#403 - Todd Peterson - A Message For Men

Chris Powers: I could not be more excited to do this episode. To those listening, Todd and I met fourish years ago. You've played an enormous role in my life. We've talked about a lot of things, especially as it relates to just kind of what it's like to be a man in this crazy world that we're in, and not just a man, but a man chasing Jesus, what that looks like in practice, what it doesn't look like in practice. And so, I thought for today's conversation, we could just talk through some of the things we've talked to over the years. And so, to lead out, you, when I met you, however many years ago it was, one of the first, this was at a men's retreat, you kind of did this amazing talk about why great men fall and why great men end up suffering. And by great men, I'd characterize them as ones that you can see this meteoric rise. You've seen them throughout the Bible. We see them here on earth. But you just had this really elegant way of kind of talking about what might be leading to that. And so, I thought we could kind of start there with a big question. Why do men that seem to be climbing this amazing mountain, what is it that they do or what's common occurrences that you would see that they kind of topple or fall? 

Todd Peterson: We're starting with a light one, aren't we? 

Chris Powers: Yeah, I just figured. This is the softball. It only gets better from here. 

Todd Peterson: Well, I think apart from the grace of God, any of us can be in that situation, first of all. So, I thank the Lord for guys he's put in my life that have helped me navigate life and marriage and all the things that men need to navigate. I love the National Geographic and outdoors and safari and lions killing stuff. And I think that when you read scripture and you see we have an enemy, I think we all would agree. Like there's devil and he is out there to get us. And the scripture says he comes to steal, kill and destroy. And it talks about him kind of metaphorically or illustrates him as, as you know, this like prowling lion roaming around looking for whom he might devour. You think about those images or videos you see where like some poor impala or wildebeest is over on the edge and who does the lion or the leopard or the cheetah or whatever go after? It goes after the one on the edge. It goes after the one that's isolated or separated from the pack. And God didn't create us to do life on our own. He didn't create us to be isolated. He created us to be in relationship. And I love the proverb that talks about iron sharpens iron. So, one man sharpens another. And when we look at the Trinity, we see God's a relational God, and it's Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And he said, let us make. And it wasn't like God the Father was doing all this stuff and God the Son and God the Spirit were kind of like saying how high when he said jump. No, they're together. It's the Trinity. It's let us do this together. And so, I think guys fall a lot of the time because they're isolated. They get into some situation, some setting, some environment, some context where they've rested on their laurels. They've listened to too many people sing their praises. They've created this insular lifestyle. They don't answer to anybody. They don't have any accountability. They don't have any authentic relationship, real friendship, like blood brother type friend. Like, no, he's got my back. I got his back. We'll jump on a grenade for each other. We'll get in a foxhole with each other. And I think isolation is a big deal. I also think that arrogance and pride and hubris are factors in all that. And you think about a guy who's succeeded, who's done really well at something. And he gets to this place where he really is kind of in a different category of success. And the Lord hates pride. And when we look at the biblical narrative, why did Lucifer fall? Because of pride. He thought more highly of himself than he ought. God warns us against that. He says, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought. In fact, look at my son, Jesus, in Philippians 2, where it talks about his humility. He humbled himself to the lowest point. And scripture talks about how humility precedes honor. The one who humbles himself is the one who's lifted up. The one who exalts himself or lifts himself up is the one who's humbled. And so, I think pride, arrogance, isolation, lack of authentic relationship, these are real things guys deal with. And I haven't found too many other reasons why. 

Chris Powers: And I would think any of those guys either, A, they probably don't know what's happening in real time. They're being isolated in time. Or B, obviously seek that as a goal. So, you've gotten to observe this a lot. What tends to be going on besides success? Like why does success create isolation? Is it because you just put a lot of yes people around you? Is it because you don't listen to anybody anymore because you in your head think you're already number one? Why do I need somebody else? Like, why do we continue to see some of the greatest men isolate themselves? 

Todd Peterson: I think we have a tendency to, as we grow something and something scales and we get layer on top of layer on top of layer, and you think about organizational development and org charts and hiring people and distribution of responsibility and all these kinds of things, I think you get to this place where you- we fall prey to the deception of the enemy that basically says, I'm too important and I'm too... I'm not going to deal with any of these other things. I don't have time for all this other stuff. I don't have time for the open-door policy. No, I don't have time for somebody to walk in and ask me a question. I'm scheduled down to the minute, and I got to do only the things that I can do, and everybody else has to do all the rest of the stuff. And that's a really risky place to be because if you have nobody around you and you don't have any thought partnership and you live in this ivory tower and you really do think you're the smartest person in the world, all of a sudden, you realize you're alone. And I think when we're alone, we are at great risk. And I think that it takes a lot of humility to, one, admit that you didn't get there because of only you. Two, that there are people who are better at and smarter at other things than you are. You probably are really good at a thing, but you're probably not really good at everything. Three, most often and hopefully, in this situation, we have wives. God gave them to us for a reason. They're our helper, they're our completer, they're our partner. It's scary how often my wife sounds like the Holy Spirit, exactly like the Holy Spirit. When I read God's word and I pray and I listen to God and I look at what he's saying and I listen to my spirit and what I feel like in his still small voice he's saying to me, what I think he's saying to me, what the word says, and what my wife says aligned. And yet how often do we dismiss our wives? Well, they don't understand this. They don't understand this business deal. They don't... she doesn't understand what I'm dealing with. Well, that's probably because we really don't want her opinion. We really don't want what she has to say factoring into the decision we're going to make. 

Chris Powers: So, I know I've called you, I think you've been in a role or in a position where you've probably heard this from maybe a lot of guys your age, but certainly younger guys. And they say something to the degree of, okay, maybe you're right, maybe I am isolated. Maybe all those things that you've just described are coming true. What would you say is the path out of that? 

Todd Peterson: Confession. I need help. Invitation to trusted people to help you undo what has been done. There's a great saying, Rome wasn't built in a day. It's amazing how fast things can be torn down. And I think that intentionality around unworking and undoing and unwinding things that have been created takes time. But at the same time, if we make the wrong decision at the wrong moment, everything can come crashing down real fast. And so, it's having those couple guys you really, really, really trust to give you the hard right answer and the truth. And it's probably inclusion of a wife. Like, hey, here's the situation. Here's what I've created. Here's the problems I've created for myself. I’ve got to work my way out of this. Will you help me? Getting a coach, maybe, having a godly, wise, older man in our life who can say, hey, here's how I worked out of that. I actually got into that situation or I have a friend who got into that situation and here's how they worked backwards to unwind and undo some of what was created. Too often, I think we get to a place where we look and say, man, this isn't right, but I'm not about to let anybody know this is where I am because the shame and the guilt and the fear and the doubt, all these things get in the way. And that's just the devil. I mean, we've got to be able to and willing to confess our sin, deal with it. And a lot of the time, this is sin. Somebody listening right now might be, what's he talking about, sin? Well, most of the time, the messes we create are sin related.

Chris Powers: Will you expand on that? 

Todd Peterson: Yeah. And AW Tozer talks about his five vows for spiritual power, and one of them is deal thoroughly with your sin. We don't want to deal with our sin. We don't even want to confess that we have sin. There's scripture about that that says you don't have any sin, you're in deep trouble because you do, guess what. Yeah, no, I think like, I read this amazing book years ago. It was written by a guy, I think in Dallas, if I recall correctly, named Steve Farrar, and he wrote a book called Finishing Strong and another one called, I think, Point Man. And in Finishing Strong, he talked about the consequences of sin and he talked about how sin will always take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you were willing to pay. And that stuck with me 30 plus years ago and I've never forgotten it and I've said it a thousand times. And we make decisions because we don't really believe God is who he says he is. So we doubt his provision. Yet, he says in Philippians, I'll supply all your needs. I'm your provider. I'll supply all your needs according to my glorious riches. Well, my glorious riches are way more rich than your riches. So why don't you trust me to provide? Well, we don't trust his provision, so we go get what we want. We figure out how in the world to get what we want and we go get it because we don't trust God's provision. That's sin. Like God tells us in Psalm 46, don't strive. How many times have we tried to fit a square peg into a round hole? Because we were convinced that the outcome was going to be better, and yet God was doing everything he could to help us understand the square peg isn't meant to fit in the round hole. Let me open doors. I open doors no man can close, and I close some doors no man can open. Square pegs aren't supposed to fit in round holes. So why are you trying to make that fit? Well, I think that's where we get in a lot of trouble, and that's, in my opinion, sin is a condition we're born into and it's our separation from God. And things we do that create separation between us and God, that's sin. And the consequences of that can be really, really, really, really far reaching. Almost always our sin affects other people, not just ourselves. 

Chris Powers: It affects... like it has ripple effects? 

Todd Peterson: 100%. So, if you're married, if you have children, if you have business partners, other family members, 99% of the time my sin is going to have an adverse effect. The consequences I will experience because of my sin will have an adverse effect on other people. 

Chris Powers: And is it because we're born into it that we can't stop doing it? Why do we continue to do the things we don't want to do? 

Todd Peterson: That's a big question.

Chris Powers: I told you, I started easy. 

Todd Peterson: Yeah, so at a biblical level, what comes to mind immediately is Paul talking about that in Romans. You look at Romans 6 and 7 and he talks about the battle of the flesh and the spirit. And why is it that I don't do what I want to do and I do what I don't want to do and I keep doing what I don't want to do, and it just goes on and on. And I think that's the flesh and spirit. And you look at Galatians where it talks about the fruit of the spirit, and in the same passage, it talks about gratifying the desires of the flesh. For me in my walk with God, being saved is one thing. It's like people say fire insurance. But there's a big difference between just being saved and walking controlled by the spirit. And if on a daily basis I get up knowing that I have salvation, Romans 5, we're justified by faith and we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Romans 10, I've confessed with my mouth and believe in my heart that Jesus is Lord. There's a big difference between being just saved and walking worthy of God's call on our life. And I can't walk worthy of God's call on my life just because I'm saved. The way I walk worthy of God's call on my life is I wake up each day and I say, God, I am desperate for you today. The same desperation I had when I'd reached the end of myself and cried out to you and said, save me. I can't save myself. My flesh wins. I'm headed the wrong way. Save me, God, I need you. I don't want to spend eternity separated from you. I need that same desperation today and tomorrow. And the grace that saves through faith, the gift of faith is the grace I need today because I will screw up and I will make mistakes and I will fail. And left to my own devices, I'm impatient, unkind, selfish, lustful, covetous, envious, greedy, fearful. These are all conditions of sin. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, I can walk controlled by that Spirit, with that Spirit manifesting in me the character of Christ. And all of a sudden, I'm loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle, faithful, self-controlled. So, if I wake up and I say, God, I'm desperate for you today, I need you, Jesus. I need you, Holy Spirit, to help me. Oh, by the way, Jesus said, I'm leaving, guys, but I'm going to leave you a helper. His name, the Spirit of God. I'm leaving you my spirit, his name, the helper. I'm a better husband, better dad, better friend, better son, better business partner, better ministry leader, better board member, everything. Because now it's not my flesh that's driving me, all those things we just talked about, fear, envy, greed, lust, whatever. It's the Spirit guiding me, putting other people's interests before mine, laying my life down to see someone else lift it up, being generous back to God and others the way God was toward me. Look at the cross, the best picture of generosity ever. That's the standard of giving. And yet we're all running around, clicking our heels and high-fiving each other because we tithe. I had somebody say to me not too long ago, aren't you glad Jesus didn't give just 10% of his blood? That reframes generosity right there. 

Chris Powers: What would it look like then to be saved? ...How can you be saved and not be walking in the Spirit, meaning you're saved and then what if you're not doing those things? Are you even saved? Is that a complicated question? Do you get what I'm saying? 

Todd Peterson: I think it is a complicated question. I'll take a stab at giving you a response. So Romans 8 talks about he who has Christ has the Spirit. So, I believe that when we trust Christ with our life and Jesus saves us, we're saved. We know salvation, it's justification, it's an event. We're justified by faith. We've confessed with our mouth and we believe in our heart that Jesus Christ is Lord. So, we're justified by faith. Grace through faith, we get the Spirit. Our desire on a daily basis to be submitted to the Spirit, entirely new thing and different thing. We’ve got to do that over and over and over again. It's not that we don't have the Spirit. It's not that we're not filled with the Spirit. Romans, he who has Christ has the Spirit. It's right in the Bible, not worth debating. But then today, tomorrow, the next day, me waking up and saying, hey, Holy Spirit, you're the boss. I'm submitting my will to your will, God. I'm denying myself flesh because I want to walk controlled by your Spirit so that the character of Christ and that fruit of the Spirit is manifest in my life. People don't experience me as gratifying the desire of my flesh because that's what will happen day in and day out because I'm man. I see something, I want it, any number of things. I think that's the differentiator. 

Chris Powers: So, what does it look like in your world to wake up? How does your day start? And how has that evolved over time? Because most of the great men in my life, one common thread is an amazing start to the day. Very few, and it's not a judgment, are like, I jump out of bed, I can barely get in the shower before I have to go. It is usually this like kind of pacing into the day a little bit. What does that look like for you? 

Todd Peterson: So, in my mid fifties, my life looks very different than it did in my mid forties or thirties or whatever. And in my first life or career as a NFL player, for 13 years, it looked different than it has since. But in this season of life, and I would say for the better part of my life, this last 10, 15 years, 20 years maybe even, it's been pretty similar day to day when my schedule's predictable. All of us have crazy schedules at times, and this isn't perfect for me, but it's definitely my habit. It's get out of bed, make my coffee. If I'm being kind and fun loving and sweet, I make my wife's coffee. There are some days that I don't make her coffee, but most of the time I like to make her coffee and take it back to our room and give it to her and tell her I love her. And then, I go sit in the same spot in our home. And it's not because I believe in superstition, but just because I like the chair and I like to sit there with the window, and as the sun comes up, I like looking out the window once in a while and it's near the fireplace. So, in the winter, I start a fire, and I drink my coffee and I pray and I read my Bible and I journal in some form or fashion. For a long time, I've synthesized my thoughts down to a place where what I'm praying about, thinking about, reading and reflecting on, I try to record by somewhat succinctly, a few sentences, maybe a paragraph, writing down how I know God better because of what I've read, how I better understand who God wants me to be because of what I've read and how I better understand what God wants me to do because of what I've read. So for me, know, be, and do are real guiding thoughts around what I'm reading. Scripture talks about being transformed by the renewing of our mind. The scripture talks about abiding in the Word. Scripture says in three different places in the word, the way the world will know we are his, the way the world will know we are his disciples, we identify with him, we are identified by him as his. It says in John 8, John 13, John 15, John 8, that we'll abide in the word, John 13, that we'll love others, and John 15, we'll bear fruit that lasts. Each of those explicitly show in a verse in those chapters, and this is how they will know you're mine. I want to be a guy the world knows is his. One of those ways is that I abide in the word. The word is in me, I'm in the word, the word's shaping me, it's changing me. For a long time, I read a lot of stuff written by guys about God. I was convicted a number of years ago to read what God says more than what man says about God, and I don't read nearly so much stuff today written by people about God. I read God's word and I'm faithful to do that and I love doing it. I love his word. His word has changed me. It's made me more like Christ, that's what it promises to do. If my wife was here, she would say it's made me a better husband. If my kids were here, they would say it's made me a better dad. Anybody around me would know God's word has worked in my life because it works, it says that. It never doesn't work. It always accomplishes its purpose. It never returns void. Does that mean that every day I'm on my knees for hours and in the word for hours and living this unattainable life? No, that isn't what that means, but it means that the habit of my life as much as is possible, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out is I'm in the word. And for me what that has meant is I just read the Bible over and over and over and over and over again. And so, if I've been doing this 20 years, I've read the Bible 20 plus times. And I was convicted and inspired years ago by a much older friend, he died a few years ago, he was just shy of 102, and he had told me that when he was 50, he was challenged by a guy to lose weight, exercise more faithfully, and to get in God's word. And if he didn't do those things, he was going to die young. And the guy who was challenging him was a physician, so he was listening. And so, he got onto a regular exercise regimen, he lost weight, and he read the Bible every year, and he read the Bible 52 times before he died. And he was one of the wisest men I ever had the privilege of calling a friend. And I think that that's the reality of God's word. It's wisdom. It is this sacred thing God has given us, and yet we live in a day and a time where the American church is probably as biblically illiterate as it's ever been. People don't know the word. They make decisions based on the things of this world, guiding principles the world offers. Well, we already can see the world's pretty messed up; why would we make decisions based on what the world's telling us? So, I try every morning to be in the word, pray, listen, and then give that to other people and get from other people what they're learning. So, I trade scripture with a number of guys, which is so much fun. You and I do that. And I love knowing what my brothers are reading because iron sharpens iron, and it makes me a better man when I understand what he's thinking and reading and what he's sharing about what he's thinking and reading. 

Chris Powers: I will never forget, I think I was telling you when we first met, I was going through a series of books that I had read, and you stopped me and you said, have you ever just thought about just reading the word? And I think I've read it every single day for the last four years. I've received your no-be-dos and I can't really interpret to people what it would do other than when you read it so much, it becomes a part of you. It's hard to escape. And then you read things a second or a third time and they have more meaning or more depth or maybe you're going through something in your life that you weren't going through when you read it the first time. But it's totally changed my life, just reading the Bible. And similar to what you said about the church, kind of being far from it and the way I interpret that is there's so many... the truth of the Bible in today's culture can be shocking to people. The Bible says some things that are pretty direct. How do you think about that? Like when you see the world interpreting it 98% right but we're going to leave a little bit out, how do you think about that? 

Todd Peterson: It can be challenging. And I think that you're touching on something that is a challenge of our cultural moment. Fortunately for me, I tend to be reasonably black and white. I'm pretty concrete, and you kick a field goal for a living, it's either good or not. There's not a lot of debating it. 

Chris Powers: You don't have to watch a replay. 

Todd Peterson: Every once in a while, it goes over the top of the upright, and they talk for a second. But 99 out of a hundred times, it's either through or not. And I'm probably along those same lines, a bit of a literalist, a bit of a purist. Like I think a golf club should be where you go play golf not where you go get prime rib on the third hole. And so, I probably struggle less with that stuff, because if it says in the scripture, be generous and willing to share, well, it says be generous and willing to share. So, if I want to be like Jesus and I want to act like God, and Ephesians 5 says we're to imitate God, then I'm going to share. I'm not going to hoard. I'm not going to be stingy. If it says, don't covet your neighbor's wife, then I'm probably not going to look at my neighbor's wife. I shouldn't do that. I should do what that great book said years ago, every man's battle. And I should decide by the Holy Spirit's help that I'm going to make a covenant with my eyes and God to bounce my eyes away from anything that's not mine. Only one is mine. Her name is Susan. God gave her to me. And so, my covenant with my eyes and God to bounce my eyes away from anything that's not Susan, as that book outlines, starves me for my wife. Then I'm less tempted to covet my neighbor's wife. That's what the scripture says. I'm just going to try to do what the scripture says. Do we live in a cultural moment where there's gray? Probably a little, but mostly because of man's decisions. It's not that unclear.

Chris Powers: The Bible didn't rewrite itself. 

Todd Peterson: That's exactly right. God's made it pretty clear. And I think we just tend to not- we like to choose bits and pieces of truth. And unfortunately, or maybe better said, fortunately for us, that's not how God works. God's given us his truth, and it's kind of take it or leave it. It's all or nothing. And for the person whose personality is not one that bends toward being concrete or not one that bends toward being black and white, it's hard to live today, probably. But I think that's where God's grace is sufficient for our needs. And you think about Paul talking about the thorn in his side, it's right there in that same area of scripture where he talks about in his weakness, God's power is perfected. It talks about when he's weak, he's strong. We love to say that wrong. We love to say when I'm weak, he is strong. God is strong. No, no, no. What the scripture says is when we're weak, we are strong because we're in this position of need. Like our weakness causes us to need God's power, and he helps us be strong. When we are weak, we are strong. And I think God's grace is sufficient. It always proves sufficient. Doesn't matter how hard things are, how bad things are, God has never failed. 

Chris Powers: Okay, you've said multiple times, we're going to get to a key relationship. We've talked about the relationships around us. What is the importance of marriage? And like, what does a great marriage do for a man? And what does a bad marriage do for a man that maybe some men don't even know are kind of happening to them in real time? 

Todd Peterson: Wow, that's a big one. Well, first of all, I'm not a marriage expert. I'm not a counselor. But I am very, very, very thankful for my wife. We've been married just shy of 32 years. She's amazing. She's godly, wise, fun, adventurous, beautiful, an amazing mom. There's a scripture that talks about, in Proverbs, a woman of grace who's rightly honored. And I've prayed over my wife for many years that God would refine her and mature and develop her into a woman of grace. And I've seen the honor she receives. And I identify that with her being as gracious as she is. The importance of marriage, I mean, that's a book. One, I think that God makes it clear in the scripture that when he joins a husband and a wife, a man and a woman, it's the world's best opportunity to see his love for his bride, the church, through that marriage. So, the way a husband loves his wife, the way Christ loved his bride, the church, the way a wife respects her husband, the way the bride of Christ honors and respects the head of the church is the best picture the world will ever see of the gospel. I actually have a really, really close friend who was diagnosed years ago, given a 10% chance to live. He's alive 11, 12 years later, which is a miracle. But I remember sitting with him in his hospital room when he was going to go in for radical brain surgery, he was given 10% chance to live. And our pastor, he's a dear friend of mine, and they were becoming friends because my buddy was at church with us. My pastor looked at him, and he was talking to him about his wife, and my buddy was wrestling through the spiritual realities of all this. And I remember my pastor basically talking about my friend's wife and just talking about how every night he would go to bed with her. It was his best shot to understand the love of God, the truth of the gospel. God demonstrates his own love for us in that while we were jacked up, we were a mess, we were still sinners, Christ gave his life for us. So, the mystery of this beautiful union, husband-wife, is the world's shot at seeing the gospel in human relationship. I couldn't be who I am or have done what I've done had it not been for my wife. There's no chance. I couldn't have done the things I've done. There's no way if I hadn't had a partner in life. And when I look at the way she's served me and laid her life down for me and, in a healthy form of the word, submitted to my spiritual authority in our home because she saw me submitted to Christ, when I've seen the way she's loved and discipled our children and been the positive influence in keeping me from exasperating them too often. Ephesians talks about that, like, hey, kids obey your parents, but guess what, dads don't exasperate your kids. It says it right there in the same passage. We forget that one. We're just like, hey, kid, honor and obey your dad, but you're exasperating me. 

Chris Powers: You're wearing me out. 

Todd Peterson: So, I love in Hebrews where it talks about the son being the radiance of the father's glory. And I think about how I've learned over the years, and Susan and I have been in lots of different marriage Bible studies and small groups and stuff, how over the years I've understood, and she has validated this, that like her countenance, everything in her, her spirit is going to say how I'm treating her. And the whole world sees that. Like when you come around the corner, when Jesus walked around the corner, the whole world saw God. That's what Hebrews 1 says. The son is the radiance of the father's glory. Well, the same way that that was happening, when I come around the corner, people ought to see Jesus. That's what the scripture says. So, the same way the son is the radiance of the father's glory, I, man, or a woman, I guess, are the radiance of the son. That's what scripture says is we're to be Jesus to this broken, dying, hurting world. Well, that's just one more thought to get to. And a wife would be the radiance of her husband. So if I'm laying my life down for Susan, if I'm giving my best to her, if I am prioritizing her, if I'm putting her interests before my own, if I'm generous to God and her the way God has been to me, if I am serving her, if I am providing for her, if I am protective of her, all the things that we know God intends for us to understand he is to us, then everybody is going to see who I am through her. And that's a really, really, really good thing to have to live up to. Because when I come around the corner, I want you to see Jesus. When she comes around the corner, you're either going to know that I'm being a good husband or not. It's real simple.

Chris Powers: And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, man, if my wife walked around that corner right now, you probably wouldn't be seeing the light, what do I do about it? 

Todd Peterson: I think you start by saying, forgive me. One of the things Susan and I talk a lot about is I am not perfect. I can be a mess. My family of origin is not perfect by any stretch. And she would say that I have been teachable and I'm quick to ask forgiveness. I don't know any other way. And I had to learn that. I mean, I want to be the best husband I can be. I want to be the best dad I can be. I want to be the best friend I can be. And I screw up and I need to be able to say I screwed up. That was a good thing about kicking a football in the NFL. Like, again, I can't blame it on everybody else. The kick either went through or it didn't.

Chris Powers: Well, you could say you didn't have to make it to where I had to kick a three-pointer with two seconds to go to tie the game. 

Todd Peterson: This is true, yes. There are times where the offense stalled and it would have been wonderful to score a touchdown. But at the end of the day, I got to be willing to own my stuff. It's back to that Tozer thing. Like, if I speak harshly to her and then she is not warm toward me, whose fault is that? It's my fault. And I need to say to her, hey, sweetie, I'm sorry, the other day when you mentioned blah, blah, blah, and I snapped, forgive me for that. A woman is a responder. Look at the physical bodies. It's real simple. God created her to respond to me. If I want her to respond a certain way, I need to treat her a certain way. And so, I think you start by asking forgiveness. I think you probably start by communicating more and regularly. We get home from work and we don't have that many words left. She’s got a whole bunch of words left, probably. And if she's getting all of her words taken care of by other places, that's scary. Some of them are supposed to be reserved for you. And so, saying to her, hey, can we talk about the other night? Or can we talk about why we've been a little bit at odds? Or can we talk about Junior? He's been a pain in the butt lately. The same way that she came around the corner and people knew things weren't rosy in the home, a kid comes around the corner, kid's face tells you a lot about the home too. And if kids are living in pandemonium and chaos and tension, their countenance shows that. Because home isn't necessarily the four walls and the roof and the fireplace and the nice cars and the country club. Home's where mom and dad are and a kid feels safe. Same way, kind of, wife-husband. She probably doesn't need nor even necessarily want all of the things, all the toys. She just wants stability. She wants to know she's cared for, protected, provided for, loved, served. Probably can go without a couple of the toys. 

Chris Powers: Okay, if we went one step further, well, actually one more... So this is a follow-on, but every time I've called you and we've chatted about things, usually your answer first before you... is, have you talked to Mikal or like, what does Mikal think about it? Sometimes I've done that, and sometimes I'm like, damn it. I think we know the answer, but why... that tends to be your immediate response to almost everything I would ask you or I would assume other people ask you about important decisions. 

Todd Peterson: Yeah, I mean, I think one, it's my response because I benefit from it. So, I have a wife who I trust, who I love, who I know loves me, who I know is my teammate, my champion, my partner, believes the best about me. And if I can't get that in my marriage with my wife, it's going to be real hard to find it in the world. So, it's the path of least resistance for me. Like she's supposed to be my best friend. She's supposed to be my partner. She's supposed to be my helper. We're called together in Christ, and we're supposed to be on mission together, and together we achieve more. I'm going to get her opinion, because I'm pretty sure if I don't, at some point in time down the road, God's going to say, hey, doofus, why didn't you ask her? I'd already told her, don't do that. We were going to invest in this thing one day. And I was convinced it was a good deal. And a couple of buddies of mine and me and everybody out there listening can say I'm an idiot, but we had the licensing rights, this is years ago, I don't even know if it's around anymore, to SpongeBob. And we're going to wrap it on peanut butter and jelly and put it in a bunch of grocery stores. And the guy who's going to do it had all this experience with distribution and he knew all the grocery store chains, and we were convinced it was going to work. And our wives were like, I don't think so. And we did it. And they were right. It wasn't a great investment. And I think guys need to listen to their wife. God gave us a wife for a reason. Like, why are we not valuing their opinion? Why are we not asking them their thoughts? They are our best friend, and they're closest to our life. They're closer to our life than anybody. They know us better than anybody. They see everything more than anybody. Why are we not trusting them to speak into our life? I think when you are married to a godly woman, a woman who's in the word, a virtuous wife, you think about the things in scripture that the scripture says about a woman, it's almost like there's this thing, I think, that when you think about her completing you, the complementary realities of two together, you think about spiritual gifting, you think about many members, one body. I am not God. I'm imperfect. I'm flawed. I'm redeemed. I am being made more like Christ. But I still got a lot of rough edges, and I still got a lot of deficiencies. God created us for partnership. It goes back to one of the earliest things I said about relationship. And so, these two become one, and supernaturally, a mystery of the faith, is that now the spirit works inside these two to achieve more with them working together than he would have if they worked independent. That's why he brings them together. So, to me, it's just a logical default. Like, what does your wife think? She knows you better than anybody. She loves you more than anybody. She's laid her life down for you literally more than anybody, maybe other than your mom or dad. And to not involve her is foolish. It's dismissive. It's disrespectful. And God told you, he wanted to use her to help you. So, I think that's why I say it. 

Chris Powers: Yeah, I think Mikal’s a better business person than most of my good business people friends. The calls that she's made early on, that it takes time to realize that she's been right on, but they happen over and over, whether it's relationships or ideas. She's got a pretty good track record. 

Todd Peterson: They got a good sniffer. 

Chris Powers: Okay, if you went one step further, maybe you can talk about your experience, but like, what would a group of brothers look like? What would a close group look like? And why is that so important? I think one of the things that I've learned most from you and not just from you, but it's been the most beneficial is I can confidently sit here and say like, I wouldn't even be sitting in this seat right now was it not for this group of men that God's given me around my life that candidly... like you're in Atlanta. The odds of us coming in pass, probably not super high. We’ve become really great friends. And if I kind of look around my life, it's like these amazing men keep popping up, but I have learned, one, just how grateful I am, but two, just the importance of keeping people close by. So maybe we just talk a little bit about what that looks like in practice and why it is so important, going back to not being isolated. 

Todd Peterson: Yeah, as a kicker, there's this funny video created years ago by Adam Sandler called Lonesome Kicker. And I was taught when I was growing up and I started kicking by my high school coach, really is who pounded it into me, and he was a great godly man, don't be a kicker, be a football player who kicks. You're a teammate. You're on a team. And I think it's easy as the kind of isolated guy, the lonesome kicker to get over there and kind of be on your own. But I think I've always valued team. When I was playing at Georgia, we had these t-shirts that said team, T-E-A-M, together everyone achieves more. And we had a t-shirt that said, there's no I, the letter I, in team. I'm better when I'm on a team because I'm not perfect, I'm not sovereign, I'm not all powerful, I'm not all knowing, and I'm not all present. That's God. That's who God is. I'm not God. I need help. I need teammates. I need partners. Life can be hard. In fact, life is hard. Most of life is hard. There's a great book written by a guy named Richard Rohr. And he talks about the rite of passage for young men in cultures historically that taught them these truths, these universal truths. Life's hard. Life's not about you. You're not as important as you think you are. You're going to die. I mean, these are truths that we all know to be true. Nobody's teaching their kid this these days. And so, I think for me, having those kinds of foxhole brothers or those iron sharpens iron kind of brothers afford me a number of things. One, truth tellers, guys that are going to tell me the truth. So, when I start to buy a lie, and that's the enemy's game. He's the liar, the father of lies. Or when I start to be deceived, that's his name, deceiver. Or when I start to feel shame or guilt because he's accusing me of things, that's his name, accuser. I got people in my life to say, no, no, no, that's not from God. That's not true. So, I got truth tellers. I got encouragers, guys who can say, hey man, hang in there. Hang in there. I know that one didn't turn out the way we wanted, but it's going to be okay. We're going to work through it. We're going to get on top of this thing again. We're going to make it happen. It's going to be okay. Exhorters, more than encouragement. Like once in a while, you need somebody to grab you by the scruff of your neck and kind of help you understand this is the truth. And if you don't do this, it's almost admonition sometimes, like a warning. I need adventure buddies, like guys that I can have fun with, that are healthy, and aren't going to lead me down a path of destruction and do things that aren't right, like that aren't honoring of my wife, that aren't healthy for me physically, that put me in compromised positions, et cetera. And so, I think we're looking for a relationship, authentic relationship. I think we're looking for accountability, like somebody who will call my wife and say, hey, I noticed the other day when we were out at the club for dinner, you looked really sad. Everything okay? Whew, that gets real, doesn't it? I even know guys who have such confidence in their relationships, that core group of relationships, that they open up their checkbook entirely to each other, literally bare their soul. Here it all is. That's a level of relationship that can be very, very, very, very healthy and powerful. We're willing to get that real with a few guys who are godly, wise, humble, generous men and can look at our whole life and say, I think you need to watch this. You know what? This right here is really exciting. It's pretty awesome to see that. Way to go. That's mutual reinforcement. We have a chance to encourage each other. We have a chance to challenge each other. We have a chance to inspire each other. And that's how God wants to use us. He wants to use us to help all of us accomplish more together than we would alone.

Chris Powers: You said life's hard. And I think one thing that, when I first was saved, I thought, well, following Jesus will just make life easier. And one thing, again, it's just a recurring part of our conversation, is we're tending to talk about tough things. We talked about a tough thing at lunch today. What is a relationship with Jesus? It's not an easy pathway. How would you describe it? 

Todd Peterson: Great question. Man, I think... that's an amazing question. And man, there's a million ways to think about talking about it. I think that walking with God and walking with Jesus, being submitted to the will of God, controlled by the spirit of God, is the greatest adventure man can go on. Why do I say that? One, because I've lived it. It's true. I came to faith primarily because of verses in First Corinthians chapter one. And at the tail end of that chapter, the scripture talks about the foolishness of God being wiser than man's wisdom and the weakness of God being stronger than man's strength. I grew up in the Top Gun days, Tom Cruise the first time. There was a slogan for a TV commercial the army put out that said, be all that you can be. Guys my age were consumed with being a military fighter pilot, being all you could be. And I realized there was no way in the world I was going to be all I could be apart from God. Not easy. I had my comeuppances. If we had all day, I could share my testimony and unpack how God kind of systematically dismantled my platform I was building for a successful life. He taught me the way I looked at relationships was wrong. He taught me that I was caught in a performance trap. He taught me all kinds of things that were very, very, very valuable, but not fun lessons necessarily. I think that when we fully surrender our lives to God, and the scripture talks about the one who seeks to save his life will lose it, but the one who's willing to spend his life or give his life or lose his life for Jesus' sake, finds life that is fully life. We think about that idea of eternal life, abundant life, life that is fully life. What God promises is he will enlarge our world. He promises to take us on this wild, crazy, amazing adventure where trusting him is good and proves to be wise, where he really does supply all our needs, where his plans are better. Ephesians 3, he's the one who does immeasurably more, exceeding abundantly more than we could have ever asked or imagined, where he shows us his grace is sufficient for our needs, regardless of the need. In fact, we end up realizing more about grace because the grace that he dispenses into our life is commensurate with the need we're experiencing in the moment. We don't even understand his grace until we have the need. And that's why one of my favorite verses in scripture, and it's actually in Eugene Peterson's message translation, is Proverbs 11, verse 24, where it talks about when we're willing to give our life away, God blows our life up. That's my translation. It says the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller, the world of the generous, larger and larger. And I've lived that life, as Susan and I have more and more and more and more committed to follow Jesus and be wholly devoted to Jesus and give our lives away. Not perfectly, we make mistakes all the time, and I can still be a selfish turd, but habitually we're giving our lives away. We're spending our lives for Jesus' sake. We're putting other people's interests before our own, starting in our marriage. What God does is just, you can't explain it. You can't explain it. You can't describe what he does. And so, I think we spend a lot of our lives, at least men do, and the men I know and have known, and especially guys in the NFL and young professional men, we spend a lot of our lives trying to figure out how we can build like this impenetrable wall or fortress around our life, so that we can ensure comfort, so that we can keep all the bad stuff out. And yet what God tells us is one of his names is fortress, like he's a strong tower. He doesn't want us to build an impenetrable fortress around our life. He wants us to trust him. He wants to be our fortress. He wants to be our strong tower. He wants to be our refuge. He wants to be our strength. Chasing God, walking with Jesus, has proven all that to be true, time and again. 

Chris Powers: So if I told you naively, that's awesome, Todd, but I've actually, I've built the fortress, I've built the strong wall, what would you tell me? 

Todd Peterson: I would tell you I'm scared for you, because like one of my pastors told me early in my NFL days, if you think you can solve all your problems, God's going to let you have a problem you can't solve. If you think money solves all your problems, God's going to let you have a problem money won't solve. And I've seen it be true all the time. I've never ever met a man who built an impenetrable fortress.

Chris Powers: Okay, you said this, we don't have to go through the whole thing, but you just said there was a period of my life where the platform I thought I was building, God was starting to unravel. Can we spend a little time on that? What did you think you were building? And did you know he was unraveling it when it was going on? Or is it in hindsight that you look back and go, ah, this was never meant to be from the beginning? Because I think there's a lot of men, myself included, I put myself at the first of this list, that sometimes get into things or are into things, or you've already built the company, but you kind of deep down know this isn't, it's not a forever thing, or it's not right, or you can just feel that nudge, but the world's pushing you in a certain direction, it's how you're known, the fear of like I can't believe anybody would ever see me as any other person but who they knew. And so, you're scared of this unraveling, but I've heard this from a lot of men that have gone through something similar. So, the question, getting back to it is, what were you trying to build in hindsight? And did you know it was unraveling in real time, or is it only in hindsight that you can look back and see that it happened? 

Todd Peterson: Great question, and insightful on your part. I think you have more and more perspective the further away you get from the experiences. I don't know that I necessarily, one, had the maturity, two, the humility, three, the kind of experiential ability to see what was going on around me, perspective, to really know what was happening in those years. And it was a period of years. So between...

Chris Powers: Doesn't always happen quick. 

Todd Peterson: Pardon? 

Chris Powers: It doesn't always happen quick. 

Todd Peterson: No, no. So between probably about... and for me, by God's grace and just my lot in life, it happened earlier in my life than it does for a lot of guys, and I'm grateful for that because I've lived a lot more of my life having realized a lot of these things than I realize some guys will necessarily experience. But between probably, I'd say, about 17 or 18 and about 21, about three or four years, going back to what I was saying, I realized I was in a performance trap. Simple explanation – you kick a football, major college, I wasn't even in the NFL yet, but big time college football, you kick a football, you miss a big kick, you find out real fast where your identity is. And so, I got back after missing a kick to beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night, ESPN National Game of the Week. We have the number one offense in the SEC, they have the number one defense, and we're 0-0 in the third quarter, and I missed a 24-yard field goal that probably would have won the game. It was 0-0 in the third quarter. And I get back to the athletic dorm at UGA, and these are the old days. Some guys on this, listening to this won't even know what I'm talking about, but I had an answering machine where you had to press a button to hear the voicemails. And I pressed the button stupidly, probably because I was insecure and because I was hoping that my parents had called me, my grandparents had called me, my girlfriend had called me. I don't know what I was thinking, but I pressed play. And the very first message was, I won't repeat it. And all of a sudden, I was like, I'm not who he says I am. Like, I know I'm not who he thinks I am. What he thinks I am is what I do. Like, I kick a football in his mind. That's not who I am. I'm so much more than who he thinks I am. Now, I didn't have the spiritual maturity to really unpack that as far as I needed to, but I realized, whew, that's not going to be a good life. If what you do is who you are, you're in trouble. Because someday you're not going to be able to do it or you're not going to do it very well one day. And if you do it really well, you're going to be duped into thinking it's always going to be real good, and it's not always going to be real good. And so, the performance trap thing was a thing, and I had a relational upheaval. And I think I had a pride and an arrogance issue. Like, I was smart. I'm smart. I can say that. I was an academic All-American. I got straight As in high school. I never struggled at stuff. And unpacking that a little bit, I went to the US Naval Academy out of high school because I come from an academic family and my mom mostly told me, you can't pass that up. I got recruited by some big football schools and got recruited by some Ivies and all the service academies. And my mother, mostly, again, like I said, I had a career officer for a father. My dad was a military officer. He was a base commander in the Air Force. But my dad and mom are very different people. And I love my mom to death. I love my dad to death. They've been married almost 60 years, but they're not perfect. And my mom's pretty academically driven. She's pretty performance driven. And she was basically saying like, hey, you can't pass this up. And so, I went to the Naval Academy. I had three roommates my plebe summer. One of them had a 1600 SAT. One of them had an 800 on math. And the other one was an all-American lacrosse player. I wasn't that cool. I wasn't that smart. I wasn't that big a deal. I realized real fast, like if I'm going to build my life on trying to beat out man at everything else, there's always going to be somebody bigger, faster, smarter, stronger. And that's humbling. In fact, it's humiliating. And so, you realize, our identity needs to be rooted in something other than our performance, who we know, how much money we have, what we do. All those things will crumble. All those things are super fragile. That's a house of cards. I was building life on a platform that was real, real shaky. 

Chris Powers: Just one follow-up to that. You did go on to have an incredible career the rest of your college career. Obviously that voicemail didn't totally take you out. You played in the NFL for a long time. So, what is the shift? Because obviously you didn't quit football. You didn't get worse at football. You performed probably even better. So how do you explain the, I thought about it this way before, maybe I thought about it this way after? 

Todd Peterson: Well, I would say that my NFL career is a great picture of grace, unmerited favor, undeserved favor. So, that happened my junior year in college. It wasn't like I came back and had four All-American years. I ended up kicking my senior year because the guy who took my job my junior year got mono. And the guy they tried to put in in front of me who wasn't even on scholarship was a walk-on soccer player and he missed a chip shot field goal. They didn't really have any choice but to give me my job back. And then by God's grace, obviously a lot of hard work, I had a great senior year. And I was 80 plus percent and never in my wildest dreams thought I'd play in the NFL. But you play at a big school like Georgia or any big powerful school and people watch and they see you, and we were a really good football team. And so, I was benefiting and drafting off of the fact that we were a really good football team. And I was a good kicker on a good football team, which meant I scored a lot. And so, the NFL thing began to play out and draft prep and all that stuff and workouts. And I got drafted. My head coach didn't know I got drafted. That's how unlikely a draft choice I was. We had seven dudes drafted. He did not announce me at the football banquet. He announced everybody else. That's how unlikely it was. So it was undeserved and unmerited favor. And then a 13 year long NFL career, I think confidence played into that. I think I began to better understand myself, what I was really physically capable of and good at and became confident in these things. I think God's plan for my life was the primary reason all that played out that way. I mean, I had a buddy who was an All-American at Georgia who got drafted, who never played in the NFL. I played a long time. How do you reconcile those things? God's ways aren't our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And I think the last thing I would say, and I'm careful in how I say this, because I don't want to say something that people interpret to mean like, well, if you sell out for God and you give him everything, then he's going to just drop fairy dust on you. I don't believe that. And not all my NFL career was fairy dust. But I do believe that when we obey God, he blesses us. And when we seek his kingdom and righteousness first, he says he'll add all these other things unto us. And he does say that when we delight ourselves in him, he'll grant the desires of our heart. And I think there are a lot of things in scripture, if we all remember kind of if-then statements, that are kind of if-then statements. Like if you're trustworthy with little, it says he trusts you with more. And so, I think what Susan and I decided, and there's way more I could unpack to this, was we were going to live our lives for God's glory. I was going to kick for God's glory. We were going to give generously back to God and the things of God with what he gave to us, because we realized he wasn't giving it to us so we could be king and queen of our own kingdom. I think that stuff invites the blessing of God. Now, was I not blessed as much as the dude who kicked 15 years? I don't think that's probably how it works. Was I blessed more than the dude who kicked two years? I don't think that's really how it works. 

Chris Powers: Well, you kind of answered the question. You said today, you've said my lot in life, and then you've said undeserved grace or undeserved favor. Sorry, undeserved favor. And so, I think the natural question is, why do some people get more favor than others? Or why do some people get the lot they get and I don't get that? And you've already said God's ways aren't our ways, and we don't see the whole picture. Our little pea brains only see kind of what's in front of us. But could you expand on that even a little? Why do some people get more favor than other people? Does it appear that way, and it's our selfishness that makes us feel like they are getting more favor? 

Todd Peterson: Yeah, I think that's probably a lot of it, our human thinking and... the scripture talks about we see through the lens dimly. God's doing stuff we don't see, we don't know. He's working in ways we don't comprehend. He's all these awesome, big theological words. He's sovereign and in control. He's omnipotent, all-powerful. He's omniscient, all-knowing. He's omnipresent, all-present. And what we know about God is we have this limited ability to comprehend who he is. And what he makes clear to us in the scripture is he's redeeming the world and accomplishing his purposes and wants all the glory. I've tried to make things as simple as I can for my own benefit, really. Might've been an academic All-American, I'm from South Georgia. I mean, I just was like, hey, here's the deal. God wants all the glory. Well, interestingly enough, one of Tozer's other five vows for spiritual power is never accept any glory. God wants all the glory. He's selfish and jealous. He doesn't want us taking any glory. 

Chris Powers: What does jealous mean in God's view versus jealous how we tend to think about it? 

Todd Peterson: I think it's all about himself. He's all about himself. He's the only person that can be all about himself and not selfish. I mean, he's God and he created everything for himself. Everything is by him and for him. It's Colossians. And that's hard for us to swallow because it means it's not about me. Well, that's another one of those Richard Rohr things. Life ain't about you. That's hard to deal with. And it takes some humility and maturity to get to a place where we're willing to accept that. But when we do accept it and embrace it, it's the most liberating thing there is. All of a sudden, I realized, no, it's not about me. I'm actually just a... he's playing this game and he's got me involved in it. And if I'll just say to him, hey, your will not mine, I'm about to go on a wild adventure. And he makes all these promises to me, and he can't break them. He has to keep all of them. How awesome is that? That's awesome. He goes before us. He's with us. Emmanuel, that's his name. He's for us. He'll provide all our needs, supply all our needs. That's what he says. You're never going to have a need that he doesn't meet. How awesome is that? We got to define need. We get in a lot of trouble based on how we define need. So, God is faithful. His names are faithful and true. And he's never, ever, ever not lived up to those names.

Chris Powers: Okay, I kind of want to bring it home on something we were talking about earlier, but it really ties together a lot of today's conversation, especially a lot of the people that listen to this. You were telling me at lunch or on the way to lunch, you just gave a talk. I can't remember exactly the organization, but it was like the world's biggest ideas or conquering the world's biggest ideas.

Todd Peterson: Solving the world's greatest problems. 

Chris Powers: And there's a lot of hard-charging people that listen to this, a lot of folks that have great ideas to solve huge problems. And I kind of asked you, like, well, what did you talk about? And one of the most interesting things about you to me, every time I talk to you, I feel like, if you're not at home, you're at a board meeting. And I'll typically ask you, what board is it? What do y'all do? And they tend to be these really cool kind of big ideas, but you've taken a really kind of humble approach to each of them. And so, maybe just expand on how do you solve the world's biggest problems? Or like, what did you say that day? And I think it'll tie back to the thread of, if you're trying to solve the world's problems all by yourself, you've already lost the battle. So, I didn't mean to spoil the answer, but you gave some really great... As someone who wants to change the world a little bit, I'll raise my hand, I'm there, how might I think about it in this next leg of my career? 

Todd Peterson: Well, first of all, praise God, you want to change the world because the world's broken and dark and suffering and hurting, and God created you to change the world. And the scripture makes that crystal clear. We're supposed to be Christ's emissaries and ambassadors, and we're supposed to go out and be a reconciling force, and we're supposed to be light and darkness and salt of the earth. And so, we're on earth to change the world, to bring heaven to earth, to see the Lord's kingdom come. I mean, we're not on earth to be like the world, we're on earth to be different and set apart from the world, to change the world. And I got a really good friend who says, the world's broken and it needs healing, and our giving our lives away, laying our lives down, spending our lives for Jesus' sake, our giving helps heal the world. That's why we're on earth, to represent God, Jesus Christ, to a broken world and to change the world. So, praise God, that's your desire and aspiration, and we all need to aspire to change the world, and we all need to be inspired and energized and go pin our ears back and do everything we can to change the world. I think to answer your question, my answer was, my talk was simple, summarized in a few words, work together. You want to change the world, work together. You're not going to change it on your own. Now, you might be a change agent in the world as an individual, but you're going to achieve your greatest impact in the world, you're going to bring the greatest change to the world by working together with other people. Because you're not God. God didn't create you to change the world on your own. God created you to be a part of a body called the church, many members, one body, you with some gifts and talents, me with some gifts and talents, that guy with some gifts and talents, that gal with some gifts and talents, your wife with some gifts and talents, et cetera, and all of us together are a force for good. The church, we are the hope of the world. And so, when I was asked to speak at this thing about solving the world's greatest problems, I said, I really believe that the answer is collaboration and partnership and working together. And too many people are out there trying to reinvent the wheel. Too many people out there think more highly of themselves than they ought. Most people out there aren't the smartest dude on the block. And we all need to work together. And if we had the humility to do that, we'd allocate resources more effectively. We wouldn't duplicate effort. We'd have greater efficiency. We'd see much better return on investment because leverage would be built into all that. And one of the things I said to people is I think sometimes when we are working together like that, one plus one doesn't just equal three, it equals four, and sometimes even five. And God, I said a second ago, God blesses obedience. John 17 talks about Jesus' desire for us to be united. God's way is unity. Well, Psalm 133 says God commands a blessing where there's unity. So if we're working together, starting in our marriages, husband, wife united, if we're working together as the church, many members, one body, the scripture says God blesses that. And man, when God blesses something, it's pretty good. It's a lot better than when he doesn't bless it, isn't it? So, I say work together. Have as our default, who else should be in this with us? How else can someone help us achieve this or accomplish this that we may not be able to achieve or accomplish if we're not involving them? 

Chris Powers: Okay, I'm going to end with one more banger question. And this is something, again, that you will often tell me in a conversation, we've already talked about it today, but I will describe something going on in my life. And you will often say, you'll either affirm that or you'll say something to the degree of like, that's not God's plan for your life. And so, I figured maybe we could end, again, it's a big question, what is God's plan for our life? 

Todd Peterson: Great question. God's unique plan for any given person's life is obviously what God ordains for their life. I mean, individual and uniqueness is at the heart of God for a person. We're all created in his image, and he has very specific plans and purposes for us in the context of his purposes. But at a meta level or at a highest level, his plan for our life is that we would honor him and love him with all our heart, that we would bring him great glory. He created us for his glory. So, it's for us to live a life that honors and glorifies him. In the context of relationship, in the context of what we do with the gifts and talents he's given us, we do everything we do with all our heart, working heartily and mightily as if unto him, not man. These are the types of things that I think help us understand God's purpose for our life. And how all that gets unpacked and worked out in a person's life is very unique in each person's life, like his call on our lives. But we get so tripped up by all these things that I think are subordinated or secondary to the big stuff. I mean, I've often heard people say, God really doesn't care if you drive a red or a blue car. He's spending way too much time worrying about the red or the blue car. He's caring most about how you drive it. Are you honoring people? Are you dignifying people? Are you obeying the law? What are you listening to when you're driving your car? Blah, blah, blah. And I think that's all really, really, really important stuff. And a lot of the times people will say, how do I know what God's plan for my life is? How do I know God's will for my life? How do I know the voice of God? And I think it goes back to what you and I've talked about so much, not just now, but so much of our friendship these last years. I mean, read God's word. It’s going to help you understand his will for your life. Seek the counsel of godly, wise people. Look at your experiences and circumstances. Make sure you're in authentic, healthy, spiritual community, the local church. You want to know God's will for your life? These are the ways to know God's will for your life. And that starts being in the word and listening to that still small voice speaking to you. It's the spirit of God. And he's trying to help you discern his will for your life. 

Chris Powers: Todd, thank you so much for today. And I'm just so grateful for you. 

Todd Peterson: Well, I love you and it's super fun to be with you. It's my honor. 

Chris Powers: This was amazing.