Intentional Fatherhood Podcast – Episode 4: Your Fatherhood Needs Your Exercise, Eating, and Physicality to Shape a Life of Love
Core Ideas
- Body and spirit are one unified whole. Faith that treats you as a "Gnostic brain on a stick" ignores the body and mental health (12:12-12:21).
- Physical habits like rest, exercise, and eating are spiritual disciplines aimed at loving others, not at appearance (25:53-25:56, 46:14-46:16).
- Body practice is necessary but not sufficient for a healthy mind. You can "garden the mind" rather than feel stuck with it (18:41-18:43, 25:23-25:26).
- Rest comes before work. Needing sleep is a feature of being human, not a flaw (30:07-30:15).
Actionable Takeaways
- Pick one habit, do it with one friend, and commit for one month. Start small (1:01:00-1:01:17).
- Keep a consistent bed and wake time, and stop looking at your phone before bed (29:42-29:48).
- Protect about seven hours of sleep a night (30:38-30:40).
- If exercise doesn't fit your day, schedule it in a fixed window. One dad stole an hour from work rather than from family time (44:16-44:18).
- Walk outside. A two-mile walk every third day counts (44:54-45:02).
- Break indulge-then-shame cycles by fasting to cultivate dependence and feasting to cultivate delight, with ordinary, fair eating in between (53:04-53:07).
- If you have an eating disorder, depression, or trauma, seek professional help. These rhythms don't replace it (55:59-56:08).
Notable Quotes
- "be intentional, not invisible" (3:38-3:42)
- "I was tired of being tired. I was sick of being sick." (43:19-43:22)
- "the wall was not the wall" (38:31-38:35)
Scripture References
Genesis 2:7
ESV: then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
MSG: At the time God made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground—God hadn’t yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)—God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!
NIV: Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
NLT: Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.
Genesis 3:6
ESV: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
MSG: When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
NIV: When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
NLT: The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.
Romans 6:13
ESV: Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
MSG: That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.
NIV: Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.
NLT: Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.
Romans 12:1
ESV: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
MSG: So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
NIV: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
NLT: And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.