Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each

week's lesson. John, we are in Genesis chapter 5 and Moses chapter 6 this week that talks about how

Adam and Eve taught freely to their children. Enick did as well. It also talks quite a bit about agency and how

important agency is to God. I have a story that mixes all these things in together. It's not a story

I share often because it is quite meaningful to me, but it does have some funny elements to it.

Years and years ago, when my sweet daughter was our only child, her name is Madeline.

Her name is Madeline Pitts now. She recently got married. At the time, she was just my little girl,

Madeline Smith. I had a dream about her. In the dream, I was back home in

southern Utah. If you've been to St. George, lots of big red cliffs everywhere. We used to play

on those cliffs when we were kids. We would play who can roll the rocks closest to the cars without

hitting them. Fun games like that.

John, when you're a kid, those cliffs are fun and exciting, but when you're a dad, those cliffs are dangerous.

In my dream, I'm on top of one of these red cliffs with my little daughter, Madeline.

She's probably three years old or four years old.

Of course, I tell her to

not go near the cliff because I don't want her to get hurt. So I say, don't go near the cliff,

to which she automatically looks over and thinks, I'm going to go close to the cliff, because that's

what our children do. So she starts going over to the cliff. In my dream, again, this is a dream. I say, hey, hey, stop where you are. I don't want you going to the closer to the cliff. And she thought it was actually quite funny, smiled at me and started going faster towards the cliff. Now I'm getting nervous, John, and I go over to her and I use my dad voice. Do you have a dad voice, John? I use my dad voice. I think I do.

Madeline, you stop right there. And she would turn and she had her back to the cliff. And she looked at me and I said, hey, you stop right there. I'm going to walk over there and get you. So I took a step towards her and she smiled and took a step back. And I went, okay. I had to use my big dad voice, right?

Like Madeline Smith, right?

Use her full name. Madeline Smith, don't move. I'm going to come get you. Don't move. And I took a step towards

her and she took another step back. We do this a few times and she's getting closer and closer

...