The day we recorded this episode, I had work for school waiting on me. My other two kids were headed out, which left a window for just my son and me.
So the work waited, and I took him to lunch.
We did not have any deep conversations or anything of that nature. We talked football. We talked about Clash Royale, because I play it with him. My phone stayed put away the whole time, and we just enjoyed being together.
Nothing about that lunch would show up on a to-do list. I tell you about it because it is the opposite of three things that are pulling men away from the people right in front of them.
What are the three things stealing a man's attention?
Your phone, busyness you mistake for productivity, and comparison. None of the three has to be sinful to do its damage.
Luke put it well on the show: it doesn't have to be a bad thing to be a distraction.
Your phone
Anything and everything to do with it. The phone in your pocket is a time killer, and it is an intimacy killer, with your wife and with everyone else around you.
Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation is built on one hard idea: a childhood lived through a phone is a different childhood. I have watched teenagers get together to hang out so they can sit next to each other on their phones. Nobody talks. And they learned it watching us.
Maybe your first reaction is, so I'm not supposed to use my phone? First off, stop acting like a child. It is okay to have a phone. It is okay to work on it, be on social media, or play a game. None of that is sinful in itself. Are you making time on purpose for the people in front of you, or are you letting the phone decide who gets your time?
I have caught myself more than once. I have tossed the phone across the couch. I have left it on the charger in the bedroom and walked out to spend the evening with my family.
Busyness
A young man I know used to call me and open with, "Hey, are you busy?"
And I would say, "Is it Tuesday?"
We are all busy. You choose what you are busy about.
Busy is not the same as productive. Sometimes the most useful thing a man can do is be still. Still before the Lord, yes. But also still with his kids.
Comparison
Comparing incomes. Comparing marriages. Comparing wives. One of the worst things a married man can do is look at another woman and think, I wish my wife were more like that. That thought is a step in the wrong direction, and you need to turn around right there.
Adultery starts long before anything physical happens. It starts with a thought.
I have talked with men who have been through affairs, some reconciled and some not. Those stories start the same way: a look, then a thought, then an action. I do not know what is going on in your mind or your heart. Whatever it is, Paul already told us what to do with it: "we take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5, CSB).
Comparison is the killer of joy. Watch where you let your eyes go.
How does a man stay focused on what matters?
A friend in the Marine Corps once asked me why I got up so early. I told him: do you want your day to attack you, or do you want to attack the day? I dropped a leadership gold quote back then, and I didn't even know what I was talking about.
Being intentional means living in line with what you say you believe. Peter did that, for a moment. He walked on the water while his eyes were on Jesus. "But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, 'Lord, save me!'" (Matthew 14:30, CSB).
Same wind the whole time. He just started watching it.
There will always be something that wants your attention. The question is what you give it to.
So here is your challenge. Thirty minutes this week with your wife, phones put away, talking about something other than the calendar or the money that is not in the bank yet. Just the two of you, talking about each other.
If you need a way in, here is a question that opens the floodgates: "What's it like being married to me?"