Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I'm your host, Chris Granger. Let's jump in. All right, fellas, it's fun Friday time. Let's get into it. Hey, you made it through another week, right? Scripture of the week this week has been 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 5. It says, We destroyed arguments and the every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Now that verse, guys, on the spiritual kickoff for this week, I took some time to unpack how we can apply that to our life directly, particularly the taking every thought captive piece. And this week we really focused on anxiety. I'm just a guy with anxiety who's struggling with anxiety. And what does that look like? How can we actually uh reframe, redirect those anxiousness and those anxious moments to better honor and glorify God? So again, that that's what this week has been all about. Hopefully you've enjoyed it listening to that uh this week. And um again, the lionwithin.us is where you can find all our resources, guys, from our daily spiritual kickoff to our community to our leadership mastermind to our Bible studies where we do our different these reading plans. This was a particular plan that we did on the Bible app. We're a wonderful partner with them at uh UVersion. So hopefully you enjoy the content there. So again, the cool part about the Bible app, if you want to do these studies and plans with your men's group and with your small groups, hey, just do it right there on the plan. I put the reflection questions directly there directly. You can actually talk, you can engage directly on the app as well. So it's really a fun way to do it. And but if you're a guy and just looking for some other guys to do this with, the lion.us, man, start it up right now. The daily spiritual kickoff is free, or join a community or put in an application for our leadership mastermind. That's really the three ways that we serve, okay? All right, let's get to our tips for our fun Fridays. So on Fun Fridays for our new listeners, we do a health, wealth, and a self tip. The health is how do we build stronger minds and bodies. The wealth is how do we steward our finances better? And then self is how do we improve as husbands and fathers? Okay, we've got to work on all these areas, right? So again, this is not end all be all. We just try to give you some ideas to strengthen your wall. Okay. So for the health tip this week, think about this water before coffee. Okay? Water before coffee, period. Uh it's just not just a morning routine, guys. We have to get our priorities straight. And to do this, if you're just ingesting coffee right out the gate, I'm telling you, you're you need to hydrate your body first, okay? Because if you can't, what you can be doing is you can be sending signals that you know what, uh, I want to take care of that caffeine first, and that's most important, versus taking care of my body first. And when you train your body uh and that bad behavior, fellas, it could just it throws us off. So I'm telling you, read stuff there's study after study after study out there. Before you pour that cup of coffee in the morning, you're a whole lot better off just to down eight ounces of water, whatever it, whatever it takes. Now, I'm not a coffee drinker, so some of you guys probably like, Chris, you don't understand. You're right, I don't understand. My mom and my dad, and they're huge coffee drinkers. They're probably just rebuking me right now. That's and I'm sorry, but look, at the end of the day, I'm not saying don't drink coffee. Okay, don't misinterpret me. What I am saying is put that hydration in your body first, proper hydration with the water. Think about this. When you drink coffee, you've typically been sleeping for most guys six to eight hours. Now, you may be a guy that don't sleep that much, okay? That's a whole nother tip for another week. But you've basically just fasted. You just went through a fast. And then you come out of that fast and you jolt your system with caffeine. It's it's dangerous. It's not healthy. So instead, I got my water bottle right here. Chug some water, right? You don't have to drink a half gallon like I do in the morning or a gallon a day. You know, that is a tip. But definitely put some water in your system before you just pound it with caffeine, okay? All right, now well tip this week. If you're not doing this on on if it's not on purpose, it's probably wasting profit. So drifting is expensive, guys. Okay, we have to recognize that to be true. And if you don't have clarity on what you're doing and why you're doing it, you're probably bleeding money. Um I'm telling you. And we can't justify busyness as productivity. And there's a massive difference, fellas, between movement and momentum, okay? So every time we meet or every purchase that we make, uh, everything we do should tie back to the mission that God has for us. And we have to return, be focused on the return of intention uh of our time as much as an income, right? So we have to be intentional here. So really the whole point of this tip this week is be purposeful with where you put those dollars. Be per be purposeful, tell them where to go. Now, some things you have to designate, but the the the whimsical, just bad decisions has to stop. To be a steward of what God's given you to do and the blessing he's given you means it takes intentionality. We can't just be throwing our stuff at like a dartboard just hoping for the best. No, let's be precise, be intentional about where those dollars go. All right. Self-tip. Think about this, fellas. Date nights are a whole lot cheaper than divorce. I'm just telling you, it may sound like it's just cheeky, but it's there's some truth behind that humor. We have to pursue our wife, right? And we have to pursue our wife after marriage is is probably more important than pursuing her before. Because you're gonna pursue her before. Let's just be real, right? But the moment uh that we see our that we see our do, I do rather, the work ain't done. It's just not. So a simple, consistent date night that uninterrupted times can reconnect, can do more for your marriage than a thousand little gestures or Instagram worthy vacations, bro. I'm telling you. Because what you're reminding her in that moment is that she's seen and she's heard and that she's important. It reminds us to slow down and to cherish the time together. And when you prioritize that connection, you're investing in a legacy that bl that blesses your whole family. So I'm telling you, fellas, this doesn't mean you could be an empty nester. You still better be doing date night. Plan something. Even if it's takeout, man, like in the driveway with your phones off. Like just be intentional right now because that is where she's gonna see you walking out your love for her the most. Okay. So don't don't blow off date night, man. Don't blow it off. We have to do to to really lean in here and uh be super purposeful about that time we spend with her, okay? But there are your three tips, guys. Health, wealth, and sell. You got hey, water before coffee, go ahead and and and rebuke me now. I know. Wealth tip, be purposeful. It's not about it's not about wasting private. We have to be super purpose, purposeful on where we put those dollars. And that date nights, they're a whole lot cheaper than divorce, guys. They just are. Okay. Now the book of the week this week is a little bit different. Now, the book of this week this week is gonna be our book. So uh we were able to to to finish writing a book this year. Uh it's called Unleashing the Line Within, Reflections for Leader on Leadership for Christian Men. And uh, I don't have a copy right now in hard print. Obviously, I have digital copies, but uh, I'd love for you guys to consider that and check it out. I'm gonna try to do a special episode as well just to talk about the book uh because it's been a big deal just getting that thing done and written. Pastor Joby actually wrote the Ford for the books. That's pretty exciting there. But uh yeah, I'd love for you to uh to check that out, guys, and just to add it to your to your collection. Uh, if some of you guys are having your men's groups and you want to do have a fun book that you can do together, uh that'd be really cool for you to consider that. I can't tell you where to buy it or anything like that right now. It should be on Amazon by the time this podcast is released, but it may not be. We're doing everything uh we're we're doing on our own as always. So uh it may take us a little while, but that book's coming out, guys, and I just wanted to put that on your radar, okay? All right, so our dad jokes this week. Two got two good ones for you. So the first one is why do crabs never volunteer? Well, crab doesn't volunteer easy because they're they're they're shellfish. Okay. You got that one, guys? All right, number two, I had a quiet game of tennis today. There was no racket. All right, fellas, let me know which one you like. Number one, number two. They both this week are kind of stinky, but I get it. Why do crabs never volunteer? Because they're shellfish. And then I had a quiet game of tennis today. There was there was no racket. All right, fellas. So let me know. Number one, number two, look, if you have a dad joke that you want us to use that we haven't used yet, support at the linewithin.us, send that in. And if you if if we use it on the show, we'll give you a shout-out, as well as I'm gonna hook you up with some free stuff just for helping us out. How about that? Okay. So the question of the week we've kind of talked about all week is what kind of thoughts are you feeding the most right now? Because those thoughts that we feed, they're the ones that grow. Remember the stuff we talked about with the Indian chief and the two wolves, uh, a good and an evil, and and they're battling at all times within the mind. He's like, okay, well, which one's gonna win? Well, the one that you feed, right? So if we if we feed our minds with good, God-honoring, glorifying content, guess what? That's gonna grow us closer to God. If we feed it with half-necked girls and drugs and alcohol and all this, the the the lust of the world, it's gonna pull us further and further away from God. It just is. So if you're needing some support and like more godly, wholesome content, I'm just gonna tell you, the Lion Within Us, we're we're doing this. Is what we do. We have guys now who take our app, the app we have that we run our platform on, and that's the only app they have. They don't have this Facebook or TikTok or Instagram and any of those other ones because you're not gonna find half-naked chicks or people trying to promote this ungodly, unworldly, just worldly behavior on the Lion Within Us. That's not how we roll. So again, if you're looking for that, if you're looking for that little encouragement every day, head over to thelionwithin.us. Start your daily free uh spiritual kickoff. That's for free. Join a community. We're talking 15 bucks, guys. We're not talking major expenses here. We're talking this is less than like your Netflix subscription, but this is going to give you godly content, access to other Christian brothers in Christ, as well as the events that we have each and every week. So all that stuff can be found at thelionwithin.us. Okay. Uh give us a rating, a review. That would be super helpful if you were able to do that, guys. So if you haven't done that yet, just click on that. Uh, if you want to support the show, thelionwithin.us slash donate is how you can donate to the show. So we'd love to have you as a monthly donor, supportive of what we do. And again, we have live events, we have our Bible studies, we have so many ways we're trying to encourage other Christian men. And everything can be found at the Lion Within. Don't forget to the thionwithin.us. All right, so guys, I hope you've enjoyed this week and thinking through the the different ways that that anxiety works on us and pulls at us and just kind of can have a major impact for so many guys. So, fellas, if you need support, if you need encouragement, if you need hope, please reach out. Okay, this is what we're here for. This is not the podcast, it just sends a message out to a lot of people. I'm a whole lot more interested in having those one-on-one conversations. So I'd love to connect with you. I love to hear from you, and I thank you so much for listening. All right, so have a great day. Get after it. We'll see you next week, guys. Just keep unleashing the lion within. We're making a big change that I think you're really going to enjoy. I spent a lot of time thinking about our spiritual kickoffs. And honestly, I love doing them each week. So much so, we started doing them live every Monday through Friday, inside our exclusive platform. And here's the best part. We decided to give full access completely free. So now you can join our daily spiritual kickoff space at no cost. Every day we go live to read the word, to encourage each other, and find simple and powerful ways to apply God's truth to our lives. You'll even have the chance to engage with me directly. And if you missed the live stream, don't worry. The videos are posted the same day so you can catch up whenever it works for you. This is exclusive behind the scenes content that is not available anywhere else. And now we've removed every excuse. So if you're ready to get started, head over to thelion within.us and grab your free access today. Let's grow together.