Jim Daly (2:23)

A beautiful location.

Kevin Thompson (2:24)

It is, isn't it?

John Fuller (2:25)

And he and his wife Jenny have two children. He's a marriage and parenting conference speake author and we're going to be dialing into his book Hope 31 Days to a Better Way. And I'm looking forward to learning about this myself, Jim, as obviously I've got some room to grow. You can learn more about Kevin and his other books and this terrific resource hope scrolling at our website. We've got the link in the show notes.

Jim Daly (2:50)

Kevin, welcome back to Focus on the Family. Always good to have you.

Kevin Thompson (2:53)

Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

Jim Daly (2:54)

It's so much fun. This is really good. Let me just ask you up front. I mean the doom scrolling is what everybody calls when you pop up and you start looking through YouTube feeds and whatever your social media preference is, where did you come up with hope scrolling?

Kevin Thompson (3:09)

Yeah, so just Jim and John, two hours from where I live there are four or five just mega companies who are spending billions of dollars every single year to try to figure out ways to get our attention. That's their goal. And what they figured out is the best way to get our attention is not by giving us good news, not by filling our hearts and our souls and sending us out into life. Because the truth of the matter is hope filled people scroll less interesting and so they make less money.

Jim Daly (3:34)

You know what I heard finish this thought but I just want to interject anger is the greatest motivator for clicking. Isn't that crazy?

Kevin Thompson (3:42)

Well, I found that during 2020 one of the things I really found was there was a correlation between because obviously as a married life pastor I know some insights into people's lives, right? And so I found a correlation between the men who had the worst marriages tended to be at church the most outspoken and critique of how we were handling different political and socio situations of what was taking place. Interesting. And it just shows that that dissatisfaction underneath in the heart expresses itself in some ways. And so these major companies, Google, Apple, YouTube, Twitter, they're spending these millions and billions of dollars to get our attention so that they can sell us to other people and then so they can sell to us. And so this book is primarily just my own kind of conviction, kind of my wife pointing out to me my own patterns and habits. She is so diligent and she gets up in the morning, she wakes up before I do. She goes downstairs, gets her bible and makes sure that she has the time to such an extent that Sometimes I come downstairs and she's like, you already up? Don't you need more sleep? Like, I'd rather spend time with the Lord for a little bit because you're going to be needy in some way. But just to begin to make this subtle shift now, into what story are we going to enter into? We're going to live our lives with two stories as Christians. We're going to have the higher story of the gospel and the truth of God's kingdom. But we also live in this lower story of the reality of what the day to day is and what the news is pressing to us. We have to live in both of those things, but which one is going to dictate how we interpret the other? And generally speaking, whichever story we enter into first is going to be the story that sets our perspective for the rest of the day. And so why not focus more on the hope of the Gospel rather than the doom of culture?

Jim Daly (5:27)

Let me ask you, in the book, you mentioned a research study or survey that fellowship of Christian athletes did. Yay to them. That's how I became a Christian, was through fca. But what was the findings and what was the study?

Kevin Thompson (5:41)

So six or seven years ago, FCA came up with an app where you have this daily interaction with scripture. And so they ran this over a period of time to watch because they would give you an assignment assessment beforehand of how you scored in various areas. And then based on that, they would feed you very specific scriptures to try to help you in whatever areas those students were struggling with, whether it was sexual sin, impurity issues or discouragement, anxiety, all those things. And then after a year, they would feed you that same assessment. So they had all this data coming in to see what was the transformation that took place. But not only that, probably something the students didn't know is they had the data of how often those students were actually reading the text message. So they would send you a text message. If you clicked on it, it would you then to the passage of scripture. If you didn't click on it, you would know what was read and what was unread. And what they found was something extremely interesting is there was a dramatic change in scores at one specific threshold. So students who clicked on the app and found the scripture two or three days a week, their scores didn't change one bit. But the moment you got in the pattern of four days a week, there was a dramatic change in the scores. And it begins to show not with perfection, but with this rhythmic discipline that if you can enter into God's story on a regular daily basis, it will begin to impact how you see yourself and I think how you see this world.

Jim Daly (7:00)

Well, it's so true and it's so self evident. If you're reading the Word and praying and doing that together with your spouse, ideally there should be a difference. Right. And when you don't do those disciplines, there isn't a difference. And that's the truth. We see that in our own research here at Focus on the Family. You have to apply spiritual truth in order to receive spiritual blessing. I think in that context. Have you seen this in your church too? Is it playing out that way?

Kevin Thompson (7:28)

Oh, there's no question. I mean, even back if you look at five to six years ago, six years ago now with 2020, I saw a dramatic difference in the cultural turmoil that was going on with the church members who I knew were in a discipleship group that were strategically reading through scripture versus those church members who were not involved in a regular Bible study. Now they might have been doing something privately on their own, but I don't know that. But there was just this dramatic difference. And here's Jim. I think one of the things that's interesting to me is I think part of it is if you do not read the minor prophets, you might struggle to truly understand some of the issues going on in our day to day. And so if all you do is kind of cherry pick aspects of the gospels here, you know, the good parts of the psalms, let's not read the bad parts, then I think you can really struggle with this contrast between this really good God and the sorrow that we see. And there can be almost this angst of a blame toward others who don't believe in Jesus and go, oh, societal problems are their fault. But whenever you begin to read the prophets specifically, you see the charge that God's people have of now influencing their culture to such an extent that we have a responsibility to what's going on. And so I just found during the whole 2020 craze that those who were in a strateg interaction with the whole of scripture responded in a radically different way than those who weren't.

Jim Daly (8:51)

Yeah, you observe too. One simple fix for most couples works to improve their trajectory. What is that one simple fix? Everybody's going, yeah, what is it?

Kevin Thompson (9:04)

Yeah, I had a couple come in to me one time and they're right in the throes of life, of kids and careers, all that. Thankfully, I'm a just a decade beyond that.

John Fuller (9:14)

Right.

Kevin Thompson (9:14)

And so their marriage wasn't horrible, but it wasn't where they wanted it to be. And so it's interesting, as we were sitting there talking, I just noticed that one, the credibility of that couple seeking help now and not waiting until it was horrible. And so I applauded them for that. I said, here's what I want you to do. He had a very busy job. I said, every day at 2 o', clock, I want you to set an alarm on your phone. And when that alarm goes off, I want you to take two minutes and simply think about your wife. Think about what she's going through with her kids at home, and she's about to go pick up the little ones at school. She has the smallest one that's still at home. Think about her day. Think about how in just a few hours, whenever you go home, how can you best contribute to her? And what mindset do you need to get in to enter into that house in a proper way? Then I told the wife, I said, hey, it can't be as strategic with you. You got little kids at home and at school. But when you put the smallest one down for a nap, as that one is drifting off to sleep, I want you to be intentional and take two minutes and think about your husband and just think about what's his day, what's his pressure, all that. I just want both of you to take two minutes and let's see how that goes. Six weeks later, I'm at church. I happen to run into the wife and she comes up to me and she goes, hey, you know, it's been a while. And I thought, oh, yeah, oftentimes I don't get the checkup. Like, what happened here? Was my advice. Horrible. And I asked her, I said, how are things going? And she said, kevin, it's amazing. Nothing has changed, but everything has changed. And I said, really? She goes, it's amazing how just that reality of two minutes of fixating on one another and thinking about each other. Now, whenever he comes home, we connect in a meaningful way. It changes our interaction at night. It gives me compassion toward maybe if he comes home frustrated, it gives him compassion. If he comes home and the house is in chaotic. Just taking that intentional time of attention now has changed everything. I think it's true in marriage. I think it's true with our relationship with Jesus.

Jim Daly (11:00)

In this book, Hope 31 Days to a Better Way, you talk about three questions. The first is, what's the hope? I mean, this is in everybody's heart. What is the hope?

Kevin Thompson (11:11)

So what I love about hope. Scrolling. Here's a little bit of A danger of devotional books is sometimes devotional books cannot actually point you to scripture. And so my goal with hope scrolling is I want you in scripture. And oh, by the way, here are some words that might help you get there in some way. So each of these 31 days just takes a simple passage of scripture. And one of the first things I want you to do is as you read it, go in and just every time you see God mentioned Father, Son or Holy Spirit, just mark that, notate that some way physically in the book. In seminary we always learned the triangle was the symbol of the Trinity. And so I would just take that and every time the Father, Son or Spirit mentioned, I just draw a triangle over that word and it begins to show you how the Bible is about God, it's not about us, how he's popping off the page. So the very first question I always want to ask whenever I'm reading scripture is what is the hope about God? Where is his character, his nature, who he is? Let's begin with him, then we can get to us, then we can get to others. But let's begin with who God actually is, because we'll have that perspective about God's sovereign power, his control, his love, his holiness. It will begin to impact now how we view everything else.

Jim Daly (12:19)

Kevin, let me ask you this. You mentioned a story about this prisoner that you befriended. Now first of all, way to go to do a little prison ministry. But I've done a little bit of that, but that's a lot of commitment. But what happened with this prisoner that you knew?

Kevin Thompson (12:34)

Yeah, so Jim, you know, it's been about six years since I've been coming here to focus. What a privilege it is. And so six years ago I transitioned from Arkansas here to where I am now in California. But back in my old life in Arkansas, I just noticed at one point that in the pastorate I wasn't spending a lot of time around non Christians. So I began to figure out how can I spend more time around non Christians? And so one opportunity was the local university was in need of adjunct professors of speech. And so I thought, oh, that'd be fun, I'd love communication and study it. I thought, I'll go teach these 19 year olds intro to speech. And so I walked into my very first class. 2419 year olds walked through the room. But then there was one 35 year old who came in who was my age, same age as me. And over the time we built a very significant relationship in part because we were kind of making fun of these 19 year old kids and the foolishness that was going on in class. But come to find out that we had grown up in very similar ways and gone to school and all those things. And then our lives took a minor divergence from one another. I went to seminary and he got addicted to heroin. So just a minor change between the two and those poor decisions eventually led him into prison. And so while I was pastoring a church, he was serving his time well. He had gotten out and was putting his life back together. And that's how he ended up in my freshman speech class. And we built a good relationship. He was uncertain about faith, but he was intrigued about faith. And so I invited him to church. And over that course of that semester and then even beyond that, after he was outside of my class for the two years that he was there at the school, we had a great relationship. I did a couple funerals for family members of his, but he just never would cross the line of faith. He was so close. He wanted to believe. You could tell he wanted to believe, but just couldn't quite process it. He did a great job turning his life around. Eventually moved out of state. Well, then I moved to California. I lost track of him. And I've always wondered kind of what happened with him. Well, last year, whenever I was sitting in my office, I got a letter from the Arizona Department of Corrections. And I thought, I don't know anybody in Arizona that's in prison. And I opened that letter and the letter began that Kevin, you may not remember me, but I took your freshman speech class so many years ago in Arkansas. And he said, I'm writing this with a trembling hand at this moment. I totally understand if you don't want to ever respond to this letter, if you don't want to even know or say that you know me. Because what happened is he had relapsed in his addiction and made a horrific choice. And that choice eventually landed him in the Arizona Department of Corrections, in all likelihood, maybe for life because of his prior convictions that took place as well. But he told me about that the night before. He was just laying in bed thinking about faith. And he thought about me and thought about our conversations. And he just came to the realization that there is no way that God could truly love him and be real and powerful and sovereign with where his life had ended up. It's just impossible. And so he made the decision. He said, tomorrow whenever I wake up, I'm going to decide to be an atheist. And from that point forward, I'm going to be an Atheist. So the next morning he woke up, he made the decision to be an atheist, and he went back to the library that you could rent stuff out at the prison. And he took the Bible back that he had leased out, and he gave it back. He said, I felt so good about myself. I had a direction now. I kind of just felt this freedom now in my atheism. And he said he checked out a radio that you could have for maybe an hour or so, got back to his cell, laid down on his cot, reached over, turned on the radio, now going to spend his first kind of relaxing nap as an atheist. And the first voice he hears is mine. As I am talking to the two of you about, stay in your lane.

Jim Daly (16:03)

Yeah.

Kevin Thompson (16:04)

And I mention in that moment, remember, stay in your lane is this idea of you're supposed to control everything that belongs to you, but then you have to accept what belongs to God. And so in that conversation the three of us talked about, you have to control, you have to own everything that you have done. You can't blame anybody else. It is fully your responsibility. You cannot live in denial of what you have done, but at the same time, don't live in denial of what God has done for you. And you can live in the reality of both of those things, the consequences of your own sin and the beauty of God's grace. And he wrote that letter and he said, kevin, I was an atheist for 30 minutes, and now I believe that's amazing.

Jim Daly (16:41)

Focus on the family, reaching in everywhere. But that was great that you were on the program. That had to blow his mind.

Kevin Thompson (16:46)

He said in the letter, he said, here's what I don't understand, Kevin, is I am in Arizona. And the first voice I hear is a voice from Arkansas that's moved from California, that's taping in Colorado, speaking to this prison in Arizona. That's so good. But that's the beauty of God. That's the hope that we have. That's the power of why we need to, on a daily basis, enter back into scripture. Because, let's face it, if the first thing that I do this morning is I scroll the news, I'm going to feel so desperately hopeless and almost helpless in what I can do. But when you and I remember the power of a present, loving, compassionate God that invades our lives, then we begin to see God's going to show up somehow today, and I want to be there whenever he does.

Jim Daly (17:31)

That's incredible. That's a great story. And we're privileged to be a part of it, really. That's the, what's the hope? The hope in Christ? Every circumstance. The next hope of the hope questions is how is that hope for you? Yes, now that's grammatically a little odd to me, but explain the question we

Kevin Thompson (17:50)

want to begin with. What is the hope about God? Every single passage is going to show me something about the character and nature of God that exudes a concept of hope. So after we see and discover what that is, it doesn't just stay there in God's character now it wants to invade my character. So the question then becomes, how is this good news for me on this day, whatever I'm experiencing? So whether you are sitting beside your spouse in a hospital room right now and you're reading scripture or you're celebrating this great merger that's about to take place, you're going to sell your business and your retirement is about to take off, you're a student who's on their way to school this morning and you haven't studied for the test and you're scared about it. Or this is your first day at cheer practice and you get to be the captain and everything's right no matter where you are in life. You take the character and nature of God as found in scripture and say, okay, how does this apply to me and how is this now going to change my world? And you have this, basically this transformation. Allow the Holy Spirit to transform your heart and to encourage you as you're launching into this day so that you can be the salt and light that God wants you to actually be.

Jim Daly (18:58)

Yeah, that is so good. And again, this is the backdrop of how you create discipline spiritually to be able to see fruit in your life. You know, beliefs, well really values then beliefs and then behaviors that come out of that. And there's where you know, if you're living a spiritually light life, you may not enjoy the fruit of that journey because it won't be rooted in the right things. Right?

Kevin Thompson (19:28)

No, that's exactly right. And think about this is what we know. Here's the thing about the three of us. We've experienced the goodness of, of this, of what it's like whenever we have a character that exudes Christ and the impact that we can have. We've also experienced the other side that we have been void of Christ. We have done the doom scrolling. We've walked into a room and brought it more down than we have brought it up. And so what we want for our listeners is not this judgment or oh man, you need to do better. Right. It is this invitation into a much better way. Just think about, go back to the fruit of the spirit you quoted earlier. Just think about that idea of love, joy, peace, hope, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Think about the goodness that is there. That's a better way to live life. And that is literally offered to every single one of us today on the table if we want to take it. But here's the thing. You're not going to get it by scrolling your phone. You are going to get it as you humble yourself, experience Jesus in the midst of scripture, and then allow his spirit to penetrate your heart and to begin to change who you actually are.

Jim Daly (20:26)

That's so true. You moved from Arkansas to California. You observe that in California, the church community that you're engaged with had a kind of a harder edge toward California. The politics of California, what did you learn in that observation?

Kevin Thompson (20:43)

In many ways, what breaks my heart is how many Christians now are looking at the sinfulness in California and they're mocking it and leaving, moving somewhere around the country and just going, I'm washing my hands of this now. There's plenty of reasons to move away from California, I get that. But there's a million reasons to move away from California. But the gospel isn't one. Here's the truth. As Christians are mocking and leaving California, it's intriguing to me that as Jesus came over and looked at broken, fallen, sin filled Jerusalem, he wept over it and died for it. And that's what we should be doing. And so there should actually be nobody that's more hope filled than a Christian in the midst of California. Because what greater chance do we have than to make a difference in the lives of this very influential state that we all know struggles in many ways and perspectives that we would never buy into. One of the things I tell people all the time, I get to wake up every day of my life and say, how can I make marriages in California better? Well, that's job security right there, right? There's plenty of need. Focus on the family will always be needed. But imagine the difference between saying we'll always be needed. And we grow bitter about that because of the sinfulness and the brokenness of the world. Now we need to weep over the fallenness of others and ourselves. No question. But then we have to bring in the truth of the gospel and have an excitement of, oh my goodness, the life that we get to invite people into if they can see what's going on.

Jim Daly (22:06)

You know, and it reminds me we've had a guest on and we were talking about I think it was Lutzer theologian and he was talking about the idea that when we read the scripture, we look at what's in it for us, eternal life. And we kind of get a me focus on that as opposed to what he believes God intended, which is you participate with me, God, in bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. So we are agents of his, but it is one of the harder things to do. We are ruggedly independent. We like to say, lord, accept me Lord, I apologize for my sins. I'm a sinner, saved by grace and that's good. And that's eternal life. That's the promise. But now you got to do the work of heaven. Oh Lord, I didn't really sign up for that. And so when you get into this, it does take us to that next question which is how can you share hope? So that's the third of the three questions.

Kevin Thompson (23:00)

It would be a very fair critique to look at this and go, hey Kevin, you got the questions out of order. That the questions really should be Jesus first others and then yourself. That's how you get joy, right? I mean we learned this as kids, but I did this intentionally and it's this. It's because now whenever you finish this time and this experience with God, I want your last thought not to be about yourself. I want your last thought to be how can I go out and make a difference in the world? So we're going to start and ask, what's the hope about God in this passage? How does that hope apply to me now? How can I notice this? How can I take this hope? Not just all right God, go touch them. How can I take this hope into the lives of my neighbors, my co workers, my families, my friends? And I would say especially sitting here at Focus on the Family, the very first place I need to ask that question is how can I take this hope? To Jenny, Ella and Silas, begin with the alright, Jesus said, love your neighbor, let's begin there, but then let's move beyond that. And so whenever I walk into the church office, it would be easy for people to think, oh, you walk in a church office, man, what a hope filled place. No, no, they need hope brought to them as well. I need the gospel just as much as anybody. And then the neighbor that's across the street, the lost friend that's down the road, how is it that if God has so opened my eyes to his grace, I can't help but take that grace to other people? And what opportunities do I have today to spread hope in the lives of others? Again, they are bombarded with doom. What if not living in denial of that pain? What if in the midst of that pain, I can bring some good news as well?

Jim Daly (24:27)

Yeah, it is so good. It's a great way to state it. We don't want to live in fear. And I really appreciate how you have leaned into the practical side of hope. Not just talking about what we believe, but how our daily habits shape the way we actually live, which is what makes the difference being Christian. Thanks again for being with us today. And let me turn to you. Our listener Focus on the Family is here for you. We want to help you have a thriving relationship with the Lord. That's really our most basic goal is for you to have that relationship with Jesus so you can live abundantly in his peace, which will trickle out to all your other relationships. I've experienced that, John. I think you have too. Indeed.

John Fuller (25:10)

Yes.

Jim Daly (25:11)

And if you're not sure where to begin, we have some so many great resources to help you. Our website is full of great articles and insights to encourage your faith walk. In fact, we have a free PDF you can download called Coming Home and that will give you kind of the steps needed to take to start your relationship with Jesus. And let me also mention the screen fast that we would want to encourage you and your family to participate in. We have an emergency kit, that's what we call it, that will help you discover fun things to do with your family in place of screen time. Gene and I did this when we were raising the boys and it's a good thing to do. Another outstanding place to start is Kevin's solid devotional hope 31 days to a Better Way. You'll walk through scripture and pick up some great habits to start looking for hope and ways to share that hope. And we'll send that to you for a donation of any amount. Be part of the ministry. Any donation size is fine. Five, ten dollars is fine. And when you give to focus on the family, you're helping us reach people who are in need of help. Last year alone, 1.8 million people contacted us for help. And when they contact us, you are part of that when you help us and support the ministry. So let's reach for 2 million, 2 1/2 million this coming year. Let's help them.

John Fuller (26:36)

Yeah. Contact us today. Be part of the team. Get the help you need when you call 800, the letter A in the word Family 800-232-6459 or at our website we'll have a link for that Coming Home article that downloadable PDF that Jim mentioned, the screen, Fast Emergency Kit, and then certainly ways to donate and get Kevin's book. You'll find all of that and more linked over in the show. Notes thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.

Jim Daly (27:23)

Live your truth. A lot of people say that, don't they? But truth isn't something we decide. God has decided it for us, and it's our job as believers to share his truth with a world in need. I'll encourage you to do that through my podcast, Refocus with Jim Daly. I visit with fascinating guests about important topics like gender confusion, cancel culture, and more, while helping you share God's love with others. Listen@refocuswithjimdaily.com.