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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 597: Legacy is What We Set in Motion | David Green and Bill High, Hobby Lobby
00:48:13
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- [00:02]
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- [00:33]
Jenny Yurch
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Yurch. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I'm so excited about two of our guests today, David Green and Bill High. They have a new book coming out called the Legacy Life. David Green is the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby. Welcome to you both.
- [00:50]
Bill High
Yeah, thank you. So glad to be on.
- [00:52]
Jenny Yurch
So we have a new Hobby Lobby that's coming to Michigan near us in Howells. And I would like you to know that I really love the cross stitch kits. Those are some of my favorite things to get at Hobby Lobby because doing things with your hands, it's so good for your brain and you have the best cross stitch kits around. So we're excited about that new one coming to Howell. Howell, Michigan. This book is really a challenging book. It's called A Legacy Life. And we are in the stage of parenting where we've got teenagers and some younger kids. And so you really start to think about what is your role, especially as they're transitioning out of the home or they're getting to the end of high school. So there's a lot of thought provoking topics in this book. I would love to kick it off with retirement. It does feel like the whole of society is focused on retirement. It's focused on not working, it's focused on getting to this spot in life where you spend your days, you write, you spend your days focused on yourself. The kids are kind of up and out. They leave the nest. And you said, david, I would rather become a greeter at Hobby Lobby than to be a person that's, you know, finding seashells on the beach. Can you talk? I mean, that's a very different worldview than most of the culture has. Can you talk about why you wouldn't want to retire?
- [02:11]
David Green
Well, I think first, I think it's nice for someone to have a sport or something they want to do. I don't do a lot of that stuff. And maybe it's okay for someone to retire to something, but I don't think from something, you know, I think you get, I think you get pretty bored after a while if you wanted to golf, and after six months, I think you'd get tired. So I just think it's good to love what you're doing, and I love what I'm doing. But I think also God gives us all a purpose. And what is our purpose? Does our purpose change when we're 65, or do we have the same purpose? So for me, it's a matter of God has created all of us for the purpose. Am I fulfilling the purpose that God has for my life? I think that's when we feel the most satisfied in our life, when we're doing what we're built and made to do.
- [02:59]
Jenny Yurch
Do you have anything to add to that, Bill?
- [03:01]
Bill High
Yeah, I think that idea, you know, I've studied a lot of this, and the idea of retirement is this notion that it's a western view of family. We raise our kids up, we kick them out, and they go off and do their own thing. They move all across the country and you. They just kind of live their own lives. But the Bible is really written from a collective, which is that we are a team. We're together, and we could advance together. And the concept of retirement really was forwarded by this guy named Del Webb who created retirement communities. And so it's like, man, I'm going to move out of Ohio because it's cold, and I'm going to go to Florida. And so sometimes when I teach this in a workshop environment, I say, when we take the grandparents out of the story, we take away chief storytellers. And if you recognize we're a team and we're a collective. So my wife and I are very active in the lives of our grandkids. And that's what we view part of our job as, is to actually be part of the storytelling of the family, not just about our lives, but about the generations gone before. And I just think that that thread of recognizing the big narrative is what we're about as families. And I see that in David's family, how active they've been. And now they're, what, six generations that they' come from? And now four generations that are currently alive, 46, 47 of them that are all here in Oklahoma City. It's an amazing story.
- [04:32]
Jenny Yurch
Yeah, it's really an interesting thing to think about. We're trying to get kids outside. You know, kids are really on screens. We're trying to spend more time as a family. And part of the decision making that we make about childhood, which is a lot of extracurriculars, often and really, this push for academics, I think almost stems from a slight fear of we're trying to get these kids on a path toward retirement. That's part of why we make these decisions and push, push, push, because we're trying to get them on that path that everyone seems to do and to save enough money so that you can retire. And you wrote the problem with the empty nest worldview is that it promotes and encourages a hyper individualistic culture at every level for the kids, for the parents, for the grandparents. We, we don't stand for anything as a family other than our own individual interests. We break into a thousand little pieces. This is powerful to think about.
- [05:25]
Bill High
You know, this is one of the things again, that I've studied. David, you can talk about this too. Because this whole notion of let's stay together and let's be together again. David's family now is six generations, I think, on your mother's side. But we don't tend to think about that here in America. We tend to think about one generation. We tend to think about myself. If you go over to Europe and other places around the world, you'll see families that are still together after a thousand years. One of the books I'm reading, Jenny, is just all about this. The idea about how the Bible is written from a Middle Eastern perspective, which is that families first and that notion of family being first. They talk about a family that had to flee from their home and get out of some of the, frankly, the terroristic kind of culture that they were in. But they could only save one book, and it was a genealogy book that showed them going back a thousand generations kind of idea. We don't appreciate that here in the west as much.
- [06:32]
Jenny Yurch
Right. I mean, it's hard, it's hard to think ahead toward when you're going to have grandkids. You don't know who those people are going to be. You don't know when they're going to show up on the scene. And so this is a really challenging and convicting and thought provoking book to read. You write about how the idea of retiring and traveling or moving, moving somewhere fun has only popped up recently. And it didn't used to be like that. This, you know, you talk about the man who started it, got an entire generation of people to focus on themselves. You talk about the retirement syndrome. I pray we will be called out of this retirement thinking. If the last great work of your life is collecting seashells, this is a tragedy. That's big.
- [07:09]
David Green
Yeah, we're not, we don't have that problem in our family, because I have. There's 46 of us, so we've got. We don't have to think about what it's going to be like when you have grandchildren and great grandchildren. We're already there. So all 46 of us, by the way, live here in Oklahoma City. So that's real good. I don't know how that happened, but they're all right here. And so I think it starts with just the importance of family versus the importance of your career. So sometimes we think about the career when we're going to. When we're going to retire, how much we're going to make. The financial thing is, I think what we need to do is we need to think more about our family. And that should be the number one thing in our life, is our family growing the family. We bring all of our co managers in here because we want them to have the right culture. And we tell them that it's more important for them to think about their family, their marriage, their children than it is to even their job. Now, I'm telling them that as co managers of Hobby Lobbies, but I'm telling them that because it's true. We need to think more about our families than we do our job. But somehow or another, it seems like the job is important. When am I going to retire? How much money, as you've already said, and I think that's not where we should be. I think we should be to what is about the family. Is it going to be split apart? Are we going to be all apart? Are we going to. And sometimes we have to move away from each other, and that's just necessary. But we ought to be a family that loves one another, and we see the family is more important than the job that we have. Yeah.
- [08:39]
Bill High
Jenny, I know that your podcast certainly has a lot of moms who are listening, and of course, I assume that some of them shop Hobby Lobby. We hope. We hope that to be the case. And you know what it's like. I mean, you've got kids, and of course, those early days, it's just so frantic, you know, it's like, can I keep them fed? And they say that 0 to 5 is the caretaker stage, 5 to 10 is the cop stage. You know, don't do this, don't do that. And then pretty soon you're into that coaching phase, and before you know it, they're walking down the high school graduation aisle, and you go, wow, that went fast. And you say this, by the way, I've been quoting you about that by age 12, 75% of your time is done. And that's such a reality. But if you're not intentional in those early years, and if your whole focus is, I'm going to retire, which has been built into this American culture, if that's your goal, you're going to miss out on the most critical time of your life with your kids. And you will not succeed generationally as a family. So those early years are so critical.
- [09:48]
Jenny Yurch
So the book is called the Legacy Life. And you're talking about how this sort of started with industrialization. The family takes a backseat to business. And you talk about this concept of how it may appear that we are focused on family, but we're really just focused on the children. You say with all the focus on the children because, you know, we're carton kids here and there. It can seem like we are family focused, but we're not. Kids are at the center of the world, not the family. The child centered parenting has the impact of teaching kids that the world is about them. What would be a better way to do it?
- [10:25]
Bill High
Yeah, we were on a podcast earlier. I'm going to jump in and let you talk about how you grew up. But they were talking about this notion that, you know, it's all about, I got to get on this travel team so the next year I can be on this travel team. And we're teaching the kids that your sport, your self, whatever your goals are, are the most important thing. And we're missing out on dinner time. And David, this is where I actually want you to talk about very uniquely, how they grew up. Small church, you guys had to work together, you moved together. It was very much this compact environment as a family. And yet family, I call them family goals. But you guys did have to work together if you're going to afford some things together.
- [11:11]
David Green
Yeah, actually, you may not believe this, but I actually picked cotton and the whole family picked cotton. If we wanted a sofa, we'd have to do that because there wasn't enough money to do that. But we did things as a family and I think that's what we need to do today. And the other thing I think that's really important is for us not to predetermine what our children are going to do. I think we just need that up. Leave that up to Lord. God has a purpose for all of us. And so our goal is with our children and has been to let God decide that. We may encourage them in an area that they're good at, but I think that we need to let them find out what God would have for them life and also realize that everybody in the family has a purpose. God has a purpose. And I think we have a purpose besides just retiring and sitting on the beach. I think there's something more to life than that. I think that we should retire to something. But I think the family ought to be somewhere that we can stay together as much as we can, be together as much as we can and support each other. So that's what we try to do. I don't know how it happened with all 46 of us in Oklahoma City. I don't know what we. We just haven't ran them off for some reason and we don't want to. But it's, it's really good to have your, all your grandkids, your, your kids, they're all right here. But also we're trying to learn that, that there's more to life than just our job. Our job is secondary to our family. So how do we make our family, which is more important than our job, the most important thing. And this is what we're directing our lives on. But also not to spoil kids by just letting it be about their lives. It should be about our lives, the family's lives. The family is bigger than just the kids and so they how to be a part, but they shouldn't be the only part. So hopefully that we do that.
- [12:54]
Bill High
Yeah, Jenny, you're probably going to get to this, but I think it's probably a good transition point just to talk about some of the things I've seen in their family. They do have a clear family vision, mission value statement. They have an annual once a year family celebration where they renew their hey, here's who we are. Vision, mission values. That celebration has kind of taken on a unique life. We're now Generation 3 plans of celebration. So sometimes you have very different expressions of it around a common vision, mission value. So annual family celebration, quarterly birthday celebrations, monthly family meetings built around giving. So those are rhythms that I've seen in the family. The Green family certainly represents an example of one family. We know that these are the practices of other families as well. The Bible not surprisingly, prescribes that there's a weekly family meeting. That's the idea of the Sabbath. And it's the idea we pull back from rest or pull back from work. We rest, we remember, we reflect on the goodness of God. So simple patterns that we see straight out of Scripture. I don't know, David, if you want to.
- [14:12]
David Green
Yeah, but Bill helped our family come together with a document which we think is really important because sometimes we just don't put it down. Who and what are we? And so we came up with a Gen 1 and Gen 2, myself and my children and their spouses with this is our mission, our vision and this is our values. And so we came up with that. So there's a document that we come up with and we celebrate, we talk about that once a year. This is who we are as a family. So we've tried to pull it together that this is who we are. And so after we came up with it, Gen 1 and Gen 2, we gave it to Gen 3, which is our grandchildren. And they said, can you accept this? Is this something you can accept? They changed the scripture to but we all have accepted this mission, vision and values. And I think it helps hold the family together to say this is who we are. And so we're not one of us going off in this direction, in this direction. But it's all based on God's word. And so we take God's word and this is how we feel God would have us to be as a family. But we think it's a great tool that we put together.
- [15:17]
Jenny Yurch
And you talk about that a lot in this book, the Legacy Life. Where are you talking about a creed or code?
- [15:23]
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- [18:29]
Jenny Yurch
And you have one. I thought this was a really good idea. A critical success factor is a conflict resolution policy which ensures that when disagreements arise in families, there is a thoughtful, previously determined protocol in place to resolve these disagreements efficiently, fairly, and with minimal disruption to the family.
- [18:49]
David Green
Wow.
- [18:50]
Jenny Yurch
Would that be powerful? I mean, we don't have that. You know, you have a little tiff and you're just like, I don't know what we're going to do so if you have this conflict resolution policy, these are fantastic ideas for families.
- [19:01]
David Green
Just.
- [19:01]
Jenny Yurch
What a phenomenal book. I would love to talk about this, David. I was curious. So you talk about your childhood. You say we were exceptional at being poor. You talk about that the iceman would come and you would hide. You know, you would have to hide that you didn't have food, people were tithing you chickens, you know, your dad's a pastor and chickens. And then you're sharing it with all of the kids in the family. You talk about that you were the last chair clarinet player, which doesn't have anything to do with anything. But I loved that you put that in there because people will relate to things like that. So you have this situation where you said you're. You're picking cotton and you're giving some of your money to the family. You're working in high school and you're participating in that. But then obviously you've grown Hobby Lobby to be this humongous business. And you do so many amazing things with giving. You start with $600 and you. And you grow at Hobby Lobby to be this huge thing. And it would be really easy at this point to not be interdependent because you don't need to be anymore. So you write in the book, you say, choose to stay interdependent. How do you do that when you don't need to as much?
- [20:12]
David Green
Yeah, I think we actually need to. I think one of the things that money hasn't done. Done to Barbara and myself and even our families, it really changed us hardly at all. In other words, you need money, obviously, to survive. But sometimes we take money and we just think that's the answer to our survival and our life and our happiness. But we have an environment where we have a committee that actually decides on our salaries. And so we should earn. And that's a big word in our family is earn. You need to. Whatever you get, you need to have earned it. And so we have a committee that decides you earn X amount of doll. I make less than I did 20 years ago. And our company is much, much larger because there's a point you just don't need any more money. And that's where I really feel like that I got one of my mother's traits and the fact that she. I paid for her funeral, yet she died. I think one of the richest women that I know because her children served the Lord. She had a marriage that lasted till I. She had a great prayer life. She loved the Lord. She had A good relationship. And those are the things I think that we have to know that it's really important and to be happy in life is to have those things that my mother did. And so I found myself the same way. There's really nothing in this world that I would want, that I have, that I want. And obviously, we all have certain needs that we need, but sometimes our needs go way, way behind, beyond what our needs are. And that's where I think sometimes we, we. We really look for those things. We work hard for them things. And when we come, we're going to be disappointed once we get them, if we don't really have the relationships with our family.
- [21:46]
Bill High
Hey, Jenny, if it's okay, let me comment on this too, because I do get a interesting catbird seed, if you will, looking at the family and seeing what they've done. And one of the things I've heard from the grandchildren is the thing that's been most impressive, this idea about choosing to be interdependent. Part of that stems from the values, but it also stems from the giving. And in particular, it's this question about, where are you taking a risk? Where do we see risk in David and Barbara? Where do we see risk in our parents? And that's been a theme of their family. They've been willing to take a risk in taking a stand, whether it is, you know, in the US Supreme Court case, it's in their giving. And the thing that the grandkids have told me, it's not the possessions or how big the business has gotten, it's when their family was willing to take a risk for their beliefs. That's when they knew this was real. And so one of the questions that we have to ask ourselves as parents, moms, listening to this podcast is, where's our risk? Where do our kids see us saying, these values are so much more important to me than my retirement savings or my job, my accumulation? Those are great questions that we ought to be thinking about as we model that to our kids.
- [23:15]
Jenny Yurch
There's a new book out, it's called the Family Economy, and it's about some of these things that you're talking about how in previous generations, everything was built around the family. And you talk about that. David, you say, when we were growing up, the entire family worked together. Even when I started working in high school, I was contributing part of my income to the household, which is unheard of today. And you say family was at the center of everything. We worked as a team, we needed to. And this Family Economy book, the author Says the farm built the family. And I just thought, well, gosh, this is such a foreign concept, but you really give the vision for someone reading that when you work together in whatever capacity that is, that brings you together, and that is a way to build your family, to build a strong family. Family roots. And you write about how in the past, every family was effectively a business because they had to be. Family was literally everything. We found our identity in the life of family. And then you talk about now that you don't necessarily have to financially. You still choose to do that. And so I thought that was really encouraging and compelling. You also talk about, okay, this is interesting. I've never thought about this, ever. You study all of these other families that have had generational businesses or generational wealth, and you talk about different ones in this book, the Legacy Life. So we have gone and visited the Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina, and it's just like this tremendously huge place. And I actually didn't realize that that was the grandson that built that. And then you talk about how it goes down the line, and it ends up with Anderson Cooper. There's, like, this whole line of people. But one of the things that you talked about is how the grandson, George, said about inherited wealth. He said it is a real handicap to happiness. He said, it has left me with nothing to hope for and nothing to seek for or to strive for. And you talk about people who regret giving too much to their children. So this is really interesting to be on the front lines of that, David. So you come from a family. You say exceptionally poor family, and now you're in a spot where you could give to your, you know, no one would have to work for anything, and you could just pass things down. How did you navigate knowing what to do?
- [25:39]
David Green
Well, I think I navigated. Navigated because of where I came from. I just think that one of the big words that. That we need in business is the word earn with your family. So everything our family gives, they earn. No one gets anything that they don't earn. Now, the Bible tells us that God owns everything. So if he does, he owns Hobby Lobby, he owns all the profits. And so we see it that way. We see ourselves as stewards and not owners. So there's not a penny that's ever gone from Hobby Lobby to any family member that was not earned. So we think that's the right way to do it. You need to earn it to get it. So there's no one that gets a big amount that they can choose to or not to choose work. Everybody has to work. And so that that's the way God has put us on this earth to work. Even before the fall, they had to work. Adam and he had to work. And I think God has put us here to do that. So we want to make sure we work and we get what we earn. But we feel like that anything that's over and above that could really be more damaging than anything. It's just like that you just read. I think the worst thing we can do is give someone something, a lot of something, not a gift. We give our kids gifts. We help our great grandkids in, in their education, Christian education. But there are some gifts that I think can just really hurt the family by getting them to where they could choose to work or not to work. And that's not. You can't do that in our family. You have to work to earn a living. And that I think that's the way that God set it up.
- [27:10]
Jenny Yurch
Yeah. It's important things to know because you talk about this shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations and how that concept is in all sorts of different cultures. They just use different phrasing. And so what, you know, one generation struggles to earn it, the next generation spends it and then you're back to working again. So really good ideas, you know, if you're thinking about like we are, what's the legacy that we're going to leave and what are we building? There's really good ideas in this book. And you talk about how the business force. It's interesting. There are not that many family businesses. You know, I think that. And you talk about even Christian ones, there's not that many of those. So there's not that much to draw from. But this is really an interesting point when you say by having a family business, it ensures that you're all coming around the table again and again because there's going to be issues that come up and things that you need to talk about. So similar to that farm builds the family. You can see how long term having a business where other people are involved, your family members could really, even though it's probably really hard, it could also really strengthen you.
- [28:17]
David Green
I, I think it does. I think coming together in a business. But on the other hand, there's a lot of the, the individuals in our family that do not work with the, with the family. So I think what pulls us together there is our mission, vision and values that pulls us together because we are on that same page. So we come together in our giving. Even though Gen 3 can sit through and listen to Gen 1 and 2 as they decide what we're going to give our monies to. So I think that brings the family together, and then I think our mission, our vision, and our values also help. So that document also, because we do that once a year, is real important because not everybody works for Hobby Lobby. We really encourage the family to follow where God would have them. So we don't try to put any pressure on anybody as far as where they ought to be within the company or whether they be in the company or not. God has a plan for every one of us, and we really want to come alongside what God has for every individual.
- [29:15]
Bill High
Yeah, I think it's really important, too, Jenny, that we emphasize that some people might look at Hobby Lobby and the Green family and say, well, that's great for them. But this idea applies to everybody, every single person listening this podcast. God's dream and desire is that every family be generational in nature. I mean, nobody sets out to have a family and think, boy, I sure hope I'll raise horrible kids who reject my values. I'm sure you didn't. And the goal, God's design would be that we would continue to know. It's just like the Ten Commandments, that you would love God, love people. Right. And then you would hope that you would pass that down to your kids, who would pass it down to their kids. Kids. Because if you continue to do that, that's how you change the world. That's how you continue to gain more territory in the fulfillment of the Genesis 1 mandate, make the world more beautiful and more creative. So this idea of generational family reflects a generational God, but it's also how God gets his job. The mission and the mandate done through the institution of the family, give us.
- [30:27]
Jenny Yurch
Some insight on success. So there's moms that listen in, there's dads that listen in, there's all sorts of people that listen in, but also kids do. So kids are in the car with a parent, they're listening in. And, you know, culture gives all these messages about success, but you say success is a summit that's never quite achieved. It's elusive and more surprising when you find yourself in a place of prosperity.
- [30:53]
Bill High
Yeah, let me address that first, David, and then I'll let you go for it, because one of the success factors that we see. So you were mentioning it a little bit earlier about the family economy. And so sometimes we talk about it in terms of the family balance sheet. So what goes on that family balance sheet? What's the assets and the liabilities. Usually the liabilities, by the way, are unresolved conflicts. But on the balance sheet side, the asset side, you do look for things like mission, vision, values. You look for good communication, you look for family generosity. Those are the things that you want to make sure are on that family balance sheet to make sure that you have that positive net worth that then is being translated from one generation to the next. Those are simple ideas, but that's what you guys are practicing. And that's why even the family giving side of it, you include all three generations. So the three generations are doing that together, even though it's generation one and two that are making the vote.
- [31:59]
David Green
Yeah. And I think we have to really study the word success, because what is success? I don't think it's necessarily because you have a hobby lobby and there's a lot of dollars involved. We're doing this because this is what God would have us to do. This is what we all have. God has given all of us something, a purpose. We, if we, if we don't have a purpose, why are we here? And so our purpose may be different where we can be very successful. My mother and dad were successful, but they didn't have a lot of money, but they were successful in telling other people about Jesus. And so we have to look at success as not just more and more money and more and more stuff. And sometimes we look at success that way, and that's really not success. So I think our success is the fact that we're really pursuing what God would have for our lives and, and, and, and God honoring that and, and giving us the, the ability to, to do the ministry that God is allowing us to do. But I think success, we have to really study that word because we may not. My mother and dad were successful, and I'm successful, but God has given us something different to do.
- [33:04]
Jenny Yurch
It's important, it's important to think about, and also about legacy. So this is about living a legacy life.
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Jenny Yurch
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Jenny Yurch
Every home.
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- [35:17]
Jenny Yurch
And you give this definition of legacy, which I thought was very freeing. You say the definition is legacy is what we set in motion so the outcome is not ours to control. And I felt that that was very encouraging and hope filled because you don't know what's going to come, but you're you're aiming to leave this legacy. You set things in motion and it's very encouraging because you talk about how small changes matter and how it's not too late. Can you address those topics?
- [35:46]
David Green
Yeah, I think all of us need to just really, and I've said it before, I really feel like we have to understand God created for a purpose and are we, are we pursuing his purpose or our purpose? Our purpose sometimes is just to earn a lot of money, retire early and have all this money and instead of what is his true Purpose. And I think in our true purpose and God gives us, and we know what it is and we know where we're supposed to be, where God would have us. I think that's where we have success and that's where we're, we're really confident and feel good about where we are in life, in life. But sometimes we pursue our own purposes and they're not God's purposes. And usually we're going to fail in that, in that environment. So we feel like that, that, that that's why we tell our children we're really not trying to find out what they're supposed to do, but helping them have God help them find out what their purpose is. So that, that is so important to us in our family is just to find out God has created us for a reason other than just be consumers. Because sometimes that's, that's being a big consumer is where our happiness is and it's really not where true happiness is.
- [36:54]
Bill High
Yeah, Jenny, I want to add to what David said, because I've heard him say this many times and it really does. The whole idea of what you set in motion starts with being faithful with whatever God has put in your hand. You mentioned this in the last book, but it's this idea that, man, if you're working at McDonald's and you're flipping hamburgers, be the very best hamburger flipper you can be. Because if you're not faithful in that moment, you're not going to become the manager or you're not going to become the entrepreneur. You got to be faithful with whatever he's put in your hands. And all we're trying to do in the book is add on some things that help you be faithful in the moment. Clear vision, mission values, articulate it. Have a way that you manage conflict, tell your family stories, be faithful with all of that. Because part of what God's put on your balance sheet is a family story. So tell that story and keep repeating that story. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. In the Jewish mindset, by the way, it started out as an oral culture, so you had to tell stories. And they would say that it wasn't until the hundred first time that you got it. And that idea of repetition, being faithful in the moment is what changes that trajectory for 20 generations from now.
- [38:14]
David Green
I think there's a scripture, a scripture that I like is the Bible, talks about whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your heart. Just do it with all your heart. And then in that, I think you find out where God's purpose is. But if we're slack, if we're lackadaisal about it, I don't know that we'll ever find out what God has for our lives. But whatever your hands finds to do, do the very, very best you can. And I think that's what God expects us in. And in that, I think we're going to find our purpose in life and we're going to find happiness in being where God would have us. Mm.
- [38:48]
Jenny Yurch
I love the storytelling part. There's a great question in here that says, what are the top 10 stories your family needs to know? So very thought provoking. And you really just are so encouraging. It's not too late. Even a 1 degree change yields big differences in generations to come. A little change executed daily leads to an entirely different destination. All it takes is steady obedience in the same direction. And you talk about how all is not lost. God has the ability to restore. And if it even seems like it's lost and it's too late, you say, here's my straightforward advice. Start where you are, then entrust the results to God. Well, what advice would you give to someone who's younger? So the other thing that you say in kids, listen in. The other thing that you say is you're never too young to begin to think about your legacy.
- [39:33]
David Green
No, I think that's real important. And I think it goes back to that one scripture. If I had for any if, if my children, I would say just find out what God would have. And he just says, whatever your hands finds to do. I think that's the best scripture I have for young people. Is it in that do whatever you can, even if it's menial, as Bill pointed out, flipping hamburgers? It could be very, very meaningful. You could say, well, this is not what God has for me in my life, and you could be very destructive. You could not do your job well. But you're not going to be where God wants you if you just don't follow him in that rule. Do the very best you can in what you have. And I think you're going to find out. You will find out, especially if you're looking for what God would have for you to do. God has a purpose. I keep saying that, but God does have a purpose for every one of us. And we just will find that in doing the very best we can at whatever our hands finds to do.
- [40:25]
Bill High
Even for kids listening to the podcast too, though, David, is that idea of your own personal code or your own personal set of vision, mission, values? The earlier you start, the better we reference the idea of John Wooden and how he was, what, 12 years old when he, his dad gave him this personal creed. So the earlier, you can start with that clarity around, hey, here's the ethos, the ethic, however you want to phrase it. If you start with that clear code about how you're going to live your life and you're ahead of 97% of the population. So again, just that clear, articulate. That's why we have the scriptures again, ten Commandments. It's not just a set of rules. It's a way of life. And that's what God was giving us, a way to govern our lives.
- [41:18]
David Green
Good.
- [41:19]
Jenny Yurch
You remind us that we may not see what's to come. We may not see the full bloom. You talk about your mom, David, how she passed when she was 71, so she never saw anything beyond the second store. And your dad, same thing. He didn't see the full bloom of the maturity. But you do say, you know, that they lived out their purpose and they left a legacy. And Lee Strobel just came out with a new book called Seeing the Supernatural. And I thought it was really special how you wrote about at the end that your mom was saying, do you see them? Do you see them like this company of angels comes to take her home. And I thought that was really powerful. Just a reminder that there's an eternity that we should be preparing for. And you say your mom's questions all through your life would point you to that long term. What are you doing for eternity? So beautiful things to, to read there. And that sometimes we plant trees for others to sit under and we may not be around to see it. I think that's actually really hard. It's really hard to think about. I mean, you talk about 150 years down the road.
- [42:28]
David Green
That's right. And some of us live a life like my mother. But I think because she had such a relationship with the Lord, it didn't bother her that much not to know. It would have been nice for her to see what God has been. Has done with her children's lives. But I think that she had a. She was very content with her life because of her relationship, daily relationship with the Lord. So I, I thank God had something special for her as well.
- [42:54]
Bill High
Yeah, one of the fun things too, Jenny. You know, when you look at the life of Abraham in Genesis, God by. Was it Genesis 15 tells Abraham that his descendants are going to go down to Egypt and be in slavery for 400 years. He's laying out this generational vision and A generational plan. And there's a great scene, by the way, in the Chosen where one of the opening scenes, and it's referencing Jacob and Jacob's talking to a foreigner and he's like, you know, my God's a generational God. He thinks in generations and sometimes he doesn't fulfill his promises for generations to come. David's mom and dad had no idea that Hobby Lobby would become anything that it is on the corresponding thing. We mention this in the book. David has no idea what his kids are doing, who could have envisioned, and we don't know what museum of the Bible and the Chosen, some of the things that his oldest son are doing and what the grandkids will do. That's some of the power of this generational lens that we should really live and look with, with.
- [44:03]
Jenny Yurch
And you lay it out like it's exciting because I feel a little nervous about it, you know, you don't know what's to come. And you say it's a good thing, it's a good thing for us not to see all the way to the end. And in your case, there's all these fun surprises. Like you talk about how your great granddaughter is leading worship. You, you know, you just don't know. You don't know where the next generation's going to land. And this third generation is still carving the path. And so you, you write, the beauty of living faithfully right now is that we can trust the results to God. We do not and cannot know what he will do in future generations. God is in the results business and our business should be in faithfulness. So just beautiful reminders, a lot to take away. The book is called the Legacy Life. I'd like to end with the question we always end with, but before we get there, I would love to know just about your camping trips. So you talked about your camping trips. You both have this legacy of being outside. So David, you're talking about the camping trips in the summer with the kids. You went to 40 states or more. Bill, you talk about your grandfather, how he raised eight kids in a three room cabin in the hills of the Missouri Ozarks. Can you just talk about that legacy of being outside and being in God's creation?
- [45:18]
Bill High
Yeah. You're gonna go with that one?
- [45:19]
David Green
Yeah, sure. We, we grew up, you know, we didn't have a lot of money when my kids were little. And that was all right because it was okay. We enjoyed that life as much as we do today. So we bought an old Coleman camper that you had to pop Up. And everybody had a job. Yeah. And we use that every place. Everybody slept in that. We had three. Three kids in there, and everybody had a job. We'd go at KOA. It cost, I think back then, $10. And so it was fun. We went to actually 44 states in that. In that old camper. But in addition to that, we went skiing a couple times a year. So we had a lot of. A lot of great, great times with our children. That was very, very important to us. But camping and skiing were two of the big things. And sometimes we'd go to some state up north, and they wouldn't have anything to see. We'd drive up there and say, what do you have to see? And they'd say, well, some big old ball or something. I don't know what.
- [46:15]
Bill High
Ball of yarn.
- [46:16]
WhatsApp Advertiser
Yeah.
- [46:17]
David Green
And so we went to some crazy places. So we went to a lot of fun places. But. But I. I did count 44 states that we had been in. And just traveling during the summer, we never knew where we were going to stop. We just stopped whenever we found a place to stop. So it was a great, great time we had with our family, and it was very, very important to us to be able to have that kind of time. Now, sometimes my grandma. My kids will invite us to go with something with them on their trips, and so we don't go too often because we're not as young as they are, but we're excited to see them with their children and what they're doing with them.
- [46:55]
Bill High
Yeah. My dad, by the way, truly was a hillbilly from the Ozarks, and so very deep backwoods. Not a great story, by the way, but the one thing that my dad did give me was this great appreciation for the outdoors and being away from the city. You will. And getting away into the woods. And so one of the things my wife and I did is we took that same idea. We moved out to the country so we could live on some land. And then we always took an annual family vacation. We're actually getting ready to do it in about a week from now. But for 35 years, we've been taking the kids out to the mountains. So we get out, we hike together. We'd have the same routine and rhythm. And now the grandkids are joining us. So that's been one of those great experiences, that thousand hours that. That you talk about, that's just been a great, great part of who we are as a family.
- [47:46]
Jenny Yurch
Ah, what wonderful memories.
- [47:48]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
The book is called the Legacy Life.
- [47:51]
Jenny Yurch
Leading your family to Make a difference for eternity. It is fantastic. It will give you a lot of things to think about and to implement no matter what stage of life you're in. David and Bill, we always end with the same question. And the question is a little twist on what I just asked. What's a favorite memory from your childhood.
- [48:07]
Podcast Sponsor/Host Voice
That was actually outside?
- [48:10]
Bill High
You want me to go first? You know, the, the great thing that we did, because we did, we lived in the country. We had some wild adventures as kids. And so probably one of those things that was the crazy thing is we were like a lot of kids that there was a creek, a stream that ran by our house. And so we had one of those days where we're like, we're going to follow this thing to where it begins. Now, we never got there, but that's actually kind of the great illustration. It's the joy and the journey of trying to discover and trying to find. So it's still one of those things that I remember doing together with my siblings to try to find the origin of that stream.
- [48:54]
David Green
And for me, by the way, we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have any money for toys or anything. And. And I never remember going on a trip with. With my parents in my life. You know, we never went on a vacation. I don't remember that. But I remember us as kids, preachers kids. We would go out and we would dig tunnels and then we would put tin over that and then we'd put dirt over that and you could go down in there and there would be these rooms we would go to and all that sort of stuff. Now, I'm not real sure we got the tin. Where we got it was in the alley, but I'm not real sure who it belonged to. But anyway, we were preachers kids, so maybe, maybe we didn't steal it, I don't know. But anyway, we got this 10 and put over this big O. I mean, it was. It. It would be yards and yards long of just tunnels that we would put. And you wouldn't even know they were there until there's an opening there and we may have a tire over that. And the other thing we did by getting all the wood we could find up and down the alleys, we would build. Build tree houses. And so you. It would be like a three and four story tree house, you know, so we would just build things with nothing to occupy. We didn't have money to buy toys, but this was just as good because we worked together to put all this stuff together and I, I remember it being a really, a lot of fun doing stuff and building stuff with just whatever we could find up and down the alley. So that was, that was fun and I'll never forget that.
- [50:19]
Jenny Yurch
That what, what an imagination. You know, you got the gumption to just go for it and build, you know, digging those things and it's just, it's so good for you. The science now shows all that heavy work and digging is so good for you and building and carrying logs and that imagination of coming up with something out of nothing. That's wonderful. Well, I so appreciate the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been a lot of things I've been talking to my husband about and it is out now. So whenever this podcast goes live, people can pick up a copy. The Legacy Log life leading your family to make a difference for eternity. David and Bill, thank you so much for being here.
- [50:54]
David Green
Thank you. Appreciate it.