0:00:00 - 0:00:36 So I've had a few emails um about oh from, from mom's concerned for their sons who are approaching or at marriage age. So it's interesting that I've had a few of these, they've all been from moms so far and they've all been regarding sons, not daughters. So the concerns are things like with the rampant 0:00:35 - 0:01:08 promiscuity, which is absolutely skewed towards the ladies. Um And, and as I've said in writing, that's not because of um some angelic aspect of male nature. It's not by choice, right? It's just that women are, um let's say more selective than men. Um And so what, what happens is 80% of ladies are um 0:01:07 - 0:01:39 romantically involved will keep it lightweight with far less than 20% of men. And um just broad brushing a bit. And so it, it, it uh it means that for, for most men, they, they come to the table uh with less opportunities for promiscuity even if they wanted to anyway. Um So it's promiscuity. It's um 0:01:38 - 0:02:14 social media addiction is drug use, whether that be prescription or otherwise. Um alcohol problems. Um So these things uh depending on how they're found can make it extraordinarily unlikely that the marriage will yield the ideal situation. And, uh, for those moms out there who are writing me, uh, there's 0:02:13 - 0:02:38 some extreme concern that their sons are not going to be able to find someone worth marrying. Um, I haven't seen as many mentions but it's a real concern and, and it's a known concern. If you know people or you just hit the internet, you'll see many people being, being vocal men being vocal about the 0:02:38 - 0:03:11 fact that they're not interested in legally marrying someone. I mean, marrying someone under the law because it's a contractual obligation where the woman is rewarded for breaking it, uh referring to child support and alimony, which are um extremely disproportionately awarded to women. So, um this is 0:03:11 - 0:03:41 a real problem and um even though I don't have the same kind of email representation, um it's a real problem for those with daughters as well. Um II, I know that there are people out there, young ladies out there who um are interested in marriage and family and between guys uh adopting the mentality 0:03:40 - 0:04:06 that is suicidal to get married today uh under the law and the absolute dearth of men worth marrying, which is a huge problem. Uh There are a lot of problems on that side. Um You know, they're in the same boat. So what is to be done? What, what can be done to facilitate uh the continuation of families 0:04:05 - 0:04:37 ? It's a serious, serious question. Um given the age ranges on this channel of people who watch um being older. Uh Here's some advice that you can implement to help those, your, your kids and your grandkids um navigate the situation. So the first thing is um an analogy. So w when, when I bought the land 0:04:37 - 0:05:05 that I live on now, um it's not a huge plot of land, but it happens to be in probably the worst place in the United States for uh growing food. And so the the amount of work that I've put into um rendering this land useful for that in terms of removing rocks, um removing weeds, which, you know, infinite 0:05:04 - 0:05:35 number of years of prairie grass seeds all over the place and other terrible noxious weeds um of uh adding to the soil because it's um glacial till, which has benefits, but it, it's not a great soil um irrigation systems research and implementation. Um And then finally, just massive amounts of crop research 0:05:34 - 0:05:55 of trying things because no one seems to know what works here, even the University Extension, which is usually a good place to look for that kind of advice. They don't have any idea what they're doing um because people don't do this out here. And um so then there are all these things you can't really 0:05:55 - 0:06:17 do much about like the cold climate. Um and the short summers, you just have to work around them, you, you can't really overcome that. So um my point in sharing this is that uh I, I didn't just move into a piece of land that was ready to grow or already had something growing on it. And I just took over 0:06:17 - 0:06:41 . And so the time to prepare for growing food is years before you need the food, years and years and lots and lots of money. And uh a couple uh spinal discs while you still have them, they're, they're still good. That's, you gotta put all that together while you can. Uh and it takes time, it takes a 0:06:41 - 0:07:05 lot of time and money and paying to work these things out. So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, if your mentality is old school, like, uh it's gonna be how it was in the seventies, eighties, nineties or even around 2000, you're um gonna be unpleasantly surprised because it's not like that 0:07:04 - 0:07:37 anymore. And this is actually very true for many things that have nothing to do with human relationships. It's true of careers. Um It's true of where you live. It's true of basically every decision we make in life. The end times is a time, a time of um it's a time of an expansion of consequence. So there 0:07:37 - 0:08:01 are consequences for everything and they're appointed from the foundation of the world. This is the law of cause and effect. But uh for various reasons I won't get into we as humans. We've been living in a, a very historically, short period where those consequences were vastly mitigated. And um it provided 0:08:01 - 0:08:25 a time for human nature to just spiral out of control. And uh we're living the consequences of that now. And so as things fall apart and things revert to the historic mean, um what we will see is that the things that historically were important will once again become important and the reasons for which 0:08:25 - 0:08:58 they were important will become really obvious once again. And um unfortunately, the rate of change is extreme. And so, um and uneven. So the people who adopt wise ways before they're forced to will be rewarded, but that won't happen immediately. In all cases, it's a long term view. So for example, getting 0:08:58 - 0:09:18 back to this land when I started farming this, I had multiple people tell me I was crazy. In fact, one neighbor um came up to drop something off or something and I was proud and I was showing him my Barley plot. I'm like, look at all this barley, isn't it beautiful? And he said, do you seriously not 0:09:18 - 0:09:38 have anything better to spend your time and money on? Why don't you just go to the store and buy it? And, uh anyway, once COVID hit all of a sudden these consequences started be becoming more apparent, right? Because no one believed that there were gonna be food shortages and uh the prices were gonna 0:09:38 - 0:09:55 spike or whatever. And of course, all of that is just super minor. What we're, what we're looking at right now is nothing compared to what will happen later. But the point is I've told this story before with the weight room, I have that I'm sitting in right now in my house. It's not really a room, it's 0:09:55 - 0:10:18 just the basement. But um I, I deliberately collected all this stuff over a long period of time and I did it in a way where we got it for almost nothing. Um I've told that story before but it took a lot of work to get put this together and people thought I was crazy or at least a little eccentric. And 0:10:18 - 0:10:38 um during COVID, a bunch of people I worked with in town, uh you know, they were walking around like crackheads without their fix because their gyms were closed and they couldn't work out. And in spite of the fact that uh a high proportion of videos I make are during my workouts and therefore I'm dressed 0:10:37 - 0:11:00 in workout attire and in my weight room. Um I, I would not classify myself as a gym rat. Uh Currently I work out three times a week, uh roughly and sometimes a little more but uh some, sometimes as much as a day on and a day off. Um But my kids are homeschooled and now they're of the age where they can 0:11:00 - 0:00:00 use this. So how cool is that? And um I remember growing up and I moved around a lot and we were very poor but there was one or two times when I had, um, a weight set and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and I got it for free and it was like, it was like those old junkie sand weights, 0:00:00 - 0:11:40 the plastic ones with the sand in them. And I had like, three and like a bar. I didn't have like, anything and that I did have a bench at one point, but it was also this rickety thing that probably should have killed me. And so it was like a really minor set up. I was so excited when I went off to college 0:11:39 - 0:12:09 and I could actually go to a gym for the first time. But anyway, um, so my point with all of that is that, um, Jesus said, wisdom is known by her Children and, uh, what he meant was wise, decisions, bear fruit over time and, um, you need more and more time to see how wise they are because the best, the 0:12:09 - 0:12:36 most valuable tracks in life are the most hidden ones in terms of their value. And this is, it's funny how it works that way, but it, it, it works that way. So sometimes the best things take a lot of time to see. I'll give you an example. Uh, early in my marriage, my wife pointed out, um, a couple that 0:12:36 - 0:13:02 we knew who seemed to have a really happy marriage and it's kind of like a fairy tale kind of situation and she was sort of envious of this, um, because I, I am a rough person to have to deal with and that's not her opinion. That's what I'm telling you this fact. Um, and so, um, you know, where this 0:13:02 - 0:13:28 is going. So, you know, years go by and it turns out that, um, the wife is a total psycho. Um, she, it, it is a long story but it is terrible how that all panned out. And then the husband who seemed like super nice guy, like ideal dad, ideal husband type dude turns out that uh he, it, it was uh all show 0:13:27 - 0:13:48 in the sense, like not like it was a mask and he was really a um you know, a jerk or something. Um you know, secretly beating his kids or something. That's not what, what went down, but very disinterested dad just not dedicated to his kids at all. Um and ended up divorcing his wife and uh for reasons 0:13:47 - 0:14:15 , you know, and uh kind of going down a dodgy path. So, um if things come full circle over time and then you can look at that and say, oh, I guess that wasn't as great as I thought. And um this is totally relevant to what my point is, but there are huge amounts of laterals on this. So wisdom does not 0:14:14 - 0:14:41 require age and age does not imply wisdom. But um what we're after is wisdom. And, uh, if you get it and live it, you'll see its fruits over time. And this is the value of having wise men and wise women who tend to be older, um, sharing what they've learned with others. So now let's plug this back into 0:14:41 - 0:15:07 where we started. So there are some cruel facts of life and I say cruel because that's the way they seem from, um, from the normal perspective and that's fair. Um, but one of these cruel facts in life is that there are men who are not worth marrying and, um, you cannot begrudge women for not wanting 0:15:07 - 0:15:39 to marry men, um, who would not be beneficial to them. Um, so knowing that that's the case, if you're a gay, you need to level up, you can't just be a loser and expect women to want to marry you, right? And, uh, you don't get to decide what those standards are. You just get to live up to them or not 0:15:39 - 0:16:03 . And if you don't want to, if it truly doesn't make you happy, then you shouldn't do it. Um, we each have to pick our path and then we have to deal with the consequences of what we pick and we should be happy with that. Uh It's a tremendous gift from God that only exists here. So to, to its fullest 0:16:02 - 0:16:32 , um, you could get lost in the fine print on that, on the flip side. Uh, things can seem quite cruel for women too because um they come out of the gate with uh uh in Imme Immediate Endowment in the things that will, will uh provide the greatest attraction to men. Um And they come out of the gate with 0:16:32 - 0:16:54 the necessity of making the most important decisions of their life when they are least equipped to do so. And that can seem excruciatingly cruel, but just like in the case of the guys, it also provides the roadmap for the best decision. So if you're a man and you're 18, say the only thing that you should 0:16:54 - 0:17:17 be worried about in your life is becoming the best man that you can for at least a few years because it's gonna take time to get to the point where you can support a family and until you can, no woman worth marrying is going to pay you any attention at all. Anyone who does is a fool on the flip side 0:17:17 - 0:17:37 of this. So it's like you don't set the rules of the game, but they're very easy to see and you can play according to the rules and optimize your chances and win the game flipping that around and, and by the way, it's a game you can't lose. I love that phrase because that is the way of the Lord. If you 0:17:37 - 0:18:03 play the game, the way he tells you to, you can't lose. And this always means the same thing. It doesn't mean that the outcomes that you desire from day one are gonna be the ones that you get. It means the outcomes that he ordains as best for you, which will absolutely be better than what you want are 0:18:02 - 0:18:28 the exact ones that he'll lead you to. And so, um in this case, that path might be that you're on your own for 1020 50 years and you might die on your own maybe. But whatever happens, there's some really good verses about this in the apocryphal book, Wisdom of Solomon. And I think it's in chapter five 0:18:27 - 0:18:51 , it's somewhere before chapter eight, whatever happens um uh it will be better than anything you could have designed. You gotta have the long term view. Now, I just say that that's the minority of cases. It's not that hard to work this out. But if you go to the extreme, what everyone assumes is a worst 0:18:50 - 0:19:10 case, everything that necessarily is better, right? So that's sorted out. So then anything else that happens is just going to be even better. So, uh on the flip side with the women, yeah, it's kind of cruel that, that it's set up the way it is, but there's a reason which I'm not gonna go into, but the 0:19:10 - 0:19:38 Lord told me um and he's right, of course, but on the flip side of having to make this super important choice and then like you start with the greatest possible um ability to attract a quality man and then it just declines over time. Um Those are the hard facts, but the good news is um you don't have 0:19:38 - 0:20:01 to struggle in how to make that decision. It's the easiest thing in the world compared to the guy version um on, on how he has to choose you, you choosing him is the easiest thing in the world. Because for a woman, the wise path, the the the least risk path and greatest guaranteed outcome path guaranteed 0:20:01 - 0:20:24 , it's too strong that the most likely path to the greatest possible blessing is to stand at the finish line and grab a winner. So in other words, you don't look at people who are your same age. If you're super young, you look at people who are already established. So like if you're 18, you don't look 0:20:24 - 0:20:44 at 1819 or 20 year olds, you start looking around 24 and there's nothing magical about that number except that it's just not plausible to think of someone younger than 24 who can support you and kids who's got their life sorted out already. Now, you say, well, why does that have to be the case? Well 0:20:43 - 0:21:04 , why would you roll the dice on that? You get one shot, not so much for the guys, but for the girls, you basically, you get one shot. Um And that's really important to understand. So pick a winner, right? And don't pick someone who might be a winner someday that's the dumbest thing you could possibly 0:21:03 - 0:21:30 do. Um The signs of success are evident early on in the eyes of the wise. But if you're an 18 year old woman, the odds of you being wise are pretty much zero or an 18 year old man, it's like negative. Uh So, um because uh an 18 year old man's head is full of something else other than wisdom. Um So, um 0:21:30 - 0:21:52 anyway, the, the point is you, you pick the winner. Um, so anyway, um, but this, this video is mostly for parents and let's get back to that and the farming analogy. So, if you're just sitting around and then once your kids hit adulthood, you're like, ok, well, I guess magically they're just gonna find 0:21:52 - 0:22:14 a spouse now in the same way we did back in the day, it ain't gonna happen. Ok. Um, things were set up the way they were before for a lot of reasons and none of them are in play today. And, um, it's not a fishing expedition anymore where you just throw out a net and there's 100 choices in the net that 0:22:14 - 0:00:00 would do. It's a hunting expedition because both in both cases, the guys and the girls, what they are hunting for a person who's exceptional, an average person today is absolutely positively not worth marrying. And if you go down that road, you're an idiot because the signs are all around you. That, 0:00:00 - 0:22:59 that's a bad idea. Just the raw statistics. It's a terrible idea. Right. The divorce rate. Um, and even that is not, uh, illustrative because so many people opt out of getting married in the first place. Uh, if everyone got married today, the divorce rate would probably be like 98%. Right. Uh, maybe 0:22:58 - 0:23:21 that's a little high but it would be super high. You never jump out of a plane with a parachute that opens less than 50% of the time. And that's what marriage is today, even with the, the statistics of those who get married. But, um, so, so this isn't just about relationships though. It's about careers 0:23:20 - 0:23:42 , it's about everything in life. Like, what do you want your kids to live in a house someday? And not just have roommates in an apartment their whole life? Do you want your kids to have kids? Do you want your kids to have a car or like a job that's not working at Starbucks or Costco? Because, um, what 0:23:42 - 0:24:00 most parents are doing? And I do not understand this because this is even religious folks. They just kind of float their kids into the river and assume they're gonna end up in a place that's different than everybody else. And I don't understand what the logic of this is. The only thing I can think is 0:23:59 - 0:24:22 that parents are too afraid to open their eyes to what's plainly evident in front of their faces or they're too lazy or maybe it's a mix of both. You have to help design your kid's life. You can't just think that by watching Tik Tok they're gonna figure it out. Right. So, how do you do that with careers 0:24:22 - 0:24:42 ? You help guide them out of what everyone else is doing? You have to say like, ok, well, everybody just goes to college when they graduate. But is that a good idea? What is the cost? What is the benefit? What are the options and why are you doing it in the first place? You know? So if you're going to 0:24:42 - 0:24:58 college to meet people, it's fine. But question number one is, how are you gonna make some money? And, uh, you know, people don't even know what they want to do in life and they never stop to ask what they ought to do. It's like it just ends it though. What do you want to do? And they say, I don't know 0:24:58 - 0:25:16 . But if I go to college for 4 to 6 years, I'll figure it out. All right. Hip pause. What are you trying to optimize? What exactly are you trying to, to do or are you just floating through life? Of course, that's what the answer is. They're just floating and you can't blame them because you put them 0:25:16 - 0:25:37 there, you put them on the floor, right? So, um, if you think about Moses, his mom made a raft for him and just floated him down the river, right? And he said, well, Moses turned out all right. Sure. But they were in a situation where all the babies were getting killed, right? All the Hebrew firstborn 0:25:36 - 0:25:58 . And so it was life or death. She only did that because to not do, that would have meant a sure death for Moses. But even then she sent his way older sister down the river with him and the details of exactly what she was trying to do and why are unclear. But the outcome was that she ended up, she Moses 0:25:58 - 0:26:19 ended up uh being adopted by someone in Pharaoh's house and then the rest is history. So, um you need to direct your kids down the river of life, don't just float them down the river because if you do that, statistically speaking, they're gonna end up where everyone else does. If you put a canoe in water 0:26:19 - 0:26:41 and just let it go, all the canoes end up in the same place. And where do people end up today? On average? They're broke, they're miserable. They're addicted. Usually to many things. They're obese, unhealthy, they're divorced or never married and they don't have kids or maybe they have one and they're 0:26:41 - 0:27:01 really not interested in that kid. They just kind of did it because it was fun, like having a puppy, they regret it. So, um if that's what you want for your kids, absolutely. Do what everyone else does. If you want something better. What are you going to do differently, so, to do the same thing and expect 0:27:01 - 0:27:21 a different outcome. That's delusion. Um So what can be done? Ok. Let's talk positive stuff. So, this garden, right. Why on earth did I move to a place that's basically a desert and when it's not being a dry desert, it's a freezing desert. And that's like more than half of the year. Who the heck would 0:27:21 - 0:27:46 do that? Right. Well, I was looking at other, um, consequences. So, for instance, uh, I live on fi five acres but it feels a lot bigger because I'm surrounded by giant fields or state land. Um, so I kind of live in the middle of a wilderness but I live very close to a real wilderness. Um, that's one 0:27:46 - 0:28:07 of the only ones in the country. So that's kind of cool. But I can walk out my back door and there's this beautiful view of this mountain range. There's not a house in sight. Right. It's just trees, it's nature and that is worth a lot to me. Um, but there are other benefits. So if, when things fall apart 0:28:06 - 0:28:29 , however, that happens, if that straddles a winter because the winters are so crazy here. Um, there are gonna be a lot fewer people in a very short period of time and that's a good thing. So, um, I could go on. But the point is that even though I'm really interested in growing my own food, that's not 0:28:29 - 0:28:56 the only constraint on the search. Ok. So how does this work with, with, um, with kids? We need to get back to a point where parents are more involved in the matchmaking. The kids don't have the wisdom to see what's valuable in life. All they can see is, you know, a hot guy or a hot girl. You know, someone 0:28:56 - 0:29:15 that makes them physically excited and that's it. Even when they really try to look at other things and they'll tell themselves that it's the, oh, you know, she's got, he's got a great personality. Uh huh. Yep. Sure. She does. Sure he does. Right. And they might have a decent personality. But it's, you 0:29:15 - 0:29:34 know, the weights on these things are totally different from what people like to say. And this, by the way is at least as much a problem for women as for men. And there's studies that show this, this is, you know, they say one thing but they do another. Um, it's a human quality. It's not a male quality 0:29:33 - 0:29:57 or female quality. So, anyway, um, so the, the parents have to be involved. Ok. So now let's because they see consequences that the kids don't. And I will just make a plug here part of repentance. You know, we talk about forsaking the sin and let's move away from the word sin for a second. Just make 0:29:57 - 0:30:20 it less charged part of repentance is acknowledging what the best is and it doesn't matter if the time where that particular decision could happen has passed for you or not, you have to acknowledge what your, your current understanding of the best is. And that means in a lot of cases condemning your 0:30:19 - 0:30:40 past self for making the choice that you did. And that's OK. That's not a bad thing. It's absolutely essential because it is a part of repentance if you can't turn back and say, man, um seven years ago, I did this and I should have done that or I really wish I would have done this instead of that. If 0:30:40 - 0:30:59 you can't say that, then you really haven't repented, right? It's, it's a, it's an alignment with what is best, past, present and future. And if you're not at that point, you would just do it again if you were put in the same situation and if you don't get in out because now you're old and you're like 0:30:59 - 0:31:22 , well, never be 12 again. So who cares? You still like if you want to grow from that, you have to let it go and forsake the sin and, and grapple to the what's best idea mentality, I should say. So if you're not helping others who are in those situations to know what is best, which you've learned through 0:31:22 - 0:31:46 experience, you haven't actually repented, it's part of it and who is, is better to say this to than your own dang kids or your own dang grandkids, right? So, um this doesn't happen because people are embarrassed and they don't want to say like, hey, I was an idiot when I was your age. Don't be like 0:31:45 - 0:00:00 I was. But wise people and honest people and good people say these things, they're not afraid to condemn themselves. Why? Because they hate sin and because they realize that since they have forsaken their sin, even though they're condemning their past self, they're not condemning their current self, 0:00:00 - 0:32:26 they're freeing their current self from the anchor of their past sin, right? It's a very positive thing. And I'll tell you like, what's, what love is greater than helping others not have to suffer like you did, right? I mean, you're taking the gift that God has given you and you're magnifying it, you're 0:32:26 - 0:32:49 , you're amplifying it and growing it by giving it to other people. You're, you're improving the talent, you know, the parable of the talents, you're sharing it with others and therefore magnifying how much there is because you're spreading it. So, um back to the farming analogy, it takes years to get 0:32:49 - 0:33:15 a piece of land into product as productive as it can be. So how are you helping your kids be the most valuable spouse when they're 8, 1215, 17, not just the day they turn 18 and you're like, OK, how do we work on this now? Right? Their whole lives. And this is not because like we're, you know, grandkid 0:33:14 - 0:33:33 hungry or something. I don't know it's because it's just a facet of everything else you do in the gospel of how are you going to help others around you improve? And people are like, man, that sounds exhausting like how can I don't have any spare energy to think about this? Like I'm just sponged up with 0:33:33 - 0:33:54 everything that I've got to do. Well, hit pause and think about not more resources. But how are you allocating the ones that you have if you're constantly driving your kids around everywhere and this and that, and the other thing and pause and ask yourself like, why am I doing this? And the answer is 0:33:54 - 0:34:12 probably gonna be because it's what I did when I was a kid or it's what all the other parents are doing today. And I just get back to my original point. What worked in the past is not gonna work today. It's a very different environment. And what other people are doing is idiotic. And if you go that same 0:34:12 - 0:34:33 route, you're going to get exactly what they're getting and go find some kid that just recently graduated from high school and tell me how well off they are for having walked that path. It's disastrous, you know, working with young people for 8.5 years and then working with other young people as a peer 0:34:32 - 0:34:55 , uh, uh, an older peer, you know, when I went back to college for seven years. So I've got, uh, about 15 years of the last 15 years of the youth today. Right? And I'm gonna do an old guy, get off my lawn for a second. Um You could see the degradation of people of the culture and the people who believe 0:34:55 - 0:00:00 it over time every day, it was like you could plot it and it was super sad to see. Um So don't be a part of that rise above it. Right? And, and it doesn't take extra energy, just stop doing like the dumbest things that you're spending your energy on and reallocate that to the best things and you're, 0:00:00 - 0:35:41 you're gonna experience a magnificent shift in the track of your kids lives and it is never too late to do this. But the earlier you do it obviously the better. So um you gotta work on that for years on your own kids. OK? But then the flip side of that is because because sorry just to put a punctuation 0:35:40 - 0:36:01 on this because the question when they become of marriage age, the first question is not, where are the quality spouse uh candidates for my son or daughter? Because yes, there are very few, right? That's not the question. The first question is why do I have reason to believe that my son or daughter deserves 0:36:01 - 0:36:23 someone like that because they probably don't, they're probably just as garbage as all the other people out there. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but that's the way it is today. It's not, it's not a day of good enough. It's a day of fulfilling the potential as a son or daughter of God. Or you're not 0:36:23 - 0:36:50 gonna make it very far in life. Like living not success, like being alive still. This is very true. If you live in the United States, there is a bar in place here and if you're not above that bar, you are not gonna make it, we still have time to rise, but it is a limited quantity and this is true of 0:36:50 - 0:37:14 everybody. But I'm just saying the path to success in life today is not what it was in the eighties or nineties or in 2000. It's the path to God. And if you're not on that path, it doesn't really matter all that much what you do or don't do because you're not gonna be here for very long. So I have to 0:37:14 - 0:37:38 say that because that is, that is the real truth, but we'll get back to more practical things now, if that's too much for you to chew on. So, um, the first question is why on earth does your child deserve what you desire for them in terms of finding a spouse worth marrying. The second thing is, and only 0:37:37 - 0:38:02 after that is totally fulfilled. So, for, for, for a young man until you're 24 plus and you're making 85 to $100,000 a year or more, you have absolutely no right to even be thinking about women, let alone complaining that there aren't enough around who care about you or one at least who's not your mom 0:38:02 - 0:38:24 . Um, because you're not up to the standard a woman would have to be a moron to pay attention to you if you're not up to that level yet, because she's walking into a situation that's very unlikely to ever be different than it is right now. Fundamentally, by choosing you, she's choosing to have to worry 0:38:24 - 0:38:44 about her livelihood herself for the rest of her life and miss out on all the blessings that happen when women can focus on other things, they bring them more joy. She's having to choose to never have kids or to only have one. She's having to choose a life of poverty, et cetera. She's probably gonna 0:38:44 - 0:39:05 have to work. And that's not. Why would you do that? Right. Why would you do that? If I gave you a pile of a billion dollars, would you pour gas on it and light it with a match or would you try to use it for things that made you happy? So, you know, sort yourself out and on the female side of that, um 0:39:05 - 0:39:33 , if you invert the, the question, um, if your daughter is the kind of person that's had, uh, let me keep this rated G, um, 10 serious boyfriends and, um, has spent the last eight years getting a master's degree in basket weaving and has $200,000 in debt. And, um, at or after age 30 is looking to settle 0:39:32 - 0:39:59 down and find someone to pay off her student loans and, uh, have babies so that she can probably 80% initiated by women. Uh, probably divorce him and take half his stuff and, uh, enslave him for at least the next 18 years into paying child, child support. Um, you probably missed the boat, right. And 0:39:58 - 0:40:26 in another way, you dumped gasoline on your pile of money and you burned it. So, um, ok, the final point here, gosh, this is way longer than I wanted it to be. The final point here is if you, you are living your life so that your kids on track for, uh, qualifying for such, uh an outcome, then how, what 0:40:26 - 0:40:42 more can you do to facilitate it? Well, then this comes back to my point about parents taking more active role in matchmaking and I'm not talking about arranged marriages like, uh, hey, guess what? You're gonna marry this person, you don't have a choice and if you try to do anything else or chop off 0:40:42 - 0:41:07 your hands or whatever, um, what I'm saying is teaching your kids that showing them persuading them how hard it is to see value. And this is hard because you can't do this as a person who's not living your life, right yourself. So there, there's a power in sincerity and earnestness and example. And so 0:41:07 - 0:41:30 if you're a hypocrite and, you know, you yourself are a loser. It's going to be very hard to persuade your kids that, you know what you're talking about. Right. Um, well, there's, there's the, I made mistakes in my life and I regret it. Please don't do the same. And that has a power to it. Um, but what 0:41:30 - 0:00:00 I'm saying is if you are living your life right now in a trashy way, good luck trying to tell your kids not to be trashy people, they're not going to respond to that. The, the best thing you can do is to hope that they have the sense to see that you're trashy and then try to not be like you. So, um, 0:00:00 - 0:42:20 if you care about your kids, the first step is for you to get your life right with God and start living aligned with the best that he shows you. So, um, but anyway, once you do all that, um, the thing is, is like this land, you need to see this as a multiyear cultivation. And, uh, even starting from 0:42:19 - 0:42:38 a young age, you ought to be having your eyes on a swivel, like we used to say in the army. So when you're walking through the woods, you pay attention to your surroundings and you ought to know about families who are teaching their kids well, and who are guiding their kids into the right kind of life 0:42:37 - 0:42:58 . And from a young age, maybe you have a bunch of possible uh spouse candidates in your mind for your son or for your daughter. And you watch those people over time and you could plot their line of ascent and see if they're a good match for your kids. And you know, you gotta be honest about this and 0:42:58 - 0:43:18 realize that, you know, your kids, we all want our kids to be better than we are, but they get to make their own choices. And if your kids got some issues, then you shouldn't be trying to match them with Mr or Miss Right? You should look for someone where the sum of the parts are greater than the parts 0:43:18 - 0:43:39 them. You know the phrase, I can't re reproduce it right now. Oh gosh, it's still super early in the morning. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. There you go. Um Meaning that whatever they each bring to the table, what they have together is greater benefit than what they'd have apart. That's 0:43:39 - 0:44:04 what the goal is with all of this. So, um you try to facilitate that by helping them because if, if the only pathway is to hop on Tinder and hope defeat, find the person worth marrying, you may as well quit right now because it ain't gonna happen, right? Um And that's how people meet each other today 0:44:03 - 0:44:21 . You can't even say go on dates because it really just doesn't even happen anymore. And uh it's the saddest thing to see folks, especially religious folks. And they just think that if you know, if the kid goes off to college, they're gonna meet somebody worth marrying or if their kid just goes to church 0:44:21 - 0:44:40 , they're gonna find some person at church that's worth marrying. It does not work that way anymore because most of the people in those situations, even at church be really bad candidates for spouses. So it's a hunting expedition, it's not a fishing expedition. And so you can teach your kids these things 0:00:00 - 0:00:36 So I've had a few emails um about oh from, from mom's concerned for their sons who are approaching or at marriage age. So it's interesting that I've had a few of these, they've all been from moms so far and they've all been regarding sons, not daughters. So the concerns are things like with the rampant 0:00:35 - 0:01:08 promiscuity, which is absolutely skewed towards the ladies. Um And, and as I've said in writing, that's not because of um some angelic aspect of male nature. It's not by choice, right? It's just that women are, um let's say more selective than men. Um And so what, what happens is 80% of ladies are um 0:01:07 - 0:01:39 romantically involved will keep it lightweight with far less than 20% of men. And um just broad brushing a bit. And so it, it, it uh it means that for, for most men, they, they come to the table uh with less opportunities for promiscuity even if they wanted to anyway. Um So it's promiscuity. It's um 0:01:38 - 0:02:14 social media addiction is drug use, whether that be prescription or otherwise. Um alcohol problems. Um So these things uh depending on how they're found can make it extraordinarily unlikely that the marriage will yield the ideal situation. And, uh, for those moms out there who are writing me, uh, there's 0:02:13 - 0:02:38 some extreme concern that their sons are not going to be able to find someone worth marrying. Um, I haven't seen as many mentions but it's a real concern and, and it's a known concern. If you know people or you just hit the internet, you'll see many people being, being vocal men being vocal about the 0:02:38 - 0:03:11 fact that they're not interested in legally marrying someone. I mean, marrying someone under the law because it's a contractual obligation where the woman is rewarded for breaking it, uh referring to child support and alimony, which are um extremely disproportionately awarded to women. So, um this is 0:03:11 - 0:03:41 a real problem and um even though I don't have the same kind of email representation, um it's a real problem for those with daughters as well. Um II, I know that there are people out there, young ladies out there who um are interested in marriage and family and between guys uh adopting the mentality 0:03:40 - 0:04:06 that is suicidal to get married today uh under the law and the absolute dearth of men worth marrying, which is a huge problem. Uh There are a lot of problems on that side. Um You know, they're in the same boat. So what is to be done? What, what can be done to facilitate uh the continuation of families 0:04:05 - 0:04:37 ? It's a serious, serious question. Um given the age ranges on this channel of people who watch um being older. Uh Here's some advice that you can implement to help those, your, your kids and your grandkids um navigate the situation. So the first thing is um an analogy. So w when, when I bought the land 0:04:37 - 0:05:05 that I live on now, um it's not a huge plot of land, but it happens to be in probably the worst place in the United States for uh growing food. And so the the amount of work that I've put into um rendering this land useful for that in terms of removing rocks, um removing weeds, which, you know, infinite 0:05:04 - 0:05:35 number of years of prairie grass seeds all over the place and other terrible noxious weeds um of uh adding to the soil because it's um glacial till, which has benefits, but it, it's not a great soil um irrigation systems research and implementation. Um And then finally, just massive amounts of crop research 0:05:34 - 0:05:55 of trying things because no one seems to know what works here, even the University Extension, which is usually a good place to look for that kind of advice. They don't have any idea what they're doing um because people don't do this out here. And um so then there are all these things you can't really 0:05:55 - 0:06:17 do much about like the cold climate. Um and the short summers, you just have to work around them, you, you can't really overcome that. So um my point in sharing this is that uh I, I didn't just move into a piece of land that was ready to grow or already had something growing on it. And I just took over 0:06:17 - 0:06:41 . And so the time to prepare for growing food is years before you need the food, years and years and lots and lots of money. And uh a couple uh spinal discs while you still have them, they're, they're still good. That's, you gotta put all that together while you can. Uh and it takes time, it takes a 0:06:41 - 0:07:05 lot of time and money and paying to work these things out. So, what does this have to do with anything? Well, if your mentality is old school, like, uh it's gonna be how it was in the seventies, eighties, nineties or even around 2000, you're um gonna be unpleasantly surprised because it's not like that 0:07:04 - 0:07:37 anymore. And this is actually very true for many things that have nothing to do with human relationships. It's true of careers. Um It's true of where you live. It's true of basically every decision we make in life. The end times is a time, a time of um it's a time of an expansion of consequence. So there 0:07:37 - 0:08:01 are consequences for everything and they're appointed from the foundation of the world. This is the law of cause and effect. But uh for various reasons I won't get into we as humans. We've been living in a, a very historically, short period where those consequences were vastly mitigated. And um it provided 0:08:01 - 0:08:25 a time for human nature to just spiral out of control. And uh we're living the consequences of that now. And so as things fall apart and things revert to the historic mean, um what we will see is that the things that historically were important will once again become important and the reasons for which 0:08:25 - 0:08:58 they were important will become really obvious once again. And um unfortunately, the rate of change is extreme. And so, um and uneven. So the people who adopt wise ways before they're forced to will be rewarded, but that won't happen immediately. In all cases, it's a long term view. So for example, getting 0:08:58 - 0:09:18 back to this land when I started farming this, I had multiple people tell me I was crazy. In fact, one neighbor um came up to drop something off or something and I was proud and I was showing him my Barley plot. I'm like, look at all this barley, isn't it beautiful? And he said, do you seriously not 0:09:18 - 0:09:38 have anything better to spend your time and money on? Why don't you just go to the store and buy it? And, uh anyway, once COVID hit all of a sudden these consequences started be becoming more apparent, right? Because no one believed that there were gonna be food shortages and uh the prices were gonna 0:09:38 - 0:09:55 spike or whatever. And of course, all of that is just super minor. What we're, what we're looking at right now is nothing compared to what will happen later. But the point is I've told this story before with the weight room, I have that I'm sitting in right now in my house. It's not really a room, it's 0:09:55 - 0:10:18 just the basement. But um I, I deliberately collected all this stuff over a long period of time and I did it in a way where we got it for almost nothing. Um I've told that story before but it took a lot of work to get put this together and people thought I was crazy or at least a little eccentric. And 0:10:18 - 0:10:38 um during COVID, a bunch of people I worked with in town, uh you know, they were walking around like crackheads without their fix because their gyms were closed and they couldn't work out. And in spite of the fact that uh a high proportion of videos I make are during my workouts and therefore I'm dressed 0:10:37 - 0:11:00 in workout attire and in my weight room. Um I, I would not classify myself as a gym rat. Uh Currently I work out three times a week, uh roughly and sometimes a little more but uh some, sometimes as much as a day on and a day off. Um But my kids are homeschooled and now they're of the age where they can 0:11:00 - 0:00:00 use this. So how cool is that? And um I remember growing up and I moved around a lot and we were very poor but there was one or two times when I had, um, a weight set and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and I got it for free and it was like, it was like those old junkie sand weights, 0:00:00 - 0:11:40 the plastic ones with the sand in them. And I had like, three and like a bar. I didn't have like, anything and that I did have a bench at one point, but it was also this rickety thing that probably should have killed me. And so it was like a really minor set up. I was so excited when I went off to college 0:11:39 - 0:12:09 and I could actually go to a gym for the first time. But anyway, um, so my point with all of that is that, um, Jesus said, wisdom is known by her Children and, uh, what he meant was wise, decisions, bear fruit over time and, um, you need more and more time to see how wise they are because the best, the 0:12:09 - 0:12:36 most valuable tracks in life are the most hidden ones in terms of their value. And this is, it's funny how it works that way, but it, it, it works that way. So sometimes the best things take a lot of time to see. I'll give you an example. Uh, early in my marriage, my wife pointed out, um, a couple that 0:12:36 - 0:13:02 we knew who seemed to have a really happy marriage and it's kind of like a fairy tale kind of situation and she was sort of envious of this, um, because I, I am a rough person to have to deal with and that's not her opinion. That's what I'm telling you this fact. Um, and so, um, you know, where this 0:13:02 - 0:13:28 is going. So, you know, years go by and it turns out that, um, the wife is a total psycho. Um, she, it, it is a long story but it is terrible how that all panned out. And then the husband who seemed like super nice guy, like ideal dad, ideal husband type dude turns out that uh he, it, it was uh all show 0:13:27 - 0:13:48 in the sense, like not like it was a mask and he was really a um you know, a jerk or something. Um you know, secretly beating his kids or something. That's not what, what went down, but very disinterested dad just not dedicated to his kids at all. Um and ended up divorcing his wife and uh for reasons 0:13:47 - 0:14:15 , you know, and uh kind of going down a dodgy path. So, um if things come full circle over time and then you can look at that and say, oh, I guess that wasn't as great as I thought. And um this is totally relevant to what my point is, but there are huge amounts of laterals on this. So wisdom does not 0:14:14 - 0:14:41 require age and age does not imply wisdom. But um what we're after is wisdom. And, uh, if you get it and live it, you'll see its fruits over time. And this is the value of having wise men and wise women who tend to be older, um, sharing what they've learned with others. So now let's plug this back into 0:14:41 - 0:15:07 where we started. So there are some cruel facts of life and I say cruel because that's the way they seem from, um, from the normal perspective and that's fair. Um, but one of these cruel facts in life is that there are men who are not worth marrying and, um, you cannot begrudge women for not wanting 0:15:07 - 0:15:39 to marry men, um, who would not be beneficial to them. Um, so knowing that that's the case, if you're a gay, you need to level up, you can't just be a loser and expect women to want to marry you, right? And, uh, you don't get to decide what those standards are. You just get to live up to them or not 0:15:39 - 0:16:03 . And if you don't want to, if it truly doesn't make you happy, then you shouldn't do it. Um, we each have to pick our path and then we have to deal with the consequences of what we pick and we should be happy with that. Uh It's a tremendous gift from God that only exists here. So to, to its fullest 0:16:02 - 0:16:32 , um, you could get lost in the fine print on that, on the flip side. Uh, things can seem quite cruel for women too because um they come out of the gate with uh uh in Imme Immediate Endowment in the things that will, will uh provide the greatest attraction to men. Um And they come out of the gate with 0:16:32 - 0:16:54 the necessity of making the most important decisions of their life when they are least equipped to do so. And that can seem excruciatingly cruel, but just like in the case of the guys, it also provides the roadmap for the best decision. So if you're a man and you're 18, say the only thing that you should 0:16:54 - 0:17:17 be worried about in your life is becoming the best man that you can for at least a few years because it's gonna take time to get to the point where you can support a family and until you can, no woman worth marrying is going to pay you any attention at all. Anyone who does is a fool on the flip side 0:17:17 - 0:17:37 of this. So it's like you don't set the rules of the game, but they're very easy to see and you can play according to the rules and optimize your chances and win the game flipping that around and, and by the way, it's a game you can't lose. I love that phrase because that is the way of the Lord. If you 0:17:37 - 0:18:03 play the game, the way he tells you to, you can't lose. And this always means the same thing. It doesn't mean that the outcomes that you desire from day one are gonna be the ones that you get. It means the outcomes that he ordains as best for you, which will absolutely be better than what you want are 0:18:02 - 0:18:28 the exact ones that he'll lead you to. And so, um in this case, that path might be that you're on your own for 1020 50 years and you might die on your own maybe. But whatever happens, there's some really good verses about this in the apocryphal book, Wisdom of Solomon. And I think it's in chapter five 0:18:27 - 0:18:51 , it's somewhere before chapter eight, whatever happens um uh it will be better than anything you could have designed. You gotta have the long term view. Now, I just say that that's the minority of cases. It's not that hard to work this out. But if you go to the extreme, what everyone assumes is a worst 0:18:50 - 0:19:10 case, everything that necessarily is better, right? So that's sorted out. So then anything else that happens is just going to be even better. So, uh on the flip side with the women, yeah, it's kind of cruel that, that it's set up the way it is, but there's a reason which I'm not gonna go into, but the 0:19:10 - 0:19:38 Lord told me um and he's right, of course, but on the flip side of having to make this super important choice and then like you start with the greatest possible um ability to attract a quality man and then it just declines over time. Um Those are the hard facts, but the good news is um you don't have 0:19:38 - 0:20:01 to struggle in how to make that decision. It's the easiest thing in the world compared to the guy version um on, on how he has to choose you, you choosing him is the easiest thing in the world. Because for a woman, the wise path, the the the least risk path and greatest guaranteed outcome path guaranteed 0:20:01 - 0:20:24 , it's too strong that the most likely path to the greatest possible blessing is to stand at the finish line and grab a winner. So in other words, you don't look at people who are your same age. If you're super young, you look at people who are already established. So like if you're 18, you don't look 0:20:24 - 0:20:44 at 1819 or 20 year olds, you start looking around 24 and there's nothing magical about that number except that it's just not plausible to think of someone younger than 24 who can support you and kids who's got their life sorted out already. Now, you say, well, why does that have to be the case? Well 0:20:43 - 0:21:04 , why would you roll the dice on that? You get one shot, not so much for the guys, but for the girls, you basically, you get one shot. Um And that's really important to understand. So pick a winner, right? And don't pick someone who might be a winner someday that's the dumbest thing you could possibly 0:21:03 - 0:21:30 do. Um The signs of success are evident early on in the eyes of the wise. But if you're an 18 year old woman, the odds of you being wise are pretty much zero or an 18 year old man, it's like negative. Uh So, um because uh an 18 year old man's head is full of something else other than wisdom. Um So, um 0:21:30 - 0:21:52 anyway, the, the point is you, you pick the winner. Um, so anyway, um, but this, this video is mostly for parents and let's get back to that and the farming analogy. So, if you're just sitting around and then once your kids hit adulthood, you're like, ok, well, I guess magically they're just gonna find 0:21:52 - 0:22:14 a spouse now in the same way we did back in the day, it ain't gonna happen. Ok. Um, things were set up the way they were before for a lot of reasons and none of them are in play today. And, um, it's not a fishing expedition anymore where you just throw out a net and there's 100 choices in the net that 0:22:14 - 0:00:00 would do. It's a hunting expedition because both in both cases, the guys and the girls, what they are hunting for a person who's exceptional, an average person today is absolutely positively not worth marrying. And if you go down that road, you're an idiot because the signs are all around you. That, 0:00:00 - 0:22:59 that's a bad idea. Just the raw statistics. It's a terrible idea. Right. The divorce rate. Um, and even that is not, uh, illustrative because so many people opt out of getting married in the first place. Uh, if everyone got married today, the divorce rate would probably be like 98%. Right. Uh, maybe 0:22:58 - 0:23:21 that's a little high but it would be super high. You never jump out of a plane with a parachute that opens less than 50% of the time. And that's what marriage is today, even with the, the statistics of those who get married. But, um, so, so this isn't just about relationships though. It's about careers 0:23:20 - 0:23:42 , it's about everything in life. Like, what do you want your kids to live in a house someday? And not just have roommates in an apartment their whole life? Do you want your kids to have kids? Do you want your kids to have a car or like a job that's not working at Starbucks or Costco? Because, um, what 0:23:42 - 0:24:00 most parents are doing? And I do not understand this because this is even religious folks. They just kind of float their kids into the river and assume they're gonna end up in a place that's different than everybody else. And I don't understand what the logic of this is. The only thing I can think is 0:23:59 - 0:24:22 that parents are too afraid to open their eyes to what's plainly evident in front of their faces or they're too lazy or maybe it's a mix of both. You have to help design your kid's life. You can't just think that by watching Tik Tok they're gonna figure it out. Right. So, how do you do that with careers 0:24:22 - 0:24:42 ? You help guide them out of what everyone else is doing? You have to say like, ok, well, everybody just goes to college when they graduate. But is that a good idea? What is the cost? What is the benefit? What are the options and why are you doing it in the first place? You know? So if you're going to 0:24:42 - 0:24:58 college to meet people, it's fine. But question number one is, how are you gonna make some money? And, uh, you know, people don't even know what they want to do in life and they never stop to ask what they ought to do. It's like it just ends it though. What do you want to do? And they say, I don't know 0:24:58 - 0:25:16 . But if I go to college for 4 to 6 years, I'll figure it out. All right. Hip pause. What are you trying to optimize? What exactly are you trying to, to do or are you just floating through life? Of course, that's what the answer is. They're just floating and you can't blame them because you put them 0:25:16 - 0:25:37 there, you put them on the floor, right? So, um, if you think about Moses, his mom made a raft for him and just floated him down the river, right? And he said, well, Moses turned out all right. Sure. But they were in a situation where all the babies were getting killed, right? All the Hebrew firstborn 0:25:36 - 0:25:58 . And so it was life or death. She only did that because to not do, that would have meant a sure death for Moses. But even then she sent his way older sister down the river with him and the details of exactly what she was trying to do and why are unclear. But the outcome was that she ended up, she Moses 0:25:58 - 0:26:19 ended up uh being adopted by someone in Pharaoh's house and then the rest is history. So, um you need to direct your kids down the river of life, don't just float them down the river because if you do that, statistically speaking, they're gonna end up where everyone else does. If you put a canoe in water 0:26:19 - 0:26:41 and just let it go, all the canoes end up in the same place. And where do people end up today? On average? They're broke, they're miserable. They're addicted. Usually to many things. They're obese, unhealthy, they're divorced or never married and they don't have kids or maybe they have one and they're 0:26:41 - 0:27:01 really not interested in that kid. They just kind of did it because it was fun, like having a puppy, they regret it. So, um if that's what you want for your kids, absolutely. Do what everyone else does. If you want something better. What are you going to do differently, so, to do the same thing and expect 0:27:01 - 0:27:21 a different outcome. That's delusion. Um So what can be done? Ok. Let's talk positive stuff. So, this garden, right. Why on earth did I move to a place that's basically a desert and when it's not being a dry desert, it's a freezing desert. And that's like more than half of the year. Who the heck would 0:27:21 - 0:27:46 do that? Right. Well, I was looking at other, um, consequences. So, for instance, uh, I live on fi five acres but it feels a lot bigger because I'm surrounded by giant fields or state land. Um, so I kind of live in the middle of a wilderness but I live very close to a real wilderness. Um, that's one 0:27:46 - 0:28:07 of the only ones in the country. So that's kind of cool. But I can walk out my back door and there's this beautiful view of this mountain range. There's not a house in sight. Right. It's just trees, it's nature and that is worth a lot to me. Um, but there are other benefits. So if, when things fall apart 0:28:06 - 0:28:29 , however, that happens, if that straddles a winter because the winters are so crazy here. Um, there are gonna be a lot fewer people in a very short period of time and that's a good thing. So, um, I could go on. But the point is that even though I'm really interested in growing my own food, that's not 0:28:29 - 0:28:56 the only constraint on the search. Ok. So how does this work with, with, um, with kids? We need to get back to a point where parents are more involved in the matchmaking. The kids don't have the wisdom to see what's valuable in life. All they can see is, you know, a hot guy or a hot girl. You know, someone 0:28:56 - 0:29:15 that makes them physically excited and that's it. Even when they really try to look at other things and they'll tell themselves that it's the, oh, you know, she's got, he's got a great personality. Uh huh. Yep. Sure. She does. Sure he does. Right. And they might have a decent personality. But it's, you 0:29:15 - 0:29:34 know, the weights on these things are totally different from what people like to say. And this, by the way is at least as much a problem for women as for men. And there's studies that show this, this is, you know, they say one thing but they do another. Um, it's a human quality. It's not a male quality 0:29:33 - 0:29:57 or female quality. So, anyway, um, so the, the parents have to be involved. Ok. So now let's because they see consequences that the kids don't. And I will just make a plug here part of repentance. You know, we talk about forsaking the sin and let's move away from the word sin for a second. Just make 0:29:57 - 0:30:20 it less charged part of repentance is acknowledging what the best is and it doesn't matter if the time where that particular decision could happen has passed for you or not, you have to acknowledge what your, your current understanding of the best is. And that means in a lot of cases condemning your 0:30:19 - 0:30:40 past self for making the choice that you did. And that's OK. That's not a bad thing. It's absolutely essential because it is a part of repentance if you can't turn back and say, man, um seven years ago, I did this and I should have done that or I really wish I would have done this instead of that. If 0:30:40 - 0:30:59 you can't say that, then you really haven't repented, right? It's, it's a, it's an alignment with what is best, past, present and future. And if you're not at that point, you would just do it again if you were put in the same situation and if you don't get in out because now you're old and you're like 0:30:59 - 0:31:22 , well, never be 12 again. So who cares? You still like if you want to grow from that, you have to let it go and forsake the sin and, and grapple to the what's best idea mentality, I should say. So if you're not helping others who are in those situations to know what is best, which you've learned through 0:31:22 - 0:31:46 experience, you haven't actually repented, it's part of it and who is, is better to say this to than your own dang kids or your own dang grandkids, right? So, um this doesn't happen because people are embarrassed and they don't want to say like, hey, I was an idiot when I was your age. Don't be like 0:31:45 - 0:00:00 I was. But wise people and honest people and good people say these things, they're not afraid to condemn themselves. Why? Because they hate sin and because they realize that since they have forsaken their sin, even though they're condemning their past self, they're not condemning their current self, 0:00:00 - 0:32:26 they're freeing their current self from the anchor of their past sin, right? It's a very positive thing. And I'll tell you like, what's, what love is greater than helping others not have to suffer like you did, right? I mean, you're taking the gift that God has given you and you're magnifying it, you're 0:32:26 - 0:32:49 , you're amplifying it and growing it by giving it to other people. You're, you're improving the talent, you know, the parable of the talents, you're sharing it with others and therefore magnifying how much there is because you're spreading it. So, um back to the farming analogy, it takes years to get 0:32:49 - 0:33:15 a piece of land into product as productive as it can be. So how are you helping your kids be the most valuable spouse when they're 8, 1215, 17, not just the day they turn 18 and you're like, OK, how do we work on this now? Right? Their whole lives. And this is not because like we're, you know, grandkid 0:33:14 - 0:33:33 hungry or something. I don't know it's because it's just a facet of everything else you do in the gospel of how are you going to help others around you improve? And people are like, man, that sounds exhausting like how can I don't have any spare energy to think about this? Like I'm just sponged up with 0:33:33 - 0:33:54 everything that I've got to do. Well, hit pause and think about not more resources. But how are you allocating the ones that you have if you're constantly driving your kids around everywhere and this and that, and the other thing and pause and ask yourself like, why am I doing this? And the answer is 0:33:54 - 0:34:12 probably gonna be because it's what I did when I was a kid or it's what all the other parents are doing today. And I just get back to my original point. What worked in the past is not gonna work today. It's a very different environment. And what other people are doing is idiotic. And if you go that same 0:34:12 - 0:34:33 route, you're going to get exactly what they're getting and go find some kid that just recently graduated from high school and tell me how well off they are for having walked that path. It's disastrous, you know, working with young people for 8.5 years and then working with other young people as a peer 0:34:32 - 0:34:55 , uh, uh, an older peer, you know, when I went back to college for seven years. So I've got, uh, about 15 years of the last 15 years of the youth today. Right? And I'm gonna do an old guy, get off my lawn for a second. Um You could see the degradation of people of the culture and the people who believe 0:34:55 - 0:00:00 it over time every day, it was like you could plot it and it was super sad to see. Um So don't be a part of that rise above it. Right? And, and it doesn't take extra energy, just stop doing like the dumbest things that you're spending your energy on and reallocate that to the best things and you're, 0:00:00 - 0:35:41 you're gonna experience a magnificent shift in the track of your kids lives and it is never too late to do this. But the earlier you do it obviously the better. So um you gotta work on that for years on your own kids. OK? But then the flip side of that is because because sorry just to put a punctuation 0:35:40 - 0:36:01 on this because the question when they become of marriage age, the first question is not, where are the quality spouse uh candidates for my son or daughter? Because yes, there are very few, right? That's not the question. The first question is why do I have reason to believe that my son or daughter deserves 0:36:01 - 0:36:23 someone like that because they probably don't, they're probably just as garbage as all the other people out there. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but that's the way it is today. It's not, it's not a day of good enough. It's a day of fulfilling the potential as a son or daughter of God. Or you're not 0:36:23 - 0:36:50 gonna make it very far in life. Like living not success, like being alive still. This is very true. If you live in the United States, there is a bar in place here and if you're not above that bar, you are not gonna make it, we still have time to rise, but it is a limited quantity and this is true of 0:36:50 - 0:37:14 everybody. But I'm just saying the path to success in life today is not what it was in the eighties or nineties or in 2000. It's the path to God. And if you're not on that path, it doesn't really matter all that much what you do or don't do because you're not gonna be here for very long. So I have to 0:37:14 - 0:37:38 say that because that is, that is the real truth, but we'll get back to more practical things now, if that's too much for you to chew on. So, um, the first question is why on earth does your child deserve what you desire for them in terms of finding a spouse worth marrying. The second thing is, and only 0:37:37 - 0:38:02 after that is totally fulfilled. So, for, for, for a young man until you're 24 plus and you're making 85 to $100,000 a year or more, you have absolutely no right to even be thinking about women, let alone complaining that there aren't enough around who care about you or one at least who's not your mom 0:38:02 - 0:38:24 . Um, because you're not up to the standard a woman would have to be a moron to pay attention to you if you're not up to that level yet, because she's walking into a situation that's very unlikely to ever be different than it is right now. Fundamentally, by choosing you, she's choosing to have to worry 0:38:24 - 0:38:44 about her livelihood herself for the rest of her life and miss out on all the blessings that happen when women can focus on other things, they bring them more joy. She's having to choose to never have kids or to only have one. She's having to choose a life of poverty, et cetera. She's probably gonna 0:38:44 - 0:39:05 have to work. And that's not. Why would you do that? Right. Why would you do that? If I gave you a pile of a billion dollars, would you pour gas on it and light it with a match or would you try to use it for things that made you happy? So, you know, sort yourself out and on the female side of that, um 0:39:05 - 0:39:33 , if you invert the, the question, um, if your daughter is the kind of person that's had, uh, let me keep this rated G, um, 10 serious boyfriends and, um, has spent the last eight years getting a master's degree in basket weaving and has $200,000 in debt. And, um, at or after age 30 is looking to settle 0:39:32 - 0:39:59 down and find someone to pay off her student loans and, uh, have babies so that she can probably 80% initiated by women. Uh, probably divorce him and take half his stuff and, uh, enslave him for at least the next 18 years into paying child, child support. Um, you probably missed the boat, right. And 0:39:58 - 0:40:26 in another way, you dumped gasoline on your pile of money and you burned it. So, um, ok, the final point here, gosh, this is way longer than I wanted it to be. The final point here is if you, you are living your life so that your kids on track for, uh, qualifying for such, uh an outcome, then how, what 0:40:26 - 0:40:42 more can you do to facilitate it? Well, then this comes back to my point about parents taking more active role in matchmaking and I'm not talking about arranged marriages like, uh, hey, guess what? You're gonna marry this person, you don't have a choice and if you try to do anything else or chop off 0:40:42 - 0:41:07 your hands or whatever, um, what I'm saying is teaching your kids that showing them persuading them how hard it is to see value. And this is hard because you can't do this as a person who's not living your life, right yourself. So there, there's a power in sincerity and earnestness and example. And so 0:41:07 - 0:41:30 if you're a hypocrite and, you know, you yourself are a loser. It's going to be very hard to persuade your kids that, you know what you're talking about. Right. Um, well, there's, there's the, I made mistakes in my life and I regret it. Please don't do the same. And that has a power to it. Um, but what 0:41:30 - 0:00:00 I'm saying is if you are living your life right now in a trashy way, good luck trying to tell your kids not to be trashy people, they're not going to respond to that. The, the best thing you can do is to hope that they have the sense to see that you're trashy and then try to not be like you. So, um, 0:00:00 - 0:42:20 if you care about your kids, the first step is for you to get your life right with God and start living aligned with the best that he shows you. So, um, but anyway, once you do all that, um, the thing is, is like this land, you need to see this as a multiyear cultivation. And, uh, even starting from 0:42:19 - 0:42:38 a young age, you ought to be having your eyes on a swivel, like we used to say in the army. So when you're walking through the woods, you pay attention to your surroundings and you ought to know about families who are teaching their kids well, and who are guiding their kids into the right kind of life 0:42:37 - 0:42:58 . And from a young age, maybe you have a bunch of possible uh spouse candidates in your mind for your son or for your daughter. And you watch those people over time and you could plot their line of ascent and see if they're a good match for your kids. And you know, you gotta be honest about this and 0:42:58 - 0:43:18 realize that, you know, your kids, we all want our kids to be better than we are, but they get to make their own choices. And if your kids got some issues, then you shouldn't be trying to match them with Mr or Miss Right? You should look for someone where the sum of the parts are greater than the parts 0:43:18 - 0:43:39 them. You know the phrase, I can't re reproduce it right now. Oh gosh, it's still super early in the morning. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. There you go. Um Meaning that whatever they each bring to the table, what they have together is greater benefit than what they'd have apart. That's 0:43:39 - 0:44:04 what the goal is with all of this. So, um you try to facilitate that by helping them because if, if the only pathway is to hop on Tinder and hope defeat, find the person worth marrying, you may as well quit right now because it ain't gonna happen, right? Um And that's how people meet each other today 0:44:03 - 0:44:21 . You can't even say go on dates because it really just doesn't even happen anymore. And uh it's the saddest thing to see folks, especially religious folks. And they just think that if you know, if the kid goes off to college, they're gonna meet somebody worth marrying or if their kid just goes to church 0:44:21 - 0:44:40 , they're gonna find some person at church that's worth marrying. It does not work that way anymore because most of the people in those situations, even at church be really bad candidates for spouses. So it's a hunting expedition, it's not a fishing expedition. And so you can teach your kids these things 0:44:40 - 0:44:59 , you can facilitate it, you can help them, you can suggest potential people set up situations where they meet those people, like families can hang out together, whatever, do something together and, um, see what happens. Right. So that's the idea.