Have you ever noticed we can be incredibly patient with complete strangers and then come home and absolutely lose our minds because somebody left a cabinet door open? You know, at work, we are professional, right? Patient, understanding. Someone makes a mistake, and we say, "Oh, no problem. We'll, we'll, we'll get that figured out." Then we get home, and we see a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor, and suddenly we're conducting a full-on investigation. "Whose are these?" And everybody knows whose they are. You know, that's not really the point anymore. I think there's something underneath all of that. The people closest to us often get a version of us that nobody else sees. You know, sometimes that's really beautiful. They get the unguarded version. They get the goofy version. They get the vulnerable version, the real version. But sometimes they get the exhausted version, the distracted version, the impatient version, the version that spent all day giving everyone else our best and then comes home with almost nothing left. You know, and because they're family, we assume that they're gonna understand, right? And usually they do. But I've been asking myself a harder question: Why should the people I love the most consistently get whatever is left of me? And that's what I wanna talk to you about today Welcome to Pilot Light. I am your host, Josh, and this season, we are talking about passing the flame, influence, relationships, encouragement, the way our lives affect the people around us, you know? And there's a danger when we start talking about influence. We can immediately start thinking outward, which is good. You know, who can I help? Who can I encourage? Who can I mentor? Who... How can I make a difference? Those are really good questions. But before we start trying to change the world, we probably ought to look around our own house, because some of the people we are called to influence the most already know our password. So wherever you're listening from, whether you're driving home or you're sitting in your driveway for an extra just three minutes because apparently that's where adults now go when they need alone time, or you're looking at the thermostat that somebody in your family has clearly changed without authorization, or you're walking around turning off lights while announcing to absolutely no one, "Do we own stock in a power company?" I am so glad you're here. Let's light the pilot light. I've always been someone who likes helping people. That's something I've talked about in previous episodes. I like solving problems. I like being useful. You know, if somebody needs something, my instinct is usually to go figure out how I can help. And you know what? There's a lot of really good in that. But I've learned that there's a cost if I'm not careful because energy is finite, attention is finite, time is finite. And if I spend all of mine everywhere else, I don't magically get a fresh supply when I walk through the front door. I can spend an entire day being patient with people, solving problems, answering questions, encouraging someone, handling responsibilities, and then come home physically present but emotionally somewhere else. And the frustrating thing is I can tell myself I'm doing all this for the people I love. I'm working hard for my family. I'm helping people because that's who I am. I'm carrying responsibility because somebody has to. And all of that can be true, and I can still miss the people standing right in front of me. Quick personal story here, and I don't like it, just so you know. I don't like it when my stories are so fresh that they just happened. Hopefully, I'm learning from things. So, uh, just so you know, my fresh stories are so that it can encourage you that, yes, um, I still really screw up at times and, uh, hopefully these stories help you grow and learn from my mistakes, right? So just kind of a backstory here. And I'm recording on a Saturday, and this happened on a Thursday, okay? So really close in the week. Um, this last week, you know, it's been a tough week. It's been, it's just been tiring. It's been a lot going on, and it's kinda as the seasons change, there's new things that are happening and, and just trying to take care of a lot of different things at work and, and it was just a busy week. And so Thursday I'm coming home and, and, uh, um, getting ready to come into the house. And before I kinda go into that, I'll just kinda other, give you another backstory. Uh, my wife had her birthday on Monday, but she got sick that day, and she actually missed work on Tuesday and Wednesday 'cause she was feeling crummy. And so Thursday she went back to work and still not feeling the best. And so just kind of the backstory of that, and you know, this is the first part of going back to work, and she's starting some classes as well. And so she's got a lot on her plate right now, and that's probably why she got sick as well. Um, and also being around all the, all the kids at school too that, uh, I'm sure they're carrying all kinds of fun germs right now. But anyway, so she hadn't been feeling well. And so I come rolling up the driveway and, and, uh, another part of the backstory is I've been working really hard trying to get the house kinda prepared for fall, um, and winter and, and so I'm just taking care of a bunch of different things. And if you know me, I mow a lot, and so it's some more of my best thinking. So some of these podcast episodes really come out of me sitting on a mower for hours. But I had been working hard to try and get things done and, and weed whacking and cleaning up things and, and pulling weeds and just all kinds of stuff, trying to get the house situated and set for winter that's coming. And, uh, um, just trying to make it look good. Well, I pull up to my driveway, and as I look around and I see where my kids' cars are parked, and there are a multitude of bags with pop cans in them. And, uh, then there's also some lawn care equipment that's behind all that, some weed whackers and things, and they're not mine. And I look to my porch over on the right-hand side as I'm pulling up, and there's a big giant tub there. And I'm going, "Where in the world did all of this stuff come from?" And so I pull into the garage, and, uh, so my mind is spinning, you know, with going, "Okay, how does this relate to me? What am I gonna need to do? Is there... Do I have a new task that I'm gonna have to take care of?" And I'm trying to get all these things done, and obviously I'm heading into the weekend and, and I've got all these things I wanna do, and I gotta mow, and I got blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of stuff. So my brain is just all of a sudden on overload going, "What do I need to do next?" And here's where I messed up. So I walked in the house, and my first question should have been, "Hi, honey. How was your day? How are you feeling?" And instead, my first question was, "What is the stuff outside? What is that?" And I could see it on my wife's face, and I knew she didn't really want to talk about it But I kept pushing on that, and it was something in that moment that I was going, "You know what? I could have asked that question later. I could have found out about that later." And come to find out, it's just my stepson trying to work on things and, and, and make some extra money, and he's gonna go down to Oregon with the pop cans and, and all this kind of stuff. So it, it's really no big deal. But in my head, I was looking at it from the standpoint of going, "All right, what's this gonna cost me?" And instead, what it cost me was a conversation with my wife just saying, "Honey, how are you feeling? How was today?" And giving her an opportunity to unload because, you know, she'd been sick, and all of a sudden she's having to go back to school and, and I missed that opportunity. So as I've been thinking about that, here's the thing. I've started realizing something. Presence isn't the same thing as proximity. You can sit beside someone and be a thousand miles away, okay? In that conversation I had with, with my wife, I was sitting next to her on the couch, yet my mind was thinking already to the weekend and all the things I had to do, and was this thing that was sitting outside going to affect me? So I was already a thousand miles away. I'm sitting on a mower already in the distance, and yet my wife is sitting right in front of me. You can eat dinner together while everyone is somewhere else. You can spend an entire evening in the same house and barely connect, and technology hasn't exactly helped us with any of this. We have devices designed to connect us to everybody else in the world that sometimes disconnect us from the person sitting three feet away. I've done it. I know you've probably done it too. Somebody's talking, and we're half listening while looking at our phone. Then suddenly they stop, and we give the classic response, "No, no, no, no, I'm listening," which usually means, "I heard enough individual words that I believe I could reconstruct the general idea if I was questioned." That's not presence. That's survival, okay? So here's our big idea. Here's the big idea for today. The people closest to you shouldn't have to compete with the rest of the world for your best attention. Let me say that one more time. The people closest to you should not have to compete with the rest of the world for your best attention. That doesn't mean that your family gets the best version of you every single day. That is absolutely impossible. Okay, sometimes you're tired. Sometimes we have to really work hard, and, and work was hard. Sometimes life hurts. Sometimes you really don't have a whole lot left. That is being human. I'm talking about the pattern. If strangers consistently receive our patience, coworkers consistently receive our attention, if social media consistently receives our curiosity, and our families consistently receive our leftovers, something is upside down. Passing the flame has to start close to home. So here's my first point. Familiarity can make us careless. There's something strange about relationships. The safer we feel with someone, the easier it becomes to stop trying. Early in a relationship, we notice everything. We're listening. We ask questions. We say thank you. We make plans. We put thought into things. Then eventually, comfort arrives, and comfort is wonderful until comfort becomes carelessness. We stop saying thank you because, "Well, of course they know I appreciate them, right?" We stop asking questions because I already know everything about them, or we stop being intentional because they're not going anywhere. But healthy relationships don't survive on assumptions. They grow through attention, and the people closest to us shouldn't have to wonder whether they still matter to us simply because they've been around long enough. Here's my second point. Your attention tells people what matters. Attention is one of the clearest forms of love that we have because attention costs something. When I give you my attention, I'm giving you something I can never get back, time. That's why constantly looking at our phones while someone talks sends a message even if we don't intend it. This is more important. That email is more important. The notification is more important. Whatever just happened on Facebook is somehow more urgent than the human being sitting across from me. And listen, I am not anti-phone. In fact, I love technology. My phone does approximately 7,000 things, including occasionally helping me find the phone I'm holding. The issue isn't the device, it's whether we're choosing where our attention goes or letting everything else choose for us. So here's my third point. Love often looks very ordinary. We tend to think meaningful relationships are built through big moments, anniversaries, vacations, birthdays, special dinners. You know, those things matter, But most relationships are built on my favorite day, Tuesday. It's not really my favorite day, but it seems like that's the most mundane day, right? It's asking, "How was your day?" And actually listening. It's sitting together for 20 minutes. It's making the coffee. It's unloading the dishwasher without announcing your sacrifice to the entire world. It's the kiss goodbye. It's the text during the day, the inside joke, the hand on the shoulder, the conversation before bed. It's remembering what they told you yesterday. Love usually doesn't look spectacular. It looks consistent, and consistency is what creates safety. So here's our faith connection. There's a verse in 1 Timothy that says something really challenging. Paul is talking about caring for the family, and he says that if someone doesn't provide for their own household, they've missed something fundamental about their faith. We usually hear the word provide and immediately think money, right? And yes, providing materially matters, but I don't think provision ends with a paycheck. What about, you know, emotional provision, spiritual provision, presence, encouragement, safety, attention? You can provide a beautiful house and still create a lonely home. You can pay every bill and still leave the people you love emotionally bankrupt. You know, Jesus consistently gave people his attention. Even when he was busy, even when crowds were around him, he noticed people. And if we're trying to live like him, maybe one of the places that should be most obvious is inside our own homes So let me ask you a few, um, uncomfortable questions Who gets your best patience? Think about that. Who gets your best listening? Who gets your best energy? Who gets your undivided attention? And who gets whatever's left? If the people closest to you were completely honest, would they say they feel important to you? Not do they know you love them. Do they experience being loved by you? That's a difference, because love isn't only something we feel, it's something the other person has to be able to receive. All right, so here's our flame challenge this week. This week's flame challenge stays close to home. Choose one person you love and give them 30 minutes of completely undivided attention. No phone, no television, no multitasking, no fixing something while you're talking. Just be there. You know, maybe take your spouse out for coffee or sit with your kid, call your parent, take a walk with someone. Ask them a question you have not asked in a while, something as simple as, "Hey, how are you doing lately?" Then listen. And here's the important part. Don't use the 30 minutes to teach them something. Don't turn it into a performance review. Don't fix them. Be curious, because maybe the greatest gift that you can give someone this week is the experience of being completely seen. All right, so to close out our episode today, someday the meetings will stop. The emails will stop. The projects will be finished. Somebody else will eventually sit at your desk. Your job title will belong to someone else, and that thing that felt incredibly urgent on a random Wednesday afternoon, you probably won't even remember. But the people you love, they're carrying pieces of you forward. The way that you treated them, the way you listened, the way you showed up, the way that they felt when you walked into the room, that's influence too. Maybe the most important kind that we can give. So go change the world. Lead, serve, encourage people, build things, do meaningful work, use everything God put inside of you. But don't become so busy lighting fires everywhere else that the people waiting at home are sitting in the dark. Whew. I'm gonna say that one more time Don't become so busy lighting fires everywhere else that the people waiting at home are sitting in the dark Give them something better than your leftovers. Give them you. You know, I've been thinking about the people closest to us and what they will remember. Probably not how many hours we worked, probably not how quickly we answered emails, probably not how many things we crossed off of our list. They're gonna remember moments. Dad sitting beside me, Mom listening, my spouse laughing with me, Grandpa showing up, Grandma calling. The ordinary moments when somebody made us feel like, for just a little while, nothing else in the world was more important. That's a legacy you can start building tonight. Pass the flame You know, before you go, I want to hear from you. One of the things I want to do differently this season is to make Pilot Light less of a one-way conversation. You know, and I bring this up every week, but I really, I want to hear your story. Tell me your pilot light story. Tell me who lit your pilot light. Tell me about a time someone believed in you, encouraged you, or showed up when you needed it. You know, it was awesome this week, my mom sent me a picture, and, uh, the picture was of a note that she had given to her, her, uh, Sunday school teacher a long time ago. And, uh, we kinda cracked up about it because it was just funny, you know, seeing my mom write from a perspective of a little kid. But that Sunday school teacher was so important to her, and, and that Sunday school teacher, teacher was really the person who led her to the Lord. And it was neat because my mom was reflecting back on it, and obviously my mom listens to my podcast. Uh, you know, it's like, it's, it's a, it's a mom thing, you have to do it. It's like prerequisite. But it was awesome to see that she's sharing that with me and the stories of, of how important this lady was to her and, and I talked to her on Friday and, and she brought that back up again. And so, you know, it's good for us to look back and see, okay, who are the people that are really important to us and how can we acknowledge that? And so that was her story on there. So I wanna know who your story is. Who lit your pilot light? Tell me about a time somebody believed in you and encouraged you or showed up when you needed it, or tell me how you're passing the flame to somebody else You don't have to write anything profound. Just tell me what happened. You know, I'm so thankful this week, my buddy Tim, he wrote something and I got it on the, on Face- or not, excuse me, not on Facebook, but on the website. And, uh, he was just encouraging me in a time that was really dark for both of us. And, and so Tim, thanks for, for sharing that. And so I want that for the rest of you, too. So share with me what's going on. Tell me what happened. Because throughout the season, I do wanna share some of your stories right here on the podcast. 'Cause it's not just me. I wanna hear the stories of those remarkable moments where someone impacted you or you impacted somebody else. And so anyway, you can send yours through the fan mail link in the episode description, like what Tim did. You know, while you're there, if Pilot Light has meant something to you, would you do two more things? Share this episode with one person who might need it, and take a minute to rate the show on the podcast app that you're listening to. Those small things do make a big difference, and, and they help more people discover these conversations and become part of what we're building here. So most importantly, I wanna hear from you 'cause this season isn't just about my stories, it's about ours. So tell me yours, and let's keep passing the flame. And one other thing, too, real quick. I'm also putting out kind of these minute episodes. They're called Flick's Fuel. If you don't know who Flick is, Flick is the mascot of Pilot Light, and it's just basically my lantern, and that's what I came up with. And, and, uh, it's because partly, uh, you know, it's obviously a, a flick of the light, uh, Flicker is, is really his full name. Or her. I don't know yet. We haven't figured that out. But, um, I also love the character on Bug's Life, Flick, and, uh, 'cause there's some really cool q- quotes in that, too. So I don't know why I'm rambling about this, but that's what I'm sharing with you. But I am putting those, some of those things out on social media as well, as far as the Flick's Fuel, and they're just basically a minute, and they tie in with the episode as well. And so, um, but it's my way of just getting that word out there so if you could share those, it would be awesome as well. But anyway, thanks for spending this time with me today. This week, before you try to be everything for everybody, look at the people already around you. Put the phone down, ask the question, stay for the answer. Give the people you love something better than what's left of you. So see farther, live deeper, become who you were created to be, and pass the flame. You were created to be a fire, not just a flicker. Keep the pilot light on, and I will see you next time