Our Daily Brad

Show intro and live open

The produced intro music voiceover plays ('Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper'), followed by the live show open from the same studio. The hosts joke that the voice in the intro credits hasn't been seen in years.

Show business: new intro, voicemail line, Boova farewell idea

A host asks Mike what he's laughing at; the hosts agree the show's intro montage is stale -- its credits name people like Dave Herrick who haven't been around in years -- and want Thrift Store Priest worked into a new one. A podcast-only listener wants to call in rebuttals, so they decide to set up a Google Voice voicemail line that Ben will check weekly. They also float a greatest-hits farewell show in case Boova has faded away for good.

When did you last do a devotional?

• When was the last time you did a devotional?

Ben asks when the others last did a devotional. Mike admits he's reading one -- a folksy devotional about not talking -- mostly to devote the time rather than for the content. Dan is asked directly and says he's never done one; they rag on Our Daily Bread as fluffy verse-out-of-context posters and t-shirts.

Mike's devotional extrapolates the Greek

Mike (addressed by name in the audio) recounts his devotional taking Matthew 4 ('Jesus, knowing their thoughts'), pulling 'knowing' into Greek, and concluding that Jesus physically sees your thoughts like a movie -- then using that to command thought control. He calls it an unrealistic bar: thoughts are wild, and devotion works the other way -- a changed heart feeds the brain, the brain feeds the mouth, and good things come out.

The laundry defense and the fan-direction win

Ben tells how his wife asks why he never thinks to put away hallway laundry; his defense is that it genuinely never occurs to him, like the perpetually late who feel no panic about time. Mike counters that there's a difference between it not occurring to you and refusing to act on it once it does -- the fix is reminders, lists, and habits. Dan adds the parallel of differing marital priorities, and Mike claims a rare win: his wife reminded him to switch the ceiling-fan directions, and he'd already done it.

Dan's deaf-ministry devotions and a 12-year-old's question

Dan (addressed by name) confesses that when he ran a youth group he had teens write devotions for a daily devotional for the deaf in Council Bluffs, which got printed and read all over the country -- and he doubts they were deep. Mike shares two 12-year-olds whose insight blew him away, one asking why God doesn't need us yet desperately wants us, while we need God and barely want him. Mike reads his Bible after the devotional 'just in case it has to wash out any bad taste in my mouth,' and Ben agrees: run the devotional's scripture through a decent filter and you're more likely to retain it.

Let God finish your prayers

Mike (addressed as 'Eagle Mike' in the audio) tries his devotional's half-written prayer -- 'Dear Lord, I just want you to fill in my prayers today. I'll wait...' -- and, after failing to 'wait deeper,' feels less spiritual than ever. Ben affirms there's something powerful in sitting patiently in God's presence, but it takes getting used to -- and three minutes is laughable next to a God whose patience spans decades. They riff on Abraham being told at 98 he'll have a son, on Moses as a leader of men, and on the promised line of David.

Harvard study on church-raised kids

• Why doesn't God work today as he did in the Bible?

Ben (addressed by name) reads a Forbes-reported Harvard study: kids who attended religious services weekly were about 18% more likely to be happy in their twenties, ~30% more likely to volunteer, and ~33% less likely to use drugs; daily prayer or meditation correlated with life satisfaction, emotional processing, forgiveness, and delayed sex. The hosts push back on the framing: prayer can't 'have value' as a mere discipline if there's no living God answering -- it's submission to something beyond you. The article's tacked-on back half -- Gideon, Spurgeon answering 'why doesn't God work today as he did in the Bible' ('God works where we join him') -- reads like an unrelated personal blog.

Designing a devotional that isn't kitsch

Jim Dennison's 'secular devotional' (Denison Forum's daily cultural commentary) sparks the joke that the news is a secular devotional -- something you check and devote time, energy, and thoughts to every day. The hosts sketch a better devotional: pick one subject, repeat it for days instead of manufacturing novelty, pray over it, obey God's character -- since old struggles like money always come knocking again. Ben adds that teaching through Mark made him want to teach Mark three times; any single gospel gives enough of God's character to answer your money questions.

Michael Gungor's year of atheism

• Is it a problem that Michael Gungor believes Noah was fictitious?

Ben (addressed by name) reads a long article about Christian-alternative-rock musician Michael Gungor of the musical collective Gungor: he fully embraced atheism in 2012 and no longer literally believes in creation, Adam and Eve, or the flood. His wife Lisa, who co-founded Bloom Church in Denver, briefly declared herself an atheist after a cousin's claimed cancer healing fell apart while she was visiting Auschwitz -- she calls it a one-day struggle, not real atheism. The hosts note Jesus treats Noah as a real person, but say it's not worth going to the mats over interpretive lenses on creation.

Not people's failures, and the full counsel of Scripture

Mike's core objection to the Gungor story: nearly every complaint raised is a failure of people -- man-made boundary systems, a liar on the phone about a healing -- not of God. The hosts mock the sensational 'I was an atheist for a day' framing ('I was homeless for a day. I was an orphan for a day'). Ben argues the way of Jesus is documented and defined -- moving beyond the biblical record while still calling it Jesus is dishonest -- and warns that cherry-picking Scripture wrecks people on both sides: liberal Christianity ignores what it dislikes, fundamentalists overcrank what they're not guilty of, and each extreme breeds the other. Don't take bits of the full counsel of a wise and loving God out of context.

Dear LFTP: mom named her stores after me

• My mom named her two successful clothing stores after me and I hate it -- what should I do?

Mike reads a listener letter: her mom owns two successful women's clothing stores named after her, and she hates it; her family says she's being ridiculous. The verdict is unanimous: give it up, you're overreacting, it's a compliment -- nobody confuses a storefront with your identity ('I go past a bar called Luke's...'). The 'Secular' answer suggests going by her middle name or legally changing it. Riffs follow on a clothing store named after Ben, Wendy's, Culver's, Burger King, the two Mike Fooses (Wisconsin's Metro Waste manager vs. the local one), Dan's mom Bernice going by Peggy, and Mike's would-be alias 'Santos Fuster.'

Dear LFTP: the neighbor's FIV-positive cat

• Would it be fair to ask my neighbor to pay for the extra vet costs caused by her free-roaming FIV-positive cat?

Mike reads the last letter: the writer lives in a duplex; the neighbor's FIV-positive cat Sox roams freely and uses their cat door to eat their cat's food, their own cat has caught respiratory infections, and FIV tests cost $60 a year. The neighbor refused to switch kibble brands. The hosts' advice: stop feeding the neighbor's cat, secure the cat door and let your own cat in and out manually, and call animal control if it roams -- but don't ask the neighbor for money ('you get a punch in the face'). The 'Secular' answer agrees on the cat door and animal control.

Sign-off

Ben (addressed by name) thanks the listeners, promises to get the voicemail line running so people can 'harass the show during the week,' and closes with the show's benediction: 'be faithful, amens -- God will handle the ends.'