408 | Raising Sons Who Invite Others In: Wrestling, Delayed Phones, and Legacy Rewritten (Carl Cartee)

Talking to Kids About SexRaising Jesus Followers
Written By Jeff Zaugg

Episode Description

What does it look like to raise teenage boys who become strong men of character? In this episode, Carl Cartee—songwriter, speaker, and dad of four sons—shares how weekly wrestling nights, honest sex talks, and delayed technology built a foundation of trust in his home. You'll hear the story of his son's 18th birthday dinner where four friends said the same surprising thing, why he wishes someone had told him about choosing a spouse differently, and how the Sons of Korah can change your entire perspective on fatherhood legacy.

  • Carl Cartee is a songwriter, speaker, and worship leader from Franklin, Tennessee. He's written over 150 songs for artists including Elevation Worship and Oak Ridge Boys. Carl and his wife, Heather, host the podcast "Married to Someone Who's Nothing Like You" and are passionate about helping marriages thrive. They have four sons ranging from 14 to 19 years old. Carl loves creativity, adventure, and pointing people to Jesus through music, art, and authentic conversation.

    • Wrestling nights and messy pizza-making weren't just fun—they were intentional time in your presence that builds connection and dignity in your sons.

    • The simplicity of being invited into God's work as a father takes the pressure off perfection and puts the focus on faithfulness.

    • Early and often conversations about sex, desire, and God's design create safety and health instead of shame and secrecy.

    • Choosing a spouse isn't just about attraction at 25—it's about finding someone you genuinely like being with through every season of life.

    • Your family legacy isn't determined by what you inherited from your fathers—through Christ, you're rewriting the story for your kids.

  • Welcome back to Dad Awesome, guys. Today, episode 408, I have Carl Cartee joining me. He's from Franklin, Tennessee, and I met Carl at a conference just a few weeks ago. And in our conversation, I realized very quickly I would love to go deeper and spend 30, 40 minutes just learning about his fatherhood journey. So he has four sons, four teenage sons.

    A little background: Carl and his wife deeply passionate about music, worship music, marriage is a huge passion—there's this helping marriages—and he's a songwriter. He's written over 150 songs, some for Elevation Worship, Oak Ridge Boys and several other bands that you guys would know about. And his songwriting and parenting, it's just like there is a deeper thread of this guy is so intentional and thoughtful and prayerful about what he brings to his kids. Not perfectly, we don't interview anyone—no dads, no perfect dads allowed. But you guys, this conversation is gonna be helpful. You're gonna feel encouraged. You're gonna have some practical, like I could do this. So I'm so grateful that you're listening today. This is episode 408 with Carl Cartee.

    Just two weeks ago, we get a chance to meet when I'm in Nashville, Carl, and then you were gracious and you're like, yeah, let's do it as far as hopping on for a dad-awesome conversation. So thanks for joining me.

    CARL CARTEE: You're welcome. Well, I walked into that conference and three or four of my buddies were like, you got to meet this dude, Jeff. He has a podcast and you should go on it. I'm like, all right.

    JEFF: Truly, that was the same way for me. They're like, you need to meet Carl. And it's not because of, you know, this or that or songs you've written or different ministries you've led, conferences you've launched. It was because of the nature they heard it's called Dad Awesome. And they immediately started pointing me to you, Carl. So I guess I want to celebrate that you have friends that are seeing that about your treasuring this dad role. And you have boys. You have four boys. I have four girls. But your age range is your oldest 18, 19 in that range?

    CARL: He's 19, sophomore in college.

    JEFF: Yes, and oldest to youngest?

    CARL: 14.

    JEFF: So this is my favorite chapter because my oldest is 12 and down to four. So if I get a chance to flip and talk boy dad and then jump to the next chapter, I mean, who I pray for more, I mean, I do pray for my girls and I pray for other girl dads, but more for boy dads. I'm praying for boy dads because I have a vested interest, right?

    CARL: Yeah. Well, that's beautiful. So last night, my 14 year old, just a fun story that's kind of in the moment. Like he's just playing basketball. He's in the eighth grade and he played last year. He scored no points the whole year. And then last night was the third game of his basketball season. He scored no points in the first two games of the year. Last night, he scores his first point. And then I was like, wow, he scored his first point. Then dude went on to get a double double—21 points, 10 rebounds. He absolutely went off last night. So I'm pretty proud of my kid right now, my 14 year old. Cause he went from scoring no points to his first game he scored and he got a double double. So he's doing good.

    JEFF: We're celebrating with you, but I'm also like, my heart says, I mean, what if there's some dads listening that feel like I've been scoring no points, right? I mean, it's just such an easy parallel, right? I've been scoring no points and it might not be incremental. It might not be finally you get that first dad win. It might actually be that when the first dad win comes, it's 20, the double double. So we're praying that for you guys listening right now. And truly the idea of me like looking for the dad a step ahead of me saying, hey, looking for some encouragement, what are you learning?

    I thought it was a fun story, a set up story. I was reading something you wrote maybe eight years ago and you had discovered a young painter named Dellenbaugh. Did I get his name right, Dellenbaugh?

    CARL: Yeah.

    JEFF: Okay. Now this painter went out in the early 1900s and was painting the Zion Canyon of the valley, I mean, Zion National Park. My family, we got a chance to experience for two days on our RV trip. And this area, the Zion Canyon in Utah, my goodness, he was painting this and people, if I have this right, people out East were like, he's making it up, he's making it up. And then you brought this parallel in of, man, sometimes we go looking for the wonder, we go looking for the treasures and we write home, we tell others about it, and they're gonna be like, it's so crazy, I hardly even believe it. But then again, it takes courage to go adventure out there and see it for yourself.

    So my question to you, to use that as a setup, and you can kind of paint in the gaps as far as your family, this trip, and how you found yourself there. What are you finding that you're like to the younger dads? Man, I want to like, this could be anything, Carl, just like, what are some things you're finding that you're like, I want to tell you dads because what's ahead is beautiful and it's amazing. Is there anything in that category that you're like, you could share with us?

    CARL: Yeah, sure. Well, I would say the season of parenting that I'm in right now where my sons are, they're too strong for me to wrestle with them now. You know what I mean? Well, I mean, I could do it, they would defeat me quickly. They've become, all of them have become these strong men. And I would say the thing that distinguished a season ago with the boys was that we did a lot of wrestling. We actually had wrestling night on Tuesday night and you do two things on wrestling night. You make a pizza and you take your shirt off and fight. And that was something that the boys, they lived for that because it was relational and physical connection with me.

    And that's what we do. We just wrestle. And I would say, I'll give you all a dollar if you can pin me down. And they would just try so hard and they would try so hard. So to the dad looking back, that seems like such a, I don't know, almost a forgettable little thing that dads do with their kids. But we built in some consistency with that and the boys learned to look forward to that. And it was time in my presence and time with them. We always used to make a pizza.

    And it was absolutely a mess because they would be like, dad, let's make pizza and we want to help. Well, to be frank, I did not need their help. I did not want their help. Their help was actually hurting. You know what I mean? I could make a pizza much better by myself, but I dignified them by saying, come into this work with me, not because you're good at it, but because I like you and because I love you and help me. And they get their dignity from that.

    And so for the dad out there, and for me, even at whatever stage of life, anybody's at along the way, if you're doing something like being a dad and you wanna be awesome at it, just remember that the Spirit of God has assigned you and authorized you to be where you are and who you are as a father, but not because you're good at it, on your own merit, but it's because you're being dignified by being invited into God's work through you and in you. And the boys, you know, we lived for those moments. And as a dad, I look back and I think, how did we do that? How did that happen? Well, it didn't happen in any other way, but by God's grace, dignifying us by inviting us in and us just saying, yeah, we'll try.

    And now I look at the boys and that, I mean, they're huge, they're monsters. We just went to get our family picture made, you know, on a Christmas card thing. And about two or three minutes in, the photographer says, excuse me, Mr. Cartee, I'm going to have to ask you to stand up on a box because you look too small. But when I see those boys, I see what God has done in them. And I just got to help. I just got dignified by being invited in to help them. And that's what I really would, that's what I'd say to, you know, looking back, what is God showing me?

    If you see these guys launching out and succeeding in different venues, cheer for them, celebrate them, take pride in what's happened. But also remember that you were just been dignified by being invited in. If it turns out great, awesome. Even if there's no guarantees that these boys go up and to the right for the rest of their life, that's a false sense of, that makes parenting about me. But knowing that God has invited me in, dignified me to help shape these men. That's a great gift and I cherish that part of this journey.

    JEFF: I love that the simplicity and the bringing the bar down of like, hey, let's take some of the pressure off. Like, what a gift that I've been invited in and we can't control. We can't control. One thing we can control is you wrote in the same piece titled Explore, and I'll link it in the show notes. It's this blog post from years ago, but you wrote: For my life as a Christian, the work is similar. You're referring to this artist in painting and inviting people to imagine and see what they haven't seen yet in person.

    So you wrote, for my life as a Christian, the work is similar. Explore the depths and heights of who God is and as his glory unfolds, try to capture it in a song or a word or an act of love. We share in hopes that those who see it will want to go there for themselves and find the same wonder and beauty revealed to us. Like, just, to me, I found myself when I read that, just like my heart coming alive of like, that's what I want to do as a dad is go find and then share with my words, with the way I serve my family, with my playfulness, with my wrestling, share something that then they will want to go find for themselves. I just love, could you just take that and unpack that a little further for us what your heart behind that is?

    CARL: Yeah, well, I'm a creative at heart and I've made my living as a songwriter and speaker and I paint and draw all the time, almost every day. That's kind of like, that's kind of who I am as my wiring. And I've got a heart though to not just be creative for like creativity's sake. I want it to lead people somewhere and I feel like the expression is kind of like if you try to give your wife, if you forget your wife's birthday or forget your anniversary and you use the old phrase, well, it's the thought that counts. Well, it's actually not the thought that counts. It's the expression of the thought that really counts.

    So God has wired me to have this creative capacity, but it's not without purpose. It's not without intention. And so, I look at what I've been given, how I'm wired, and I think of it as a way to point people to Jesus. I think of it as a way to paint a picture of the gospel or write music that points people to the gospel. And that's been kind of something that has been refined in me because, if I was honest, I'd say early on, being a musician, making my living playing music was something that I was ambitious for, but it was also something beneath the surface, I was ambitious for something else, which was approval, platform, something that I could, you know, validation, all of those kinds of things were something that were also driving me.

    But I feel like the Lord has, you know, I'm 51, as the Lord has allowed me to grow older and deeper in my faith, some of those things have eased their grip on me. And the tip of the spear is sharpening a little bit so that who I am has a clearer purpose, not in validation or getting accolades or wealth or anything like that, but that I would be known as a creative person. I could still be known as somebody like that, but the output and the objective of the output has been transformed by the Spirit of God.

    JEFF: Yeah, I love this phrase. Let's make sure I get this right. You wrote, as a family motto, together is better. Together is better. What does that mean for your family?

    CARL: Well, it's literal and we like to be together. We eat meals together almost every week. Probably I'd say at this point, the complexity of life, the boys are older, the complexity of their life, they all have jobs, they all go play sports, the complexity, but we fight for togetherness and that our family is marked not just by, you know, a metaphorical togetherness, you know, and we try to preserve unity and communication, stuff like that. But there's something incarnational about gathering around a table, being with somebody where you can reach out and touch them, where you can be close, literally close.

    And we actually, we sing the same song every meal we eat, and we sing a song, and we sing the same song. And it's a way of saying, hey, we're together, we're present. The song, people have sang it. I don't know where I learned it, but it just says, be present at our table, Lord. Be here and everywhere adored. These creatures bless and grant that we may feast in paradise with thee. It's like, God, be present at this table so that we're together with each other. And we have lived as best we can to embody stuff like that. Together is better, certainly, than being in isolation.

    None of us are built to be alone, but together is better in culture as well. The things that we are building together, we're moving towards unity because we share these values. We share gospel impact that we hope for. We share the broken parts of ourselves and it's okay. We share how to say I'm sorry. We share, you know, sometimes we'll do like a high and a low, you know, some people call it roses and thorns, you know, what was your day? But both things matter. And that's about being together. It's not about being together in the great times, you know, when everything is, you know, on the plus side. It's actually, there's a lot of value in being together when you feel shame, when you feel like you didn't score 20 points. You didn't score any points, you know, there's a different experience that you can have when that's your lived experience. There's a different outcome when you do that alone or when you do that with somebody who's there for you if you're on the mountaintop or the valley.

    JEFF: I'm curious about the differences of approaching your oldest son in the like getting a cell phone, for example, and what you're doing with your youngest. Just I'm curious what you've learned in this journey. And then specifically, I'd love for you to share what happened when your oldest turned 18 as far as just like all controls removed like that that moment as well would be fascinating. But yeah, what are a few of the things that you would shift in guiding me with my oldest being 12? What would be some of the things learned?

    CARL: So our oldest son, his name is Oak, and we were real reluctant to go with technology or anything like that. So we did let him have a phone when he turned 13. Hindsight, I feel like that was a mistake. I wouldn't do it like that again. He just basically had a lockdown phone where he could call and text his friends. It's almost like once you uncork the thing, then it becomes a constant problem to manage. And without it, you don't have to manage it.

    So my 14-year-old, he still doesn't have a phone. And of course, he's the weirdest kid at school, everyone thinks he's a huge nerd, and all that stuff. It's not true, but that's what he would say. But we didn't have... We don't have phones yet for my 14 year old. I have two more, my 17 year old, 16 year old, they have phones because they're driving. And I think that makes sense. And honestly, they're still locked down. We told the boys, you can have social media when you become a grown man, because grown men can handle pressure in ways that young men can't. And that's our 18, that's a threshold.

    So I've got one that's about to turn 18 in the beginning of next year. And I'm already talking to them about, I'm gonna increase the pressure on your life. Not because I wanna hurt you or anything like that, but because I'm increasing the pressure on your life because you have to increase capacity by increasing pressure. You have to feel this pressure so that you can either rise to it or let it crush you, but you gotta feel it. And it's like driving, you know? Driving's dangerous. Driving is scary. You could hurt someone if you don't do it right. And it's good pressure. You need to feel that. You need to feel the pressure of like, I'm driving. I have to level up so that I can protect not only myself, but those around me. It's good for the boys.

    So yeah, when my oldest son turned 18, I told him, I said, what would you want to do to mark your 18th birthday? And he said, I know exactly what I want to do. He said, I want you to take me and four of my buddies to this fancy restaurant in Nashville called Bourbon Steak. Very high-end restaurant, the top of a hotel. It's great, views of the city. I mean, it's like, I've been there only a couple times before because it's like special date night type thing. He said, I want to go there and I want four of my buddies to go with us. And so we all dressed up.

    And, and like, you know, we look like mobsters, honestly. The server came up to the table and he was like, okay, what's going on here? He's like, there's one old guy in the middle and you're flanked by these, you know, like young, young guys. He's like, it looks like a mob thing. But anyway, I told my son's friends, I said, dinner's on me. All you have to do is bring a word of encouragement for Oak. That's all you have to do. And so the night comes, we're sitting around the table, everyone's ordering food, it was just amazing. And then I was like, all right, guys, now's the time where I want you to share what you brought for Oak.

    And each one of these four guys went around the table and to a man, all of them said, Oak, I found my place because you invited me in. Thank you for that. They didn't coordinate with each other or anything, but they pointed out to my son that they had found their place in their friend group and in their community because Oak had invited them in. And it was transformative to me. I would have never been able to engineer or manufacture that outcome. But I think it happened because Oak watched his mother and I just eat with people at the table all the time. You know what I mean? And so he kind of set a pretty high bar, so all his other brothers, I think I'm going to have to take all of them to a fancy dinner. But that's what we did when he turned 18. And now he's a sophomore at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, studying to be a pastor.

    JEFF: Yes, okay. One of the pieces though on his, so for Oak on his phone when he turned 18, you'd say like, you're a man now, you can handle not having all of these parental, like what was the, when you talked earlier about like adding pressure at the age of 17 to be ready for that freedom. Yeah. Yeah, could you just explain a little more technology wise, what that led to as far as, is it still a wrestle or is there trust that he's asking you for advice? I'm just curious what that looks like now as a young man.

    CARL: I'll tell you, it was very interesting to Heather and I, my wife, when Oak turned 18, we're like, you can have social media now, you know, proceed with caution. But it's on you. Up to that point, you know, we had used all of the parental controls and things like that to just monitor and limit, you know, what he could have on his phone, things like that. And he got it. I think he had it for about six weeks and then deleted it again.

    And he was just like, you know, I don't know. Over the course, he's going to be 20 next year. Over the course, we've talked about it a lot. And sometimes he'll, you know, like sports season, you know, he'll get it, you know, cause he's looking at sports and things like that. But he's realized that it probably, you know, can be a helpful tool, but measuring the cost to value of that in his life at all times and scrolling and taking all that in. He's come to his own conclusion that it's a struggle and probably a struggle that's not worth being tempted by in a lot of seasons.

    And I think all our kids are gonna be different in that. We've done this thing where we, and I know you've addressed this on the podcast before, but we talk to the boys about sex a lot, often, early and often and trying to move away from the kind of the cultural norm of like you have one big talk about sex and then that takes care of everything. That's actually, I think, very unhealthy from a standpoint of, you know, it's probably more harmful than it is good. If you're only gonna talk about it once, you might as well not talk about it at all because you leave so many unanswered questions.

    And we've talked about sex with the boys a lot and worked hard to normalize, hey, talking about human sexuality and sexual desire and sexual behavior is fine, it's fine. You're not breaking any rules. You're supposed to talk about this stuff. You were built this way, so it's okay to talk about it. And it's been awesome to learn that the boys are pretty open. Sometimes they say stuff to Heather, she's like, man, I wish they wouldn't have said that to me. But it's been good to have them circle back to us when they begin to struggle with sexual desire or sexual temptation, things like that, they're bringing it to us.

    And honestly, I'm so grateful for it because it speaks of they've got some health in that area. Because, man, I know in my own life, shame as a young man was an absolute killer. It was just absolute destroyer of relational connection and intimacy, but you harbor that shame and you don't have any place to bring it. Man, it can rot you quick. And it's been good to see the boys, they're having the same struggle, but they're managing it in a different way and they have a different way of going about it.

    JEFF: I think there's overlap in that conversation and openness and safety of talking to your boys about sex, about God's plan, about their bodies changing, about pornography. I think there's overlap in that conversation with another conversation that I know you're deeply passionate about, which is selection picking, prayerfully picking a future spouse, right? So you're training, you're equipping your boys, you're helping remind them like, this is what we're looking for. This is what God's best is as far as looking for. I'd love for you to share a little bit, Carl, about the decision point that your boys will all step towards of pursuing dating relationships, picking a spouse, and how even that might overlap with a backstory of 10, 15 years of open conversations about sex and about the way God's designed marriage. Can you kind of take us into that and the importance?

    CARL: You know, we live in a pretty diverse community and there's a bunch of people around us that they have arranged marriages. Their marriages were arranged. Like guys that are like my age and they met their wives a couple of days before they got married. And so like that's pretty wild. You know, talk about the management of connection, you know, and picking a spouse, yeah, well, let me, I'm gonna handle this for you.

    So we've seen that extreme and that's amazing and wild. And in some ways it's like very familial and very like, you know, I wouldn't, I'm glad it didn't happen to me and I wouldn't like try to do it, but I see some value in it and some beauty in it. And then on the other side of the coin, there's just like, yeah, just marry, you know, whoever you want to, whenever you want to, many times as you want to.

    And the place where we land with that, with the boys, is that the mate that you choose, the wife of your youth, is of incalculable consequence. It is, I mean, I wish someone would have told me that. Jeff, I'll just be frank with you. Sometimes I feel like, when I married Heather, I feel like I just got a winning lottery ticket. You know what I mean? It's just like, I wish I would have thought, my gosh, or even been able to recognize that this woman is going to be for me through multiple seasons of my life, exactly God's gift for me. I wish I could have known that. I did not. I was like, when I was 25 years old, I was like, this woman is going to be for me a very sexy person and somebody who I'm super into. You know what I mean? That's about as far as I was taking it.

    And we always tell the boys, don't marry somebody that you necessarily think is sexy right now. That's helpful, but look for somebody that you like being with. Because when it comes to like physical appearance and seasons of life and circumstances throughout the course of a marriage, we've been married 27 years. In one way or another, although I've been married to Heather this whole time, you might be able to say that I've been married to two or three different women because she changes. You know, a woman who doesn't have kids is very different than a woman who does have kids. And then a woman who does have kids is very different than a woman who's seen her nest empty. And then her own body is changing. It's an actual panorama of different human experiences.

    And so, the thing about being with Heather is that I feel like God has blessed me with the most is that I like being with her. She's funny. Like we have a good time together. And I'm not talking about just sexually or anything that I was really focused on when I was 25. I'm talking about, I like her. She's funny. We have a good time together. The things that she cares about, I care about. The things that I care about, she cares about. Are we different? Yes.

    Our whole podcast is how to be married to somebody who's nothing like you. That's like a thing, but I actually, even though she's nothing like me, I actually like her a lot. And we tell the boys, be careful and use as much wisdom as you can when you are, you know, choosing a mate, going out with a girl, you know, our three younger boys, they don't have girlfriends, never have, but Oak is at that place where everybody usually meets and marries. Those college years, that's when I met my wife and got married. I know that's a lot of people's story and I think about it all the time and I'm like, dude, you can't be too careful. And I also know that the grace of God will cover him. But my hope is that when he makes a choice, he makes it because it's like, yeah, I like this person for a myriad of reasons. I like being with them. I don't know if that was helpful or not.

    JEFF: So helpful. My gladness that I feel right now, Carl, and you talking about, and I know the back story of like, I know some of your story of taking these 10 year old trips and taking a conversation intentionally through this whole decade and the way you're emphasizing the importance of the decision and just thinking about the comfort. There's already young men, their brains are developing, there's all kinds of insecurities and dating relationships is like, man, a source of like acceptance and then, you know, hormones, you know, testosterone's going crazy and you're thinking about like, again, physical appearance only, like it's all these factors and just safety of talking with dad.

    When I think of young men, safety of talking with dad about all this and the richness of marriage and the joy of marriage and the best friend adventure of marriage. That to me, like, so it makes so much sense what you're sharing. I'm so grateful. Yes, yes. I'm realizing we don't have time to get through all of your parenting playbook, but you do have, you came up with a couple core principles around, I think it's called the five plays in your parenting playbook. Is that the way you frame it? Is it a parenting playbook or do I have that right?

    CARL: I think so. I think that was an episode of the podcast.

    JEFF: We did, yeah. So it's a two part, which I will link the two part to send our dads over to your marriage podcast, which would be amazing. Just to highlight at a high level, you talked about church being part one of those plays, specific time priorities, parenting for character over outcomes, focused on character traits they're building. And then anyways, there's a little bit more, but is there one or two things from this like, man, this matters for parents that you would want to share with the dads. Anything that you'd want to just extract to share a little principle as we kind of come to a close.

    CARL: Yeah, I would say that the church thing is being involved in the local church has been something that I have emphasized. Now I worked as a pastor for a long time. I'm not a pastor right now in a local church setting on staff at a church, but we had for a long time. And so my boys, my boys grew up in church and they're church kids.

    Sometimes that even has like carries with it a connotation of you think, you know, man, it's a certain type of kid or for us, for Heather and I, the family of God, the people of God shaping and speaking into and failing even my boys, but having Christ at the center of a gathering, having Christ at the center of a community is a picture of life, it's a picture of marriage, it's a picture of relationships that you could replicate it in a secular setting, but you couldn't replicate a better version of it than the people of God trying their best, stumbling and fumbling and failing and falling, but trying their best to live in community with Christ at the center. I think that's a good picture of every marriage.

    People that aren't married need a good picture of what a good marriage could look like. A good marriage looks like one where two people are struggling, but they're trying to keep Christ at the center. That's a good picture. A work relationship, you can contextualize that with church. There's gonna be conflict. There's gonna be, I wanna go this direction, you wanna go that direction. How do I submit well? How do I lead well with confidence? All those things, you can learn those things in the context of a local church gathering. And believe you me, our family, we loved it and we have suffered from it. We have struggled because of it. And all of it has taught us so much about what God's picture is for us.

    And so for the dad who's maybe passive about going to church or maybe your investment, your priority is in travel sports over the local church, that's kind of pushing a lot of buttons and getting a lot of people's nerves maybe. I would ask you to preferably consider, God, what do you want me to do about this? What do you need me to know about this? In regards to your investment in the local body of Christ, I think that makes an immense difference because where you fall short, the local church probably has an outlet for you to, for somebody to pick you up. You know what I mean? So that's a thought, man. That's the first thing that popped in my mind when you asked me that question.

    JEFF: Yeah, it's amazing. And I will make sure the dads can find the other pieces to that parenting playbook just to go after more wisdom in the show notes. But Carl, I'm so grateful. Thank you for just taking time with a relatively new friend. We just met a couple of weeks ago and you're like, let's go, let's hop on. You've shared so much wisdom that's helpful. First, was there anything else we didn't hit that you're like, oh, real quick, I want to share this with the dads. Any last topic?

    CARL: You know, something I was thinking about this morning, if you read in the Bible the Psalms, there are about 10 Psalms attributed to this group of guys called the Sons of Korah. I don't know if you know about the Sons of Korah, but if you look in your Psalms, the Sons of Korah, and you're like, who are the Sons of Korah? Well, there's a famous story in the Old Testament about Korah's rebellion.

    Korah rebelled against Moses and basically said, hey, you know, me and all these guys, we think we're just as good as you are. We're not gonna submit to your leadership anymore. And Moses says, well, let's put God to the test. And it turns out the Lord picked Moses because the Bible says that the earth opened up and swallowed Korah and all his people in a rebellion. Well, in a genealogy, not too long over there, there's a little mention of this. It says, but all the sons of Korah didn't die. So there was a remnant of the sons of Korah that go on.

    And then later on in the Psalms, you see the sons of Korah are writing Psalm 46, which says, we will not fear, though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. They're calling back to something that happened to their fathers. Our fathers were in rebellion, but now we're rewriting a story. We will not be afraid. We will call on the name of the Lord. God is our refuge and strength.

    Even though the earth gives way, even though the thing that happened to our fathers could happen, we will not be afraid because our hope is in the Lord God. And so for the dads, no matter what heritage you have, bringing it forward to where you are right now, if God is your refuge and strength, there is nothing from your past, there's nothing from the generations before you that you cannot undo through the power of worship and trusting in the Lord for where you are and who you are right now. It's His strength. He is the refuge that you need to move forward. Even though the earth gives way, you are changing the story of what you inherited and you're rewriting legacy. So keep going in the name of Jesus. You can do it.

    JEFF: Thank you so much for joining us today for episode 408 with Carl Cartee. We mentioned their playbook as a family, their parenting playbook, and I'm gonna link to, there are two podcast episodes where he really unpacks that with his wife. So if you wanna go deeper with Carl, go to dadawesome.org slash podcast and look for episode 408. I wanna encourage you guys, walk in that same courage, walk in that same strength that Carl kinda commissioned us out with. Let's press in knowing God is for us, he has equipped us, he is with us, and he is glad that we are stepping in with our full hearts and that we're prayerfully pursuing the hearts of our kids. So I celebrate you guys, but I'm also cheering for you to walk in strength, walk in strength this week. Have a good week, guys.

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    END OF TRANSCRIPT

    • "God has dignified me by inviting me into His work through my sons. If it turns out great, awesome. But even if there are no guarantees these boys go up and to the right for the rest of their life, I cherish being invited in."

    • "Together is better—not just in the great times, but when you feel shame, when you didn't score any points. There's a different outcome when you do that alone versus when you do it with somebody who's there for you on the mountaintop or in the valley."

    • "Don't marry somebody that you necessarily think is sexy right now. Look for somebody that you like being with. Because when it comes to seasons of life and circumstances throughout the course of a marriage, you might be married to two or three different women."

    • "Shame as a young man was an absolute killer. It was an absolute destroyer of relational connection and intimacy. When the boys bring their struggles to us instead of harboring that shame, it speaks of health in that area."

    • "No matter what heritage you have, if God is your refuge and strength, there is nothing from your past, nothing from the generations before you that you cannot undo through the power of worship and trusting in the Lord. You are rewriting legacy."

 

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Jeff Zaugg
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