Leif and Daniel discuss ways in which parents can be equipped to help model holiness to children. This is part 3 of 3.
Parent Forum Learning Community Event
SHOW LINKS
BeLED Family Podcast Ep 21 | The Fight For Holiness
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TRANSCRIPT
INTRO
This is the BeLED Family Podcast.
LEIF
I don't think it's a conversation, because if that's all you're doing, you're not truly having that impact and that discipleship in your child's life.
DANIEL
Welcome back to the BELED Family Podcast where we learn to become Light Entrusted Disciples. God has called us to Be. BeLight: Who are you in Jesus or know who you are in Jesus; BeEntrusted: What does He call us to do; and BeDisciples: To whom does God call us to live in community with? This is the third part of a three part series. We have been talking to Leif. Leif, How are you?
LEIF
I'm doing well for having me back a third time, Daniel.
DANIEL
Hey, three times a charm. This is, you know, the first two times weren’t so good. So we figured the third time…
LEIF
Perfect, one more chance for redemption.
DANIEL
We’ll really try to get it right. One more chance. We've been talking specifically about pornography. More the first episode, more of Leif's testimony with it. The second episode, kind of the battle in the…, not the battle, but the counseling side of it and some of the principles from there just scratching the surface.
DANIEL
And on this one we are going to talk about some more practical steps. We're going to talk as fathers of children. I have a little bit older children. Leif has more younger children. But as fathers, what does that mean as parents? And how to maybe have some conversations with your children about that. And again, as we alluded in the last episode, come early November, we are going to have, if you're local to the La Crosse area, a Parent Forum Learning Community, that's what we call it in my local congregation, where it’s a chance where we can gather in person together. Leif is going to be there and be willing to answer questions that you as a listener might have about some of these things. And so as you listen today, there's questions you want to write down. And you know that you can be there. Write them down. And if you can't be there, we'd love for you to email those questions in to us. And maybe we will record that Parent Forum Learning Community so that people can watch that and kind of see that their question was asked and hear Leif’s response or other responses from the Parent Forum Learning Community as other parents contribute to that as well.
DANIEL
So Leif, we have been talking in-depth about this tough subject, but yet it's a subject that we want to redeem for the Lord we want to take back, and something that we want to bring a biblical perspective on. Thinking about you and I, as dads, as fathers, as husbands, you know, what are some things that come to mind for you? And then I'll share it after you. But you know as we think about this pornography battle that you have been very open about. I have a history of pornography battle. You shared about confessing to Dori. I remember the first time I had to confess that to Kelly, my wife. It was awful. Hated it. And we can talk about how she responded, maybe how Dori responded. But as fathers, what are some things that you are, I don't know if it's concern is the right word, but just something that like, as a father, this is something I'm mindful of with my children.
LEIF
I think before I get into that, just because we were talking about the Parent Forum Learning Community, just a quick thought on that. Just, I'm excited about that opportunity to share with people. Not because I feel like I have tons of answers, or, I've shared with you, not that I even feel particularly qualified. I'm not a pastor. I'm not a counselor. I'm not, you know, I don't have any credentials, as it were, but I'm excited to share because I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. I've spent a lot of time going through it and pursuing it. And so, I don't often think of myself as having a ton of thoughts on things, or I'm slow to come to thoughts. But I realize when I start talking about this journey that I've gone through because of the amount of time that I've spent with others and pursuing righteousness in the Lord, I have a lot of thoughts that keep jumping into my mind, and so I enjoy getting to share those and what the Lord has taught me through that.
DANIEL
Yeah.
LEIF
And so yeah, just excited to have that opportunity to maybe share with others or be able to ask questions for somebody that that maybe hadn't spent as much time thinking about it, “And here's some thoughts I have,” because I find that so helpful. Just to hear other people's thoughts. And not that you have to think the same thing as me, but it helps me process, “What do I truly feel?” I hear somebody else share about it and I think, “That makes sense, ” or “I don't know about that,” but it just gets my thoughts going to hear somebody else's. And so I'm excited to share my thoughts and maybe get your thoughts going.
DANIEL
And that's the beauty of the Parent Forum Learning Community that we've done at my local congregation for the past several years. Is that we have a topic, but then it's the parents together. And it's not just parents. There are people there who aren't married. Younger people, older people, grandparents that we can have a conversation. Where we're learning from each other. And I think that's great. So going back to our original question here, you know, as fathers, what comes to mind when you think about this topic in your children?
LEIF
Yeah, absolutely. I think probably the biggest thought that I have, something Dori and I talk about, is how as we're raising sons and daughters, how can we best point them towards the Lord and train them in this too. If we can have them avoid some of the stuff I went through. And so I just think about that, “How can I set my son up, my daughter's up to do something different than what I did? How can I be there for them? How can I lay that foundation to prepare them?” Because our world, we know we live in a sinful world. We know that the devil is actively working to take people down. He doesn't want people to pursue the Lord. And so just preparing them for how can they be ready to go out into this world because it's filled with trials? We know that. The Bible says that. So how can we set them up so that they're not blindsided? Well, one thing Dori and I've talked about is, I was homeschooled, I loved it, and as Dori and I talked about do we want to homeschool our kids or not? You know, do we, homeschoolers, as a category versus people that were homeschooled, can have a negative connotation I think in some people's minds. It's become a lot more popular these days, but they come across as nerdy and unsocialized and awkward. And I don't want that. But what I do want is I want to protect my children.
LEIF
And I've talked about that with Dori. I want to protect our children, but I want my children… I want to protect their innocence, but I don't want them to be ignorant. And so I want to teach them, “Hey, here are the lies that the devil is going to teach you.” But again, just like with this podcast, it does not have to be in a graphic, unglorifying way that it's addressed. So, “Hey, how does the Bible talk about these types of things?” And so, I'm going to tell them, “Hey, pornography is a thing. Hey, here's what sex is, but here's what God says about it. And here's what the lies the devil are going to tell you about it when you go out in the world.” So that they know, right? I remember hearing a pastor, they did a Q&A session, and they kind of ended and talked about it. And this pastor shared, you know, that that was kind of the way that he addressed this with his children. His sons initially was like a, “first off, hey, what does the Bible say about this?” And then he'd talk with them again, say, “hey, what are some of the lies you're going to hear about this?” And then kind of how do you pursue that? And that's really what I want to do. I want to be the one that my kids learn about things from.
DANIEL
Right? Right.
LEIF
I want them to hear about pornography from me first, because I want them to know what the Bible says about it, what God says about it, so that the first thing they hear isn't the lies of the world.
DANIEL
In your opinion. Leif, what age do you think is it appropriate for parents to have a conversation with their children about this?
LEIF
Yeah, absolutely. The first thoughts that sprang to my mind when you phrase that is, A: I don't think it's a conversation that we have with them. I know growing up, you know, it's the whole concept of, “Oh, I got to have the conversation of the birds and the bees.” Side note, I actually don't even understand how that conversation is supposed to go. What do birds and bees have to do with each other? Anyways, you know, I don't think it's a conversation because if that's all you're doing, you're not truly having that impact, and that discipleship in your child's life. As for what age, my thoughts are, I mean, you're going to have age appropriate conversations.
DANIEL
Correct.
LEIF
But again, we know people, kids, can be exposed to pornography, 12, 10, maybe even as early as 8. And I want to beat them there. And not that I'm going to jump into, “Hey, here are all the graphic details,” but, you know, I know kids are constantly learning. They're curious, they're discounting. You know, like we have boys and girls. And so they already recognize at this point we're different. Boys and girls are different, right? And so we're going to start having a conversation about what's the difference between boys and girls, and what's okay for boys and girls. “Hey, you can't change in the same room.” “Why not?” “Well, because, you know, these are, our bodies are private.” And so you start, you know, we want to start having those conversations, and we start simple. We start, age appropriate. But I want it to be calm, and I want it to be familiar because I don't want it to be like, “Oh, my dad's sitting me down and we're having this big talk.”
DANIEL
The talk.
LEIF
You know, like it's awkward. Even if it's something that you just do once in a while. “Hey, once a month we're going to sit down and talk.” It's kind of like, “Oh boy.” I think of D6, right. Deuteronomy 6 talking about, you know, teach these to your children as you walk along the way, as you eat, as you lay down. It's just a part of life, things that you have to be attentive, you have to be there and willing and able to recognize these as opportunities. But you just throw it out. You don't make a big deal out of it, because if you make a big deal out of it, they know, “Oh, this topic's a big deal.” But if it's just natural and you just throw it out there and maybe you talk about it a lot, maybe you talk about a little bit. It's not weird for them,
DANIEL
Right.
LEIF
And you set the tone, and you set the tone of not awkward and transparent and open, and then you know what? Your kids are going to feel comfortable coming to you with their questions because you already told them about it.
DANIEL
I remember the first time that I talked to my oldest son. At the time there was this, quite a while ago, my wife said, “Hey, you know, maybe you should talk to our son because,” you know, and I’m like, “okay.” And so it just happened to be he and I at the kitchen table. Everyone else was gone. I don't recall why they were gone. And I just said to my son, I said, “Hey, are you interested in, do you want to know how babies are made?” And he's like, “Yeah.” So at that moment I could feel my body temp start to rise and I knew, “Okay, this is, this is what it.” And like you said, Leif, I had a more age appropriate thing to it. And we talked a lot about that anatomy and talked about what that looks like, what that means. And then at the end of the conversation, I asked him what he thought. And he said that particular conversation. He goes, “Okay, you know, God created sex and it's a beautiful thing. But outside of marriage it's sin.” Like, “Okay, great, we got it.” You know, going through that was really good.
DANIEL
And then later on, shortly after that, I was with both of my sons and we talked about pornography in the room. I think there were ages seven and five, maybe even six and four. I don't recall. But they were younger and I gave a really basic definition of what pornography is. And I said, if you were to happen to see this on your screens or whatever you come tell Mom and Dad right away that it came up, because I know it can pop up, I know that it can just appear out of nowhere. So just come tell Mom and Dad. You’re never gonna be in trouble. Because let's bring light to a sin that wants to remain in the darkness.
LEIF
Yes.
DANIEL
Marianne way back in our podcast, she said “Sin is a strange plant because it grows in the darkness and dies in the light.” And so I said, “Let's bring this to light.” And we told our sons, “Hey, Mom and Dad, we're going to be the ones that define all of this, so that when there's questions, you guys can come to us.” “When you see darkness trying to infiltrate, you come to us because we're your authority and the Lord's our authority, so ultimately the Lord's our authority. But let's call this out, let's get it out.” And there have been times since then. I appreciate what you said, Leif, because it wasn't just one, one and done conversation.
LEIF
Yeah.
DANIEL
It's an ongoing, “Hey, how's it going, boys? You know, have you seen something?” And within the last couple of years, I had to take out my son in the car and we had a talk. Like, “You know, we noticed some things on your internet history that weren't appropriate.” And he confessed it right away. And it was, the confession wasn't that he was looking for it, it was just pop ups coming up. And so he did nothing wrong, per se. But I did say, “But you did do wrong because you didn't come tell us that these pop ups are coming up.” You know, he was closing them as quickly as he could, but he didn't. And I said, “There's going to be some consequences because you still didn't do what we asked you to. But thank you for being honest. Thank you for calling it out. Thank you for doing that.” But again, that proves the point that pornography has a way of just finding us. But I love what you said. That the parents, as parents, you need to be having those conversations. Don't rely on even the church to do it or your youth leader to do it. You have that conversation, and there's a lot of great resources out there that can be utilized. And I know that Leif, you've got some that you'll share later that parents can use to do that. But I think the biggest part is just be honest, have honest conversations. And yeah, the initial part of it probably will be awkward.
LEIF
Yeah, but it might be awkward. But again, if you're bringing it up, if you're doing it, and especially if you start young, your kid is probably not going to realize that you feel a little awkward doing it. And the more you do it, the less awkward it's going to feel.
DANIEL
Yeah.
LEIF
But set that tone. And I think, like you said, be honest.
LEIF
I think that's something that I'm sure when my kids grow up, they're going to look back and be like, “I can't believe my dad did things this way. I want to do it differently.” Because I think that's a pretty natural thing. I think everyone has something that they'd probably change about the way their parents parented them, and they want to do it, but I want to make sure my kids know what the Lord has done in my life. And so I want to come to them in a way of honesty, but also humility and just say, you know, I don't want to be afraid to apologize to my children because my kids are going to know I'm not perfect. But if I act like I'm perfect, then they're not going to trust me or believe me because “Dad's too good to say, sorry.” Wrong. My goal as a parent is not to be perfect. My goal as a parent is to model what a life following Christ looks like. And guess what? When you mess up, God calls you to humility and to repentance and ask for forgiveness. And so I'm going to model that for my kids. Same thing in this, I'm going to, you know, when it's an age appropriate and in a way that's right. But I'm going to tell my sons, “Hey, dad's here to help you. And dad wants to do this, and here's what we want to do. And I know, because guess what? Dad messed up for a long time, and Dad did wrong. And let me tell you how much it hurt and how hard it was to come back from that. And so, but I don't want you to feel like if you see something or even if you go look for something, you are a terrible person. Because guess what? I can guarantee dad messed up a lot more than you are going to.”
DANIEL
And that's going to be much more relatable to our children.
LEIF
Yeah.
DANIEL
To know that I hear that often, one tip for our parents, not just with this specific topic, but how many of your children know your story, how many of them know your testimony? And I hear that often, a parent of kids who have come through our youth group that said, I don't even know my own parents' testimony. So maybe even, maybe your family devotions at night is just everyone taking, your mom and dad taking time, Grandpa, grandma, aunt, uncle taking time to share their testimony with children. And you speak here's what God has done.
DANIEL
And then that, it’s specifically to this topic. I love what you said, Leif. I know a friend who does the same with his boys. His boys are both older, have graduated, they’re in college., one's about to be married. And he told me, my friend told me, there's times where he had to go, you know, after the fact, he’d go, “Hey, do you remember when we were at that stand and that girl was there and she was wearing what she's wearing? Do you remember that?” And like, “Yeah, we do actually.” And he's like, “Yeah, dad actually failed too.” And that just built a better bond like you said Leif, it wasn't, it's not a parent exerting like “I'm the parent. I must be authoritative and I must be perfect.” That's not what God has called us to. God has called us to as fathers, as parents, to point our people to Jesus. And I think some of the best way that we point people to Jesus is being real, authentic, honest. And yes, our job as parents is to shepherd a child's heart, but not to us, to the Lord.
LEIF
Yeah.
DANIEL
And so, being honest, I think it is one really good way of doing it. What else comes to mind, Leif, for you as you think about being a dad with your children?
LEIF
Yeah, totally. I mean, man, so many thoughts off of what you're just saying and just this idea of, you know, sharing your testimony because I don't know how often we do that or how often we don't, but even when it comes to me sharing this, I shared earlier, you know, there's some nervousness to share something like this publicly. And this isn't just with my kids, but, you know, remembering when you share your testimony, when you're talking about that, it's to glorify God and not just say, “Hey, guess what? I messed up. Here are all the bad things I did,” but it's to truly say, “Hey, here's what the Lord did in my life. Here's what it looks like to pursue the Lord, and here's his goodness and his faithfulness through that. Right. Tell those stories. That's exciting. Don't keep that to yourself. If the Lord has done a work in your life, share it out of joy that your kids can be excited and celebrate in that. And be excited to see the work that the Lord does in their life or with each other. Share with your friends. I don't know, that's something that we had some movie nights with some friends, and then we decided, ”Hey, instead of movies a couple nights, let's all go around and share a testimony.” Like, it's exciting to do that.
DANIEL
That's one of our goals of this podcast, is to share people's testimonies, to be encouraging, to go, “Oh man, they're really in the trenches with us.” We appreciate the people who are professional and have a real, well, Paul story, too. We appreciate those people. But sometimes you also need to hear, we're with you in that trench, we’re with you and we don't all have it figured out, especially for our children to know mom and dad have faults. Mom and dad have things that we're working through, and to hear testimony I think can be so powerful. And like you said, Leif, in the first episode, sharing your testimony or sharing your struggles with our children with your grandchildren, it honors the Lord because you're saying my story has flaws. It has chapters and seasons that aren't so good, but Jesus came and redeemed me from that sin. He brought me out of the darkness and into the light and son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, neighbor, friend, coworker, you can experience that same joy and forgiveness that God gives. On BeLED, BeLight. Let's talk about BeLight, know who we are in Jesus. I think that's really important when it comes to this. How do you, Leif, how do you and your wife, Dori, help your children know who they are in Jesus?
LEIF
Yeah, totally. I think, I mean things as simple as family devotions, you know, going through that. We have a book called “The Ology,” which when put together is just theology, but it's a children's
DANIEL
Clever way.
LEIF
based book, you know, and so it has all these fun pictures, but it's a real simplified version of a theology for your children. Just to go through that and kind of break down some of those biblical truths by trying to just. And we're by no means perfect in this. So, lots of room to grow. Saying this is a reminder to myself of what I can be doing as a spiritual leader. I know it's easy to hear stuff like this, or same thing, like social media. You're like, “Wow, look, every picture they put is so nice.” And then, every, you know, as soon as that picture is done, you turn around, like, freaking out. That's you're actually really stressed, whatever, right? But, you know, so, but just trying to have those conversations with our kids. Any time that, you know, something comes up or when we're having a tough time, when I mess up, when I get frustrated, or when they get frustrated and just have those conversations, “Hey, what's the Bible say about this? What does God call us to be? Who are we in Christ? What does that look like?” And try to tie those things back to it, not just, “Hey, don't be angry. You got to control. You got to control your emotions. That's not good. That's not. You don’t want to act like that in public,” but yeah, that's true, but we're not seeking morality for morality’s sake. We're seeking to pursue godliness and righteousness. And so why are we doing it? Have those conversations.
DANIEL
I think it's really important I've said this before, that accountability is not telling a person what they've done wrong necessarily. Accountability is reminding a person who they are in Jesus. What does Jesus say? Jesus says, you are loved, that you're forgiven, that you're mine, that you're chosen, that you're betrothed. And then once you've established who a person is. And even for you immediately, for our listeners, we need to know who we are in Jesus. That's the light that God calls us to. And if we know who we are in Jesus, that's going to help our children know who they are in Jesus. And then, the other part of accountability is then, how does your life, what you're doing, follow who God says you are? Because there's going to be things we do that, “that's not who Jesus says we are,” and that's sin. And that cuts us off from the Lord, so confess it. You know, because Jesus says we can, because Jesus says this. The second part is BeEntrusted. As we think about equipping and helping our parents understand how to have conversations with their kids or grandchildren about pornography. These fundamental principles are really important. BeEntrusted. What does God call us to? How do you, Leif, and your wife, Dori, help your children know what God expects of them?
LEIF
Kind of going back to some of the things we talked about, I think so much of it is modeling just through our own story and through our life. You know, that humility of showing our children, “Hey, here's what it's like when dad messes up. Here's what you do. And you know what? Sometimes you mess up too, right Bud?”
DANIEL
Yeah.
LEIF
“Here's what God's calling you to do in those times that you mess up,” or you know, again, making sure to tie it back to Scripture. Why are we doing this? What does Jesus say? You know, and pointing out the biblical principles behind, you know, the commandments of what God has called us to do and just really meditating on that. As I was going through some of the Psalms the other day, I was just struck by how many times that it refers to meditating on God's law and just, you know, that idea of of just focusing on that and just going over it again and, you know, I didn't do any studying in it, and per se of any word studies or anything like that. But when I hear, you know, God's law, I think of, you know, or “On His commands, I meditate,” you know, His laws, the Ten Commandments, like, “What has God called us to?” And I think sometimes, at least for myself, I think, “Yeah, we have the law, but here's the freedom that we have in Christ.” But, you know, how often do I meditate on what God has commanded me to? What is the standard that God has set, not just, “Hey, here's the freedom that we have in Christ,” because we do have freedom. But what is this standard that we're called to uphold? And how inadequately we're able to do that without Christ? You know, but just to meditate on those things, to remember and remember with your children, right? Take time to look at the Word of God together.
DANIEL
And with that Leif, I think of Galatians chapter 5, where Paul tells us, you know, “walk by the Spirit.” And you said this earlier, but, you know, another friend of mine said that the goal of Christian parenting is not to raise Christian children, it’s to live holy, godly lives. And so it's important as parents, as grandparents, as friends, community, neighbors, whatever it might be, that we're walking by the Spirit. Because then Paul lays out in Galatians all the fruits of the Spirit. But when we're not, those deeds of darkness, it leaves room for the deeds of darkness to infiltrate and take over. And so, as parents, the first and primary goal: What has God called us to do? It calls us to be walking by the Spirit and then teaching our children along the way. And going back to what we said earlier, talking through testimonies, talking through being honest with our children and being…It sounds so simple.
LEIF
Yeah.
DANIEL
But you and I, Leif, both know that that’s sometimes hard to play out. So the last part is BeDisciples: Who does God call us to live in community with? When I think of that Leif, I think about my children, the interactions they have with their friends at the different things they do, from robotics to gymnastics to karate to youth group, any of those things. God has called our children to BeLight, know who you are. You know, what does God call us to do? Walk in the Spirit, go to the Lord, and then you're going to interact with people. And I think I want to teach my children to be open with them, not blatantly open, but rely on the body of Christ. There will be times that you're going to need to rely on your friends or a mentor that's going to help you, and they're going to be times where they're going to need to rely on you as well. So be a good friend. Be a solid friend. Be a friend that points people to Jesus, that points others to go, “Let's go to the Lord.” That's the disciple making process. And if your child or grandchild says, “Dad, Mom, I don't know what to do here,” to not be afraid as a parent to go, “I don't know either. Let's go to God's Word. Let's figure this out together. Let's study the Word of God together.” That's that disciple making process. That's discipleship at the core. Teaching children how to, day and night, how to go in the ways of the Lord. What do you think when you think about being disciples?
LEIF
Yeah. I mean, one thing I think of, it's kind of been floating around my mind for a little bit, and now seems like as good a time as any to share it. But I think of disciple, I think of discipleship. And, you know, we see the life of Jesus and and what that discipleship journey looked like for the 12 apostles and thoughts that strike me are it's a lot of time together, and it's doing life together. You're just there. You're with each other. And through that comes these opportunities. You know, or thinking of Deuteronomy 6, you know, when you're walking by the way, or you're eating or lying down to sleep if you're not doing life together, you can't do any of these things. It's hard to disciple when you hardly ever see each other, you know? And so I just think of also this idea of I don't remember who said it, but you can't schedule quality time. You can, you can say, “Hey, we're going to have some quality time.” You can't just make it quality time. You can't just sit down, and say “This is going to be.”
DANIEL
Right, we will have time that's quality, children.
LEIF
This is meaningful right now.
DANIEL
You will like it.
LEIF
It's not like that, right? You know what happens? You have a lot of time together. And in all the time that you're spending together, it just pops up and you realize, “Hey, that was meaningful, that was a really impactful conversation that we just had. And it wasn't because we planned the conversation. In fact, sometimes when you plan a conversation it’s really, really awkward and it’s just, it's maybe more of a flop than anything.
DANIEL
Yeah.
LEIF
But, you know, I think of discipleship, I think of that, and it's just, it's spending that time together. It's doing life together. You know, you even talked about friends and friendship. And I just think of, I believe it was Tim Keller, Pastor Tim Keller that said, you know, “A friendship begins with you interacting with somebody else and saying, ‘You too?’ and realizing, ‘oh, we have this in common.’” And that's when your friendship forms, you know, and so have those shared experiences, those shared connections. Do life together with your children, with your church community, you know, with other believers. And through that you build that quality time. And if you're focusing on the Lord through that, you have those conversations and it's just this natural stemming of focusing on the Lord, having those conversations, and it just kind of builds on itself.
DANIEL
So as we think back now, Leif, this is the end of the three part series on pornography. As we think back to it, I know that you've mentioned that you might have some resources for our audience. Would you take a little bit of time and talk about those?
LEIF
Yeah, absolutely. I think first, there are tons of books out there, a lot, a lot of books out there, a lot of good insight from people that are a lot smarter than me. And so, definitely feel free to look into those. I know there are books on people that are in the midst of struggling with it. There are books for the wives of people that are struggling with it, or the significant other of people and what that looks like. I would also encourage you, you know, kind of like what I talked about in the second episode. And the first step that we took is make your castle secure. You can't filter a heart change, but that doesn't mean you should leave yourself unprotected. Set your kids up for success.
LEIF
Try to avoid the obvious, blatant, easy to block access and accidental exposures that they're going to have. Protect the internet in your home. And there are lots of ways to do that. There are filtering softwares, monitoring softwares, you know, Covenant Eyes, Net Nanny, are a couple of them. There are ways that you can literally filter the internet as it comes into your house. You can get specific routers and I don't know a ton about this stuff, but because I've done some research, I know a few of the terms, so don't ask me what they mean. But you can get like different DNS servers that you go off of and they can set it up where, as it comes into your home, it literally like can't even make a connection. Like almost like the Wi-Fi is not working if it tries to go through certain things. And so you can set it up that you just the internet literally doesn't work on a lot of the stuff. Again, nothing's perfect, but you can set it up. A Griffin router is the name of that one, and I'm sure there are many others, but that's a way to protect and monitor. And you can set different like, levels for each device. Every device that connects to your internet is set to a specific one. So you can even set it up that, say, your kid's friend comes over their phone might not have protection on it, but you can say any new device that connects to my internet, they're set at a child's level. And so that device gets filtered. The internet that gets to their device is filtered by default. That's great. You know, just to protect your home space.
LEIF
Another website that I would really encourage that I came across is called Protect Young Eyes. It has so much information. It's going to go through different apps. What is the potential risks that might come with this app? Do you really know how safe Facebook is? Do you really know how safe Instagram is? Do you know how safe TikTok is? Anything. It's going to go through tons of apps and tell you, “Hey, here's some concerns that you might want to have. Do you know what your kids could be doing on this?” It is going to go through different filtering software. It's going to go through how to protect and set up controls on different stuff. You know, just throwing it out there because some parents maybe might not be as familiar with this. Do you know that your kid's gaming system probably connects to the internet? What access do they have in there? Did you think of that? You know, just anything. Hey, does your kid have an Xbox? Do they have a PlayStation? Do they have a phone? Do they have an iPad? How can you be aware of what potential downfalls can come with those? And so that website is really just so much information through there of things to be aware of and just kind of educate yourself as you go forward in this.
DANIEL
These are great.
LEIF
Just a few ideas of resources to look into.
DANIEL
Before we get to the last question of this three part series, Leif, I do want to take time to thank our listeners for tuning in. We appreciate your support. You know, by subscribing to us, follow BeLED on Instagram and Facebook. Speaking of those just now and we really appreciate that. And if you feel the Lord is leading you to donate financially to that, you can follow the link in the show description as well. That helps this podcast keep going and we really, really appreciate that very much. Okay Leif, last question. How has God been glorified through your testimony in your battle with pornography?
LEIF
That's a great question, Daniel. And I think my initial response as I just took a pause to have to even think about “What do I say?” How do you concisely wrap up something like that? My thoughts are that God created us for relationship, to glorify and praise his name. And I think through this, first and foremost, he's done a great work in my life and in my heart. And well, I'm still living in an imperfect world and going through the process of being sanctified every day., and the Lord is still working in my heart. Just the praise that he receives through this, through the sharing of this and the freedom that he has given me to be able to just point others towards his goodness and who he is and his faithfulness. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It’s definitely one. And so I think just the freedom that he has given me to share about this and just tell others, “Here's what God's done, here's who he is,” and just to praise him through that. Yeah.
DANIEL
Yeah, right on. Leif, the words thank you aren’t enough for being willing to come on this podcast and talk about this. And our prayer, both Leif and I’s prayer, is if you are out there, you're caught in the trap of pornography or you know somebody that needs help, that these podcasts can serve, not as a solution, but as a start, to turning to the Lord, seeking help. And hopefully it's an encouragement to you that you are not alone. Please hear, you are not alone. There are parents who have children who are stuck. There are people, dads, moms who are stuck. So I encourage you again, if you're in the La Crosse area, come be a part of our Parent Forum Learning Community and have a time that you can interact with Leif and myself and others that are there, other parents and grandparents that may be struggling, but maybe at the same time be able to offer great help and encouragement. So Leif, thank you for being a part of this podcast and this series.
LEIF
It's my pleasure, Daniel. Thank you so much for having me. And just giving me the opportunity to share what the Lord has done and his goodness. It's exciting to just tell others what a good God we have.
DANIEL
Thank you for listening to this week's BeLED Family Podcast episode. We appreciate you taking the time to tune in. Help us by sharing this podcast with your friends, support the BeLED Family Podcast and BeLED Family by visiting us at our website, beledfamily.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. As a reminder, the BeLED Family Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for professional advice. Until the next episode, BeLED in all that you do.
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