learn in that observation in many ways what breaks my heart is how many

Christians now are looking at the mindfulness in California and they're mocking it and leaving moving somewhere around the country and just going I'm I'm watching my hands of this now there's plenty of reasons to move away from California I get that but there's a million reasons to move away from California but the gospel isn't one here's the truth as Christians are mocking and leaving California it's intriguing to me that as Jesus came over and looked at broken fallen sin filled

“Jerusalem he wept over it and died for it and that's what we should be doing and so there should”

actually be nobody that's more hope filled than a Christian in the midst of California because what greater chance that we have than to make a difference in the lives of this very influential state

that we all know struggles in many ways and perspectives that we would never buy into one of the

things I tell people all the time I get to wake up every day of my life and say how can I make marriages in California better well that's job security right there's plenty of need focus on the family will always be needed but what imagine the difference between saying we're always be needed and we grow better about that because of the sinfulness and the brokenness of the world now we need to weep over the fall in this of others and ourselves no question but then we have to bring in the

truth of the gospel and have an excitement of oh my goodness the life that we get to invite people into if they can see what's going on you know and it reminds me we've had a guest on and we were talking about I think it was Luther theologian and he was talking about the idea that when we read the scripture we look at what's in it for us eternal life and we kind of get a me focus on that as opposed to what he believes God intended which is you participate with me God in bringing the kingdom

of heaven to earth so we are agents of his but it is one of the harder things to do we are ruggedly independent we like to say Lord accept me Lord I apologize for my sins I'm a sinner saved by grace and that's good and that's eternal life that's the promise but now you got to do the work of heaven oh Lord I didn't really sign up for that you know and so when you get into this

it does take us to that next question which is how can you share hope yeah so that's the third

of the three questions and it would be a very fair critique to look at this and go hey Kevin you got the questions out of order that the question really should be Jesus first others

“and then yourself that's how you get joy right on we learn this as kids but I did this intentionally”

and it's this it's because now whenever you finish this time and this experience with God I want your last thought not to be about yourself I want your last thought to be how can I go out and make a difference in the world so we're going to start and ask what's the hope about God in this passage how does that hope apply to me now how can those this how can I take this hope not just alright God go touch them how can I take this hope into the lives of my neighbors my co-worker my

family my friends and I would say especially sitting here at focus on the family the very first

place I need to ask that question is how can I take this hope to Jenny L. and Silas let's begin with with the alright Jesus said love your neighbor let's begin there but then let's move beyond that and so whenever I walk in the church office it would be easy for people to think oh you walk in a church office man what a hope filled place no no they need hope brought to them as well I need the gospel just as much as anybody and then the neighbor that's across the street the lost friend that's

down the road how is it that if God has so opened my eyes to his grace I can't help take that grace to other people and what opportunities do I have today to spread hope and the lives of others again they are bombarded with doom what if not living in denial of that pain what if in the midst of that pain I can bring some good news as well yeah it is so good it's a great way to stay that we don't want to live in fear and I really appreciate how you have leaned

into the practical side of hope and not just talking about what we believe but how our daily habits shape the way we actually live which is what makes the difference being Christian thanks again for being with us today and let me turn to you our listener focus on the family is here for you we want to help you have a thriving relationship with the Lord that's really our most basic goal is for you to have that relationship with Jesus so you can live abundantly in his peace which will

“trickle out to all your other relationships I've experienced that John I think you have to indeed”

yes and if you're not sure where to begin we have so many great resources to help you our website

download called coming home and that will give you kind of the steps needed to take to start your

relationship with Jesus and let me also mention the screen fast that we would want to encourage

“you and your family to participate in we have an emergency kit that's what we call it that will help”

you discover fun things to do with your family in place of screen time and Gene I did this when

we were raised in the boys and it's a good thing to do another outstanding place to start it's

Kevin's solid devotional hope scrolling 31 days to a better way you'll walk through scripture

“and pick up some great habits to start looking for hope in ways to share that hope and we'll send”

that to you for a donation of any amount be part of the ministry any donation size is fine five ten dollars is fine and when you give to focus on the family you're helping us reach people who

are in need of help last year alone 1.8 million people contacted us for help and when they contact

us you are part of that when you help us and support the ministry so let's reach for 2 million two and a half million this coming year let's help them hmm yeah contact us today be part of the team get the help you need when you call 800 the letter A in the word family 800 232 6459 or at our website we'll have a link for that coming home article that downloadable PDF the Jim mentioned the screen fast emergency kit and then certainly ways to donate and get Kevin's book

you'll find all of that and more linked over in the show notes thanks for listening to focus on the family with Jim Daley I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive and Christ live your truth a lot of people say that don't they but truth isn't something we decide God has decided it for us and it's our job as believers to share his truth with a world in need

I'll encourage you to do that through my podcast refocus with Jim Daley I visit with fascinating

“guests about important topics like gender confusion cancel culture and more while helping you share”

God's love with others listen at refocus with Jimdaley.com