Josh McDowell on Building Relationships that Transformt (episode 11)

0:00 Do you love a prodigal? Do you feel like you are lost in a scary and endless wilderness? Welcome to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. I am Judy Douglass and I spent more than 15 years in that wilderness. I believe together we will discover help and hope for your journey. I am so thrilled to welcome you to our podcast today. I have a very special guest, a very good friend of mine. On this edition of When You Love a Prodigal, we have Josh McDowell.

0:41 Now I imagine you know who Josh McDowell is. He's got many, many books that he's done. Probably the two most famous are More Than a Carpenter and Evidence that Demands a Verdict, but he's so much more than that. He's a great speaker and you may have heard him in some conference on a campus, in a church, on the radio, in TV. He's out there, but he is more than that a very close friend and such a helpful and encouraging person and I believe he will be to you today. I want to tell you as I get started a background story quickly on Josh.

1:27 Back in 2001, my husband became president of CREW, of Campus Crusade for Christ, and the very next day Josh knocked on our door and he said, I have a gift for you. And I said, what's that? He said, I'd like to take your son for a month. Steve and I both gasped and said, oh, because our Josh was in one of the hardest times of his life right then and for someone to say I want to take him, somebody like Josh McDowell was just a gift beyond what I could even imagine. So I have a question for you, Josh. First, what motivated you to do that? And second, what did you do with that boy? We've known each other for years. And I know you walked the talk and I knew you were having a struggling time with Josh, especially going into the position of CRU president, everything else. And I always had this philosophy, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And I thought, if I had a wayward child right now, and any parent can, I have this phrase, you can be the greatest parent in the world, do everything right. And you have absolutely no guarantee your child won't grow up looking down and say, I hate you and walk away. And I thought, if I were in your situation, I would just want someone to come alongside me and help

3:01 me. And I thought the best way I could do that would be to take Josh for a month. Plus, I really liked Josh. I like challenges. And so that's why I came, is that my love and respect for the two of you. And then second, just my heart as a father, wanting the challenge of your Josh to take him under my wing for a month. And it was an incredible time. It wasn't easy all the time. I mean, the first week, I had my precious little Honda motorcycle, and I was downtown, came home and it was wrapped around the tree. Josh took it out, found my key somehow, took it out and wrapped it around a tree. And I kept my cool, which was amazing, because I liked my motorcycle. And I took him aside. And I said, Josh, I just want to let you know that I really appreciated my motorcycle. I went to guilt trip on him and I put a guilt trip on him. And I said, my motorcycle is one of my prized possessions. And if you had wanted to use it, I would have said yes, but I would have given you some precautions. And he said, I'll pay for it. I said, no, you don't need to pay for it because I doubt you could. Your mom and dad would.

4:25 And, but that there started a relationship. I didn't get upset. I didn't show him out anything. Not that I didn't want to, but I just responded in love and sat down, interacted with him and said, there's, if there's anything I have, you want to use whatever Josh, you had the freedom to ask on there. And that started a different relationship. And then what I did is every opportunity that I could, I listened to him. I asked inquisitive questions. What is your goal in life? What is, what is something you do in life is you're the most fun you do. What don't you like to do work?

5:08 What do you want to be when you grow up, et cetera. And then just listen to him. And that's awesome. And that really helped to develop a relationship. But second with that, I was very firm. I was very firm when he was going somewhere. And I said, what Josh, you need to be back at nine o'clock. He knew well be, he better be in that house or nine o'clock or he was in trouble. And, and a lot of things like that is a Josh, I don't, and I always explain why I don't want you going over there. And this is why Josh. And so I would lay down the law to him and it didn't take him long to realize I really met it. And he responded to it. But it was one of the little more joyful times in my life, I could say, having Josh for a month. Yep. And now it's just so wonderful to see a lot of the input of you and Steve into his life over the years has paid off. And now the man he's become, the father, the son, husband, you got to be so proud. I am. I'm so proud of Josh. So proud. So proud. And every kid needs a chance. Every kid has greatness in them. And it's part of our responsibility to find that greatness and pull it out. And most of that is believing in them. Yes. Yeah. And I think

6:39 that's the best way to do it. And then I learned this. I went out of my way to ask Josh to help me. Not help him for him. Josh, would you help me here? Josh, I got to make this call. And I just don't know what to say here. What would you say? This is situate Josh. I'm meeting with these parents and they got this daughter that's just this, how should I counsel him? Wow. I got some, I got a lot of advice that you two had given him that maybe he didn't follow, but you two had given him and he passed it on to me and I would use it. That's awesome. But every kid has greatness in them. I'm so grateful. And you know, when he came home from that month, he learned to work while he was with you, which was wonderful. Cause that wasn't one of his willingness things. And he did well in his life and with the Lord for a while until he got pulled in with his old friends again.

7:40 And then he was back down in the depths. So he had a greater foundation to come back out of it. Yes, he did. He did. And he did come out. It took a while, but I love that you all can still talk to each other. We don't see you much right now, but then when we would, he was always glad to come and be like when you were speaking in Orlando and that kind of thing. So thank you very much for your kindness. Oh, hey, doing others, you damn doing to you. And if I had that situation, let me tell you, I always say to people, you want to bless me, bless my kids. Yes, bless my kids and I'll do anything for you. Yep. That's how I feel. So Josh and Dottie, Dottie, his is one of the his is wonderful wife who by the way has been quite a prayer partner, prayer warrior, even for our son have a book out that's called how to be a hero to your kids. And most of us, we would like that when we to be a hero to our kids and not always look like we're just the disciplinarian in their life, but able to really build them up. And part of that book has something called the seven A's and it's how to build relationships with your child or in our case, we're talking about prodigals. And one of the things that I say over and over is the best chance you have to see

9:15 a prodigal return and make better choices is if you maintain a good relationship with them. So Josh, you have seven A's, I'm going to name them. And I think we could start with the first one and we'll just see if we can go down a few of them in the time that we have. So the the seven A's for building relationship with your children. And again, with your prodigal, affirmation, acceptance, appreciation, availability, affection, approach, and accountability.

9:55 Now, I don't see accusations there. That's not one of them. So let's talk about affirmation and then anything of the others that you would like to share about. What does that mean? Look, what does that look like? How do we do these things on a day by day basis with our children? When we affirm a child, it gives them a sense of significance. Significance is that feeling or thought that you've done or said something worthwhile, or you are someone of significance. And I found that when we affirm a child in their attitude, behavior, whatever, it results in positive behavioral change. For example, I was standing, sitting in the front row and my one of my daughters was two people down from me. And she really wanted to get first prize. And like her brother did, and one of her other sisters and all, and she didn't get first, second or third. And I could see she was so kind of down, you can see it in her face. So I leaned over and I said, I want you to hear this.

11:25 I want to let you know that I could not be more proud of a daughter than I am proud of you. I'm so proud of the person you've become, the way you treat people, etc. And I affirmed her in it. And when you do that, it's incredible. It causes them all the more to be proud of you. To do that behavior, catch them doing things right and affirm them. I'm for that. I try to catch my kids doing things right, my grandkids and affirming them in it.

12:05 Doing something, say something. One time a teacher called me and said, I want you to be proud of your daughter today. There was a new student who was really being bullied her first day. And your daughter went right over to her, befriended her, had lunch with her, everything, and walked her home. And I just had to call and tell you, I've never been more proud of my daughter than I have of my grandkids. I've never seen another student do that. Well, when she got home, it was Kelly. And I said, Kelly, Mr. So-so called me and told me what you did at school.

12:49 And I just want to say, honey, I'm so proud of you. God has given you the most wonderful compassion for others. And that will cause her all the more to want to do that more often. When we affirm, it's very close to appreciation. We need to constantly express appreciation to people, thank them for something they said, something they did. I would constantly look for things that I look for things that I could express appreciation. Kelly, thank you for doing that. I really appreciate that. Sean, wow, you never know how much I appreciate what you just said.

13:36 And when I express appreciation, it gives them all the more drive to want to repeat it because they like to be affirmed and they like to have expressed appreciation. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Looking for the ways to speak that I try it now with my children, but with my grandchildren all the time. It works with adults. Yes, it does. When somebody expresses appreciation to me, it makes me feel like a king. Yes. Especially if I know they're sincere. Right. That helps too. So talk about availability. When we're available to someone, it says one thing, I am important. Most people and young people spell love, T-I-M-E. Yes. Yeah. When somebody spends time with us, it makes us feel that we are important. For example, if you need to see the boss and you go to the secretary and say, I need to see Mr. So-and-so. Well, I'm so sorry. He's so busy today. He just he can't see you.

14:42 Well, look, just do your job and call him. Would you? So she said, OK, call him up. So-and-so is here and would like to come in. She needs to see you. And they say, well, no, I just can't. OK, I'll tell her he would like to, but he just can't. I don't care what kind of relationship you have with that person as you walk away deep down inside, you have that sense. If only I was more important, he would have had time or she would have had time for me. Usually that has nothing to do with it. But that's how we turn it. Yes. Time equals importance. If you go and the secretary says, is it cancel all this thing? Very busy. OK, I'll tell her he wants to see you go in. How would that make you feel? Wonderful. It's the same way with our children. Yesterday, I think it was.

15:41 And he is starting to work at a shoe store. He loves shoes. He could tell you every type of tennis shoe shoe in the world. He buys shoes for me. I got more shoes than I could ever wear wearing three pair a day because they are Tommy Falker. No, the boys, some of them I lined out 12 of them this morning upstairs in the hallway. And I got to admit, they're like work of art. And he said, do you think Papa will go out to breakfast with me Saturday and then visit the store? And so Dottie said, I just got a text. We were in bed and just got a text. And Scotty wanted to know if he had. And I thought, oh, my gosh, I don't even know what I have going Saturday morning. But whatever it is, it's not as important as this. And I said, send back. And the next morning I sent back a text.

16:33 Absolutely. Let's go for it. What time? He text me at eight o'clock. I said, gotcha. I will be there and pick you up. And what that says to him, I'm important to my Papa Josh. Time communicates importance to anyone. Anyone. And so because time will speak to me as importance. When people give me their time, I try to be a good friend with Bill. I can never remember a time when I said, Steve never once ever said no to me. But I had people say this and I say this to people. And this is the way you say it. And Dottie taught me this is say, say, Bob wants some time with me and I just can't no matter what. I said, Bob, oh, I would just love to spend time with you. But Bob, I just can't right now. But I want to let you know if I could, I would.

17:25 And Dottie said to me, for most people, that's all they need to know. Not to overplay my hand on that. Well, sometimes you can say, let's try for another time later. I'm very humble. There's not time now. Busy people take time for me. Very humbled. And that's how they feel when you take time for them. Well, I hope so. That's great. So another thing that you say here that might surprise people is affection is something that really speaks love and care. When we express affection to someone, it communicates you are loved. There's two great desires. And I say almost every single person's life globally, no matter your race or nationality, ethnic background or anything, you want to love and you want to be loved to great needs of humanity. I want to be loved and I want to love. So I believe that when you express affection, there's two things.

18:26 When you express affection, there's two ways you express affection. One is verbally. I love you. I think the world of you, et cetera. Other is to express it with appropriate. I like to add appropriate physical expression with a hug, with a kiss, a peck in the cheek, arm around the shoulders, holding the hand. And kids are crying out for that. They're crying out for affection. Even when they say, oh, no, no, I don't like that. Don't stop. Don't stop. That's a normal response from a child. And so over the years, I've gone out of my way to express it verbally. I tried with each one of my children when I was home and we were home, whatever, 10 times a day with each one to tell them verbally, I love you or saying, you know, Katie, I don't know how I could have a greater daughter than you. Katie, if I had to do it over all again, God said, you have any child you want. I would want you to be my something like that at least 10 times a day. And I remember one time I forgot it was Katie. And I forgot to tell her that I loved her that day. And I was in bed and everything. So I got up, put on my bathroom, tiptoed into her bedroom, leaned over and whispered to her, honey, I sure love you. I said, thanks, dad. Oh, that's great. They do love it.

19:58 But yes, we need to express it verbally, significantly. Well, I told her last week, I loved her. That's enough. Say it. You told her five minutes ago and you need to tell her again. Just like with our spouses. Yes. And then to express it. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it comes back to bless you with my son. He was great in basketball. Very good. Played at Biola University, everything. And he loved the Lakers. And he made a comment. He wished he could take some of his friends to see the big Lakers series that was coming up, one of the games at the Pavilion in LA. So I rearranged my schedule and I said, how about Thursday night or Friday night? Well, it didn't matter. And so five of his friends, we picked up and we drove there and to save money, because it's pretty expensive. We parked in a person's driveway for $2 instead of $10 at the parking lot. So we walked across this large, at that time, it was a little empty parking lot with his five friends and all signed without realizing it.

21:07 And I mean, I didn't let go all the way across that parking lot. I still remember it. Held his hands. And when I thought of how many times I reached out and took his hand, and then it led him to reach out and take my hand, a father son walk across the parking lot with his friends, holding hands. Most no, they would not think of that. You're right. What a, what a wonderful story. Well, I know that it helps me and I love to show the affection, but it's, it's so important to them. And now that I have 10 grandchildren, there's lots of people to have affection with. I got 10 too. It's a good number. Only I hardly seen most of them the past year. Anyway.

21:54 Most of mine live near me. Last one we'll take, even though there are more. And that is you mentioned approach or maybe approachability. What do you mean by that? When we approach a person's world, a child's world, it says what I care about, my daddy or my mommy cares about what I'm interested in. My mommy or daddy's interested in. And that's about the only way you really show that an example approach their world. My son, when he was 10, 11 years old, really got into cars. I mean, dad, that's a Porsche so-and-so. That's a Ferrari dad.

22:37 He looked at my car said, that's a Ford dad. Anyway, he knew all the cars. So I thought I'm about the child's world. How can I approach? So I called some of the dealerships of all the sporting cars up in Beverly Hills and said, if I pull my son out of school, bring him up, would you take us for a test drive? Every one of them said, yes. So I talked to the teacher ahead of time and said, I'd like to pull. I never had one teacher say, don't do it. I always say, I wanted to get your permission for it because I highly appreciate you as a teacher of school. Every teacher knows when a father does something like that with a son, it's better than a day at school, a day with a father. And the teachers always encouraged it. And if I pull my son out of school, a day with a father and the teachers always encouraged it. And if I pulled him out just to go downtown for a day for ice cream during lunchtime or something, I say, I'm back by one o'clock. Oh no, take your time. If you don't get back to one 30, no problem. But I always got him back on time for the class. Why? To show my kids, I respect education and I respect the team. So I always got him back there on time. But my son would say, daddy, can my friend go with me? All of his friends said, can I go with you and your dad? Can I go with you and your dad on there? But

24:10 I would approach their world. So I took him up there and in about three and a half hours, we rode in probably several million dollars worth of cars. And these people's incredible. I would walk up and I would say, hi. And they'd always tell me who to look for, like the manager. And I would say, is Mr. So-and-so here? Who wants to see him? Josh Mcdowell. And everyone would say, oh, we've been waiting for you. They had never had a father do that. And they would have candy bars, everything for my kids. And they would have books about cars and all, which kids love, you know, look through the sports car, all kinds of gifts for Sean. And then we would go out and ride in the car and they'd take us on a drive. I'd sit in the back seat if there was, otherwise he would sit on my lap if it was a two seater and they would drive us. And or I would drive. And that said to my son, what I care about, my dad cares about. Oh, one time I forget what Heather was into. Oh, I can't think of what it is. But I arranged my schedule and surprised her and said, hey, let's go do this today. And I stepped in her world that she liked. And it shows that what I think about my dad thinks about what I like, my dad likes, what I care about, my dad cares about, or my mom. That's what happens when you approach their world. Step in to your child's world. Why do we always have to go to the restaurant we want to go to eat what we want to eat, do what

25:44 we do. Our kids are human. Most of them. Step into their world, go where they want to go, go to the restaurant they want to go to, eat what they want to eat, do what they want to do, watch the TV program they want to watch, etc. So my son was always into basketball. So I looked for opportunities to take him to basketball games. And my son knew growing up, my dad cared about basketball. Yeah. So that's why I say approach the world. And it shows that you just think that's so important, Josh. And I could ask you a dozen more questions. But I know you have a schedule. I don't have a dozen more. No, but you have a dozen more things you could talk about that I could ask you.

26:30 Anybody can go to josh.org forward slash seven days and download it all. You can download my PowerPoint transcript and everything free josh.org and then just power forward slash parenting. What you don't know is that we're going to give away a few books of yours of the how to be a hero to your children that will have that. And so I want to part of the title of that book is same part. I almost wrote a book on it. How to be a hero to my children's friends. Oh, that's awesome. I became a hero. A hero to me is someone you admire and desire to be like. That's a hero. That is a hero.

27:12 And the more my children's friends liked me, wanted to be with me, the easier it was raising my children. Yes, that makes all the sense in the world. And so I went on my way to spend time to talk to my children's friends. I would come home and Sean would be there. One of my daughters, Heather, Katie, Kelly, would tour through their friends. No matter how busy I was, I'd go over stretch out in the floor. Hey, how's school going? Hey, are you going to play basketball again this year? Yes, Steve and I, because our daughter was in soccer and he was coaching, we got to know all of those girls on the soccer team and they were over at our house often. And it was, they were our friends and their parents were our friends. It was a wonderful way.

27:56 And your daughter loved it. Very special. Your daughter loved it. Very special. On the book that we're going to give away, we're going to give three away and all you have to do to be eligible for a drawing to win one of Josh's books is to go to the show notes on the podcast and go over to sign up for my newsletter because you can do that right there in the show notes and we'll do a drawing from those people to send three people a copy. When will you do the drawing? I think we're doing it on May 9th. So this is, I'm going to sign up 12 times. 12 times. Okay. Cause you need a copy of it. That's great. And we're so excited, Josh, that you could be with us. I mean, I feel very honored that you would say yes and that you would give this time, but I'm especially honored for the people who are listening. How would you ever say no to Judy and Steve Douglass? Just common sense.

28:58 You don't say no. Well, it's, for me, the most important thing is these people who I am so excited are listening, having gone for 15 hard years through our wilderness journey, I call it, to have this opportunity to share with them things that God taught us and the ways that we learn not only to survive ourselves, which we'll talk about over the weeks ahead, but also how to love them. And the things you've just said are just exactly what I want to say. We've been talking about love and our next section following this is on grace and learning how to give grace to our kids.

29:44 Let me add this. I like to tell parents, take time for yourself. Your kids need to know you're doing things alone, doing things you like, because if you don't keep yourself energized and healthy, you're going to exhaust yourself with your children. Take time for yourself and don't feel guilty. Maybe they want you to go somewhere and say, no, you know, mommy's going down to the spa today. Yeah, right. Your kids need to know you take time for yourself. That's good input, Josh. Can I ask you to pray for the people who are listening? Absolutely. Thank you. Oh, father, thank you that you're so accessible, that you're always there and you desire to hear our hearts, our desires. And father, I thank you. I thank you for the testimony Judy and Steve have been in my life and how it's paid off and so many of my relationships. And I just thank you for Josh and for his marriage and his family and all. And I thank you what a great joy he is bringing to his parents and to so many other people. And father, I just thank you for today that by the internet and all, we could connect like this. And father, I pray for each person that's been listening, that those things that you would want them to remember have the Holy Spirit constantly recall it for them. And father, bring people in their lives to encourage them in the things they

31:16 want to do. Thank you for this day. Amen. God bless you, Josh. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining me today on the When You Love a Proud Girl podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. Your review helps the show reach more people with the hope and encouragement of Jesus. Don't forget, take a look at the show notes. And for more helpful information, resources, and books, check out judydouglass.com. That's Douglass with two S's. You can find me on Facebook and on Twitter and Instagram at JudyDouglass417. Until next week.