Roger Marsh: Welcome, everyone, to Family Talk, a division of The James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh with your host, Psychologist and best-selling author, Dr. James Dobson. Today, you're going to hear part two of Dr. Dobson's conversation with former NFL quarterback Jeff Kemp. Yesterday, the two men looked at Jeff's book called Facing the Blitz and examined how Christians can weather life's storms. If you missed that discussion, make sure you go back and listen to it at drjamesdobson.org.
Jeff Kemp has such a passion for encouraging other Christian men and women, and you will hear that throughout this conversation today. Well, there's a lot to get to, so let's get started. Here once again is our Dr. James Dobson and his interview with Jeff Kemp today here on Family Talk.
Dr. Dobson: Let's go back to that issue of humility. Is humility a characteristic of winning football teams?
Jeff Kemp: We're used to everyone putting their hands up and high-fiving and dancing and bringing attention to themselves, but the actual ironic thing is it takes humility to win. I think the most humble team each year, and I've seen the Patriots do it, I've seen the Seahawks do it, has submitted the individual identities to adopt the team identity. Bill Belichick is a master at this. Now, they do it with a little bit of a frown on their face and it seems very stern, but they get their players to buy into one team concept. "I'm not important. I sacrifice to make the team win." Guess what? At the end of the year when they're at the Super Bowl because they've run those great teamwork plays and they all have a ring, it turns out just fine for them. On the other hand [crosstalk 00:01:58]-
Dr. Dobson: Isn't it interesting that a Biblical principle-
Jeff Kemp: Works.
Dr. Dobson: Like this works in something as secular initially as a pro football team?
Jeff Kemp: I'm going to give you an exact example. In the summertime, a great team like the Seattle Seahawks has their quarterbacks in a meeting room teaching Russell Wilson and the quarterbacks, "Your responsibility is to throw the football to a one-foot diameter of accuracy in front of the receiver. Not behind him, above him, below him. Make it simple to catch, protect him from the defenders, and help him keep running for first downs and touchdowns." That's the quarterback's job. The quarterback expects himself to do that.
The receivers are in a different meeting room and they're hearing the message that if they can even touch the ball with a couple of fingers, they are responsible to catch it. Their job is to dive, catch, get hit in the ribs, miss three games with broken ribs. "Don't worry, we'll put someone in to replace you, but we need this catch. Make the quarterback look good, make the team win." What I'm expressing here is an investor mentality. The quarterback invests in the wide receiver and the wide receiver invests in the quarterback. The linemen invest in sacrificing to make the play work and everyone wins.
Who is humble enough to do that? Only someone who says, "You know what? Treating my teammates well is what's going to win for me, so I'm going to be humble." The ironic thing is the team where everyone's selfish and the quarterback wants to protect himself and not throw accurate passes and complain when the receivers don't catch them and the receivers complain that the quarterback doesn't throw perfect passes, those teams don't go to the Super Bowl.
Dr. Dobson: I saw a quarterback, I won't name him, just recently on television. The receiver dropped the ball and he threw his hands up in frustration. Boy, that's a way to humiliate your teammate. You're not going to win doing that.
Jeff Kemp: You lose their trust. You're expressing selfishness and pride, and that quarterback was acting like a consumer.
Dr. Dobson: Now, I want to focus in on that. You've already talked about humility and pride. You really made a big deal in your book about the contrast between consumer and investor mentalities. Explain that.
Jeff Kemp: Well, there's a passage in Galatians that says, "Brothers and sisters, you've been given freedom, but don't use it for your own selfish interests. You should love one another as yourself, but if you go on biting and devouring, you'll consume each other and you'll be consumed." It paints right there the contrast between someone who's investing in others through kindness and love and service versus someone who's selfish and whining, complaining, and devouring. They're consumed.
Here's the picture in relationships. An investor in their marriage, an investor in their kids, an investor at work is always thinking, "What value can I add to other people today? What can I give? What can I do to make the team look better? How can I spread the credit? How can I take responsibility?" That's an investor mentality and it leads to great success, but too often what we see is the consumer mentality, because we're Americans. We see 800 ads a day and we're trained that it's all about us. We're asking, "Hey, what do I get out of this? What's she going to do for me? How soon can I have everything I want?" The consumer is short-term-oriented, the investor is long-term-oriented.
I just take this analogy from the investor and consumer economic world. I take it to the football world with the wide receiver and the quarterback, and then let's go to the marriage world. The husband who wants to be an investor is the one who says, "You know what? My wife's had a tough day. I'm not going to expect so much from her tonight and go home and turn on ESPN and just ignore her for the rest of the night until 10:00 where I hope she has some romantic responses to me. I'm going to ask her how the day was. I'm going to grab the kids and get them outside and play. I might clean the dishes for her. When she says something to me, I'm going to turn off the TV and close USA Today and I'm going to turn to her and say, 'Babe, why don't we get a cup of coffee and sit down and talk?' I'm going to invest in her."
Dr. Dobson: That'll pay dividends, I'll tell you.
Jeff Kemp: That will pay dividends.
Dr. Dobson: I got to give you an example from my own marriage to Shirley. I'm married to just one of the greatest women in the world. I don't know if you know her, but she [crosstalk 00:06:06]-
Jeff Kemp: I do. I've met her.
Dr. Dobson: She is a wonderful woman, but she's gone through a real hard time. She has had a problem with her foot and had to have extensive surgery. She hasn't been able to walk for five weeks and she's almost ready to get the cast off. She's going to be okay and a lot of other people that we know are suffering from life-threatening things. They're being blitzed by a whole lot more than we are, but this has been very inconvenient. I've had the privilege of bringing Shirley her toothbrush, of fixing breakfast and lunch and dinner for her, doing dishes, whatever she needed. Everything that she's needed, I've provided for her.
The other day, she was lying in bed and she looked up at me and she said, "I am so sorry. I'm so sorry for what you're having to do." I said, "Shirley, it's in the contract. We made that deal a long, long time ago, and guess what? It's in your contract, too. We're going to serve each other that way." I mean, it pays dividends to care for one another. I'm not trying to be a saint in this regard because it's been difficult and it's been hard, but what a privilege along with it to serve the woman that I love.
Jeff Kemp: It's God's way. In Philippians it says, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit", Right? Pride-
Dr. Dobson: Yeah.
Jeff Kemp: "But in humility", there's that contrast again, "Humility of mind, consider others more important than yourself. Don't just look out for your own interests, look out for the interests of others." That's the investor verse in the Scripture.
Dr. Dobson: Especially when they've been blitzed.
Jeff Kemp: Anytime, and especially when they've been blitzed. In marriage, it isn't easy because sometimes we take for granted the person closest to us and we start focusing on the short term. We forget about the long term, and you were wisely saying it pays dividends. Sometimes those dividends don't come right away. They come over the course of years. You and I know that after 30 or 40 years of marriage, our intimacy, our love for one another, our joy in one another is greater than back when we thought the honeymoon period was great. We have something different and better now, right?
Dr. Dobson: Yeah, right.
Jeff Kemp: That came through hardship and blitzes and perseverance and a long-term perspective. I would say today, young couples, people who choose to cohabit instead of marry or people that are considering divorce because they think, "I'm really not happy and God wants me happy", that's a wrong theology, first of all. I want them to remember that an investor mentality can turn your marriage around. A friend of mine who flips a switch every day so that he can think like an investor and not a consumer. It's a little sign he put on his mirror. He typed it up, taped it on there. It says, "Would I want to be married to me?" It puts him in the shoes of her and says, "What kind of experience am I giving her?"
We all know what we want from the other person, but not too often do we think, "What do they deserve?" Or, "What would bless them? What would bring out the best in them? How could I invest in her or invest in him?" You know this, in parenting the same thing applies to raising your kids. You don't raise [crosstalk 00:09:18]-
Dr. Dobson: It does.
Jeff Kemp: Them for your satisfaction [crosstalk 00:09:20]-
Dr. Dobson: Absolutely.
Jeff Kemp: You raise them for their benefit. That's being an investor. It's a long-term game. It doesn't turn around quickly, but if you're going about it selfishly, hoping your kid gets good grades or doesn't act up in the grocery store or gets into some fancy college so that you can feel good about yourself, your kid's going to pick up on that and you won't have the strongest credibility and relationship with them. I think you and I both agree, the most important thing with your kids is your relationship.
Dr. Dobson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff Kemp: A quality relationship. They will swallow your values someday, even if they're not showing them right away [crosstalk 00:09:54]-
Dr. Dobson: That's what you're trying to do, you're trying to invest the values that you believe in in your children.
Jeff Kemp: Yeah. I call [crosstalk 00:10:01] it-
Dr. Dobson: You can't do that-
Jeff Kemp: The blueprint.
Dr. Dobson: -by sitting them down on the couch and saying, "Now, I want you to know some things I believe. Here are my values. This is what I read in the Scripture." There's a place for that, but usually you can't get away with that. You do it by modeling. You do it by caring. You do it by loving. You do it by building up-
Jeff Kemp: You do it by relationship. I mean, dads, play catch with your kids. If your kids like Legos or video games, do that stuff with them. Limit their video games and make them read to earn the time, but play with them. Take vacations. Take a walk, go for a bike ride with your kids. Get down on the floor. Read books to them. Elbow them, nudge them. Have a special handshake. Hug them and kiss them. Do silly stuff. Tell jokes. Do pranks. All of that forms relationship, and then out of relationship, they look at your character-
Dr. Dobson: That's it.
Jeff Kemp: And out of your character, you've got the credibility to say, "Let's open up the Scripture tonight at the dinner table and see what God says about bullying and kindness." You'll find some [crosstalk 00:11:02]-
Dr. Dobson: We-
Jeff Kemp: -great guidance.
Dr. Dobson: We talked in the first program about your Dad, Jack Kemp. Great friend of mine, wonderful football player and politician. Ran for Vice President of the United States.
Jeff Kemp: You didn't call me a wonderful football player.
Dr. Dobson: Listen [crosstalk 00:11:16]-
Jeff Kemp: He was. He was awesome.
Dr. Dobson: I want to talk about football. In fact, tell me about your relationship with your Dad and with regard to football. Both of you played football, didn't you?
Jeff Kemp: Yeah. Dad was a quarterback, I was a quarterback. My little brother was a quarterback. I had two sisters that if they were football players, they would have been quarterbacks. Then, I have four sons that all played football, so football's in the family.
Dr. Dobson: The question is, did Jack teach you to throw a football? Did he work with you as [crosstalk 00:11:44]-
Jeff Kemp: He didn't do it in a maniacal way like, "I need to turn my kid into a football player", but it was the fun thing that we did. We played football in the back yard. We threw the ball [crosstalk 00:11:53]-
Dr. Dobson: Have you studied the life of Archie Manning and what he did-
Jeff Kemp: Oh-
Dr. Dobson: With his boys?
Jeff Kemp: Archie even said, "The main thing I cared about was raising men." He was shaping young men. My Dad taught me to throw the football. He also taught me to ski. He taught me to speak. He taught me to look people in the eye. He taught me to shake hands. But we loved football. We talked about it a lot. He came to all of my games. He'd leave some significant Congressional speech and say, "I've got to be home, there's a game", and he'd get home to our game. That was a bond that we shared and I'm grateful for it.
I learned so much through football about perseverance, about teamwork, about trusting your teammates and investing in them, not being a selfish consumer. I learned an awful lot about having vision. No one walks in the huddle and says, "Boy, those guys are big and it's pretty cold today. I don't know if this play's going to work." No, you come in and say, "Hey, guys. Remember our goal this year? It's a Super Bowl. We can get the Super Bowl if we get this first down and we score a touchdown in this drive. If we keep getting better in this game, we're going to win and we're going to go to the Super Bowl."
Dr. Dobson: A few days ago, a man came to see me. He didn't tell me why he had come, but I sat down with him. I was in tears before we talked for very long. He told me about the fact that his mother was pregnant with him when his father took off and left. Never made an investment in his life at all. Wasn't a Christian, didn't know how to show love, and this guy sat with tears running down his face as he talked about the longing in his breast for a relationship with his Dad, whom he never even really knew.
I think he had one conversation with him in his life and how that ache was there. John Eldredge talked about that wound that's there and it stays there for a life. What a wonderful thing for you and me to be blessed by fathers who made an investment in us. Your Dad was not a perfect man [crosstalk 00:14:02]-
Jeff Kemp: No, none of us are [crosstalk 00:14:03]-
Dr. Dobson: And none of... Right. Not one of us is perfect and I'm not, certainly, but we understand the importance of that and we're trying to teach it to others. Tell me about how you're doing that. Are you speaking... I really want to know more about the ministry that God has given you.
Jeff Kemp: What I want to do, Dr. Dobson, is help people catch a vision that God's principles work. You've been teaching them your whole life, and the Gospel is what heals our hearts so we have the power to do those principles. Then, once we get that, the point isn't just a nice little comfortable Christian life with a savings account and a vacation home and a nice car in the garage. The point is that you're on mission as an ambassador for Jesus Christ to bring this world hope, to bring this world love-
Dr. Dobson: Wherever you can.
Jeff Kemp: To bring this world reconciliation. I don't care if it's on the little league field where you coach or in the corporate executive boardroom or if you go and volunteer in the prisons or if you travel to Africa, but it's probably in your everyday life starting with your marriage, next with your kids, next with your grandkids, with the neighbor kid who doesn't have a dad and you take him to the ballgame with you and your son. You put your hand on him and you look at that little boy and you say, "You know what, Johnny? There's something special in you. I like your spunk and you got a great sense of humor. I bet someday you're really going to inspire people. You're really a special kid. I really like you. Come hang out at our house any time you want."
One day, I was coaching little league football and a dad, I presume, drove up and yelled to his little chubby son, who wasn't as good an athlete as most of the other guys, he yelled, "Hey, doofus, get over here." I was so mad I almost went over there and slugged the guy. What I did instead is I doubled down and I talked to my other coaches. I was the coach of this little league team, the kid was like 12 years old. I said, "We are going to value this boy. We're going to honor this boy. We're going to build his self-esteem and we're going to tell him he's important. Whenever he makes a good block, we're going to celebrate it and we're going to celebrate his character because we're not going to make it about the shape of his body or whether he's first string or second string or whether he scores a touchdown or not. It's about, 'You practiced hard today. You supported your teammate. I saw you cheering on the sideline. You're one of the greatest team members on this team because you're so vested. You're so positive [crosstalk 00:16:19]-
Dr. Dobson: What happened in him?
Jeff Kemp: We lifted his spirits. You know what? I hope someday he knows that he's a real man. Not because his other daddy or stepdad called him doofus, but because real men called him out a man. There's men listening to us right now and they don't think they have worth, value. They're insecure. They feel like a failure. They're afraid, because men's biggest fear is failure, but they need to know if they do not know God, they need to know that God made them and God does not make anything but excellence. The reason they're in trouble is because they've not gotten to know God. If they accept Jesus Christ, they can be reconnected with a perfect Heavenly Father who will re-father them to make up for the damage that their Earthly dad did or the things they missed from their Earthly dad.
I can say to that guy, "If you accept Jesus Christ", there's some struggling Christians out there, "If you've accepted Christ, every one of your sins is forgiven." God looks at you with the righteousness of Christ and He says, "You're a good man. I'm well pleased in you. You're My son. You're going to be perfect for eternity and I give you credit for Christ's Perfection right now, so live into that. You're a mighty, valiant warrior." You remember the Gideon story?
Dr. Dobson: Yes.
Jeff Kemp: He was afraid, he was scared. He was 19 or 20, he was hiding in a wine press, and that's when the Angel came to him. The Angel of The Lord, which I think was Jesus pre-incarnate and said, "Oh Gideon, The Lord is with you, great and mighty man of valor." God defined him before he was existing like that because God sees the end from the beginning. I want every guy out there to know that God sees him that way right now. You can become the husband you need to be. You can overcome those temptations and failings. You can become the daddy, you can apologize to your teenager. You can say to your daughter, "I haven't been there, but I'm going to start being there." You can become the man you need to be through Christ.
Dr. Dobson: Jeff, I love talking to you because you're saying good things, Biblical things, and things that men especially need to hear. I want you to speak to the grown man who was the overweight kid that people called doofus and he feels like a failure. He's now 38 years of age, he's never done anything successfully and he looks at himself with disgust. Because of that, he can't give to anybody else because he has nothing inside.
Jeff Kemp: He's stuck in the consumer mode.
Dr. Dobson: Can you encourage that man?
Jeff Kemp: Well, I thank you for the invitation to do so. No one can encourage that man as well as The Holy Spirit.
Dr. Dobson: Oh, I like that.
Jeff Kemp: If you and I do what we're called to do right now, we would just remind that man that God made him. God knows that it's an imperfect world. He knows there's imperfections in him. He knows that he didn't fathered perfectly. He knows he's gotten some breaks and he knows he's made a lot of dumb choices himself, but Jesus Christ, if you accept Him and give Him your life, Christianity isn't going to church. It's not putting a little fish on your truck. It's inviting Christ to invade and run your life, and He's so much better at it than we are. I used to think God would make my life boring. He made it 10 times better without the guilt.
It's not easy. Blitzes keep coming, trials keep coming, struggles keep coming, and all of them get me closer to Jesus and give me more of a platform to share Christ with others. I'm telling this guy, "You have what it takes. You're God's son. Turn yourself to Jesus Christ and go to some other men and say, 'Please mentor me. Please teach me the Bible. Show me how to do my career. Teach me how to love my wife. Help me love my kids. I'm divorced and I feel estranged from them." That might be the situation. You are not disqualified. I know a divorced dad named Terry. He didn't want to get divorced, but his wife called him in a panic a month after they got divorced. Her car broke down and he drove over there with his car, gave her his keys. Said, "You can have my car for the day to go to work. I'll take your car."
He went and fixed it on his dime. He gave it back to her after it was fixed and his daughter said, "Daddy, she's been so mean to you. How could you treat her like that?" He said, "Jesus loved me unconditionally. I didn't deserve it. That's the standard for what a man is and that's the standard for how we love others, and so that's how I'll treat your Mom." That was a divorced dad who modeled marriage better than most of us married guys that day and he treated his daughter in such a way that he cast the vision for marriage and what a good man is to her. She should be looking for a boy to date that acts like her Daddy. Even though he had a failure of a divorce, no one is disqualified. God will bring new days to you if you surrender your life to Him.
Dr. Dobson: We've been talking to Jeff Kemp, the author of Facing the Blitz. Jeff was a former quarterback in the NFL and this is a book with a foreword written by Tony Dungy. There's so much information in here for men, and I [crosstalk 00:21:26]-
Jeff Kemp: It's for women, too [crosstalk 00:21:27]-
Dr. Dobson: I know it is and the women buy the book in hopes [crosstalk 00:21:29]-
Jeff Kemp: They give to their guys [crosstalk 00:21:30]-
Dr. Dobson: That their [crosstalk 00:21:30]-
Jeff Kemp: Or their sons.
Dr. Dobson: That's right. Tell me how people can get in touch with you and tell me what you do. You speak for them, you [crosstalk 00:21:39]-
Jeff Kemp: Yeah. I speak at men's conferences. I speak to marriage events. Whenever I speak to men's groups, I talk about marriage. Whenever I speak at a marriage event, I talk about men because it goes back to a man's identity. If a man will get healed, he can heal a marriage and Christ is the center [crosstalk 00:21:55] of that. I'm kind of an ambassador, an encourager, a coach to men and to marriages. I encourage a lot of male camaraderie and bonding. I like for dads to give their sons the vision of what it is to be a Christ-like man. You don't have to be perfect, but hug 'em, kiss him, bless 'em. Do rites of passage with 'em. Pray a blessing over them.
Dr. Dobson: Will you come speak for one of our events sometime?
Jeff Kemp: I'd love to speak for your events. When God tells me to go, I go. I've respected you and you've invested in me through the years. Stacy and I raised our kids, and much of our marriage is influenced by your ministry all through the years. All these people that we heard on your show and that we have actually met. People can get ahold of me or my book through the website facingtheblitz.com.
Dr. Dobson: Thanks for being our guest. Will you come back?
Jeff Kemp: I will come back, and I thank you for this chance.
Dr. Dobson: Are you writing another book?
Jeff Kemp: There's a few that are in my brain, but the process from my brain onto paper is [crosstalk 00:22:53]-
Dr. Dobson: It's hard work.
Jeff Kemp: Quite the challenge and I'm a little ADD, so if God guides me, I will do that again.
Dr. Dobson: Give your family my love, will you?
Jeff Kemp: Thank you. I will.
Dr. Dobson: Blessings, my friend.
Roger Marsh: You've been listening to Family Talk and Dr. James Dobson's interview with former NFL quarterback Jeff Kemp. I'm Roger Marsh, and I hope you'll tap into some of the resources Jeff was just talking about on today's program. You know, we all need practical support and help to weather the ups and downs of life. You can learn more about Jeff Kemp and his book, Facing the Blitz, also his ministry work as well, by visiting drjamesdobson.org. That's drjamesdobson.org, and then go to the Broadcast page.
Now, before we leave for today, I want to remind you about a resource that we are highlighting on our website. Some 40 years ago, Dr. Dobson wrote a book to encourage couples in the midst of marital adversity. The popular work was called Love Must Be Tough, and it has literally saved thousands of relationships over these many years. This incredible resource explains how you can fight for your marriage and rekindle emotional closeness with your spouse. To request your copy of Love Must Be Tough, visit drjamesdobson.org. That's drjamesdobson.org and request your copy of Love Must Be Tough today.
Roger Marsh: Thanks so much for tuning in today and for faithfully praying for and financially supporting our ministry. Be sure to tune in again next time for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. Have a blessed day, everyone.
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