384 | Turning Down the Noise, Turning Up the Presence: A Dad's Guide to Analog Living (Jay Kim)
Episode Description
In a world where screens compete for our attention every waking moment, how do we raise kids who know they belong to God instead of their devices? Jay Kim, a pastor living in Silicon Valley, shares his family's journey of moving at the "pace of peace" while navigating digital distractions. From practicing the ancient prayer of Examen with his 10 and 7-year-old to implementing radical boundaries around smartphones, Jay offers practical wisdom for dads who want to show up—really show up—for their children in an analog way.
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Jay Kim is a pastor in Northern California's Silicon Valley, author of multiple books including Analog Christian and Analog Church, and host of the Digital Examen podcast. He and his wife Jenny have two children and are committed to practicing intentional, incarnational family rhythms in one of the world's most digitally connected regions. Jay's work focuses on helping followers of Jesus navigate technology with wisdom while cultivating deeper spiritual practices.
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Moving at the "pace of peace" means prioritizing relationships over plans and never compromising people for productivity
The Examen prayer creates a powerful bedtime rhythm: presence, gratitude, reflection, confession, and hope for tomorrow
Breath prayers can transform everyday moments—try "God, you control outcomes" (inhale) and "help me to be faithful" (exhale)
Digital addiction requires intentional intervention: practice one hour tech-free daily, one day weekly, one week yearly
Your kids need to see you detached from devices—dock phones away from family spaces to model analog presence
Catechism in daily rhythms reinforces identity: "What is our only hope in life and death? We are not our own, we belong to God"
Social media should have age restrictions like alcohol and tobacco—consider no social media until 18
The fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) is the antidote to digital-age discontentment, fragility, and foolishness
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Jay Kim [00:00:39] Every single morning when I drop them off, the last thing I say to them is I ask them, hey guys, what is our only hope in life and death? And they will repeat to me, we are not our own, we belong to God. And it's just this beautiful reminder to them, gosh, your life is not yours. It's a gift that God has given you, but also the gift means you are not alone. God goes with you. That's the thing I want them to know. Every day, that's the reminder.
Jeff Zaugg [00:01:09] Welcome back to Dad Awesome. Guys, today, episode 384, I have Jay Kim joining me. Wanna quick give a shout out, there are a bunch of amazing fatherhood ministries that are just amping up. Our intentionality. All of us, we're friends, we lead fatherhood ministries. It's the month of June and we're like, let's amp up our level of resourcing, the conversations we're featuring, the blogs. So I've been a guest on several other people's podcasts that are going to be featured in June. Also got to guest blog post with a few organizations. And I have done the same thing here at Dad Awesome. The next four conversations, We're going to talk about pressing, pressing topics like... Screens and social media and how we lead in a space of distraction, we're going to talk about generosity, a theme that's been asked for. How do we raise generous kids and how do we lead by example and lead from a place of genera- of abundance versus scarcity and just all the missional aspects to generosity. Today though is like the kickoff of there's four really intentional conversations that I'm pumped to feature to you guys. So Jay Kim, he's the first one today, episode 384. He's the author of several books, Analog Christian, Analog Church. He wrote Listen, Listen, Speak. He wrote, he hosts the Digital Examine podcast and he's been featured on all kinds of other incredible ministries with his writings. He pastors in Northern California, lives in Silicon Valley and Jay was so gracious to say yes to this conversation. He's gonna guide us, actually, through a few things we've never done before on Dad Awesome through some some pause prayers, some breath prayers, and then I kind of launch into today's conversation. I describe as a side door through rapid fire, having him respond to words and phrases. So I'm so excited for you guys. Happy Father's Day, Mom! And enjoy this conversation. Buckle up, take notes. Let's be dads of action. Listen for that one thing that you're gonna put into practice. This is episode 384 with Jay Kim. And this week on Dad Awesome, I have Jay Kim joining me from, we're on the opposite corners of the countries. You're in Northern California, I'm in Northeast Florida and grateful for you taking time today.
Jay Kim [00:03:37] Yeah, I'm happy to be on, Jeff. Thanks for the invite.
Jeff Zaugg [00:03:40] For sure, I thought as a fun way to just dive in through maybe a little bit of a side door instead of just jumping right in to tell me about your family, can I say a couple words or phrases and just anything top of mind that pops up, just riff on these words or phrase for a moment as just a fun to kind of take us into the conversation. Does that sound okay?
Jay Kim [00:04:00] Yeah, it sounds dangerous. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Zaugg [00:04:03] You never know where it's gonna come out first. So here we go. And I don't actually have the list in front of me. I have a whole bunch of notes, but we'll see where we go with this. So the first word Jay is pace, pace.
Jay Kim [00:04:14] Yeah, I think of peace. Yeah, that I think in a really hurried, very rushed, frantic, frenetic world, we need to move at the pace of peace, and what I don't mean by that, I think peace is misunderstood often. We think like Mai Tai on the beach, you know, and pausing. We mostly think of piece as pausing, but peace is not pausing peace. I mean, it is in some ways, but peace the. Sort of biblical understanding of shalom, it's a very relational word. So when I think about pace, I think of moving at the pace of relationship, in a way where we don't compromise people for plans. And I think in our world, we do that a lot, so.
Jeff Zaugg [00:05:01] Yeah, thank you. The next is just a phrase, bedtime with your kids, what comes up around bedtime.
Jay Kim [00:05:07] A tug of war, it's a tug of a war, man. Flossing and brushing, my kids are 10 and seven. The 10-year-old's much more on top of it now, but my seven-year old son, he's a rambunctious little boy who's just, he and my daughter are very different, and my son, he just wants to have a good time all the time, and flossing and brushing of teeth is not his idea of a good times, so bedtime can feel a bit like a tug a war.
Jeff Zaugg [00:05:36] Yes, the next is gardening. Gardening, you can take it any direction you want.
Jay Kim [00:05:42] Oh, gosh. Well, I don't do much gardening. My mother does. So I think the first thought that comes to mind is my mom. She's a gardener, literally. She has a little home garden, but the more I expand on that thought, she's sort of gardened our life. She went slow and steady and had her hands in. The darkness of the dirt for many years, single mother trying to raise, an immigrant single mother trying to rise a little kid in a country that was not her own. So yeah, I think of my mom. She's a gardener in every respect of the word. Thank you. Resilience. I think my wife. Now I'm just thinking of people. Yeah, my wife is, she's my best friend. You gotta be resilient to be married to me. First and foremost, but to the resilience she shows and mothering and parenting our children and she's a She's a high school teacher by trade and she is a special ed teacher which is not for the faint of heart and she has been that for over a decade now and Yeah, she she exudes resilience in the way she chooses to serve and to love when it's you know Probably would be easier not to
Jeff Zaugg [00:07:05] noise, noise from it could be, you know, what you're hearing to other ways to take that but just noise.
Jay Kim [00:07:13] Yeah, I just think about our world. Our world is so noisy. I mean, in a literal sense, noise pollution has increased exponentially in the last 50 years, certainly in the few hundred years, with increasing urbanization and condensed, really dense cities and whatnot. But think of the smartphone and digital technology and the internet and media and social media. It's just so, so noisy. So I think of our world, you know, we live in a world of noise and I think it's important for us to turn the volume down.
Jeff Zaugg [00:07:52] Yes, and two more for you. The second to last is Joy.
Jay Kim [00:07:57] Oh, gosh, joy. I think of joy as sort of the hum that grounds followers of Jesus in the midst of all the ups and downs of life, that sort of constant hum and echo, that joy is possible. I think about the words of James, count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face. And then he just talks about terrible stuff, trials and hardship. So that phrase actually counted all joy. It's a single word in the Greek. It's it's a mathematical word. It's literally like, take a count, do the spreadsheet. And what you realize is at the end of the day, all of life is a gift. And so there's joy, even in the midst of pain. So that's what I think about.
Jeff Zaugg [00:08:49] And the last word, it's kind of the focal point of two of your books. And we're on a digital medium of looking through a computer screen as we talk about this word, but analog, what does that stir up right now for the dads, analog.
Jay Kim [00:09:04] Showing up. Yeah, showing up. Incarnation. You know, in Christian theology, analog would be called incarnation in the flesh. It's what Jesus does for us. He showed up. And I think for me as a dad, it's really convicting. If I'm going to learn and live the way of Jesus as a husband and as a father, then I can have all the best thoughts and intentions and ideas in the world, but at the end of the day. I've got to show up for my kids, you know, in embodied ways, so.
Jeff Zaugg [00:09:38] Thank you for the little experiment, the little side door start. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, a little riffing on those. Your podcast, the digital examine podcast, and I think you host another couple podcasts as well, but that one, the pace, so we started with the word pace, and it's very kind, the paced of your podcast. So thank you. It inspires me to think about the pace of these dad-awesome conversations. And I know that part of a rhythm with your family before bed is, having a pause, adjusting the pace instead of hustle right to bed, actually praying through the exam and prayer. Could you first just tell us what is that, and I found the digital PDF version that hopefully we can share with our listeners that you guys created, but give us a flyover. What is it, and then how does it look with your son and daughter before bed? And then I would actually like to practice a moment of doing that as dads on the
Jay Kim [00:10:35] Yeah, The Examen, it's not primarily the name of my podcast. It's an ancient Christian practice developed originally by Ignatius of Loyola and the Ignatian Order. Long story short, there's a fascinating story behind it, but long story short it's very simple and it's really beautiful and profound. It has been transformative in my life and in life of my family, so. It's basically, the prayer of examin' is a daily prayer exercise. That's the way it's intended. Typically, ideally, if possible, it's a daily prayers exercise to be practiced and participated with at the end of your day. It's a way to, at least the first four movements, it's way to look back. Well, I guess the best way to say it is that the first movement is a way to be present in the moment. The next three movements are a way to look at back. And then the final movement of the prayer is a way to look forward to the day ahead. So it's a five movement sort of prayer where initially you began by asking God to just make you aware of his presence in the moment. And really it's simple. It's like deep breaths, God, you're here, make me aware of your presence. The second movement is a movement of gratitude. You think about, usually, you would think about one very specific experience from the day or one interaction you had with somebody, whatever it might be, and you express gratitude. So it's not a general sort of, God, thank you for life. It is a very specific thing. God, Thank you for the bike ride that Simon and I had this afternoon and that beautiful weather, 72 degrees and the sun warming our faces and the fun conversation we had about, you know, the things he's enjoying about school. God, thank you for that. What a gift. And then the next movement would be reflection. And in particular, you reflect on one painful experience or interaction or thought or feeling from the day, whatever that might be. And you just, you offer it to God. You're not asking God to solve it. You are asking God to sit with you in it and you just release it in that way. So one painful experiences, reflection. And then the fourth movement is confession. It's acknowledging our own participation in pain during that past 24 hours, if you can. So for me, this is a very easy thing. Every single night, several ideas come to mind like, oh, Lord, I said that thing in frustration and impatience to my kids, and I should not have said that. I confess that to you. I repent. I turn around. By your spirit, strengthen me to live a different way, to make a different choice tomorrow. Whatever it might be. You confess the one specific thing. And again, it's specific. It's not like, God, I'm a sinner. Please forgive me. No, no, no. I did this thing, or I didn't do this thing that I sense you were asking me to do. Whatever it may be. And then finally, the last movement is looking forward. It's looking ahead. It's asking God to enter with you into a specific. Challenge you face the next day, and that might be a work presentation. It might be, um, a relational tension that you need to, to work out. It might, uh, you know, a project that you're working on, or it might be just that managing the unending task list, you, know, whatever it might, um. So that's the prayer of examine. And I've been practicing it individually on my own for several years and for the couple of years now. Our family, this is our prayer practice in the evening. So Jenny and I sit with both of our children who are 10 and seven. And at this point, we've been doing it long enough. They know, they know the movements. And so I just ask them to take some deep breaths. God is here, come Holy Spirit, make us aware of your presence that never leaves us. And then each of them will pray. They'll thank God for something special from that day. They'll talk about how they felt that day with a particular situation. They'll ask forgiveness for anything that they did or didn't do that they know was not of God. And then they'll ask God to help them with something simple the next day. So it's usually not as beautiful and profound as I'm making it sound. It's pretty simple. My kids are 10 and seven, but. More than the profound, what I'm looking for is just ongoing, regular, embodied, incarnational sort of participation as a family with the presence of God in our home.
Jeff Zaugg [00:15:31] Will you guys, will you hover over, for example, the reflection time or the confession, will you hover and then everyone will pray that confession moment out loud and then move into kind of the looking forward with hope, or does one child at a time pray through the
Jay Kim [00:15:48] Yeah, you know, for us, I think both ways are really beautiful. For us, the way it works is each child prays through the movements themselves. But even as you ask that question, Jeff, I do wonder if it might be better for us to break it up and each of us hover over each movement. I think there's a way in which that might slow our kids down. Sometimes there are nights, many nights, I will admit to you, where my kids will just kind of rush through it. You know, they're like, God, you're here. God, thank you for the fish sticks I had at lunch. And today I felt kind of sad because I didn't get all the way across the monkey bars. And please forgive me for, you know, kicking my friend on accident and tomorrow help me get across the Monkey Bar. So like, they'll just like rush through. So I wonder if there is some benefit, I think, to maybe hovering over each movement. It's a great thought. Well, this is for us.
Jeff Zaugg [00:16:42] I mean, we can take this one page PDF that you created and what you just explained and try both and we can try it first, we can do a rhythm of just, let's just try it for a week or two as dads before we bring an exports to our kids and invite in, right? There's probably some wisdom to that. How would, how would you take us from this point of our conversation today into, and you could any, in any angle, any, any method, just into inviting a pause. Before we continue the conversation would you kind of take us in and just invite to pause and we'll give a little space.
Jay Kim [00:17:17] Yeah, I would love to do that. I mean, I think the pause for me, I also practice breath prayers all the time. They've been really helpful. So I guess maybe I would invite folks to this is a breath prayer I've been praying. I pray it daily, multiple times a day. If you're unfamiliar with breath prayers, again, another ancient practice, and it's really beautiful because you can weave it into your day. Because literally it is prayer as breathing. You inhale a particular thought as prayer and then you exhale another thought. So, you know, for all the dads listening, for everybody listening, maybe I would ask you take a few moments wherever you are, if it's safe to do so, you now, and pause and begin to breathe deeply. Maybe inhale deeply, exhale deeply, just continue to breathe. And for those of us who are followers of Jesus, we're reminded that the Greek and Hebrew words for spirit in the Bible are numah and ruach, and both of those words can mean breath, which means that the presence of God by His spirit is what animates you and enlivens you. It's as close as every breath you take. And as you breathe this next breath, I would encourage you prayerfully breathe in the thought. God, you control outcomes. And exhale the thought, help me to be faithful. With our kids, Lord, breathe in, you control outcomes. Exhale, help me to be faithful. Amen.
Jeff Zaugg [00:19:10] Jay, thank you. You're welcome, yeah. Breath prayers, I am new. Six months, probably, maybe, maybe nine months into doing some breath prayers, and we lay on the beach in the dark with a group of men who do some beach workouts together, and we start with these breath prayers. And that was just, yeah, last fall. That was a new rhythm of trying, and it's wild, the physical, like how the gift, like breath. Uh, taking those, those, that cadence of in and out to connect promises. So there's so much, so much more there that we could go into. Uh, how long has it been a rhythm for you?
Jay Kim [00:19:53] Yeah, I mean, it was a rhythm in my life, very sporadically for many years probably, but really intentionally for a year and a half to two years where I've been praying it multiple times a day.
Jeff Zaugg [00:20:10] Yes, yes. Leaders are readers. I celebrate that with my four daughters. Three of them are now, well, our six-year-old is becoming a reader. But I just celebrate the leadership of like, you're learning. You're a leader and leaders are readers, I know your kids love to read. Any recent books as a family or that they're reading on their own, you're just like, oh, these are some new favorite books, anything you'd recommend top of mind for kids reading?
Jay Kim [00:20:38] Yeah. Oh gosh, it's going to sound like I'm such a bad Christian and a bad pastor, man. But I just, you know, I'm an open book. My daughter has been an avid reader since she was very young. So she's just like blitzing through books left and right. So if you're just asking what she's reading now, she got really into this like, sort of fantastical series of books called The Warriors, which is about these like cats that battle each other. Anyways, but actually just recently she just picked up, she's finally tracking with Harry Potter. So I'm reading it with her just to keep an eye, like how weird does it get? I don't really know. I never got into Harry Potter, so but she's reading Harry Potter now. She really loved the Narnia books, so obviously it's a classic. So yeah, that's what my daughter's into. And then my son is six, about to turn seven. So he's just kind of, he picked up reading much more slowly than my daughter did, but he's an avid reader now. So actually he and I are reading Ivan the Great, which is this really fantastic kid's book about this gorilla. Anyways, so they're reading those things. And then we also, we try to incorporate Bible reading into our evening routine. Read the Bible together as regularly as we pray the exam. But I would say probably three, four nights a week, we sit down and we're reading through the Gospel of John right now. And so we'll read actually those three, four nights, a week instead of a couple of verses. I'll try to read a bit more narratively. We read a longer chunk and then we just have discussion about that. We also have, we use this Catechism book. Which has been really helpful. So anyways, that's kind of what's in the reading profile of our family right now.
Jeff Zaugg [00:22:38] Let me double click on the Catechism book because I know there's some repetition, even with the rhythm of a day, where you're like reminding with a statement or a question, your kids are responding with some of what they're learning. Can you give a couple examples of that and how it's played into your daily rhythms with your kids?
Jay Kim [00:22:57] Yeah. So the first movement of the traditional Heidelberg catechism, as translated for children, would be, cateachism is like almost a speaking response type thing. It's a way to embed into memory and into the body, the truths of our life with God. So, the very first question response is, what is our only hope in life and death? And then the response is we are not our and we belong to God. And so the way that works out in our family, we've not moved very far in the catechism because by the time you get to like the eighth one, it's like super long. It's the 10th commandments and stuff. Something like that, 10th one, something like that. Anyways, but the first one is embedded to memory. My kids know it. So the way it unfolds in our families is every day when I drop my kids, I do drop off every morning at school. And sometimes they get embarrassed by it and they're like, God, dad, I don't want to, whatever. I don't know why, my son mostly. But every single morning when I drop them off, one of the, not one of, the last thing I say to them is I ask them, hey guys, what is our only hope in life and death? And they will repeat to me, we are not our own, we belong to God. And it's just this beautiful reminder to them, gosh, your life is not yours. It's a gift that God has given. But also the gift means you're not alone. God goes with you. And that's the thing I want them to know, you know, every day, that's a reminder. And I know like right now at their ages, they're like, oh, you rolling of eyes, dad, come on, you know? But I am confident, one of the beautiful things of the process of catechesis, which the early Christian church did regularly, which we have lost, I think in many ways in the modern Western church. Um, you know, in the early Christian church, you had to go through at minimum months long, typically one to two years long, catechesis process journey before you could be baptized. And it wasn't until you were baptized that you were officially a member of that local church. So like, it wasn't just you come to church and sign up on a new member card and now you, like you had go through years of, you know, two years typically of this whole journey of learning the story of God in your life. Um, so that's what I'm trying to do with our kids. It's just like, I want them to know, you know, like this one thing, remember this one thing. Um, your only hope in life and death is that you're not your own. You belong to God, your gods. So
Jeff Zaugg [00:25:32] It's beautiful. I'm holding up my cell phone here for anyone watching on YouTube and I've heard you play out the comparing. I mean, it's a little bit larger my cellphone than a box of cigarettes, but the play on, you know, if something can cause harm, we put age limits. You know, our government puts age limits if something could do harm because they don't want kids to be harmed. And then we're just still so new to this 20, 30 year, these shiny devices stepy. Carrying purses and pockets and like all over the place. What's your observations recently with just helping dads discern giving a cell phone to a child? Like, what are you seeing? What are you concerned about? What are finding hope in? Like, I'd just love to hear you just riff on cell phones and dad decision making.
Jay Kim [00:26:25] Yeah, I mean, you know, honestly, in more recent years, like the last couple of years, I think the tide is turning to a certain extent. I'm becoming increasingly hopeful. I think we're very early, but I do think something is shifting, you now? And I attribute it to the work of really wonderful thinkers and writers, people like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge and others. Many of your listeners would probably be familiar The first name, Jonathan Haidt. He's the one that recently wrote the book, The Anxious Generation. If you are a parent and you've not read The AnXious Generation and you got children who are teenagers or in their 20s, or especially like me, like you, like young kids, especially for us, and I cannot recommend a book that might be more important for you to read, culturally at least, you know? So... Yeah, I'm grateful for the work of people like that. You know, Jonathan Haidt essentially proposes that we need to put very stringent age limits on smartphones in general, but specifically he's talking about social media. I mean, the US Surgeon General recommended this past year that we put warning labels, like the same warning labels that go on alcoholic beverages and cigarettes, tobacco products, that we put the same exact warning labels. On social media apps. And I think he's right, to be honest with you. He wasn't trying to be clickbaity. Remember, the U.S. Surgeon General is like America's doctor. He's a medical professional. He's not a social commentator. He's no a sociologist. He's basically, he's making that statement that we need U. S. Surge in general warnings on social mediate. He is basing that on his. Medical expertise like what the data tells us about what social media does to young people just like You know, you have to be 21 to buy a beer You have to 18 to be able to buy pack of cigarettes. I think it's 18 I'm not sure but it's something like that, right? So and basically we have enough data now to say if you are underaged You should not be participating in social media products. It's like alcohol or tobacco, which is to say it's not in and of itself going to destroy every life it touches. There are responsible ways to have a glass of wine over dinner. There are a responsible ways. It's not good for you, but maybe there's a responsible way to be a social smoker or something. I don't know, but ultimately children should not be given access to such things because what we know. Is that children have not yet achieved the level of maturity necessary to be able to participate in those types of products in a way that will maintain their safety. And so it is with social media. So for me, that's kind of where I'm at. That's where our family is at. My daughter is 10, so she's right on the cusp of that sort of middle school stage of life where. Already at age 10, she's got some friends who, she was just telling me the other day about a good friend of hers at school whose parents allowed her to open up a YouTube page. She does all sorts of dances and stuff. So she started a YouTube age and my daughter was asking, it's like, oh yeah, so-and-so has this YouTube page and you know, can I get a YouTube account? And our family is just committed to the Jonathan Haidt rule. We've just said no social media. Until you're an adult, until you are 18. So we're beginning to have those preemptive conversations already. I'm already bracing myself for the strong pushback and the many fights, I'm sure, that will commence in our home. But we're really committed to it because we wanna ensure, to the best of our ability, the flourishing of our children. And I just think social media is counterproductive to that goal.
Jeff Zaugg [00:30:40] Yes, and to expand one step beyond social media, just two devices, to tablets and screens and these glowing objects that are tools that can be used for good. But we know throughout history, the shiny objects that you could kind of spend time looking at, you know, the sun's too bright to look at. So it'd be like a sunrise, sunset, fireflies, luminescence, campfire, right? Are those the only things? Maybe that's a feeling. But yeah, I'd just love to hear your take on the screens in general and just how you're man, just trying to navigate boundaries and trying to navigate not being so fixated on screens, even if it's just messaging back and forth or it's learning, learning things from on screen based device, any, any just processing or just what you're learning in that area.
Jay Kim [00:31:32] Yeah, you know, my friend Andy Crouch in his book, The TechWise Family, offers a sort of rhythm for digital Sabbath. And I think practicing that and embodying that as a family has been really helpful for us just to model a more responsible, a more human approach to leveraging the tools in such a way that I am using the tool, and the tool is not using us. So. What he offers is like, his paradigm is like one hour a day, one day a week, one week a year, meaning every single day you should have one waking hour that is completely tech-free. Every week you should one full day that is complete tech- free. And every year you should try if you can to have one full straight week a year that is completly tech- Free. Whatever the best rhythm is for your family, especially in the presence of your children, I think it really matters. So this gets really practical, but I'm guilty of this. I'm of guilty of in the presents of my children holding my phone and being glued to the glowing screen. And I just think that is so detrimental. We have to embody as much as possible analog sort of presence with one another, especially when our children are in their formative years and they are experiencing us as their parents. And the more they see us glued to our screens, the more normative that becomes. The challenge we face is that the rest of the world paints that picture, that this is a normal way to be human, because everywhere they go, everyone's glued to their screens. So if they come home and they don't see an alternative vision for how to be a human, then we're almost guaranteeing that they're gonna be formed in a particular way. So for us, we dock our smartphones in a part of our kitchen that's not easily accessible. It's far from the places in our home where we spend most of our time, our dining room, our living room. And so we do that intentionally so that the phones are at a reach, meaning when we're with our kids in those communal spaces, they see us detached from the devices.
Jeff Zaugg [00:33:52] Yeah. And that's, I mean, distraction is, it just ties in. I wanted to chat with you for a moment on how our minds are just the amount of prompts in just the shorter, shorter form, shorter, the last seconds to like, and then I'll go to the next thing where I'll use two devices at once. It's crazy, but I'm guilty. Like I find myself deeper thinking deep, deep, like all of a sudden the clutter, the noise, um, and it's, it's it ties with my being a loving dad because there's just so much distraction or what about this? And oh, I got to take care of that loop that's open. Any guidance for me? Start just write to me on this one.
Jay Kim [00:34:30] Oh, man. Well, you know, I think acknowledging and addressing any sort of addiction, including digital addiction, begins with a deep, deep awareness of how addicted we are. So this is fairly practical, but I think one of the, and it's not universal, it's just what worked for me. So it's more descriptive than prescriptive. But for some, I The best way for me to tap into how truly addicted to a thing I am is to commit to a particularly intense fast from that particular thing for a while. Not that I'm going to fast at that level or intensity forever, but just as a means of diagnosis. So a number of years ago I did that. I just took a digital fast, like a complete digital fast. No phone. I just didn't use the phone, didn't use my laptop for several days. And I just paid attention to what happened in my body, what happened to me mentally and emotionally and otherwise. And that was a really great starting point for me. And then from there, I just created a plan, which, again, comes down to that digital Sabbath. I also, this is really practical, and I don't want to like, this company is not like a sponsor for the podcast. I want to be careful who I plug. Anyways, I have a device, maybe that's what I'll say. I have device, you can find it online. I have the device that's been really helpful. It's a magnet that sticks to our refrigerator and the magnet is connected to an app on my phone. And every morning when I leave for work, you can select on the app which apps on your phone stay open and which apps get blocked. And when you open the app in the morning and you place your phone up against this thing on the refrigerator, it will automatically shut off all of the apps that you have said shut off. So for me, I just shut off everything except the bare essentials. Google Maps, you know, so I can find directions to places if I have a meeting. I will keep open, just a few things. My calendar, because I often look at my phone for what's my next. Bang on the schedule, those sorts of things. I just keep some basics open, and then everything else gets shut off. So at that point, my phone is just kind of a dummy phone. It's not a smartphone, and that's been a game changer. Over time, what it does is like, oh, there's nothing here that can distract me, so I'm not gonna randomly, in a moment of boredom, open up Google Maps and figure out how, yeah, it's just not gonna happen, so. And the apps where I would do that, whether it's Instagram or a sports app to check the scores, it's just unavailable on my phone until I go back home and open it up with that little thing on my refrigerator. So there's practices like that, but I think really what it comes down to is good intentions are not enough. Caring is not enough, we have to actually implement rhythms, practices, practical helps that will keep us as away from our devices as possible.
Jeff Zaugg [00:37:53] Your book, by the way, we'll link in the show notes that whatever that product is, cause I don't mind linking stuff out, that's amazing. But your book analog Christian and all your books will be linked in the shownotes. Cultivating, contentment, yeah, content, resilience and wisdom in a digital age. Like those are three things that I'm like, God, I want my daughters. I want like my marriage. Those three things, content and resilience, wisdom. And I see the ability to get the next thing or to solve or to figure out or to find an answer or do not need resilience because I don't need to press into hard things. I can do the easy thing with the easy button on my phone, right? I mean, truly, these are just three things that I so want to grow in. Could you give us a little, just a short flyover of what our listeners would learn if they dive in and read Analog Christian?
Jay Kim [00:38:52] Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, the book is framed that way because really the book is an exploration of Paul's words near the end of Galatians chapter five, that famous passage where he describes the fruit of the Spirit, that when the Holy Spirit begins to form and transform us, we begin to bear fruit in our lives. And it's not fruit that we cultivate on own. It's the work of the spirit in our lives. And Paul describes that fruit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And as I thought a lot about my own discontentment and fragility and foolishness in the digital age in the midst of all of my digital addictions and proclivities, I realized that the fruit of the spirit and the characteristics of the fruit of the spirit are actually the antidote. To my discontentment, fragility and foolishness. So, you know, I find myself so discontented because in the digital age, I just, I spiral into self-centric despair and comparison that can turn into contempt. But really the antidote to those things is a life of love and joy and peace. And I find my self increasingly fragile because I'm really impatient. I find myself in these relationships of hostility toward others, people I don't even know sometimes. And the antidote to all of that is patience, and it's kindness, and its goodness. And I found myself living just really foolishly and recklessly, because I was forgetting that these people, these little widgets on the other side of my screen are actual human beings, you know? Made in the image of God and find myself mired in outrage culture and exhausted by it all. So just kind of like recklessly indulging on the internet where I have access to everything and anything with a few pushes of a button, you know, and the antidote to all of that, you know. A life of real wisdom is a life of faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. So that's the book. It's like 200 pages of just a deep exploration of how we might experience, yeah, contentment and resilience and wisdom in an age that is just set up to do the exact opposite in us.
Jeff Zaugg [00:41:28] Jay, I'm grateful for today's conversation. Thanks for just taking time to connect with Dad Awesome. Any just last parting words for the dads listening, any final encouragement or just something that didn't come up yet that you're like, I want to share this.
Jay Kim [00:41:43] Oh, man, no, I'm right there in the trenches with you. And what a sacred calling to care for these lives that have been entrusted to us. But our children are not our own. They belong to God, and so do we. And so there's very little that we actually control. So we've just got to be faithful every step of the way. And as long as you're doing that. I think God is pleased and your kids are going to be okay.
Jeff Zaugg [00:42:14] That takes us full circle to those breath prayers you led us through earlier. Would you say a short prayer over all of us as we close?
Jay Kim [00:42:21] Yeah, I would love to. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. I pray for every person listening. That you would do first the work in them that you wanna do through them and the lives of their children and their families. And so give us the trust and the faith and the courage to open ourselves up, to open our clenched fists and to sit with our hands open, ready to receive your grace, your forgiveness, your mercy, your strength and your power and your presence to do in us and through us that which we could never do on our own. We pray this in the name of Jesus, our King.
Jeff Zaugg [00:43:30] Thank you so much for joining us for episode 384 with Jay Kim, the show notes. We have a lot of links in our show notes today to make sure to give you resources to be dads of action. So go to dadawesome.org slash podcast. Look for today's episode. Number 384 and the transcripts are there. The key takeaways, those links that I just mentioned and of course Jay's website and lots of helpful information for you dads. Hey, this is Father's Day Month. We pray this has been helpful for you guys. Let's be spreading the word to other dads. Send a text to a few other dads saying, have you listened to Dad Awesome? You can just simply pass along dadawesome.org. Let them know there's nearly 400 podcast episodes and just really we're amping up what we believe is gonna be very helpful this month, the month of June. So thanks for being Dad Awesome. Thanks for listening. Have a great week, guys.
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"Peace is not pausing. Peace is moving at the pace of relationship, in a way where we don't compromise people for plans."
"Every single morning when I drop them off, I ask them: What is our only hope in life and death? We are not our own, we belong to God."
"If I'm going to live the way of Jesus as a father, I've got to show up for my kids in embodied ways."
"Our children are not our own. They belong to God, and so do we. We've just got to be faithful every step of the way."
"God, you control outcomes. Help me to be faithful."
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