The Week In Review
December 20, 2025
One Good Thing This Week
For more than three years now, I’ve been co-laboring with one of the founders of BetterMan. Early on, I’d introduce him as my 'boss.' He never liked that.
"Partner," he’d say. Every time.
He’s incredibly successful. Well respected. Admired even. I realized pretty quickly that I was in a different league when Tim Tebow reached out to me, asking to meet him. And here I thought I was special, LOL.
And yet this week—on a completely ordinary Wednesday—he drove across town with a box of cookies his wife had baked for our team. No meeting. No agenda. Just cookies.
While he was there, he noticed one of our guys seemed off—there was a heaviness about him. He didn’t make a show of it. Didn’t fix anything. He just stopped and prayed for him.
That’s it. That’s the story. Nothing impressive. Nothing strategic. Nothing worth posting about, really. Just the steady, unnoticed outflow of a man who knows who he is—and lives like it.
Thanks for loving and leading well this week, partner.
It was a good week.
Something Beautiful This Week
Red Wing Boots released a new national campaign this week. Across 15 cities, they unveiled a 14x48ft billboard. The catch? The billboard is made of real hardwood, hand-carved. It is incredible.
My most explicit memory from childhood is my father standing in the drive wearing a tool belt. Every Christmas, he’d get a new one—Milwaukee in the lean years, Carhartt in the good years of. Same man. Same posture. Same work. The brand might change, but the burden didn’t.
That tool belt told me more about manhood than a thousand speeches. Work showed up before words. Responsibility came before rest. What we had was shaped by what he carried, and how faithfully he carried it. That’s where I learned it: "A good man doesn’t posture. He bears weight."
Brothers, it is time we made hard work beautiful again. We have forgotten what it does in, and to a man. Hard work doesn’t talk much. It shows up. Does the job. Cleans up after itself. It handles what’s in front of it—whether anyone notices or not. No stage. No credit. Just responsibility. Most men want the payoff without the grind. But real strength is built in the daily, unglamorous work.
Hard work isn’t flashy. It’s faithful. If you ask my dad, he’d say, "It’s obedience in boots."
Here’s to things 'made the hard way' in 2026…
Looking for a Christmas 2-in-1? How about supporting my family and ministry AND blessing someone with a Good Trouble subscription? Like Cousin Eddie said, “it’s the gift that keeps on giving…”
Something Worth Imitating
This is worth imitating, and it’s just plain ol' good advice…
"Use the inconvenient realities that come up during a project. Change course freely, with a sense of possibility, rather than seeing obstacles as doors closing. Consider it an opening. It is an opening..." [James Clear]
Nothing wrong with a bit of course correction. Embrace it.
My 3 Favorite Quotes of the Week
"We need guides to walk us into and through the messy realities of life in the presence of the purifying fire. Unfortunately, most just point to spiritual disciplines as the answer." — Kyle Strobel [Tremdous insight by Kyle. Disciplines will never outpace Guides].
"Geniuses are like thunderstorms. They go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air." — Søren Kierkegaard
"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him." — Niccolò Machiavelli
Stat(s) I Found Disheartening/Scary This Week
Between 1979 and April 2024, there were 66,872 recorded Islamist attacks worldwide. These attacks caused the deaths of at least 249,941 people [source].
• 1979-2000: 2,194 attacks and 6,817 deaths.
• 2001-2012: 8,265 attacks and 38,187 deaths.
• 2013-April 2024: 56,413 attacks and 204,937 deaths.
What about the other religions? Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism—those four religions combined account for 2% of all global terrorism attacks [source].
As Nathan Finochio recently said, "It is an absolute wonder that any Muslim from any Muslim country has been let into any Western country with data this available."
My Favorite Pic This Week
This week, my pastor, my boys, and a few guys I disciple went to a Baylor basketball game. Baylor dominated. It wasn’t even close. But that’s not what stayed with me. It was the time together. Sitting shoulder to shoulder. Laughing. Talking. Watching my sons around men I trust. No agenda. Just presence.
Brothers, make no mistake…. the scoreboard fades. Brotherhood doesn’t.
That’s the win I carried home.
Book(s) I Read This Week
I am loving Matthew McCoughney’s Poems & Prayers. Granted, I don't agree with everything theologically or philosophically, but there is a lot of good and fun in the book. I especially appreciate his poem entitled Good Man:
"There’s a difference between a good man and a nice guy. A good man stands for certain ideas. And when those beliefs are contested, a good man is not a nice guy."
McCoughney draws from his typecasting as a rom-com guy…
"I wrote this one [poem] in the late '90s, just before I decided to stop doing the romantic comedies. People were always telling me, 'Ah, man, you seem like such a nice guy.' And hey, I got it; the rom-coms were entertaining and popular, and the men always ultimately acquiesced. But it reminded me of when I was a kid and the girls would say, 'Oh, you’re so cute,' and I was just dying for one of them to say, 'You’re handsome.'
Aspiring to be just a nice guy is like short-sheeting yourself; you’re a nice guy, but what do you stand for? The nice guy’s easy to be around, but he goes along with everything. A good man’s different. He has things he stands for. It’s harder to be a good man."
What most men want isn’t to be liked; it’s to be respected. And Matthew affirms something true and necessary: Goodness [and respect] requires a spine.
Song(s) I Listened To This Week
I love this song. It’s like 'Prop me up beside the jukebox,' Weekeend at Bernie's, and Jesus sitting at a bar…
What God Taught Me This Week
"…but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." — Isaiah 40:31
The Lord used Marc Sims to teach me this week. Marc posted about Tennyson's poem "Ulysses," and it resonated with me.
Engaged in intergenerational discipleship, I often see, among older men especially, there’s a quiet ache that leisure can’t touch. Rocking chairs and golf courses don’t satisfy a soul that was built for purpose. Tennyson gives language to that ache without sentimentalizing it.
Rust doesn’t come from abuse. It comes from disuse. To merely breathe, to merely exist, to stack days without meaning—as tho’ to breathe were life!—that’s the tragedy Ulysses names. And the men I sit with feel it, even if they don’t have the poetry for it.
What’s powerful is that the poem doesn’t end in despair or nostalgia. It ends in motion. Not reckless youth, but aged resolve. Old men. Scarred men. Men who know their strength is diminished, but their will is not. They push off anyway.
Ulysses’ restlessness isn’t wanderlust; it’s homesickness. He’s tasted glory, legacy, family, and honor only to find that none of it can bear the weight of ultimate meaning. The horizon keeps calling because this world, even at its best, is insufficient.
Augustine would nod. Hebrews 11 would nod. Every man who has outlived his ambitions but not his soul would nod.
What makes Ulysses powerful is its usefulness. It gives permission for longing. It tells older men they are not ungrateful, not faithless, not weak for wanting more. Their refusal to 'pause' is not rebellion, it’s a clue. A signpost pointing beyond the sunset. The danger is when that longing gets misdirected inward or downward, into regret, bitterness, or escapism. But when rightly named, it becomes hope.
Not 'one more adventure before I die,' but the adventure, the one this life was always rehearsing for.
That’s not restlessness. That’s readiness.
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." — Charles Dickens, [A Tale of Two Cities]
Looking to connect in person? Here are some places I’ll be in the next few weeks:
Brothers, I am pleased to announce the official 2026 BetterMan Tour! More info to come, but you won’t want to miss this!
Brothers, my pledge to you…
"You will never suffer at my hands. I will never say nor do anything knowingly to hurt you. If you're down and I can lift you up, I'll do that. I will always, in every circumstance, seek to help and support you. If you need something and I have it, I'll give it to you. No matter what I find out about you, no matter what happens in the future, either good or bad, my commitment to you will never change."
For the King,
—Harp
SIC 'EM!!!
“Rust doesn’t come from abuse. It comes from disuse”. That’s really good. I sell new and used steel all day so I really appreciate and understand the analogy. I would add that rust comes from disuse, especially in its unintended environment. Salt is also major erosion accelerator. Might fit well in your Matthew Salt Sermon
Great read today. Grateful.