Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast MAG - Marriage advice, Relationship Encouragement, We discuss Sex, Money, Finances and everything In-between, Marriage Tips and tricks and Conversations with Couples About Marriage
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creating a Lasting Legacy Together - Interview with Troy and Shantel Brooks | 07 Nov 2024 | 00:58:32 | |
In today's episode of the Marriage After God podcast, Aaron interviews Troy and Shantel Brooks, who have been married for 10 years after starting as childhood friends. They share their powerful journey from having a foot-in, foot-out faith to fully surrendering their marriage and business to God. The Brooks candidly share about: * Their transition from separate careers to building a Christ-centered business together * How working together accelerated their marriage growth * Finding true identity in Christ rather than career achievements * Learning to steward success with kingdom perspective * Creating a lasting legacy through marriage and ministry * Their ministry, Spartners, which helps couples work together in faith and business Whether you're considering working with your spouse or simply want to strengthen your marriage partnership, this conversation offers valuable insights about putting Christ at the center of everything you do together. Please subscribe to our channel on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify and leave us a star rating and review to help us reach new listeners. Your support and feedback mean the world to us! Connect with Troy and Shantel: * Website: www.troyandshantel.com * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearespartners * Podcast: https://www.spartnerspodcast.com/ * Book: "Spartners: Discover the Value in Your Spouse as a Business Partner" https://www.troyandshantel.com/spartners-book Follow us on Instagram: Marriage After God - https://www.instagram.com/marriageaftergod Unveiled Wife - https://www.instagram.com/unveiledwife Husband Revolution - https://www.instagram.com/husbandrevolution Ways to Support This Podcast: Visit our shop: https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/ Become a patron: https://marriageaftergod.com/patron Smith Family Resources, Inc © 2024 KEY WORDS: Marriage After God, Aaron Smith, Troy Brooks, Shantel Brooks, Spartners, Christian business, marriage ministry, entrepreneurship, legacy building, Christian marriage, working together, faith journey, spiritual growth, business partnership, marriage goals, surrendering to God Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Biblical Marriage Roles, A Fresh Perspective on God's Design - Interview With Michael and Tania Koehler | 31 Oct 2024 | 00:56:22 | |
In today's episode of the Marriage After God podcast, Aaron interviews Michael and Tania Koehler from Marriage Mania Ministry. This dynamic couple shares their unique journey of being called into marriage ministry just three months after their wedding, and how God has used them to strengthen marriages for over 11 years. During this rich conversation, we explore:
Whether you're newly married or have been together for decades, this episode offers biblical wisdom and practical insights for building a stronger, God-centered marriage. Please subscribe to our channel on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify and leave us a star rating and review to help us reach new listeners. Your support and feedback mean the world to us! Connect with Michael and Tanya:
Follow us on Instagram: Marriage After God - https://www.instagram.com/marriageaftergod Unveiled Wife - https://www.instagram.com/unveiledwife Husband Revolution - https://www.instagram.com/husbandrevolution Ways to Support This Podcast: Visit our shop: https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/ Become a patron: https://marriageaftergod.com/patron Smith Family Resources, Inc © 2024 KEY WORDS: Marriage After God, Aaron Smith, Michael Kohler, Tanya Kohler, Marriage Mania Ministry, biblical marriage, marriage roles, biblical submission, spiritual leadership, marriage ministry, Christian marriage, relationship advice, marriage counseling, biblical wisdom, marriage support, Christian community, marriage resources Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| How Jesus Fulfilled the Biblical Feasts | 11 Jul 2024 | 00:52:20 | |
In today's episode, we examine the biblical feasts and how Jesus fulfilled each one in His life, death, resurrection, and second coming. Join us as we explore the deep connections between these ancient celebrations and the life of Christ, revealing God's incredible plan for redemption. We dive in starting with Matthew 5:17-18 where Jesus declares that He came to fulfill the Law. We discuss how the feasts described in Leviticus 23 are more than just Jewish traditions—they are prophetic shadows pointing to Jesus. Each feast has significant meaning and fulfillment in Christ, from Passover to Tabernacles. We explain how Jesus' life and actions align perfectly with these feasts, demonstrating His role as the Messiah. Whether you're familiar with the biblical feasts or hearing about them for the first time, this episode offers valuable insights into how God's plan unfolds through scripture. Please subscribe to our channel on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify and leave us a star rating and review to help us reach new listeners. Your support and feedback mean the world to us! Topics Discussed in the Episode:
Connect with Us:
Ways to Support This Podcast:
Smith Family Resources, Inc © 2024 KEY WORDS Marriage After God, Aaron Smith, Jennifer Smith, Christian marriage, biblical feasts, Jesus fulfillment, Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles, Christian teachings, spirituality in marriage, faith-driven life, prophecy understanding, biblical interpretation, religious education, marriage enrichment, faith and family, religious podcasts, spiritual growth, Christian podcasters, marriage advice, exploring faith, life lessons, spiritual discussions, theological insights, deepening faith, understanding scripture, religious beliefs, Christian lifestyle, engaging discussions, podcast reviews, episode guide, listener engagement. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| How Love Covers A Multitude Of Sins | 17 Feb 2020 | 00:47:54 | |
This devotional episode is based on 1 Peter 4:7-11. We wanted to share how Love covers a multitude of sins and why it is so important that we love with this level of eagerness. 1 Peter 4:7-11 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. PrayerDear Lord, We lift up our hearts to you right now and ask that you would make us a people who love others earnestly. Holy Spirit direct our hearts and remind us of your word. We pray we would above all things love others. We pray we would love our spouse, our children, our friends, and those who are in our life. May your love pour out of us. May your love pouring out of us transform our marriages. We pray others would be impacted by the love we share. We pray we would be able to love so deeply that it covers a multitude of sin. We pray that instead of shame or guilt, people would feel undoubtedly loved by us and by you. We pray for your word to be fulfilled through our choices to walk in love and that your will would be done. In Jesus’ name, amen!
READ TRANSCRIPT - [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, with "Marriage After God."
- [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
- [Aaron] And today we're gonna talk about how love covers a multitude of sin. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.
- [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife.
- [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution.
- [Jennifer] We have been married over a decade.
- [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children.
- [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.
- [Aaron] With a desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.
- [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life,
- Love,
- And power,
- [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God,
- [Jennifer] Together.
- [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.
- [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God." Okay Aaron, so we, we survived kind of a hard week.
- [Aaron] We did survive.
- I mean,
- We're barely coming on
- Our kids survived.
- The other side of it, yes.
- [Jennifer] But we're not the only ones going through this, so we thought we would just give you guys a little update of our family and hopefully encourage some of you out there who it might be hitting as well.
- [Aaron] Yeah, our whole family got the flu. It was bad, but not bad. It was kind of a weird thing.
- [Jennifer] Well, I'll say this, the Lord spared me and gave me the grace to be able to help everyone. 'Cause I felt--
- And you didn't even really get sick, you got some of the, like you felt sick.
- Yeah you know the gut pain?
- [Aaron] But you didn't have any other symptoms, which was awesome.
- And the rosy cheeks. I felt like every once in a while, like I really don't feel good right now, I need to go lay down, but for the most part, I was able to be there to help everyone. Which made me really nervous, because people were, you and the kids were throwing up and I just thought, me, at this stage of the game in pregnancy, throwing up would not go over well with my body.
- No and so--
- That woulda been terrible.
- [Aaron] We're definitely thanking God, which we did a lot of, oddly. But not to be too graphic, but I'm pretty sure I put a rib out from how hard I was throwing up.
- [Jennifer] That sucks.
- [Aaron] Yeah, it still is really sore. But, what's awesome is, a couple of things, I just wanna praise you Jennifer, because I feel like you handled everyone being sick, and the inconvenience of it so well. I think I even told you, I was like, "I can tell you're walking in the spirit." Like your attitude was good, how much cleaning had to be done.
- [Jennifer] It was a lot of work.
- [Aaron] It's no fun when literally all the boys are throwing up and it's like, there's no clean blankets.
- [Jennifer] It's all at the same time.
- [Aaron] Yeah, so we, but we survived, we're coming on the other side of that. But one thing we practiced, I don't think we've ever done it before, not that we're not thankful to God.
- [Jennifer] Not in this kind of circumstance, it's not at the forefront of our minds.
- [Aaron] I did a post a couple weeks ago encouraging men to thank God for everything, if they get cut off in traffic, if something bad happens, even--
- [Jennifer] You didn't say if your whole family comes down with sickness, did you?
- [Aaron] I know, if something good happens, I just said, say, whatever it is that happens today, thank God for it. And I tried practicing that. And so I'm literally in the fetal position in the bathtub, and I'm trying to thank God. I'm like, "Okay God, thank you. "Thank you for being sick." And I was like, why am I thanking God for this? Well, thank you for reminding me that I'm human. Like I'm fragile. Thank you for reminding me that one day I'm not gonna have this sickness.
- [Jennifer] Or that we need to pray.
- [Aaron] Yeah thank you for reminding,
- Ask him.
- Humbling me, showing me that my weakness. So there was a lot of things to thank God for for being sick, and I directly thanked God for being sick. And then we of course have thanked God for healing us and sparing our family from being even worse, 'cause it probably could have been worse.
- [Jennifer] Something that really stood out to me is I didn't know you had this perspective kind of going into everyone being sick, and I wouldn't say I was there with you in those beginning moments, but you brought the family to the living room, and you said, "You know what, we're gonna pray, "and we're just gonna thank God today." And I think even one of the kids asked, "Why are we thanking God?"
- [Aaron] Doesn't make any sense.
- [Jennifer] But I was questioning it in my own heart too, like, okay, where's this going? But it was so beautiful to hear your prayer and you starting out saying, "God, thank you for this sickness." And it was humbling for me and for my heart to go, "oh yeah" you know? And to have that perspective before him. And then, I gotta share this other experience is just a friend of mine who, their family also got it really bad.
- [Aaron] Pretty much our whole church got sick.
- [Jennifer] But I met up with her for coffee when it was all past and she goes, "You know I just found, we found our whole family "just worshiping God through it." And it was so cool, kinda the same thing. And I said, "I didn't really worship him through it, "but at the end of all the laundry being done, "all the bathrooms being cleaned, "and having taken a shower, I came out singing "'Victory in Jesus' so, that was awesome."
- [Aaron] But it is worship. Thanking God is worship. So whatever he gives, I think Job says it, "Should we not thank God for the good and the evil?" Like the bad things that happen? We thank God for those too, because he's God and he deserves our thanksgiving. And at the end of the day, salvation is so much greater than anything that we can go through. So, at minimum you can be like, "God, thank you so much "that one day I'm gonna be with you." That is so good.
- [Jennifer] So if your family happens to get hit by whatever bug this is,
- [Aaron] It's going around, yeah.
- [Jennifer] Whatever's going around, we just wanted to encourage you guys to move forward with a thankful heart and to trust God and to be prayerful. And also just to be patient, because we know it's an inconvenience, we know it's hard, it takes away from your work schedule, it takes away from things on your to-do list that maybe you were hoping to do or whatever it is. We know it's hard, but if God's allowing it to happen, we can trust him and walk through it with him.
- [Aaron] Yeah, so that was just a little update on our flu campaign. But we wanna encourage you. We have a new challenge. We've been doing a lot of these lately, a lot of new downloads and challenges and free things that you guys can get from us. And our new one's called the parentingprayerchallenge.com. We launched it last week and this week you get to do it. We're still encouraging parents to sign up to pray for either their daughter or their son or both. So if you haven't signed up for the Parenting Prayer Challenge, it's completely free. We're gonna send you 31 prompts every day, encouraging you to pray for different things for your child.
- Over 31 days.
- Over 31 days.
- [Jennifer] Not 31 emails in one day.
- [Aaron] Yeah, that's happened one time. Yeah, one a day, and the whole idea is that at the end of the 31 days you've built a habit of praying for your children. I'm sure all you parents love to pray for your children, but we just wanted to give this resource to encourage you to pray more, to pray deeper, to pray more consistently and give you ideas on what other things to pray for for your kids.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, and I'll add this, it goes hand in hand with our books, "31 prayers for your son and for your daughter." And if you have those books, oh this'll be an incredible reminder. It's kinda like an alarm, right? Because your email comes through and then you're like, "Oh yeah." So you can get the book and go along with it that way too.
- [Aaron] Mm-hmm, so parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word, spelled the way you would think it's spelled. And sign up for free today. All right guys, we've been doing this new thing, we've mentioned it a few times this season. We're trying to do a marriage episode, we're doing a devotional style episode, a Q&A, we're trying to give a little bit more diversity on the kinds of things we're bringing up and this episode's gonna be a devotional style. We're gonna talk about some scripture. And something that we've been learning, something that I taught on at church. And so we hope it encourages you and why don't you, Jennifer start off by reading--
- [Jennifer] Oh, I was gonna sit back and let you teach for 30 minutes, yeah.
- [Aaron] Oh, I'll just do it? No.
- Go for it.
- [Aaron] Why don't you read the scripture that we're gonna be talking about,
- Okay.
- And then we'll go into it.
- [Jennifer] So it's 1 Peter 4:7-11 and it says this, "The end of all things is at hand, "therefore be self controlled "and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly "since love covers a multitude of sins."
- [Aaron] This is a great scripture in 1 Peter and we're excited to talk about it and what it means for us as believers, not only in our marriages, but just in life in general and walking in the body of Christ. And the power that is in our love for one another. And what that means and looks like. So we're gonna dig into this, these few scriptures, and kinda break it down and talk about some stuff and Jennifer you might have some questions. But we're just gonna break it down and see how this applies to us in our life. So the first thing I wanna point out is where our perspective should be. And Jennifer you read it, the very first thing it says in verse seven is "The end of all things is at hand."
- [Jennifer] I feel like there should be an exclamation mark.
- [Aaron] And it's almost is, it's a semicolon which says everything I'm about to say is attached to this statement. The end of all things is at hand, and so, we can easily, quickly think this is talking about Jesus coming back, or the end of days, right? But in the New Testament when it talks about the end of days or all things at hand or the end of the generation, it's mostly talking about all of the things that needed to take place, they needed to occur for the salvation story, for redemption, God's plan for redemption that he's been planning and preparing since Adam and Eve in the garden. And so, when Peter says the end of all things is at hand, he's saying that essentially, Christ has been born, he's died, and he's resurrected.
- [Jennifer] Like we have what we need.
- [Aaron] The thing that God has planned to take place has taken place.
- Yeah.
- [Aaron] Which means a lot. It means that we can now draw near to God. It means that we now can have salvation and a right relationship with God. Because without the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his ascension and him sending the holy spirit there is no, like we can't be made right with God. So all of those things, the end of all things is at hand. The end of everything that God planned for salvation has been done, as Jesus says on the cross, it is finished. So it didn't necessarily mean that hey, the end of the world is tomorrow. But it's also an allusion, it alludes to Christ returning. Because now that the church age has begun, the spirit is living in man, we're made right with God, the bride of Christ is growing, we have an expectation of Christ's return. So we're in this imminent return zone. Like at any moment Christ can come back.
- [Jennifer] And we are, we're called to walk a certain way.
- [Aaron] Yeah. And so that's kinda, he starts off these statements with here's how you should be thinking. Realize first and foremost you have everything you need because Christ died and resurrected. He's given you his spirit, so now you can walk in his spirit and not the flesh. Like the things that we need to accomplish what he's about to tell us have already happened and are already available to us and been given to us. So that's our perspective in our relationships with our spouse, our children, our church body. That the end of all things is at hand. Like first and foremost, I have everything I need in Christ Jesus, to walk this way that we're about to talk about. And I walk this way because I look forward to Christ coming back, and I wanna not be ashamed at his return, I wanna stand boldly at his return. I wanna be excited for his return.
- [Jennifer] It gives those relationships a lot of depth and purpose, how we interact with each other and how we're supposed to be in those relationships with each other.
- [Aaron] Right and so, if you think about your marriage. You say, "Well, I just can't because my husband "is this, this, this."
- [Jennifer] Or together you're just facing a really hard circumstance.
- [Aaron] Yeah, like we went through stuff. And it's like, oh, our love for each other is stifled because of this hard circumstance or these character traits in the other person. But if our mindsets are on wow, first of all I can, because Christ did, and I should, because Christ is coming. My perspective and the way I treated you and the way we treat others would totally be transformed because we're no longer thinking of this immediate, well how did you treat me and how am I gonna treat you?
- [Jennifer] Well, it's not about us.
- Exactly.
- Right?
- [Aaron] Which is a powerful thing. And this is being taught to the believer, but the ramifications for this is in every aspect of your life. Most directly in your marriage and then also most directly in all of your relationships with other believers in the church. We need to have this perspective.
- [Jennifer] Okay, so, then moving on in that verse, the next word is therefore.
- [Aaron] Yeah and--
- [Jennifer] So the end of all things is at hand,
- [Both] Therefore.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and someone always says, "What's therefore there for?" I mean you ask yourself, "Well, why is that there?" And it's attached to the last statement. So, since the end of all things is at hand, be this way. And what does it say right there, Jennifer?
- [Jennifer] Be self controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
- [Aaron] So, in relation to our relationships and in our life and in the way we interact in this world, self-controlled, how often do we say the word self-controlled in our house?
- [Jennifer] Well, we're in the beginning stages of training our kids, so I feel like we say it all the time, multiple times a day.
- [Aaron] 150,000 times a day. Are you being self-controlled?
- Remember, self-control.
- [Aaron] Be self-controlled, you're not being self-controlled. You must have self-control. Like over and over and over again. 'Cause that's, I mean our kids are learning to have control over themselves, that's the point. But self-controlled meaning, in my life, am I in control or is my flesh in control? 'Cause when my flesh is in control, we are not self-controlled. We're gonna eat as much as--
- We just give way
- We want.
- To whatever we want, yeah.
- [Aaron] When I'm angry, I'm just gonna say what I wanna say. Oh, well, I was angry, that's why I said that. Well, that's not self-controlled. That's just blurting out what's coming to your mind because you're angry, rather than considering the other person.
- [Jennifer] Which the mind is the next thing it says.
- [Aaron] Yeah, sober-minded, which yes, this is talking about sobriety, not on drugs, not drunk with alcohol, but sober-minded is much more than just, we talked about this in another episode. I can't remember the name of the other episode, but it's having a right way of thinking. A clear way of thinking. So if you think about, we just talked about anger. You know Jennifer, you do something that really frustrates me and then I get so angry I just start saying whatever I want, like I'm not being sober-minded. I'm letting my wrath and my anger control my words and my actions, rather than my mind.
- [Jennifer] It's like being self-controlled of your mind specifically.
- Right.
- [Jennifer] Like being able to have those thought processes and walk yourself through it mentally.
- [Aaron] Another example of being sober-minded is fear. So, there's nothing wrong with natural fear, like you know fire's gonna burn you, so you don't touch it, but we're talking about like there's something going on in the world and it's causing us to have this anxiety and fear which causes us to make decisions and not seek out wisdom and oh, we're gonna go do this thing because XYZ over here, I don't know how that's gonna turn out, therefore we're gonna. And so that's not sober-minded either. Instead of thinking through what is reality, thinking through what is the repercussions if XYZ happens or if we don't have what we need or if, like thinking sober-minded is rather than operating in the fear and just making decisions off that, you're operating in knowledge and wisdom and you seek counsel and you're slow to act, slow to speak. So that's the idea of sober-minded. So since we know that the end of all things is at hand, meaning we have everything we need in Christ, meaning all of the things that God planned for redemption has happened, you have the holy spirit, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
- [Jennifer] So real quick, I just have to, just hearing you repeat that, it says, "Be self-controlled and sober-minded "for the sake of your prayers," that means you're praying. So it's almost like it's saying be self-controlled and sober-minded and prayerful. Like be a person of prayer.
- [Aaron] Right, and we just talked about being sick. If our minds were in this position of thankfulness and we were just wallowing in the suffering, 'cause throwing up's not fun, not feeling good is not fun, and we could just sit there and be like woe is us. And we're not even being sober-minded in that. But instead we're like, "Thank you Lord." It actually helped us elevate above our current circumstances to be able to see it from a heavenly position. Like, okay, well, just because this thing is happening, doesn't mean I stop being a Christian. Doesn't mean I can now act XYZ, be this way, say these things. No, I actually even in this, can walk this out. Because we know all things have been fulfilled in Christ, and his return is imminent, even in my sickness I get to say, "Well if Christ was to come right now, "I wanna be like him, wanna look like him." This is how we must live as people who claim the name of Jesus. We can't claim the name, but not walk it out.
- [Jennifer] Mm-hmm, okay so before you move on, I feel like maybe some of our listeners would have the same question, and that is, it says "for the sake of your prayers" so does that mean your prayers are in trouble if you're not being self-controlled or you're not being sober-minded? What does that mean?
- [Aaron] Yeah, I mean, in 1 Peter I think we get another picture of that when it talks about husbands walking with their wives in an understanding way, it says for the sake of your prayers. So, there is a way that the believer can walk that would hinder our prayers. And it could be put this way, someone told me once, "God's not gonna tell you "to do a new thing until you've done the old thing." Like the thing he's asked you to do already. And so it's almost like this, we're looking for a new word from the Lord, we're looking for guidance and wisdom. And he's like, well, but you're not even loving your wife right now.
- Mm-hmm, I have a really good example of this when it comes to kids. Olive, just I think it was yesterday, she came up to me and she was like, "Mom, I don't have anything to do." And so I gave her something to do, it was a small task. And she turned around really quickly and said, "I don't wanna do that."
- [Aaron] What else can I do?
- [Jennifer] What else can I do? And I looked at her, I said, "Sweetheart, "can you go do what Mommy asked you to do?"
- [Aaron] Right. Yeah, and there's even a scripture that says, "Go back and do the first things "that you've been told to do." Like you've left your first love, we learned in Revelations. There's this idea of like, God's already given us some commands, given us some things to do as believers. In his power, to do it, and we wanna skip over those things and we're gonna talk about this. We wanna skip over those things to get to the other things. We're like, "Well, I don't wanna do that thing." Loving that person's difficult. Or, praying for that person, ehh, let's pray for this big thing over here.
- [Jennifer] Or how about, "I'll be self-controlled, "but I don't care about being sober-minded."
- Exactly yeah.
- You know what I mean?
- [Aaron] Which doesn't make any sense because,
- [Jennifer] I know.
- [Aaron] If you're not sober, like let's talk about being drunk, you're not in self-control either. Those things go hand in hand. So yes, the Bible teaches that our prayers can be hindered. I don't know exactly what that means, does that mean that God doesn't hear 'em at all? Or is it that I am hindered? Like I'm not gonna want to pray more. I don't have a desire to, I'm frustrated. No, Lord, I don't want to. It's like when our, like you said our kids, when they have an attitude, Wyatt crosses his arms, puts his head down, it's like he doesn't wanna look at us.
- [Jennifer] Or like that example you gave of us being sick, if we weren't sober-minded and self-controlled, we wouldn't have prayed in thankfulness, so yeah, hindered in a way that if we're not walking that way and we're not being that way then we won't be praying at all.
- Yeah so,
- We won't be a people of prayer.
- Regardless of how it plays out, I don't want either of those things. I wanna be able to come to God boldly and I also want God to receive me and hear my prayers. The Bible tells us that the prayers of a righteous man availeth much, it's in James. And I want my prayers heard. I want them to avail much. And when I pray for my family, when I pray for health, when I pray for opportunities, when I pray for other, my family members, when I pray for the lost, I want those prayers to be heard and to have power with God. So, God says, "Well be sober-minded and self-controlled "so that your prayers won't be hindered." Then I should just do that.
- [Jennifer] Do it.
- [Aaron] It's not easy all the time, but that's what we get to do, because the end of all things is at hand, so I should be able to do it. Okay, so let's move on to this next part of this verse.
- [Jennifer] Well the next verse.
- [Aaron] Yeah, the next verse, there ya go. Verse eight starts off, it says, "Above all." Okay, and I just wanted to highlight this idea, so if you're in your Bible, which that'd be awesome if you were, you should be. It says, "Above all," comma, "keep loving one another earnestly." And I just wrote down some ideas of what's the all? Like above all, above how generous you might be financially, like, "I've given so much." Above being right, like "Well I know "that this scripture means this." Above memorizing every scripture, above being debt free, above your health, above your safety, above all. Above everything that you see as good, 'cause these things are good, for the most part, don't neglect to do this thing. So, above all, do this thing, right?
- [Jennifer] Do you think it's easy for us in our flesh to justify like, "Well, I don't have to love that person, "and we don't even get along, but I'm doing this "over here, so, I'm good with God because this over here." Do you hear what I'm saying?
- [Aaron] Yeah, we do this all the time, and there's a scripture that I'll bring up that shows this hypocrisy. Like, "Well no, that person doesn't need to be in my life, "because of XY and Z, but, you know what? "But I read every day, I'm in the word every day." "Oh but I pray, I'll pray for that person. "I don't have to love 'em, but I'll pray for 'em." I think something that I've heard a lot, and it doesn't make any sense, but we say this, "Oh, I love him, I just don't like him." Almost as if love is this general like, yeah we're in the same city, but I'm never gonna talk to him, I'm not gonna be kind to him, I'm not gonna be cordial, I'm not gonna even, I don't wanna go out of my way for them. I'm not gonna give to them, I'm not gonna help them, I'm not gonna. So what love is that?
- [Jennifer] If you're doing that, I was gonna say, what's your definition of love?
- [Aaron] And that's my point is we, okay, I'll just do this. So the point of everything I said above all, or not that we shouldn't do those other things, 'cause I never want someone to be like, "Well, all we have to do is love others, "and we don't have to be generous, "and we don't have to read our word and memorize scripture." These things that are actually really good for us. "And my health and my, all these things don't matter, "as long as I just love." No. All of those things matter, but we don't neglect this one thing, and often it's the one thing we neglect. We work on all those other things, 'cause we have, those are easier, those are personal. We can control 'em. We can't control other people and that's why it's so hard. And I think of this in Matthew 23:23 Jesus says this, he says, "Woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, "for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, "and have neglected the weightier matters of the law." And then get what he says, "Justice, mercy and faithfulness. "These you ought to have done "without neglecting the others."
- [Jennifer] Like do it all.
- [Aaron] He's like, "Yeah, you spent time, "you outwardly show all these good things that you do, "yet you've neglected justice, like you don't care "about those in your midst who need justice "and you've been unjust." Or showing mercy and faithfulness. You haven't remained faithful to your spouses, you haven't remained faithful to your people, you haven't remained faithful to, and he's saying these things you should have done without neglecting those other things that you do. And so that was the point I was getting at is like yeah, all those other things are good, but we cannot throw out loving one another earnestly.
- [Jennifer] So you used the word earnestly, why don't you define that, just for our listeners really quick?
- [Aaron] Okay, 'cause it's a pretty powerful word and it's how he wants us to love each other. It's not like, "Hey, I love you, yeah I'll see you later. "Oh yeah, we're good buddies." It's something deeper than that. He says, "Love one another earnestly." And the definition of earnestly means with sincere and intense conviction. It's so powerful. It's not just a, in passing a word you just say about someone, it's a life lived out way of loving. It's a my actions and the way I think reflect the deepness of my conviction and belief about how I love you. And so a perfect example is in marriage. I love you, and it's not just a word. I show you by how I take care of you. And how I show up every day and how I sit and talk with you. And how I ask for forgiveness, and I'm patient, and all these things are the actions of my love for you.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, I think that's really important to point out, because I think in marriage specifically, you can text each other back and forth, I love you, or say it at the end of a phone call, conversation. Saying it in passing or before you leave to go to work. But are your actions proving what those words actually mean? So you've convinced yourself in your mind, yeah, of course I love my husband, of course I love my wife. And I tell them every day.
- [Aaron] How do they know?
- [Jennifer] But, are your actions supporting your words?
- [Aaron] Yeah, and so let's break down this definition a little bit, it says with a sincere and intense conviction, that's the earnestness. Sincere means free from pretense or deceit. Proceeding from genuine feelings. So I don't just say it, it's not just a word that I use so that I look good with my other Christian friends and brothers and sisters.
- Or that you know you should use because you're married.
- [Aaron] Yeah, like, "Oh yeah, of course I love so-and-so." But yet, you don't truly believe it in your heart. You struggle with believing, like well, do I love him? I mean, I could move on. I'm not going to, 'cause I don't wanna look bad. That's not love, it's a free from pretense or deceit. So there's nothing, you're not saying it to receive anything like, "Oh good, so good that you love that person." And you're not saying it out of, it's not a lie. When you say you love someone it's truthful. It's a genuine, genuineness, a real thing from with inside of you. And then that second part, intense conviction. And I smashed two definitions together, 'cause the word intense and conviction I put them together and it's a highly concentrated and firmly held belief in what you are doing, right? So, it's not going away. My love for my brothers and sisters in Christ, my love for others in the world, my love for my wife, it's real and it's going to drive my actions and my decisions and my attitudes and it's gonna cause me to repent and it's gonna cause me to change and grow because that conviction is solid. It's there, and when I'm challenged in that conviction, when the listener is challenged in that conviction of love, they get to ask themselves, "Well do I truly love so-and-so?" And then they get to remember, well, the end of all things is at hand, I must love so-and-so, regardless. Without pretense, it needs to be truthful and powerful. That's what that word earnestly means.
- [Jennifer] I love that definition of intense conviction that you shared, and it makes me think how intentional this type of love truly is, because--
- [Aaron] That's a good word, intentional.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, it's intentional because you're motivated by your, like it said, "firmly held belief in what you are doing" so everything that I do in our home, everything I do with our kids, everything I do with you, comes out and is an overflow of this belief that I have that I truly love you and that genuine feeling that you talked about earlier. And that's such a different situation when you compare it to just saying the words I love you or just going about your day without any motivations as to why you're doing those things, you know? It makes me think of the type of motivational speaking you hear when it comes to entrepreneurship, where it's like, "You gotta know your why." You gotta know your why.
- Yeah, what's your why?
- [Jennifer] What's your why? So it makes me go there when I think about in marriage, why are you doing all the little things that you do throughout your day? It's because you love that person.
- [Aaron] Mm-hmm, and it's not superficial, and it's not just a word, but it's an actual held belief. Like "No, I love my wife. "I love John over there." Like truly love them, not just, "We're Christians "and we love each other."
- Right. And if we truly consider this you guys, then when we get into a hard spot in marriage, when we get into conflict or something happens unexpectedly that you don't desire, you can continue on, because there's this hope knowing that, "Well no, I love them. "You know, I know this is hard, but God's given me "a love for them."
- [Aaron] Yeah. What I think is really cool, I just thought about this, often we think about this idea of growing in love, which we do, we change and our level of love deepens.
- It deepens, yeah.
- [Aaron] But it's actually, the way this is stated, it's actually a starting point. We start at this basis of love for one another. Not build into it. It starts at this place and I thought that was really cool. I just was,
- I like that.
- [Aaron] I was just thinking it's like it's not, yeah, it does grow over time, but it's also, like you said, even in those hard times, you default to that position of love. Not default to, well we're not in love because, or we're building in love and the default position is no love. That's not actually, I mean marriage starts, usually, for the most part, with a deep conviction of love. And so the default position is love. And I didn't have the scripture originally here, but I thought about this and I think it goes perfectly well. What this level of love is supposed to look like, it's supposed to be remarkable. It's not supposed to look like the love of the world. Like the world loves itself. There's people that they love their own and they do a good job of that, but the love that Christians are supposed to have for one another is supposed to be remarkable, miraculous. And Jesus puts it this way in John 13:34. "A new commandment I give to you, "that you love one another. "Just as I have loved you, "you also are to love one another. "By this all people will know that you are my disciples "if you have love for one another." So it's not like, if we do these great things, or if we have this great band, or if we preach this great message, it says if you love one another the way I loved you, the whole world will know, oh that's a disciple of Christ.
- [Jennifer] Yeah.
- [Aaron] That's remarkable. So I get, the question I have in your marriage, in your relationships at church, would the world look at how you love them as remarkable? Like that's a remarkable love. How could he love like that? How could she love like that after so much has happened to her, after this or that? It's a remarkable love and it can only be done with Jesus Christ. That's what he says, "If you love as I have loved you." Which is an amazing, amazing kind of love. It's literally remarkable. And I have some notes here and this is, this is exactly why churches fall apart. This is why friendships dissolve, this is why marriages end. When we let the intensity of our conviction to love each other soften. We got to that point a few years into our marriage. Our conviction to love one another, because of the things we were going through, got weakened.
- [Jennifer] I was gonna say, I don't feel like softens is just the right word because it sounds mushy-gushy, but I mean we're talking about the dissolving of that belief and conviction.
- [Aaron] Yeah. And it's not that those things that were happening had some external power to weaken our love for each other superficially,
- We chose that.
- We let our love, yeah we chose it, that's a good word. And so, I just wanna ask you, as we get into this, have you let your love, the earnestness of your love for your spouse, for other believers, weaken? For whatever reason, because someone hurt you, because someone said something harmful about you, because someone didn't pay you back?
- [Jennifer] The relationship's messy or hard or challenging and you just wanna,
- Walk away.
- Walk away.
- It'd be easier.
- Yeah.
- [Aaron] There's been so many times I've thought to myself, it would just be easier to move.
- [Jennifer] Well, we thought that in the beginning of our marriage when we were facing hardship and we got to the point at the end of three and a half years where we were, so incredibly close to walking away convinced in our selfish flesh that it would be better for each other if we just separated.
- [Aaron] Move on.
- [Jennifer] And instead, God got ahold of our hearts in a remarkable way and, I mean he brought the message to you first and then to me, but it's a choice.
- [Aaron] Yeah.
- [Jennifer] And are we gonna let our circumstances dictate that choice or are we gonna choose it in our hearts and move past the circumstances? Or even if we have to deal with the circumstances for the rest of our life, and that was the commitment we had to choose. There came this pivotal moment where, people who've read our books, they know what I'm talking about, but we're standing in church, Aaron, and you're sharing this heart that God has given you for our marriage to continue on regardless if anything changed. That is remarkable. And that saved us, that saved our marriage.
- [Aaron] And here's the difference in the types of love. The love that the world has for itself, and the love that we are to have for our brothers and sisters and our spouse. The love that Christ gave to us was unconditional. The love that we try and walk in is often transactional. You do this, I'll do this. You give me this, I'll give you that. Oh you didn't do the thing, or you weren't the certain way? Then I'm not going to. Jesus it says, "Yet while we were still sinners died for us." So even when we were weakest, when we couldn't save ourselves, Christ died. Christ gave himself up for his bride. And this is the message that Christ gave me that day, reminding me, he's like, "Hey are you gonna love "your wife unconditionally, or transactionally? "Are you gonna love her regardless if she ever gives you "what you think you deserve, what you ought to have? "Or are you gonna love her like I did "when you could do nothing for me, "and I still died for you?"
- [Jennifer] John 13 comes back to my mind like you said. Jesus says, "Love as I loved you."
- [Aaron] And you know what this sincerity and intensity, this earnestness sounds very familiar to how Jesus said we would worship God. He says this to the woman at the well, in John 4:24, he says, "God is spirit "and those who worship him must worship "in spirit and truth." Spirit and truth. And this isn't talking about worshiping each other. But it's how we love each other, in spirit and in truth.
- [Jennifer] It reminds me of the definition going back earlier to those genuine feelings.
- [Aaron] Mm-hmm, it's not from pretense or deceit. It's no, I genuinely love you. I may not know how to do it well, but I'm going to default to love, I'm going to default to giving you the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to love you regardless if you give me what I deserve. And then in Matthew 22 verse 37-48 says this, "And he said to him, 'You shall love the lord your God "'with all your heart and with all your soul "'and with all your mind. "'This is there greatest and first commandment. "'And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor "'as yourself, on these two commandments "'depend all the law and the prophets.'"
- [Jennifer] I remember we read this verse to our kids and they got really confused, because we've taught them the 10 Commandments.
- Yeah.
- And they were like, "No no no, that's not the."
- [Aaron] No, you have to honor your mom and dad. Like, yes. And what I explained to 'em is, and this is what Jesus says, he says, "Anyone who does these won't break any of the laws." Because when you love your neighbor, you're not gonna steal from them. When you love your neighbor, you're not gonna lie to them. When you love your neighbor, you're not gonna covet their things. You're gonna say praise God that you've given them those things, God. Praise God. They're gonna use 'em for you, I hope. We don't covet. When we love God we don't dishonor our parents. When you love your parents you're not gonna dishonor them. And so, that's the kind of love that we get to have for one another. And it's actually, it's one of the greatest commandments, to love God with all our heart, mind and soul and to love each other as ourselves. To love each other with that intensity. Okay, so we're getting up to the last part of this section of scripture and it's the most powerful one. It's actually the title of this episode. And it's the reason why Peter is commanding us to love each other in the first place. It's the reason why he's saying to do these things, it's the reason why he gave us the mindset of hey, the end of all things is at hand, be this way, love this way. So before I move on to this next portion of this scripture, I'm gonna read the whole scripture again. It's 1 Peter 4:7-11. "The end of all things is at hand, "therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded "for the sake of your prayers. "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, "since love covers a multitude of sins." Okay, so here's the--
- You slowed down there at the end Aaron,
- I know it's,
- [Jennifer] Is that important?
- [Aaron] Well, it's the most powerful section of this scripture, I believe. And what's amazing about this is it's the opportunity that believers have to love like Christ. What did Christ's love do?
- [Jennifer] Saved us.
- [Aaron] It covered us. We've just been teaching the kids through Adam and Eve, the story of Adam and Eve and how they were to, God told that surely on the day that you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you will die. And guess what.
- [Jennifer] Well the kids asked the question,
- They're like,
- But they didn't die!
- [Aaron] Yeah, they didn't die. Here's what's amazing is something died instead. They covered themselves with fig leaves, God covered them in skins. So an animal had to die. So even then, way back in the beginning, in the very first people, God showed his redemption plan. That he was gonna substitute the death that we deserve for another. And so it was a picture right then and there of what Christ was gonna do. And this is what the believer gets to do. This is the remarkable love that the world's gonna see and be like, whoa, those people are God's, Christ's disciples, because Christ died for them, and look how they love each other.
- [Jennifer] They wouldn't be able to do it without him.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and so love covers a multitude of sins. So here's a question, I taught this at church and I asked this question, and it was hard for me to get it out without crying. But I said, "Who doesn't want their sins covered?" I said, "Raise your hand." How many hands do you think went up? None. So I ask the listener, do you want your sins covered? Do you thank God that his son Jesus and the blood that he shed covers your sins completely? That you are made white as snow? That you are clean before God? Okay, so if we can answer that question with "Yes, praise God," then our love should do the same. Our love has that same power. I personally love the fact that God no longer sees my sin. I personally love that who I was before Christ is now dead and buried. But, what we often do is we highlight other people's sins. And what it does is it raises us up and puts them down. Oh so-and-so, I can't believe they would treat me that way. You can't believe it? I mean how else do we deserve to be treated, really? We deserve hell. That's what the human state deserves.
- [Jennifer] There's other times in marriage that we hold their sin against them.
- [Aaron] Absolutely, yeah.
- [Jennifer] So, whether it's for ammunition later, or maybe you're not intentionally thinking that, but all the sudden it comes up again, and you haven't covered their sin in love. You've been hanging on to it out of bitterness and anger, and you're gonna spew it out back in their face to make them feel a certain way.
- [Aaron] Or waiting for them to trip up and it makes you feel better, because as long as their sin is greater than your sin then you're not a sinner. That's like the logic we use. I know that we struggled with this. You believed because I struggled with certain things you didn't even wanna see your own sin. Things that you were dealing with, your own pride, your own bitterness, your own angers, 'cause I was the sinner in the relationship. I was the one that needed to repent, I was the one that needed to change. And I did, I mean it's not like I didn't. But we do that, we look, we long for the sin in others. Oh, since they're that way, I can be this way. Rather than wanting to cover those sins. Rather than wanting to overlook them and remind those people of who they are in Christ, without pretense, without this idea of like, I'm gonna point this out, because I wanna hurt them. Or I wanna feel better.
- [Jennifer] I think just kind of glancing back over those first few years of marriage, something else that I've struggled with is holding on to the sins that you struggled with even after saying I forgive you or trying to make up and resolve things. Because I had this belief about you that you were gonna fail me. So I was building a case, right?
- [Aaron] You were waiting for me to, yeah.
- [Jennifer] The next time you messed up, I go, "See, this is the type of person that you are." And I held up a mirror to show you your sin instead of pointing you to God and saying, "But he's redeemed you." You know what I mean? I didn't give you--
- Why you acting like this? God's redeemed you.
- I didn't give you the positive message, because I truly cared about restoration at that point I was looking for a case in order to get out. To leave, to say, "You're this way, and I can't handle it."
- [Aaron] Yeah. And that leads me to this question, do we see our spouse's sins against us as special or less deserving of forgiveness and grace? Do we see the sins and shortcomings of others towards us as less deserving, as special? Yeah, yeah, I've done things, I get it, God forgives me, but what they've done? No, what they've done is not forgivable. What they've done is, you can't tell me to love that person. Well, you know what, I don't. I'm not telling you anything. God says it, okay? When you give that word picture, 'cause I think it perfectly sums up this idea of when we love the way Christ loves, what it does.
- [Jennifer] Well, I was just thinking about this idea of covering a multitude of sins by our love, the word picture that I got in my mind to help me understand that is a blanket and it's function. When you think about a blanket and being wrapped up and curled up on the couch with it, it provides warmth and comfort and padding and it consumes you.
- It protects you.
- [Jennifer] It protects you, it's just all around you and it was a really beautiful picture for me to understand how God covers us. Kinda like even as you said, going back to Adam and Eve, how he covered them, ya know?
- [Aaron] And then the picture I got, and the Bible even uses it, says that our sins are made white as snow. And we live in a place that snows. And you see all the landscape, there's all the colors, the grass, the concrete, the trees, the houses.
- [Jennifer] Pretty soon everything starts to fade away.
- [Aaron] It snows and guess what. Everything's the same color.
- Everything's white.
- Everything's white. And beautiful and it could be on the dirtiest, muddiest area, and it's a beautiful white field. And that's what Christ's blood does is it covers us. And out of our thankfulness for that, we get to love others the same way. And this isn't an overlooking of sin, this isn't a pretending sin hasn't happened. And I'll talk about that in a second. But it's the way we love that no one, no one's sin is special that doesn't deserve our forgiveness, because what we've done is so worthy of punishment. The littlest sin we've done is detrimental to our own nature. And Christ has forgiven that in us. And I was reading in Leviticus this morning, and it was talking about all of the sacrifices and all the atonements and the priest is supposed to do this and all, it was so weird, I'm reading, I was like, "I wanna watch a video on this." So I watched the Bible Project's video on atonement.
- [Jennifer] Oh they're good.
- [Aaron] Yeah, it was good. And I almost started crying in Starbucks, 'cause I go to Starbucks after the gym, watching it because it was explaining how the atonement was a replacement and it was talking about the two types of evil, it was the sin against your brother or God. And it washes that away. But the other thing is the broken relationship aspect. Let's say you stole something, you paid it back, right? But there's also now distrust and fear that's in the relationship. And so that has to be atoned for as well. And so there's this picture of the priest sprinkling blood over the temple and the Tent of Meeting, right? And it showed this picture of, there was all this black looking weeds on the ground, and every time the blood hit the ground it turned to normal. And it said the blood also brought us into a safe relationship and a love relationship. And that's what this love does when it's covering. It's not just pretending things didn't happen, it's actually mending relationships so that we can walk with people not in fear, not in angst or anxiety, but we can actually walk with people in freedom and in love and in purity. That's what this does. And I wanted to share that 'cause it literally almost made me cry when I was thinking what God's done for me, and how he's, he didn't just fix the offense, he also fixed the relationship that was broken because of the offense.
- [Jennifer] It's remarkable.
- [Aaron] Yeah. So, I just wanna quickly, we talked through a lot of the scriptures, but I wanted to quickly say, this isn't to say we ignore sin, because that actually is unloving. Ignoring someone's sin is unloving. The loving thing to do is to address the sin, not out of our own vindication, trying to get something paid back to us, but out of, like you said, pointing them back to the truth of what God said about them. Or if they're not a believer, to repentance and salvation. So the loving way to, we deal with sin lovingly. And we come to people in truth and our position is of we wanna see the best for you. We want you to be in a right relationship with us. As Matthew 18 says, it's like you've won your brother. That's what you go to them for is for the purpose of winning your brother, not for winning the argument or winning the, oh see, all I want is an apology and we'll be good. No, you're going with the intention of hey, this is broken right now. We need to fix this. Love covering a multitude of sins isn't to say that the sins just disappear. It's to say that we deal with them the biblical way, the loving way for the purpose of reconciliation, 'cause that is the ministry we've been given is reconciliation.
- [Jennifer] And we do this for people because we desire the same reciprocation, right? Of love?
- I want it.
- [Jennifer] I want people to overlook and cover the sins that I've committed, even the slightest or smallest, there's no degree. It doesn't matter. If I'm imperfect, I want someone to love me still. And I think that's important to remember, especially in marriage.
- [Aaron] So I hope that bit of scripture encourages you in your walk. As usual we pray before signing off, so we're gonna pray. Dear lord, we lift up our hearts to you right now and ask that you would make us a people who love others earnestly. Holy spirit direct our hearts and remind us of your word. We pray we would above all things, love others. We pray we would love our spouse, our children, our friends and those who are in our life. May your love pour out of us. May your love pouring out of us transform our marriages. We pray others would be impacted by the love we share. We pray we'd be able to love so deeply that it covers a multitude of sin. We pray that instead of shame or guilt, people would feel undoubtedly loved by us and by you. We pray for your word to be fulfilled through our choices to walk in love and that your will would be done. In Jesus name, amen. Hey thanks for joining us for this episode. We pray it blessed you, of course. And don't forget to join the Parenting Prayer Challenge. That's parentingprayerchallenge.com It's completely free and we pray it blesses you. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| Fun Ways To Spend Quality Time With Your Children | 10 Feb 2020 | 00:40:53 | |
We are about to have our 5th child and with our growing family comes more of a necessity for spending quality alone time with each of our kids. The logistics of this also get more and more Complicated but that should not stop uf from trying and growing in our ability to single out our children to show them that we love them, want to hear from them, and want to get to know them as individuals in the family. In this episode, we share some practical ways to get some alone time with each of your kids and why it is so important to cultivate that experience on a regular basis.
Join our Free Parenting prayer challenge today and build a habit of praying for your children daily. http://parentingprayerchallenge.com
PRAYER Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of family. Thank you for the blessing of children. May we be people who are willing to make our children feel special, and to feel seen and heard. Help us to spend quality time with them, building fond memories and moments that build our trust with them. Help us to carve out time to show our kids that we desire to be close to them and want to dialogue with them. We pray we would be fun and intentional parents with the purpose of teaching our kids your ways. May our children have a heart to build a family of their own because they love our example and appreciate all they experience. May your love be woven into our legacy and may your light shine in our relationship with our children. In Jesus’ name, amen!
READ TRANSCRIPT - [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.
- [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
- [Aaron] And today we're gonna share some fun ways to spend quality time with your children.
- [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.
- [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife.
- [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution.
- [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade.
- [Aaron] And so far we have four young children.
- [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.
- [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.
- [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life,
- Love.
- And power.
- [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God.
- [Jennifer] Together.
- [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey, as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.
- [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Okay, Aaron, this is just, I am so excited about this episode. I don't know why.
- You're always excited for all the episodes, I like it!
- [Jennifer] No, this is different. This is like I'm giddy over this because we have young kids and the whole episode is about spending time with our kids, things that we've been learning, as--
- [Aaron] We should let the cat out of the bag. You actually really like our kids.
- I do, I'm biased.
- So, that's why you get so excited about this.
- Okay, fine. I was gonna say we're gonna share things we've been learning as new parents. Are we still new parents?
- [Aaron] Someone recently called us new parents. They said, "I would consider you still new parents." And I'm like, we have a fifth kid on the way, how are we still new parents?
- I know, I think it's 'cause they are all just still little--
- [Aaron] They're all young, yeah.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, we're in a lot of just little kid time. And so even though this episode is about spending one on one time with your kids, really it can go for any age kid. But before we jump into that, why don't you give us a little update on something you shared a couple weeks ago on studying your kids? And if you guys don't know what I'm talking about, you gotta go hear that episode.
- [Aaron] So I got some journals and I purposed to take some time to write in those journals things that I'm observing from my children so that I can kind of learn them, think about my children on a level when they're not around and say, "What are the things that I've seen in my kids, "ways they're being, things they've said?"
- [Jennifer] So he got one journal for each kid, and he's not writing to them, per se, he's just writing about them to help him.
- [Aaron] Yeah, I just write stuff I'm observing as if I'm like, on a safari, like "I saw Elliot today do this." I will say this I wrote about Wyatt in the wrong book.
- [Jennifer] I know.
- [Aaron] I had to rewrite the whole thing, which is actually kinda good 'cause I wrote it better, but.
- [Jennifer] What are some things you're learning about our kids?
- [Aaron] Yeah, well, just some cool things. It's cool writing it down, and I've only been doing it like once a month right now. So it's not like every day I'm writing something about them, but it's cool 'cause I write down emotional things about them, like when I see how they respond emotionally to things.
- [Jennifer] Okay.
- [Aaron] I also write down things that I see them getting good at--
- Or interested in.
- Or interested in, things they say, 'cause every once in a while, they say something really remarkable, and I'll just try and remember those things and I write it down, I'm like, "We asked this question and he answered this way." And so just, it's really cool, I've done it twice now and I'm gonna continue doing it, you've encouraged me and said, "Hey remember you said you were gonna?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah." So I think over time, it'll become more of a habit, but it's been a fun thing to to write down and I would encourage parents to figure out ways that they can learn their children.
- [Jennifer] Do you feel like it's requiring you to pay attention more? So like, are you trying to notice things?
- [Aaron] I am, I am.
- [Jennifer] Your eyes are on them more.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and I'm not just, "Oh, yeah, they're in the background, doing their thing." I'm trying to watch them intentionally like, how do they respond to that thing? How are they gonna answer this question? How are they...? So yes, I would say it's making me more intentional.
- [Jennifer] I just think that's so cool. So something that I wanted to share before we get started is that I had a friend recently asked me at church, she just said, "Hey, have you taken Wyatt out on a date, "like just you and him?" Okay, Wyatt's our, he just turned three, and I was shocked. I was like, "No, I haven't, thank you." Because they know that we do this. They know that we like to take the kids out for one-on-one time, and we've been doing it with the older kids, Elliot and Olive, but I don't know why I just didn't think about taking Wyatt, and he is getting to that age where he would probably love it. And so it kinda woke me up and it was a good reminder that God knows that we have this desire to spend one on one time with our kids, And He used a friend of mine to ask me about it.
- To remind you.
- To remind me.
- [Aaron] It's like a gentle nudge.
- [Jennifer] It was! It was really cool, so thank you friend.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and you know what, just a little bit of honesty, especially as our family grows, 'cause we had Elliot and it was our first time being parents and so we had all this energy on every milestone, on everything with him and then we had Olive and that dwindles a little bit, all that attention. And then now we have Wyatt and now Trude, and now we have Edith on the way, and I just, sometimes it can be easy to forget certain children in the place they're at, forget what we did with our older children at that place.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, or that they're all individuals, because we see 'em as a pack, we're always going places together, and so being able to separate them and say, "You are unique, and you are special, "and you are important to us."
- [Aaron] So before we move on to the topic, we just wanna tell you about a new free resource. One of our ways we minister through this ministry is by creating free resources and paid resources. We have our books, of course, but we also love to create these free resources to encourage you in your prayer life and your marriage and your parenting. And the new one we have, I don't know if you've taken the Marriage Prayer Challenge yet, but now we've created a Parenting Prayer Challenge where you can sign up to pray for your son or daughter or both and we'll send you a prayer prompt every day for 31 days, to encourage you in your prayer life over your kids. It's pretty awesome, and all you gotta do is go to parentingprayerchallenge.com and sign up completely free today. Go do that today.
- [Jennifer] Okay, so the topic for today is, you know, spending one on one time with your kids, spending quality time with your kids, some even call it dating your kids, like having date night with your kids. And I'm not sure exactly where this came from, but we have two couples in our life that have been instrumental in our faith and in our parenting that we wanted to share with you guys 'cause I'm sure the idea came from one of two of these places.
- Or both.
- Or both. Matt and Lisa Jacobson from Faithful Life podcast, and Isaac and Angie Tolpin from Courageous Parenting podcast. Again, both of them have been instrumental in both of our faith and our parenting, and they're so encouraging you guys, so if you're not already following their podcasts, you need to go check them out right now.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and we started dating our kids after Olive was born, Elliot was getting older, he was almost three and we've tried to continue it since. There's seasons that we totally forget to do it, but we try and make it built into a regular routine. So just one example right now Olive's in dance and so I take her to dance, and I sometimes, maybe every other week, I'll go early, and we'll go have dinner together before she goes to dance. And so it's just me and her, and that's actually been a lot of fun. We get to go eat together and then she goes and dances off all the food that she ate.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, not all of the the opportunities that we take with our kids happen regularly because well we're going into having five now, our oldest being seven.
- It gets a little harder.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, and it just gets hard. So we try and take advantage of every opportunity that we have, but as a large family, we also like to do things together. So I would say our goal is usually to take one kid out a month, and so either you will take them or I will take them.
- Yeah.
- Or you take two and I take two. So we kinda just mix it up and we play with it.
- [Aaron] A good tip to make it more regular, and we tried this in the beginning was monthly birthdays. So Elliot's birthday's on the seventh, and so remember we tried doing on the seventh of each month would be like that date day for Elliot. We haven't been consistent with that, but someone might be able to take that and run with that idea.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, the thing that I remember from that when we tried it was that the kids began to expect it.
- Yeah they did.
- Which was cool, because we want them to know that we wanna spend time with them.
- [Aaron] It's my birthdate day coming up!
- [Jennifer] But we also like the spontaneous, "Hey, I'm going to take you on a date right now." So, we'll leave that one up to you to decide, but we thought it'd be fun to share with you some standout moments that we've had with our kids on these date days. Do you wanna start Aaron?
- [Aaron] Yeah, so speaking about Olive, I would take her to dinner, and we'd go to one of our favorite restaurants and it's right there, right where she goes to dance. And I'll leave early and we'll spend about an hour eating together and just talking, sometimes she's coloring, sometimes she'll bring a book that she loves I'll read it to her, but a couple of cool things about this is it really stands out to other people. They start seeing me with my daughter and they're like, "Wow, this Dad's with their daughter" or just, it's a really intimate thing. So it's an example to others, which has been really cool. It also gives you enough time to just ask them questions and be like, "Who are you?" This little girl who's growing and turning into a her own person with her own ideas and with her own dreams and which is just a really powerful thing. A couple months ago, there was a really funny thing that I found out about Olive from dating her. So we go to this restaurant and I order something I've never ordered before, and it's this shrimp pasta dish. It's amazing, I loved it. It's like one of my new favorite things. And I get it and I'm like, "Oh, this is so good. "Oh my gosh, this is so amazing." And Olive leans over and she's like, "What's that smell?" And I'm like what?
- She's really straightforward and blunt.
- She's like, "Dad, that smells disgusting." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And she literally, she was like "I can't eat Dad, "this is ruining everything and I don't like that smell." I find out she doesn't like seafood smell, 'cause it smelled a little like shrimp and she was like, "It's disgusting!" So every time I order she's like, "Dad, don't order that, "I can't eat with you!"
- [Jennifer] Actually, I remember her coming home that night and so you went to dinner first and then dance. So you guys were gone for a couple of hours. And she came home and I was like, "Oh, how was it?" And she goes, "Mom, Dad ordered this food "that I did not like."
- [Aaron] "It was disgusting." And so I found out that Olive doesn't like the smell of seafood. So I have to get that pasta when I'm out around Olive now.
- [Jennifer] That's funny. Something that stood out to me was, I remember a while ago, just having a hard day and needing a Mommy break. You know, all the Moms right now are like, "Yep, I feel ya." And so I asked Aaron if he could come in and watch the kids while I went and grabbed some lunch by myself. And I was really looking forward to it 'cause you had said yes.
- Oh I remember this day, okay
- [Jennifer] You understood and said yes and I was getting ready to go, and it was a day that I was actually having a really hard time with Olive. And so I don't know why all these stories revolve around her but--
- She's special.
- [Jennifer] She's special.
- [Aaron] She's our only little girl right now.
- [Jennifer] She was just having a very emotional day, which was new for her in her development. She wasn't like this before, and it was rubbing me the wrong way. And so I was getting ready and you looked down the hallway and you kind of signaled to me like--
- I said it quietly--
- Do you wanna take her?
- [Aaron] You learn really quick not to say things out loud. 'cause then it's like, it ruins everything.
- [Jennifer] And I was actually really frustrated that you even acknowledged that--
- Or even asked you.
- Or even asked me because I just wanted to get out of there. And I'm just being honest, and I just felt my in gut like, yes, that's the right thing to do and so I--
- [Aaron] But with your body language it was like no.
- [Jennifer] So I said, "Olive come here," and she came running down the hall. She goes, "Where you going?" 'cause I had my shoes on. I said, "I'm going to lunch, do you wanna go with me?" And she lit up like just--
- You made her day.
- I did. And so we went to lunch and I sat down and I tried asking her some questions and getting to know like what's going on, I acknowledged that she had been emotional and she acknowledged that she had been emotional. And it was a really encouraging time for our relationship. It was almost like God showed me where it's gonna be when she's 16.
- [Aaron] I know, I love those glimpses! I'm so excited for that.
- So cool. And just being able to get her away from all the boys in the family, and just see her for who she was and what she was going through, it was like an eye opener for me. So that's something that really stood out to me and showed me like my little girl is growing up and I need to be there for her and what does that look like? We also took a little devotional with us and it was a book that you actually started going through with her on your guy's dates. And so I took it with and read a page out of it and we talked about it and she was just, she came back just different from that opportunity.
- [Aaron] Well it totally encourages her and makes her feel so loved. And yeah, she had a totally different attitude the rest of the day from that time with you. And that that's kind of how is with all of our kids. I love when I go out with Elliot. Again, I take him to piano, and then I'll take him to a lunch. So we what we do is we couple events.
- [Jennifer] Things that you already have responsibility to.
- [Aaron] Yeah so, I'm like, "Oh if I just leave a little early, "then I can go actually have a date with my son." He looks forward to it and we go and we'll color together, we'll talk, I purpose to not have my phone out at all.
- [Jennifer] That's good.
- [Aaron] I had to check it once in a while for a text message or you might call me or something, but I try and put it away so he knows that I'm intentionally trying to be with him. And then like, I just try and be, it's actually honestly, it's hard sometimes 'cause I'm like, how do I engage with my son? I'm trying to come up with creative questions, I'm trying to dig deeper than just what we always hear out of his mouth. I'm like, you know, what about this? What do you wanna, you know?
- [Jennifer] But you can't expect it because when they're so young, they might not and that's okay.
- [Aaron] Yeah, but I have to try. And so it's cool. The last time I went on a date with him, so he's been loving video games. He's playing Zelda, like that little, it's like a remake of the original Zelda, it's pretty awesome, actually. And he just talks about it a lot and I'm like, "Okay, Elliot, you know that someone came up "with this game, right?" And he's like, "What do you mean?" And I'm like, "Well, this whole story, "everything you love about this game, someone--"
- Someone designed it.
- "Created it."
- [Jennifer] Someone made it up, yeah.
- [Aaron] It came up from there, like all the names of the characters and all the places and he was like, "What really?" And I was like, "And you could too." And I actually started talking to him, I was like, "Why don't you describe a game?" And we literally spent the hour and he came up with his own game about a little boy with a backpack and his backpack has all of his powers and toys and we came up with what the adventure was gonna be about and he had to save the ancient. And it gave an opportunity where I was able to coax out of him more creativity and he was actually able to see beyond this thing that he loved to something to something that he could create like something he loves.
- [Jennifer] That's so cool 'cause you took something that he was interested in and you saw it and you said, "Now how can I use this "to benefit our relationship?"
- [Aaron] And it was fun because it made the conversation unique, it actually drew something out of him, I would imagine, made him feel more powerful like, "Wow, I could do that?" like, "I could make that thing? "I didn't even know that was impossible." I'm like, "Well, yeah, someone made it." So it was a lot of fun and I actually got to hear his creativity and I would ask him questions like, "Well, what does that character do? "Where did he come from?" And now he's like, creating these back stories. And so I told him, I was like, "You should do that "as a school project this year, come up with a game." So that was that was a really powerful, fun experience, too.
- [Jennifer] That's awesome. Another standout memory that I have is with Elliot, I'm not trying to copy you on these stories.
- It's okay if you are.
- I know. But this actually happened when we were on vacation. I was pregnant with Wyatt and so Elliott was probably like three, almost four years old and we had gotten the opportunity to go to Maui, and it was really fun. And I remember waking up really early one morning and I shook you and I was like, "Hey, can I take Elliot out?" And you were like, "Yeah," but he was sleeping, but it was so cool. I woke him up and we snuck out without Olive waking up and so you and Olive stayed resting.
- [Aaron] I slept for another two hours I think.
- [Jennifer] Well it was probably like 5:45 in the morning and I'm like trying to get dressed in the dark. And we went downstairs 'cause we were staying at this resort with access to the beach, and we went, their coffee shop opened at 6 and so we went and got a bagel and walked all the way out to the beach. And I just sat there and we ate a bagel and then he played in the sand for like 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and we walked back up and got to have breakfast again with you guys. And it's such a standout memory for me because I loved having that one on one time with him. I love that we got to take a special unique opportunity away from everyone else just to be together. We got something that we both love and shared it, a bagel. And I have this memory of sitting on the beach, even though that whole vacation was pretty memorable, that's what stands out to me because I sat on the beach with just my son and I got to watch how he plays and I got to observe him and engage with him and love on him and it was just, I don't know, one of the things we'll talk about in just a minute is just the benefits of having that one on one time with your kid and I would say building memories like that where they stick with you--
- [Aaron] And they'll stick with them too.
- [Jennifer] Well with them, but it makes you wanna recreate 'em. Oh, it's so powerful for the relationship, for the friendship, for the engaging aspect of what this is.
- [Aaron] You know, in this episode, I would say our main goal in sharing these things with you is in parenting and in just marriage and in life and in church and all these things, there's so many things drawing our energies and attentions and every one in a while we just need to be reminded that we need to be taking opportunities to slow down and to get off the beaten path with our kids. To get to know them, to let them know that we are there for them, we like them. Like, it's one thing to love your kids, it's another thing to like your kids. And our kids need to know that we like them. Like I wanna spend time with you, I wanna be near you, I wanna know who you are and how you think. So that's our encouragement. What are some benefits, if those that are listening now start trying to implement some way that they should be taking these date days, date nights, alone time with their kids?
- [Jennifer] Well, I the first thing that comes to my mind, and it just happens when you have multiple people in the family, when you step away with just one is you get uninterrupted time with them to really hear them and what they're going through.
- Which is nice.
- And to chat. It really is nice because anyone with multiple people in a family, you sit down at the dinner table and everyone's talking over each other. And we're working on that, our kids are pretty young so they're still learning that but it's all the time in the car, while they're playing, it's constant and so being able to pull away from the crowd and saying, "Hey, I see you and I hear you, "and I wanna hear more." It's powerful.
- [Aaron] And then that goes into the other part of this, which is you get, you get to be un-distracted. But now this also takes, you should be intentional on this. Like I said, I try to not have my phone out because I don't wanna just be, and sadly, we see this sometimes, you see a father with their kid, and they're just, that Dad's on their phone and I don't wanna be that guy and I've done that before. Make sure that we're like, the intention is to be with your child.
- [Jennifer] So it kind of gets you out of your elements to where you're purposeful and you're thinking ahead, you're thinking through all the steps while you're on this date, because your purpose is for them.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and you know what our children see it. They feel when we're with them or not. Like, "Oh, I'm just here. "Dad's just here, but he's not here." Or "Mom's just here and she's not here." So intentionally putting it away, which totally shows them respect and honor and says, "I wanna know you, I'm here for you."
- [Jennifer] It lets them know that there's, I kinda mentioned this earlier, but it lets them know that they're special, that they're an individual from the family pack.
- [Aaron] They're not just one cog in the whole piece, that they're a person.
- Yeah, yeah. We also get to know them. You know what, like you mentioned studying your kids earlier and I feel like having that one on one time, you really get to know them, where they're at, what they're going through. Something that I mentioned Isaac and Angie Tolpin earlier from Courageous Parenting, and Isaac, he just has this really great tool that he uses with his family that he shared with us, and he really is good at this, like naturally. But he talks about going three questions deep and this is a great tool to use for little kids because sometimes you ask them a question and either they don't fully understand, or they don't know how to answer it and so by asking the same question three different ways you get to pull from their heart. And so maybe you guys can just tuck that away or go look up Courageous Parenting and check that out but he talks about going three questions deep. But Aaron, why don't you give them some examples of what kind of questions they can ask on these dates with their kids?
- [Aaron] And this isn't the definitive list, of course.
- [Jennifer] No, no, but just some things that we go through.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and the idea is, and it's a challenge, is I wanna be deeper than just like, "Hey, how are you? "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" Which I love those questions, but we wanna be able to go deeper so, "What do you know about God?" Which is a great question for discipleship, because then you get to find out like, where they're at in understanding God.
- [Jennifer] They may say some off the wall thing that you might have to correct.
- [Aaron] Yeah, or they'll blow your mind away and you'll be like, "Wow, I didn't even, "I've never thought of that about God."
- [Jennifer] Or how do you know that 'cause I didn't teach you that?
- [Aaron] Yeah. Another question is "What has God been teaching you?" Which actually makes them think like, "Wait, God teaches me things?" And then they can think like, "Oh, well, maybe to be more patient with my sister." Something like that. "What have you been interested in lately?" And you might already know the answer--
- [Jennifer] Well I was gonna say their interests can change so you might know the answer, but it could also surprise you.
- [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause like forever Elliot loved Iron Man, and now it's Spiderman, but now it's not even Spiderman, it's Zelda.
- Zelda.
- So--
- Link.
- [Aaron] "How are your relationships with your siblings?"
- [Jennifer] This is a really good one for kids, that they are recognizing that their relationships with their siblings are important, and so they'll most likely be honest with you about how they are. Go three questions deep though.
- [Aaron] Yeah. A good question is, "What things have you been frustrating, "or have been frustrating you lately?" Ask them like, "Hey, have there been things "that have been bothering you? "Are you frustrated with something "or do you feel sad about something?"
- [Jennifer] Something that I've been used to asking when I have one on one time with the kids, like Elliot and I just ran an errand recently, and he jumped in the car, and we were headed over to my sister in law's house and I just asked him, "Hey, bud, how's your heart? "What's going on? "What are you thinking about lately?" So just things like that are really good. And then the last one Aaron.
- [Aaron] This is a hard question to ask your kids. You know, sometimes they won't even know how to answer this but if you wanna honestly know the answer, and you honestly ask it, it's "How have I been doing as your Mom? "How have I been doing as your Dad? "Is there areas I can grow in? "Is there things that I do that bother you, frustrate you?" Now it doesn't mean that their answer is always gonna be applicable or right but it's a way of honestly saying, "I care how my children view me." Not that I just--
- Maybe they'll be, maybe they'll be really affirming and they'll encourage you.
- [Aaron] Well and younger, they're all, "You're the best Dad ever!" And you get you're probably not or you don't feel that way but as they grow up, and they know that you care, they know that you want to know.
- [Jennifer] And if we see this as a longevity thing, like an investment, then each time that we're with them, and we're asking these kinds of questions, we're asking this specific question--
- [Aaron] They might start thinking of better answers.
- [Jennifer] Well, not just that but in their own maturity and development they will have more deeper, right? But you've prepped them over the years on answering.
- [Aaron] Well and what it's also doing is building in them a trust of--
- You can tell me.
- Mom and Dad wanna know, and I can tell them.
- Yeah you can trust me.
- They wanna know things and I want to tell them things and I wanna share with them. So it's this open line of communication and it's not just not having deep, if we as parents early on think "Oh I'm not, "I can't have deep conversations with my kids." Then when they're older, it's not gonna just start out of nowhere.
- Right.
- So we gotta start now, even if the conversation doesn't go deep, at least you're teaching your children like, "Hey, let's communicate, I want to hear from you."
- That's good.
- You know?
- [Jennifer] So we were talking about the benefits of why we do this, why we have one on one time with the kids and we took a little side tangent to talk about questions that we asked them on these dates but let's finish up with this list of just some of the benefits.
- [Aaron] And one of them is you get to know them. Remember we talked about we wanna like our kids. You get to know your kids.
- [Jennifer] You get an opportunity to speak into their life.
- Yeah. Going back to the whole continuing that open line of communication, you want your children to come to you for advice, you want your children to talk to you. So speaking into their life--
- [Jennifer] Here's two of 'em, I'm gonna share fun for both of you. Just whatever you're gonna go do, and it doesn't mean you have to spend money, I mean--
- [Aaron] I'll say this though, fun is a heart position and it's a posture you have to take. You have to decide in your heart this is going to be a fun thing not a inconvenient thing. Because I have hard time with that. I can be like, "Okay, this is inconvenient, "I have other things I want to be focusing on." But if we say, "Nope, this is gonna be a fun thing. " I wanna spend time with my kid."
- [Jennifer] Well and you can look at fun and say, "What's something that I think would be fun "that I wanna invite my child into?" Or you can look at it from their perspective and say, "What would be fun for them?" And the other one I want to share, I already touched on it earlier, but it's building those memories and allowing your children to build those memories of having fun and doing something with just Mom or just Dad.
- [Aaron] Another one, it's just logistically, especially when your family starts growing, taking one or two of the children out of the home helps the other parent also, it gives the dynamic of reprieve, it allows for other things to take place, it allows your wife or your husband to have time to themselves or with the other kids. So there's just a strategic, logistical thing that happens with taking one of the kids. And then also, your kids begin to look forward to it.
- Yeah, even if it's spontaneous, they still know "Mom and Dad love me and they like me--"
- "This is something that happens, "I'm gonna get time alone." And you know, it also opens that opportunity that our kids come to us and they say, "Can I go on a date with you?" They actually invite us on dates, they long for those times alone with us.
- [Jennifer] Yeah. I'm gonna run through a couple benefits just for the parents' sake, investing into this relationship long-term. So casting that vision of, kinda like when I said when I was sitting at the table with Olive, it felt like how it would be sitting with her at the coffee shop at 16.
- [Aaron] Which is exactly what you're doing. That's a pattern you're building of, if you want to be sitting when your child's 16, 17, 18, 20 and you have that deep close relationship, it doesn't start then.
- Right.
- It starts right now.
- So. We admit, we don't have a 16 year old, but I would assume that if we haven't been putting in the time and investing in that way, when they're 16, are they gonna want to spend that quality time with us?
- Well, I hope so.
- Well, yeah, but I think the investment comes way earlier on and I think we need to be mindful of that.
- [Aaron] Well, and I'll throw a shout out, Isaac and Angie Tolpin from Courageous Parenting, they do have older children and this is what they say. They say, "Hey, we started early investing in this "'cause we wanted our children to want to hear from us, "want to spend time with us." And they do. So we have examples in our life that we get to look at and say, "Well, let's just start now "and let's follow that example."
- [Jennifer] Another benefit is Aaron you mentioned that that whole heart posture of kids being inconvenient, like being an inconvenience, and so when you think about one on one time with your kids, going to spend that quality time with them reinforces that they're important and special to your heart, so that it doesn't feel like a burden, the day in and day out of things that you're doing with them, because even you start to look forward to spending that quality time with them and then you get to have fun. Like when I think about taking my kid for a treat, sometimes it's even spontaneous to us in that, "Hey, there's this window of opportunity "and I wanna go share it with them." I like a treat, I like coffee, I like hot chocolate, I like a good conversation and so it's a benefit to us in that way. And then the last one, which Aaron you touched on, but it alleviates the other parent who's with the other kids for a brief time. So if I take one or even two of my kids, and I go on a date with them and you're at home with the other ones, it changes the atmosphere a little bit and I think it's nicer and easier.
- [Aaron] I'll say this also, not just on the date side of things, we've kind of made a commitment to each other, it doesn't happen every time but if any one of us are ever gonna go run an errand, we always take one or two.
- It's an opportunity!
- It's an opportunity for the children and it also is an opportunity for your spouse and it's called this, it's divide and conquer. It's this idea of like--
- Except you enjoy it.
- [Aaron] Yeah, but you enjoy it. So it's a pretty smart strategy for not always having the burden of all the children all the time on just your wife or just your husband. It's this idea of like, we're gonna work as a team so that this parenting thing doesn't feel burdensome all the time.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause sometimes it does.
- [Jennifer] Okay you guys, we've shared a lot, but we also wanted to share some cool practical date ideas to spend time with your kids and these are just a handful, there are so many more, and especially when you think about different age categories, 'cause different kids will be interested in different things. And we also just wanna be clear that you do not have to spend extra money on these things. You can make it as simple as going for a walk around the block and heading to the park, playing catch with your son or daughter, or you can save up and go to a nice dinner with them. But we just wanna reiterate that you don't, it doesn't have to be a painful experience as far as finances or time.
- [Aaron] And our kids are, they're super complicated but they're also very simple.
- Yeah.
- Time.
- Yeah it's time.
- They want presence and time. So like, I would imagine my son Elliot, if I just took him to the top, we have a hill, a butte that we can go look up on top of at sunset or sunrise, he would just love that.
- Yeah.
- And it's free. We just take the time to do it.
- [Jennifer] So here's the thing, don't let anything keep you from excusing your way out of this. If you're a parent, and you have a child or children, no matter what their age is, it's important to spend quality time with them and have one on one time with them to have those conversations and share with them your heart and hear their hearts and really just invest the time into that relationship and I think this is a good word and warning to all of us as parents, especially looking at the longevity of our relationships with our kids and where we want to be with them when they're older.
- Yeah. And just a note, imagine or realize what you as an individual need and desire. Don't you want your spouse to spend quality time with you, alone time to get to know you, to look in your eyes and say, "Who are you? "What are you doing?" Jennifer we just had to talk about this. You know like, "Hey, I want you to get to know me, "I want you to ask me deep questions."
- [Jennifer] Yeah. Even if you were to think about along those same lines there and if you were to think right now everyone listening about you as a child and what you desired most--
- [Aaron] I think about these things.
- [Jennifer] Think about that. Spend some time today and really think about what did you desire most from your mom? What did you desire most from your dad? And if you have children, try and implement those things. Try and be that way.
- [Aaron] I don't know if I'm right in this, but I would imagine the things that we wished we had the most, the things that we wish that we got from our parents are probably the things that we have the hardest time giving to our kids. I would imagine that's true 'cause we've seen in our own lives, like me, patience. That's something that my mom and dad struggled with with me at times, I'm not very easy person be patient with. And so patience has been something I've had to work really hard to give my kids. And so if you look at your relationship with your parents, I would imagine the thing that you longed for the most and probably didn't get is the thing that you might have the hardest time giving. But don't let that be the reason. Like say, "Okay, you know what, God help me in this. "I wanna give this to my kids. "I wanna give them that attention, that affection, "that patience, that gentleness that I didn't receive."
- [Jennifer] And even without thinking about it, every person in the world, every human desires what? To be known and loved. So, bottom line, this is an opportunity for us to get to know our children, to let them know we know them that we're paying attention, and to give them that quality time where we're conversing with them about things and loving on them.
- [Aaron] Okay, let's give some ideas. These are practical ideas for, and you'll have to look at this and figure out the age range, where your kid is at age-wise and say, "Oh, this would be appropriate or this would be applicable."
- [Jennifer] And then talk to each other about scheduling and timing and like, is this something we can put on the calendar? What would be best?
- [Aaron] And how does it work? Like practically?
- And we would encourage--
- Is it once a month? Is it every week?
- We would encourage you guys to take time doing it 'cause even Mom who's at home with the kids all day, she still needs that one on one time. So finding ways to give Mom that opportunity and then finding ways that Dad gets those opportunities. And every family will look different.
- [Aaron] Okay, so here's some ideas, a meal date. Just picking a breakfast lunch or a dinner and going somewhere, maybe bring it, like you make a pack a lunch and you go to a park.
- [Jennifer] Or bring 'em to either yours or theirs favorite restaurant.
- [Aaron] Right and just you and them.
- [Jennifer] Another one is grabbing hot chocolate and bringing a game along or coloring. Depending on their age.
- Coloring, a miniature board game.
- Yeah.
- [Aaron] Something like, what's that dice game? Yahtzee?
- I was gonna say Farkle.
- [Aaron] Or Farkle, oh that's a fun one.
- [Jennifer] But hot chocolate and I'm assuming as they get older, it might turn into a coffee date. But hey, that's fun.
- [Aaron] Another idea is treat 'em to a treat, like a cookie or a bagel or a cupcake or something like that. A donut, we love donuts, and a devotional, bring some sort of like child appropriate devotional and just read it with them and talk to them say, "What'd you think of that? "Do you have any questions for me?"
- [Jennifer] Or maybe you don't have a resource, but you have a very specific conversation that you want to share with them privately. Use that opportunity for that. Another one would be the trampoline park. Aaron, you're really good at this one.
- [Aaron] I like this one. This one is a fun one for me.
- [Jennifer] I feel like I'm always pregnant and so it's hard for me to feel comfortable jumping and I get dizzy really easily but you love taking the kids and the kids look forward to you taking them to the trampoline park.
- [Aaron] And it gets a lot of energy out and you can do it with them. And it also requires, you're not gonna be on your phone because it's hard to jump on your phone.
- [Jennifer] It doesn't have to be trampoline, it could be laser tag or something fun like that but it's just going to one of those places that is very kid friendly and having fun.
- [Aaron] Another one that's free, a bike ride.
- [Jennifer] Unless you don't have bikes.
- [Aaron] Unless you don't have bikes, but--
- You could rent some.
- You can go for a walk, but a bike ride, a lot of people have bikes. Go for just a bike ride around your block, go take the bike somewhere on a trail, and just have that time of going, stopping and looking at stuff and talking.
- [Jennifer] Wear your helmets! Even you Mom and Dad, be an example. Another one is interest shopping, and what I mean by this is just for example, okay Elliot's so into Legos and we have this really cool local guy who has a Lego store and it's small and it's like a boutique, but you go in there and there's Legos everywhere. He has a personal collection that he switches that in and out. And so just taking a random afternoon to go check the Lego store.
- [Aaron] And it doesn't mean even you have to buy anything. We tell our kids all the time we like to go look at things and we'll say we're not buying anything today, but let's go look. And then they're like "Okay," so their expectations are totally set and they enjoy looking at stuff.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, so I say interest shopping 'cause it could be anything from window shopping down in a downtown area to eventually you know, your girl is 16 and she actually wants to go shopping so it could change depending on the child.
- [Aaron] This next one's a free one also and Elliot loves this one, Barnes and Noble trip or library. What we do is we just go and Barnes and Noble's fun because you can go and they have so many different types of books and we'll sit in the back and he just picks a book up, starts looking through the pages, picks another book up. Sometimes he'll be like, "Hey Dad, read this one to me." We'll go sit down and I just read to him and it's just me and him and it's quiet in there.
- [Jennifer] There's been a couple times you guys have come back with a gift for Olive or something like that. So using the opportunity as a thoughtful way to say "You're not gonna get anything, "but what would stand out to your sister or your brother "or your Mom or Dad?" Another one would be going to get ice cream. Go and get ice cream, go for a walk. Some ice cream places do like a factory tour, you could do something fun like that.
- [Aaron] One more is, we got two more, run an errand. This is like a really practical one, I have to go do something, I have to go get the mail, we have to go to the grocery store, and take a child with you and they're your partner. So I'll take Wyatt and he's in charge of the list or Elliot will be in charge of the list of what we're getting and I'll say, "Okay, we're looking for this, what aisle that on?" And so it's like a fun, something that has to be done, but they're doing it with me and they're your partner in that job.
- [Jennifer] And it's fun when you give them a job to do on that errand. I know you just mentioned that but I had just been thinking like yeah, they really think that they're valued and have responsibility in the family when they get to be a part of it. The last one that we want to share with you is just a special event. This could be as simple as volunteering to help someone move, so Dad and son go help so and so move or a baby shower, I think of all the times that I get to take Olive on a little date and share in an experience like a baby shower with her and so even something like that you can utilize an event opportunity to take your kids on a date.
- [Aaron] And there's a ton of other things, our heart was just to get your mind on this. What are ways that you can get alone with your children and get to know them? And taking turns, Dad doing this, Mom doing this because they wanna know both of your hearts are with them, they wanna know that both of you know them, and that you desire to be with them and like them. And it also, yeah like you said, the pack, it shows that they're an individual amongst the family but that they're also a part of the family.
- [Jennifer] And as I was just thinking about this, we shared questions that you could ask your child to be able to pull out that conversation from their hearts but also give them the opportunity to ask you questions. Say, "Is there anything that's been on your heart "that you want to ask Mom or Dad? "Anything that's confusing or you've been struggling with?"
- [Aaron] Anything you want to know about me?
- [Jennifer] Or yeah, you wanna know about me? So I think opening up opportunity for your kids to ask you questions would be a really huge benefit to the relationship by doing that.
- Totally. So we hope that encouraged you. Hope we gave you a lot of good ideas to run with.
- [Jennifer] The next time you go on a one on one date time with your kids, be sure to post a picture and share it on Instagram and tag Marriage After God so that we can see what you guys are up to. It'll be inspiring to all of us.
- [Aaron] As usual, we end in prayer, so why don't you pray for us?
- [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of family. Thank you for the blessing of children. May we be people who are willing to make our children feel special and to feel seen and heard. Help us to spend quality time with them, building fond memories and moments that build our trust with them. Help us to carve out time to show our kids that we desire to be close with them and want to dialogue with them. We pray we would be fun and intentional parents with the purpose of teaching our kids Your ways. May our children have a heart to build a family of their own because they love our example and appreciate all that they have experienced. May Your love be woven into our legacy and may Your light shine in our relationships with our children. In Jesus' name, amen.
- [Aaron] Amen. Thanks for joining us on this episode. If you haven't left us a review, please take the opportunity to do that now. We love reviews from our listeners. And also don't forget to get the new download. Or it's not a download, it's a challenge. The Parenting Prayer Challenge. You can go to parentingprayerchallenge.com, sign up, it's completely free and we'll send you prompts every day for the next 31 days to pray for your children. We love you guys, see you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| How A Wife Can Encourage Her Husband To Lead Spiritually | 04 Feb 2020 | 00:53:26 | |
This is a cool topic that actually came from some wives in the MAG community online who asked us to specifically talk about this. It is so encouraging to know that there are wives out there who are actively trying to understand how to help their husbands lead their home. What we believe about spiritual leadership is found in scripture. Ephesians 5:23-25 “For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” 1 Corinthians 11:3 “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”
Prayer Dear Lord, Thank You for the gift of marriage. Thank you for the opportunity to consider these things and how we can mature as a couple. We pray we would walk in righteousness, gentleness and self-control. We pray we would be people who see others through the lens of compassion. Help us to be thoughtful in our responses to each other. Help us to be respectful in our conduct. We pray our interactions as a married couple would be a testimony of your power and authority in our lives. May your light shine brightly in us as we direct each other back toward you. In Jesus’ name, amen! Read The Transcript - Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.
- Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
- And today we're gonna share how a wife can encourage her husband to lead spiritually. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.
- I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife.
- And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution.
- We have been married for over a decade.
- And so far, we have four young children.
- We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.
- With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage. Encouraging them to walk in faith every day.
- We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one. Full of life.
- Love.
- And power.
- That can only be found by chasing after God.
- Together.
- Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.
- This is Marriage After God.
- Hey guys, thanks for joining us on a new episode of the Marriage After God podcast. We're in season three and
- It's so exciting.
- I know. And I hope you've been enjoying this new season. We've been doing some fun posts. We've been doing some devotional style marriage encouragements and just, we're trying to make it a little bit more dynamic.
- Dynamic, ah that's what I was gonna say.
- A little bit more mixed content. I hope you're enjoying it. If you are, let us know on Instagram. Send us a message. Let us know what you think of the show. Also, we always want to encourage you, if you love an episode, if this is a particular episode that has blessed you, would you just take a screen shot of wherever you're listening to it at and post it in Instagram and tag, "Marriage After God." We love seeing those. We love sharing those on our own pages and it gets the word out. Let's other people know about it.
- Okay, so I have to share with them. Knowing that we were going to be recording podcasts, I stopped by the local coffee shop. Shout out to Dutch Brothers.
- Yeah.
- They're really good. They're just one of those drive through coffee shops, but sometimes the people come outside to take your order and you know, I'm like, well into my third trimester. Very noticeably pregnant and I rolled my window down and he goes, "so what are we having?" And I said, "A girl!" He was--
- When you told me this, I thought you were kidding.
- No.
- I was like, oh, you got him good.
- He was so embarrassed and he was like, "even if I ever assumed I would never say anything." And I go, "oh no, it's not your fault. "I just, I just gotten done on an appointment "and it's on my mind all the time "and people are always asking me "if we know what we're having." And we were just laughing about it.
- That's really funny. And what's funny is you weren't kidding with him. You thought he asked you.
- I thought it was a legitimate question, but he was wondering what kind of coffee we would take today. So that's funny. But I did wanna just give a little update on the pregnancy. You know where I'm at, it's been really good and hard at the same time.
- It's been really hard.
- Well, no complications.
- This has been hard when--
- We shared about this already. No complications, but just, you know when you're chasing around four other little kids and your body is physically limited, it gets hard and uncomfortable at times. And so I've been feeling just a lack of energy lately.
- Mmh hmm.
- I've been feeling slower and being confronted with my, just physical limitations and that's hard for my mind to wrestle with 'cause my mind wants to go, go, go and do more and I can't.
- A tip for husbands out there. If your wife is pregnant in her third trimester, just massage her feet and legs every night.
- Yeah.
- That helps a lot.
- It's wonderful.
- It's kind been where we've been at.
- But all is good and I'm really exciting for the nesting phase to hit because I know that that's kind of like an extra burst of God's grace for soon to be moms. It just, it comes on.
- A burst of endorphins.
- Yup and you just go and you clean the things that you never even look at and it feels so great. And so, I'm kind of looking around my house going, nope, that's gonna wait for--
- The question will be is how long will it stay that way with our four other kids.
- I know. Like the cleanliness, yeah.
- Okay, we just wanna encourage you guys, everyone that's listening, we have some free downloads.
- Mmh hmm.
- We have two specifically, there's actually a bunch more, but the two I wanna talk about today is, "The Marriage Prayer Challenge." It's a 31 day prayer challenge where you sign up. It's completely free and we'll email you a marriage prompt, a prayer prompt and a reminder to pray every day for 31 days for your spouse. And you can go to MarriagePrayerChallenge.com and sign up for that for free and then our other free download, it's a new one. It's our "52 Date Night Ideas" ebook. We have, we came up with 52 unique date night ideas and so if you're looking to have a whole year of date ideas, just go to DateNightIdeas.com and sign up and download it for free. And those two free, well, those things, we created for you guys just to encourage you, to inspire you. So yeah, MarriagePrayerChallenge.com and DateNightIdea.com.
- Cool, okay so, the topic for today is how can a wife encourage her husband to lead spiritually and when, how Aaron and I kind of set up and prepare for these podcasts episodes is we have a document that we both share and we kind of just, once we have the topic down, we'll go in every so often and add notes and look over it and share our thoughts about it. And I remember when I first went into this document, it just said the words, "honorably and gently."
- I put all the notes I could come up with in there.
- It was really sweet, but I just had to get that out of the gate because it was really cool to see your perspective of how, like what it takes for a wife to encourage her husband and those are two powerful words.
- Yeah, to my defense, I actually did put more in there later.
- I know.
- I wrote down, and we'll get to some of those, but I wrote down a lot of the ways that you have encouraged me.
- Yeah
- Whether we've talked about it or not.
- This was just the first note that I saw and I just wanted to add that because it was really cool. But this is actually a topic that came from the wives in our Marriage After God community and it was a question that kind of kept coming up in different ways and so we thought it would be fun to talk about it, discuss it.
- Mmh hmm.
- And encourage you listening. Both husbands and wives because marriage takes two.
- Yeah and for the husbands and wives that are listening, husbands take note of the things that we talk about because even if your wife isn't encouraging you to be a spiritual leader, even if she doesn't know how to or hasn't started yet, it's important that we as men start stepping up in that role. Trusting the Lord. Chasing after Him and guiding our family closer to Him, to the word of God.
- Yup.
- And we do that by example.
- Mmh hmm.
- We do that by being faithful, trustworthy.
- Yeah.
- And so I just want to encourage the husbands.
- I think that's really good and I think that as the husbands are listening, of course not using everything that we share as ammunition to go, "see, you should be doing this,"
- Oh absolutely.
- but rather, use what we share today as an encouragement to you in how you should be leading.
- Yeah.
- And hopefully, it inspires you both today.
- Yeah and just, I always bring this up. Our pastor, Matt, our old pastor would always say, "read your own mail." So, in those scriptures when it's talking to the wife on how she should be, we don't read that and say, "see, this is how you should be."
- Because you've got the whole section yourself to be reading.
- Yeah, I have my own mail I need to be opening up and reading and to honest, there's enough there for each of us to be doing our thing to not have to worry about how our spouse walking those things.
- Mmh hmm.
- That doesn't mean we can't encourage our spouse to be like, hey, I just want to encourage you, the way you were being, that was a little disrespectful. Or, like, we can always encourage each other. We're allowed to do that. Again, honorably and gently.
- Yeah.
- But there's so much in our own, in the scriptures that talk directly to us, that we should be just walking in.
- Yeah.
- In the spirit. And you know what, when we do that, our spouse, it's so hard for our spouse to not.
- Mmh hmm.
- Like when we're walking the way the Bible calls us to, it's gonna be really hard for our spouse, our wife, or your husband to not desire to walk in that way as well.
- Okay so, first Aaron, before we get into the encouraging aspect of encouraging our husbands to lead, there's something else that you wanted to talk about.
- Well, I think it's a good point that we should bring up of just where this idea of spiritual headship, spiritual leadership comes from, 'cause there's a lot of people who will be like, no, that's not right. it should be, this way or that way, but--
- It's not for Aaron and Jen.
- It's not my idea. It's not like I came up with like, hey, the men should be in charge and the men should be leading. It's a biblical concept. It's the way, it's an order that God put in place and for His purpose, not for ours.
- Right, so what we believe and how we operate in our family comes straight from scripture.
- Right.
- And that's what kind of where we wanted to start off on the foundational aspect of this.
- Yeah and I want to encourage everyone that's listening that your desire should not be to live Aaron and Jennifer's way.
- Mmh mmh.
- Your desire should be to live the Bible's way. So you getting into the word and saying, wow, it says this. How does that play out in our marriage?
- We're just big neon arrows pointing to the word of God.
- Let's hope.
- That's what we're here for you.
- So Ephesians five, 23 through 25, the famous marriage scriptures. It says this. It says, "For the husband is the head of the wife, "even as Christ is the head of the church, "his body and himself at savior." So just real quick, it's not saying that the husband is the savior. It's saying that Christ is the savior of the church. But it's saying in that same manner, in the same manner that Christ is the head of His church, His bride, the husband is the head of the wife. And we talk about his in the Marriage After God book, that the picture of husband and wife, the symbol of marriage is to represent the gospel of Christ the Savior and His church, the bride. And so, that order of headship is specifically to highlight that, that point. So if I'm trying as the husband, if I'm trying to lead in a way that diminishes the gospel, I'm not leading well and I'm not walking in the spiritual leadership that God's called me to. So, if I'm being abusive, if I'm being vulgar, if I'm using my power that God's given me in abusive ways to manipulate, to control, that's not how Christ came. That's not how Christ loved His church. He came humbly.
- Humbly, yeah.
- And He came putting it, laying Himself down. That's exactly what the scripture's talking about. Giving himself up for her. And so, we don't just get to say, oh, see the Bible says I'm in charge, so now this is how I'm gonna do it. No, the Bible says I'm in charge, so I must do it His way.
- His way, yeah.
- The Bible's way. So, I just wanted to point out.
- No, that's good.
- But that's one of the first spots that we would run to in showing this headship, is the husband represents Christ. Your bride represents the church and that relationship represents how the gospel works. The redeeming nature, the love, the unity, the oneness of us being joined to Christ through His death and resurrection and so, headship comes straight from here and it also says, and when I read first Corinthians 11:3,
- It says this, "But I want you to understand "that the head of every man is Christ. "The head of a wife is her husband "and the head of Christ is God."
- What I love about this is it's showing this order again and saying the head of every man is Christ. It starts that way. It doesn't say that the head of every woman is man. It's not written that way. It says, "the head of every man is Christ," and what that means is my authority does not come from me being a man. It comes from Christ and Him saying this is the order I want. That, so we have to first realize that we are responsible to our own head, Christ. That the way I love and lead and disciple and walk, I'm directly accountable to Christ and He's gonna look at me and say, how did you walk in this authority I've given you? That's this is idea of derived authority. It trickles down. It's not just inside me because I'm a man.
- Right. So, the second part of that is, "the head of thy wife is her husband," and this is very specific 'cause it's not that the head of every woman is a man--
- Yeah, which some people believe.
- Well, can you clarify that?
- Yeah, it's, this is specifically talking about the relationship again between a husband and a wife that me as a man in the church, I don't get to have every woman be in submission to me,
- Right.
- as Ephesians five, 23 would call a wife to be in submission to her husband. Women do not need to submit to me. My wife should, but that's it. I don't get to have any sort of extra authority in any other woman's life other than my own wife. So, we don't get to use this scripture as an excuse of women are in this position and men are in this position in the church and that's not what we do.
- I think this order, God showing us this order is really important because when you're bringing two people into a single unity so that they're one, which you know, the scripture tells us, there's gotta be--
- Order.
- There's gotta be order because otherwise you'll have two people trying to lead and what happens when that's going on?
- Chaos.
- Chaos because they're fighting for their own ways. They're doing their own thing and they expect the other person to follow and so this provides the outline.
- Right, well and what's even more amazing is it ends with, "the head of Christ is God." There's a scripture that says, "Christ learned obedience "through the things that He suffered." Which is amazing because you're like wait, what? Not that He wasn't obedient. It's this idea of full obedience meaning even unto death, Christ was obedient to God. Christ, there's another scripture where Christ says, "I only came "to do what my Father has called me to do. "To go where my Father has called me to go "and to say that which my Father wants me to say." There's this perfect picture of Him being completely and perfectly in unity with God in His obedience to God and His will.
- Which, I love this because it just further solidifies that Christ is our example.
- Yup.
- Right, Christ, it could have just been that Christ is God and that's the authority and that's it, but no, He says that, "the head of Christ is God." That means that Christ is in subjection to God's authority and if Christ is our example, then we need to follow.
- Right and this is a big concept 'cause Jesus is God.
- Yeah.
- And God is God. And the Holy Spirit is God because we have this triune nature of God. Three individual persons, but one God head, right. But there's an order to it.
- Yeah.
- They've been in perfect unity since before the foundations of the world. So for all eternity, God, Christ and the Spirit have been in perfect harmony--
- They get it.
- and unity, but it's in order.
- Yeah.
- God the Father. God the Son, God the Spirit. There's this order and it's showing us right here. It's saying, in the same way that Christ, God, has a head, God, God, right, It's kind weird. The husband is the head of the wife and Christ is the head of the church, and the head of man. So all this is showing is a derived authority trickled down. Christ got His authority from God. I get my authority from Christ. My wife gets her authority from me. This trickle down of roles and positions and we shouldn't go beyond that. We shouldn't try and extrapolate that and say, see, men need to have authority over every woman in the church. No, there's not a single woman in the church that needs to be submissive to me the way my wife should be submissive to me. She's the only one. Now, if we go back early on in Ephesians, right before this it says, it says, "Be in submission to one another "out of reverence for Christ."
- For Christ.
- Which is a command to the church as a whole,
- Right.
- Which means--
- Be unified.
- Be unified. That each one of us in the body are not trying to be above another. We're trying to raise the other ones up, but that's not to be mistaken with people, 'cause people do this. They mistake that, saying, see, husbands should submit to their wives also. That's actually not what that's saying. That's a command to the church as a whole generally. People in the church should be in submission to one another out of reverence for Christ, okay. And then it goes on, it says, "wives submit "to your own husbands." It says, "your own husbands." Not to other men. It doesn't mean my wife needs to submit to any other men but me. And other women don't need to submit to me the same way my wife does. But generally, in the church we should be in a mutual submission to each other in the body, not in marriage necessarily.
- Right, so this idea of leadership and headship, it's not something that you just get because you're a man.
- Right.
- Or men get because they're men and it's also not something that men are naturally good at just because they're men. It's something that they look to Christ and say, you're my example. You're my head. The authority comes from You and from God and I'm gonna walk in Your ways.
- Right and then that leadership plays out when I'm doing it God's way. Now, if I'm not doing it God's way, does that mean I don't, that the wife doesn't have a responsibility? Again, going back to the reading your own mail. Whether or not the husband is walking in this way, which is why this episode's here, is the wife has a calling and an opportunity to walk in her own obedience to Christ.
- Right.
- And to walk a certain way that will bless her husband.
- Yeah.
- Bless her marriage and potentially change his heart and raise him up to be the leader that he's been called to be. So, I just wanna reiterate that men, we're accountable to someone. Wives, you're accountable to someone and it's Christ. And we each have an accountability and we need to make sure that we recognize that so that when we're leading our families, husbands, we recognize that we don't just get to lead it however we want. We lead it the way Christ wants.
- Okay so, that was kind of laying the foundation down. I know people like to hear from us, so let's share a little bit about just our personal testimony of how we've been walking in this. You reading your mail about headship and leadership and me reading mine about submission.
- Why don't we start with yours?
- Okay, so, so I admit that I had this understanding that a wife was to submit to her husband, but of course, learning something requires the experience of walking through it and learning from mistakes.
- Doing it.
- And growing and allowing the Holy Spirit to convict our hearts when we're wrong and to submit to Him and be transformed by it. I would say that actually, the opportunity of marriage has helped me understand what submission is and what it looks like and I've gotten better at it over the years, but I wouldn't say I'm perfect.
- Right.
- But I, I know that it, in the beginning, it was easier for me to submit physically and what I meant by that is, I had this idea that wherever Aaron, wherever you would go, I would follow you. Whatever you chose to do, that would be an easy thing for me. I'm just gonna follow you. I'm gonna do it and I saw it as submission. But then there was all these other little areas that I didn't realize I wasn't submitting to you in.
- Like me having a choice in something. Or desiring to go somewhere or something.
- Yeah or trying to make a decision for our family that would change the way we functioned as a family or even, this was before kids and so, just between you and I, whether it was about health decisions or--
- Getting out of debt.
- Getting out of debt. That was a really hard one for me.
- Yeah.
- And if people read the Unveiled Wife, they know about this. I think I might have shared it in Marriage After God, too.
- You were not interested.
- Well, I struggled because I saw it as your debt and I was very young and immature in my thinking and I didn't see us as unified in that and so submitting to your request of, hey, let's put this thousand dollars we just got, that we just earned from hard work and put it towards my school loan debt. I was like, uh uh. But what I found through the experience of walking through that with you is that when I did submit my heart and I said, "Okay, Lord, whatever you ask." I'm gonna do this and this was just one area but, being able to submit to you in that decision that you made for our family, it actually blessed me and it benefited me and I saw--
- Still does.
- Yeah. Yeah, look at our, the years that have passed and becoming debt free, that's just one area that I feel like has really changed my heart in this area of submission to you and it does happen in all the little choices. I remember, just recently something happened where you, I wanted to go out to lunch 'cause I had a desire for a certain thing. I think it was a certain sandwich shop down the street and you said, "well, let's just eat at home," and I responded with the worst attitude and I said something like, "that's not what I wanted." And I did it in front of the kids.
- At least you're honest.
- Well, I'm really embarrassed but I was, I ended up leaving. I think I took Elliot with me and we were gonna run some errands and I was gonna go get my sandwich and the whole way there I just felt the Lord saying, "You need to call your husband. "You need to tell him you're sorry right now." Like, this is bad. And I remember telling you I was, "I'm really sorry "for the way that I responded to you in that moment," because I wasn't in submission to your decision to eat at home. I wanted what I wanted and I threw manipulation out. I threw my emotions out to try and get what I wanted and it wasn't right of me and so learning, even in the smallest of things, how to submit to you in my heart, in my actions, in my attitude, all of it. I don't know. I'm still learning this, but it really does benefit and bless our family when we walk in the order that God has provided for us. Told us how to do it.
- Right and not just in the practical things, because to be honest, you've been blessed by submitting to me even in bad things that, like choices I've made, and submitting to me in things that you disagreed with. And the blessing isn't in that my bad choice turned out good or that my decision wasn't a poor decision, 'cause those things happen. I don't lead well all the time. The blessing in the encouragement and the power comes from your obedience to Christ. Your closeness to God.
- Yeah.
- Your, when it says that, "Christ learned obedience "through the things that he suffered,"
- Yeah.
- sometimes that's the joy and that's the blessing, is like, regardless of your husband ever does the thing that you want him to or ever leads the way you want him to, the true power in blessing is in your obedience to God.
- And I would say this to add to that, you're absolutely right. It's also, it builds trust. I'm trusting God because if I can see something, like you said, a bad decision or something like that that you're gonna make and I still submit to you, basically I'm saying I don't understand why you're choosing that but I'm gonna trust God with you and with what's going on.
- And with my life and the situation.
- And that has blessed us. Some of the opportunities with that that have come out has been a learning opportunity for you or a growth opportunity for me and it--
- Yeah, so when I think about this, I think of that first Romans eight, 28. It says, "and we know that for those who love God, "all things work together for good "for those who are called according to His purpose." So, Christian, raise your hand. Are you called according to His purpose?
- Yup.
- Yeah. Do you love God?
- Yup.
- Yup. So, even when you're husband's not leading well, does God, can God work that out for your good? 'Cause He promises to. And we may not know what that good looks like right now and it may not feel good and we talked about this feelings thing a couple episodes ago, but He's gonna work it out.
- Yeah.
- I like what you said. Trusting God.
- Yeah, I didn't know you were gonna bring this verse up but as you were reading it and you were getting to the end of it, it says, "those who are called according to His purpose," and when I just think about marriage in and of itself, it's for His purpose. It's not for our purpose, although there's benefits to us. Because earlier you'd talked about what it represents and so when we submit to His order and we say, okay Lord, we're gonna walk this out. I'm gonna encourage my husband to lead. I'm gonna let him lead. He's gonna lead me, and the husband's over there saying, Okay Christ, I'm following You. I'm walking Your way, it's for His purposes.
- Yeah, so I think that's a good, for the wife listening, heart posture is saying, Okay Lord. My life and my marriage is Yours and I want to practice trusting You. I want to practice loving You. I want to practice knowing You, and so this is one of the ways I'm gonna do that is walking in submission to my husband.
- Yeah.
- Even when I'm afraid of how he's making, the decision he's making. If I think he's wrong.
- Yeah, well--
- It doesn't mean you can't encourage him, right?
- Well, here's the truth. We cannot encourage our husbands to lead and feel confident in leading if we challenge every time they try.
- You're right. Think about our kids. We have to give them opportunities to make choices, make decisions, do things on their own and if we never do that, they're never gonna get good at the things they wanna get good at, right.
- Yeah.
- So, even with your husband, just like anything, the moment they, and this has happened to us, I try and make a decision and there's an immediate fight, argument.
- Confrontation.
- Yeah, confrontational, or opposition.
- Conflict, disagreement.
- Like, no, I think that's a bad choice, rather than letting me figure it out.
- And then going to the prayer closet with it.
- I have enough room for it. And we've seen this time and time again in our own marriage. We've seen it in other marriages. This is the things is, we'll get messages from people saying, "how do I get my husband to lead, "'cause every time he tries, "I don't like the decisions he makes." And I'm just thinking he's never gonna figure out how to make better decisions if you're not gonna encourage him and say, okay, let's try that. I might not see how that's gonna work out, but I'm gonna follow you and let's see how that plays out.
- If we do submit, if we do act out in submission towards our husband, then it's gonna require us to pray more for them
- Oh yeah.
- and the choices that they're making. I think all the wives need to hear that right now because how often are we praying for our husband's leadership? How often are we praying for the choices that they're making and how they're leading our family? That we want it to improve or that we want it to go a certain direction and that we're submitting those desires and things to the Lord.
- And I would say, 'cause I'm just thinking about marriages where you have a super immature husband. Someone who just, the decisions they make are totally selfish decisions and those, that happens. You know, their hobbies or how they wanna spend the money. Where they wanna go or they just wanna leave and they just wanna, that's a hard place for a wife to be. I just wanna say my heart is broken for where you're at in your marriage, but for you, your prayer closet, getting on your knees before God and knowing that God loves you and your husband.
- And that He has a purpose for it.
- He has a purpose for what's going on. Just start praying that God captures that man's heart.
- Yeah.
- And pray fervently without ceasing. Pray daily, hourly, minute by minute for them and watch God move. And then also pray for opportunities.
- Yeah.
- Like very calm, gentle honoring opportunities to be like, hey, that's great if you wanna do that. I just wanna give you an encouragement. Would you consider how this is gonna bless us when you make this decision?
- Yeah, respectfully communicate.
- And how ever they answer, be like, okay, I just wanna encourage you to consider that.
- That's great.
- Love you.
- 'Cause we have huge influence in our husband's lives in the way that they do make decisions. So, even if we don't feel like that's true, they're thinking about the things that we say and how we're saying them.
- Yeah.
- Right.
- And I would also give an encouragement to wives to not be manipulative in the way they encourage their husbands to lead because I think sometimes there could be, oh yeah, I want him to lead as long as he leads my way. And so, doing, just using your emotional, emotions and the way you word things to get them to feel like their decision's bad and they should go with yours anyway, or, that's not how, no one responds well to those things. So just being careful how you're using your words and being prayerful in this journey of encouraging your husband. Again, prayer and running to the Father 'cause God's the only one who can change hearts. And that's what needs to happen in a lot of these men's lives. Husbands, if you're listening. If you're having a hard time leading, it's a heart problem in you that you need to go to the Father and say, change this in me. Why am I so afraid, or why is this so hard, or why am I feeling like I can't. Because even if your wife's not letting you, you should still be leading.
- Yeah.
- Because you can be an example in your home.
- Okay, so real quick. For the relationship that the husband hasn't been spiritually leading and maybe the wife has, there could become a root of bitterness in her heart towards him and so when he does step up to try and lead, it can feel almost frustrating in the sense that he's doing it wrong or he's not doing it how she thinks he should. I know you mentioned all of that.
- Well, she's been doing it for so long and now she has to like, wait, you're just gonna come in--
- How do you transition. How do you transition and sometimes that root of bitterness can get in the way and so I just wanted to call that out because you had touched on it briefly and I just, do you have any thoughts about that or an encouragement to a wife who may, there may be a situation that happens in the midst of them working together in the kitchen, how does she respond in that moment?
- Yeah, well, it's even before that. If there is a root of bitterness like this, I've been leading and I've been doing this and my husband hasn't stepped up and there's this irked feeling.
- Now all the sudden he's going to try.
- Now you're gonna try or if you're gonna do it and you're not gonna do it my way. All those kinds of things.
- How do they respond?
- The first humbleness and repentance.
- Yeah.
- Within their heart. Saying, okay Lord. This is gonna be difficult, but I have been angry and bitter. And I just wanna repent that because I do want my husband to rise up. I do, I don't, say like, we need to tell the Lord, I don't want to get in the way of what You're doing in my husband's life. I actually wanna be a catalyst for what You're doing. I wanna be a part of it.
- That's good.
- So, I would just say start with humbleness and repentance.
- Okay, so we're gonna move on and share just what are some ways that I have encouraged you to lead our family that's impacted you, 'cause I think hearing personal stories like this helps get the idea across.
- So, I just have a list here. This is one of the things that I just wrote down notes of. Things that I've experienced that you've done for me that I felt encouraged me in my leadership.
- Which, by the way, I had mentioned how we kind of prep our episodes. I didn't know you were gonna do this and so when I went in there to look over the episode. I saw this and I was so touched by it because I thought, oh, I didn't even know I was doing these things that have impacted you. So, I was really excited to hear this.
- Well, thank you. So, the first one is you often ask me questions about the Bible. So, this does a bunch of things and we talked about this before. Scripture talks about this. It calls wives to go to their husbands and ask them questions.
- Yeah.
- And I know many wives would be like, well, I know more about the Bible than he does. Exactly.
- Or I know where to go that would give me the right answer.
- Exactly, like I have, oh, I have so and so or I have this Pastor or I have this podcast. Those things aren't bad.
- Or whoever, yeah.
- But just, ladies, listen. Listen to the power that this has in a husband's life. If every question you had about the Bible, even if you knew he didn't have the answer, if every question you had about the Bible, like you're reading scripture and you're like, this is weird or that's interesting or I wonder what he meant by that, and you went to your husband. You're husband's at home, he's watching TV or he's doing whatever, right, and you're like, hey, Hon, I was just reading in first John and it says, this, what do you think about that? And not in a facetious way. Not in way that sounds antagonistic, but genuinely wanna know what he thinks.
- Yeah.
- I would imagine in the beginning you'll have, what, what are you talking about? I don't know. Just go ask your pastor. I don't know.
- Who knows.
- Who knows how he's gonna respond, right. But imagine the 50th time. What do you think that husband's thinking to himself? He's thinking, she must think I have answers. She must think I know something, right?
- I better know something.
- She must believe or must be interested in my way of thinking about this. So, over and over and over again, running to your husband and saying, hey, what do you think about this? Hey, I read this. Have you ever read this before? What do you think it means? How do I know how to and over and over and over again you go to your husband and you ask these questions, eventually he's gonna start going to look for the answers.
- Yeah, I would say space the questions out just so that he doesn't feel berated. Right, give him some breathing room because it could be, for some husbands, new.
- Right, this is tactical. This is tactical.
- No, it's not. It's a beautiful way that a marriage gets to look at the word of God together and so, my first thing is just give some space in between each question and then if you have a husband that's having a hard time answering those questions or maybe he forgets or maybe there's a lot of time that goes by and he never gets to that question, gets to answer that question, pray for him. Don't let that become bitterness in your heart that he's not answering your questions.
- Yeah.
- Let it become an opportunity for you to pray for him.
- See it as a tool. Well first of all, the Bible tells wives to go ask their husbands questions. Second of all, over time that's gonna build up so much respect in him. When someone asks you questions, ladies, just think about this. If someone comes to you and says, hey I have this question. I wanna know your opinion, thought, idea, doesn't that make you feel so respected and honored?
- Totally and I either wanna share right there what I think or I wanna go figure it out and then come back.
- Yeah, 'cause that person really wants to know from you. Cool, so lets, I'm gonna run through a bunch of these and then we'll go a little deeper--
- Sometimes Aaron gets really excited,
- I do.
- and he starts teaching on a topic, but we're gonna share a little bit more about how you can encourage your husband specifically in just a little bit. But first, let's get through this list of what you came up with.
- So again, these are things that I've seen you do for me.
- Something I was gonna share real quick on this is one of the opportunities I always take is after a Sunday church service, if something stood out to me that I didn't understand, I'll come to you and say, "hey, what did "the pastor mean by this?" Or, "I'm kinda confused," or whatever the question is.
- Right.
- And so that's one opportunity and then, one of the things that we like to ask each other is, "what has God been teaching us lately?" So, I like that.
- Yeah. So, the next one is, you encourage me in the things I'm already leading in. So, it's like this affirmation. You see me doing finances and you encourage me in that. Hey, thank you so much for doing, taking care of our family so well in that area. If you see me with my, doing something leadership wise with my kids, like discipling them, talking to them about something spiritual. Teaching them something, anything.
- Positive reinforcement with words.
- Oh yeah, so what you're doing is you're, and it, you're going out of your way to recognize leadership things in me and affirm those things.
- Yeah.
- You work hard to implement things that I have put in place. Which again,
- I have a good example of it.
- That's a submission thing and a leadership thing.
- So, I had a good friend, Angie Tolpin from Courageous Mom, encourage me in home schooling to say, go to the husband, 'cause I'm there all day with the kids, but to go to your husband and say, what's your vision for home school? What do you want me to be teaching them? And then to take that vision and implement it and let your husband see the fruitfulness that comes from it.
- Which gave me an opportunity to lead because I'm like, whoa, I didn't even think about that.
- Now you gotta look into home school.
- It took me some time to think about things that I cared about.
- Yeah.
- You did all the detailed stuff, all the standard things.
- But you got to cast the vision and lead our family in that way. So, that's just one example, one area of what that looked like.
- Which I kind of already mentioned this, but you reinforce my leadership with the children. So when you see me doing, leading my kids. Teaching them things. Encouraging them, you affirm me in that.
- We also have to be unified in that.
- I notice you were working on submitting to my leadership and yielding to my way of leading by laying down your plan--
- Can you see it in my eyes when I'm not?
- Yeah, or inviting me to make the plan. These things encourage me and show me like, oh, she wants me to lead.
- I used to come to Aaron at the beginning of, not every day, but important days and I'd say, okay, here's kind of like my expectations and what I want today to be like.
- You could tell me yours afterwards, but this is what I want.
- I've gotten into it but I still do that at times, but I do, I've gotten into a better habit of going to him on those days and going, hey, what were you thinking about today? Let's talk about this. I'm trying.
- Well, you have gotten better and I've also raised up in that area.
- Yeah.
- So.
- Being thoughtful.
- Yeah, so we sit down and we'll discuss the plans for the week. It doesn't mean that you don't have a voice in it.
- Right.
- You're expecting me to lead in that. You've reminded me of what the Bible calls me to do in a loving way. So, there's been times that you said, "hey, I just want "to remind you that this week's coming up. "There's gonna be these things. "I'd love for you to put your heart on "and your mind of what you see for us. "How do you want this to play out? "Remember, that's your role. "I'm looking for you to do this in my life." And so you just in loving, gentle ways, saying "hey, God's called you to this. "I'm looking forward to it. "I'm excited for it and I'm reminding you to do it."
- Yeah, no, that's really good. And I think there's been other times where just the way that I hear you talking with the kids, if it's a little harsh, I'll say, I'll remind you, gentleness. Sometimes it's just a one word phrase and other times it's just, there's actual scripture that comes to my mind that I feel like I need to share with you.
- Yeah, there's been times in my life when I'm in sin,
- Yeah.
- And we're talked about this in our pornography episode
- Oh yeah.
- Awhile ago where you came to me and you actually spoke truth to me.
- Jesus' words about adultery.
- Instead of giving me your heart in your words, which you definitely had those,
- Yeah.
- you give me the word.
- His words, yeah.
- You showed me what you're doing is adultery. What you're doing, you're going to end up teaching our children. You need to walk in the freedom you have. You spoke all these truths to me in a very powerful way, but you reminded me what the Bible says.
- Yeah, I want to admit to one more, but this is more like a failure slash warning for wives not to use scripture to get your own way and there's one scripture in particular that always comes to my mind when I'm frustrated at you or what you're doing and it's the one about, "husbands walk "with your wives in an understanding way."
- You're not understanding me.
- No, it's such a beautiful verse and I love it and I really do believe that you should be walking with me in an understanding way.
- Yeah, of course.
- But I shouldn't use, there's been a couple times where I've brought it up and I know I'm frustrated because I want you to understand me, but really, I just want you to yield to me. So, don't do that.
- Right.
- Don't do that.
- You've gotten better on that.
- Yeah.
- These last two are really powerful ones. Ladies, wives, speak well of your husband in public to others. This is the most dismantling, one of the most dismantling, destructive things you can do is speaking down of your spouse in public.
- Yeah.
- You should never do that. That doesn't mean, like you're not, you're going to a confidential, a confident, a brother or sister in Christ to get advice and you're sharing situations. But that's not what this is and everyone knows when you're talking down about their spouse.
- Here's the deal. If you're walking with the Lord, the Holy Spirit will convict you on those times that you're not walking faithfully and you are talking about your husband.
- Okay, I get so frustrated about this and actually, if any of you that are listening have done this, I pray that you would think through it. Repent of it and change. I've seen people, public comments about their spouse. Oh, husbands and wives. Oh, my wife would never do this because of this, this and this, and I'm like, well, why are you telling everyone? Go talk to your wife about that. Or, I wish my husband would read this because he's this, this and this, and I'm like, whoa.
- When you say public comments, are you talking about comments on social media?
- Social media.
- Okay.
- And this is just, that's just one forum.
- Yeah.
- It's super public. Everyone sees it and I would just imagine, if I was that husband, I would be destroyed. And I think that's the point that they're doing it is that they feel destroyed so they're retaliating.
- Yeah.
- And so, I just want to encourage that we don't speak down about our spouses in public. My wife, Jennifer, you do this. Not speak down about me. You speak well of me.
- Yeah.
- Which makes me desire to live up to the words you speak about me because I hear it and I'm like, whoa, that's what she thinks of me. I didn't feel like that today. I didn't feel like I was being that way. So, speaking well of me in public is something that's been done that's been hugely impactful in my life.
- I will say this just to encourage the wives who maybe have done this or it happens occasionally is in order to change, you have to repent and I remember years ago, it must have been within the third or fourth year of marriage, I went out to lunch with a friend and the conversation turned into this kind of complaining about you.
- Complaining about me.
- And I was on, I remember still where I was on the freeway feeling conviction from the Lord on how I spoke about you and I called that friend up and I was like, I have to apologize. What I said, what I did, it wasn't a good example. It wasn't what I should have done and I told you about it and I had to confess it. Otherwise I could have easily just stepped right back into it another time. And when we're confronted with our sin like that and we deal with it and we repent, it changes us. God changes us. And so I just want to encourage you, if you find yourself in the midst of doing something like that and the Lord convicts you, repent.
- Yeah and again, I wanna separate this idea of sitting with a close girlfriend who's going to draw you back to the word of God,
- Right.
- and encourage you in saying, here's some things I'm dealing with.
- I think we all know the difference.
- Everyone knows the difference.
- Versus I'm gonna tell you how much I'm bothered by my husband.
- It's a heart posture.
- It's totally a heart posture, So, speak well of people and of your spouse in public and then the last one is, Baby, you do this. You look to me for guidance pretty much for everything. It doesn't mean I have the answers all the time. I rarely have the perfect answer, but you come to me and say there's this, what about this. Hey, this things going in my, hey, I have this relationship thing, what do you think. So, that's become a pattern in our life. Coming to me for advise.
- As it happens, I trust you more. I wanna hear from you more. I wanna get your perspective more and so, it's a building block, so like in marriage, you may not be at a point in your marriage right now where you feel that way. Where you desire your husband's perspective on something, but as you guys work through that and as you grow and you give him more opportunities for giving you advise on things or help walk you through certain things, you'll learn to trust him more.
- So, that was really good. Let's talk about some of the benefits of walking in submission to his leadership. So, why don't you share some of the benefits you've seen from learning to walk in submission to and allow me to lead.
- Okay, well, feeling loved and looked after. I feel like you truly are concerned with my welfare, our family's welfare and just when you make decisions or how you lead our family, it shows. There's evidence of that.
- Just real quick. Husbands that are listening. Listen to these benefits because when you walk in leadership and walk in spiritual leadership, your wife's gonna experience the same benefits.
- Yeah, totally. I feel like God's honored and glorified because we're working out that order that you mentioned earlier.
- Yup.
- And it's a stark contrast to the way that the world operates. It just looks different. So, they see that picture of marriage. I feel like there's less worry in my own heart because the burden is shared. So, if we are walking through something hard, I know, especially over time of submitting to your leadership, that I can trust you. I can trust God with you. What else? Our communication is better. I feel like we communicate more respectfully towards each other. Intentional discipleship of our children.
- That's been a huge--
- Them seeing a good example of what it looks like for a daddy to lead and mommy to submit has been really cool and they get it, even at a young age.
- It's amazing what they get.
- Yeah. I feel like it provides an open and safe place for us to talk about things, especially biblical things. And if there is ever disagreement or misunderstanding on certain things, decisions that we have to make or concepts that are even in the Bible that we get to talk those things out and wrestle with them together.
- Those are good benefits.
- Yeah.
- And it just, it's, yeah, it's obedience to God's order and it's a blessing.
- Yeah.
- When husband and wife are walking that way it's good.
- It's awesome.
- It's awesome.
- Marriage is awesome.
- Now, it doesn't mean you can't walk that way without your spouse walking their way. We're still called to read our own mail and walk in obedience to Christ.
- Yeah.
- But man, when you're both doing it, the ministry that you can do, the example you are to the world of the gospel is so beautiful.
- Yeah, I will say this is another benefit, too, is that when we understand His purpose for marriage and His order and we're trying as hard as we can to walk, maybe it's not perfect, but we're walking in those roles and in those ways, we're motivated by an internal, eternal perspective that far outweighs any current circumstances that we face. So Aaron, wouldn't you agree that over time, the things that we face, the things that we have to walk through together are now, like after 13 years of marriage, they're much smaller to us in comparison to our view of what's motivating us, which is God, which is His--
- Well because we repent way quicker.
- Eternity with Him.
- We humble ourselves way quicker. We realize like, man the thing that we're really fighting about now,
- Yeah.
- is not worthy of this much attention. So, we back off quicker. We come to each other and say we feel dis-unified.
- Right.
- Let's work on that. Let's fix it. Our kids, we also recognize it in our children. When we have disunity, when we're not walking well with each other,
- Yeah.
- our kids experience that and respond to that. So, we wanna give some scripture. We're coming to the end. But here's just in the Bible. So, wives listening, if you have a husband that's not walking obedient, in obedience to the word, listen to what the Bible says. This is some of the most powerful scriptures, I think, to a wife on the power that she has in her husband's life. First Peter, chapter three says this. "Likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands." Remember, that submission reference to your husband. "So that even if some do not obey the word--"
- Now this could be a non-Christian or it could be someone who claims to be a Christian but is not obeying the word. He's not walking the way God wants.
- Right, that's what I love about this is it doesn't distinguish. It's saying someone who does not obey the word.
- Yeah.
- It could be both. It says this, "they may be one without a word "by the conduct of their wives. "When they see your respectful and pure conduct. "Do not let you adorning be external. "The braiding of hair, the putting on "of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear. "Let your adorning be the hidden person "of the heart with an imperishable beauty "of a gentle and quiet spirit which in God's sight "is very precious." And so, the point of this is, it's saying, in stark contrast to letting your outside appearance be the thing that is attracting and is getting the attention, it's not saying don't wear these things. It's saying don't let that be what you're using as your adorning. The thing that you're putting on to show who you are. Who you are should be that respectful and pure conduct from within and what it says right here, it says, "they may be one without a word." So, you want to win your husbands' hearts, not just for you but for them to be a leader. For them to raise up and sort of obeying the word of God. It's your conduct. Your gentle and quiet spirit, which is amazing. What that means is, wives, you can actually walk in such a way before your husband in your home that could transform them by the way they walk. Like, why are you so respectful? I'm this way and you just keep serving and you keep loving and you keep forgiving and you keep showing me by example what it looks like. That's powerful.
- Yeah.
- And so I just want to encourage with that scripture is like, the Bible says it, so you can trust God that it's saying wives, if you walk in this way, this is power in your husband's life.
- I love how specific it is that it says, "without a word," because I think that often times we get creative with our words. Women, we know how to talk and we talk a lot sometimes. And sometimes we think that our words are gonna change our husbands. We think that if we say something enough.
- I just need to get him to...
- Right and so I love that there's a distinguishing note there, that, "without a word." And that shows the power of, like you said, our conduct and our behavior and the things that we choose to do. I think if we slow down and really meditated on this verse and understood what God was trying to teach us through it and walk it out, man, your husbands will be influenced by this.
- Let's take it a step further. So, the wife represents the church. The symbol of the church, right. And what power does the church have in this world? Our conduct.
- Mmh hmm.
- It says that, "the world may know that you "are my disciples by the love you have "for one another." In other places it says, "that the world may know "that God sent Me by the love you have for each other."
- Yeah.
- So, wife, your conduct is that symbol and representation to your husband.
- Yeah.
- And church, our conduct is a body of Christ, is that symbol and light to the world. That's what that's representing.
- In Proverbs 3, 5-6, it says, "Trust in the Lord "with all your heart and do not lean "on your own understanding. "In all your ways acknowledge Him "and He will make straight your path." And what I love about this in support of the verse we just read is coming back to our words. Sometimes we think our way is the right way and we're just gonna speak those words and we're gonna say that thing over and over and over again, but here God's saying trust me, lead on my understanding and I'm saying don't use your words, use your conduct. And so we need to pay attention. We need to acknowledge Him. We need to acknowledge His word and what He's sharing with us.
- Amen. So, let's just end on five simple ways that they can start encouraging their husbands. Of course, we talked about all the ways I've seen you do it.
- Yeah.
- But there's just five ways. I'll do one, you do one. So, number one. Pray for him that he embraces his role as a future leader.
- Number two, ask him to wash you in the water by the word at night or in the morning and if you don't know what I mean by that, Ephesians 5 25 says this. "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church "and gave Himself up for her "that He might sanctify her, "having cleansed her by the washing of water "with the word so that He might present the church "to Himself in splendor without spot "or wrinkle or any such thing, "that she might be holy and without blemish." And so, getting in the word together. Talking about it. Making those safe places for you guys to ask questions, for you to ask him questions and get answers and learn together.
- And don't become bitter if it takes time.
- Yeah.
- Just keep asking. Say, hey, when you're ready, I'd love for you to read to me. I'd love for you to talk to me about the Bible.
- Yeah.
- Which leads to number three. Ask him spiritual questions and questions about the word of God before searching it out on your own, which is super respectful and powerful. Just going to him and say, hey, I'd love to know your opinion on this. I'd love to know what you think about this. And just do that. Make that your pattern of, go to him first.
- Yeah.
- Don't go to your, you know, whoever you listen to on your podcast or who, blogs you follow or your pastor. Go to him first and then go to those places. And that let's him know that you totally respect him. First Corinthians, 14:35 says that is there's anything that they desire to learn, talking about wives, "let them ask their husbands at home."
- And I will say this. I think you'll be really surprised by your husband's answers when he does share them with you. I've had girlfriends in the past tell me, you know, I'm not good at asking my husband questions, but I asked him recently, duh duh duh tah duh, and this is what he came back with, and she shared his response and it was incredible and then she got to affirm him in that and it built his confidence.
- Yeah, which is number four.
- You guys are so cool. Number four is affirm him with kind words. Let him know that you believe he can do this.
- Yeah. Number five is be supportive in action. Meaning in front of the kids, being on the same page. If he has a decision, be like, let's do this. We're gonna do this as a family. Dad has made a decision. This is what Dad's decided. Showing him that you're rooting for his leadership.
- And that means that things don't change when Dad steps outside of the home to go to work or Dad goes to run an errand.
- You instill things that he's desired.
- You are the, the mediator between you and your kids and you're going to be an advocate for his vision, for his decisions, for his leadership for them.
- Yeah and just as encouragement, this, sometimes this takes times. This always takes time. But Jennifer and I, we're still learning how to do this. I've failed often. Jennifer fails often. This is something that we have to constantly be like, hey. We gotta get realigned. I know I have to remember my role. You have to remember yours. Let's do this. So we just want to encourage you to take those steps in prayer. To desire what God desires. To be in the word of God and yeah, just follow. His ways are good and we just need to chase after those. So as usual, we end in prayer. We pray that this episode encouraged you and so, let me pray. Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of marriage. Thank you for the opportunity to consider these things and how we can mature as a couple. We pray we would walk in righteousness, gentleness and self control. We pray we would be people who see others through the lens of compassion. Help us to be thoughtful in our response to each other. Help us to be respectful in our conduct. We pray our interactions as a married couple would be a testimony of Your power and authority in our lives. May Your light shine brightly in us as we direct each other back to You. In Jesus' name, amen. We love you guys. I hope this blessed you and encouraged you. Just get into those scriptures yourself. And we just want to remind you, if you have been following us for awhile and haven't left a review yet, would you please do that today? Just scroll to the bottom on your app, hit the star rating and if you write out a review also, we love reading those. Again, thank you for joining us and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| Q&A Having Children, Birth Control & how many kids to have and more | 27 Jan 2020 | 00:36:56 | |
In this episode, we answer questions for our community about having children, birth control, how many kids to have and more. Please also take a moment and download our free 52 Date Night Ideas eBook. http://datenightideas.com
PRAYER Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift and blessing of children. Thank you for creating and designing us with the ability to recreate, what an incredible miracle life truly is. We thank you for the opportunity to build our family and have children. We pray for others who either have not had children yet or in awaiting their first in anticipation. May you lead them in the way you desire them to walk and to grow together. We praise you for all those who have children and we also pray for those who can’t have children for whatever the reason may be. You are sovereign and we trust you. We continue to surrender our hearts to you as you lead us in parenting and raising our children to know you. Please help us with our fears and insecurities. Please remind us every day of the purpose we have with our family. May your name be glorified. In Jesus’ name, amen!
READ FULL TRANSCRIPT - [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.
- [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
- [Aaron] And today we're gonna answer some of your questions about having children.
- [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.
- [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife.
- [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution.
- [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade.
- [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children.
- [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry onlinae for over seven years through blogging and social media.
- [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.
- [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life.
- [Aaron] Love.
- [Jennifer] And Power.
- [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God.
- [Jennifer] Together.
- [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chased boldly after God's will for our life together.
- [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Hey, everyone welcome back to another episode of Marriage After God. We're happy to be with you and we're really excited about this episode, and just being able to answer your questions. So doing Q&As is gonna be just an awesome new feature of the podcast where every couple of weeks, we're gonna poll our trusty community on Instagram and ask you guys what questions you have, and hopefully get some answers, well I should say opinions.
- [Aaron] Yeah 'cause we have all the answers.
- [Jennifer] No.
- [Aaron] On everything.
- [Jennifer] We don't but you know what, we're happy to explore these questions with you. And so thank you to everyone who shared these questions with us, and specifically about about having kids which we have a little bit of experience with. And so we'll dive into that in just a bit. All right, so one thing that we really are excited to share with you guys is that we have a new freebie for all of you.
- [Aaron] So everyone has already did the free prayer challenge.
- [Jennifer] Right.
- [Aaron] They already got the date night conversations.
- [Jennifer] You better, we've been sharing about those two for a while. So I begged Aaron, and I was like, "Let's do something new. "We've gotta do something new."
- [Aaron] So this one is date night ideas. It's a free download. It's a list of 52 date night ideas which you could do one a week for the whole year.
- [Jennifer] So is this something we're committing to? We're gonna go through all of these and do them?
- [Aaron] Sure.
- [Jennifer] Let's do it.
- [Aaron] Let's see how it goes.
- [Jennifer] I think that would be so fun.
- [Aaron] So if you wanna get this freebie, this download, you just go to datenightideas.com and you can download our free ebook with 52 date night ideas.
- [Jennifer] And the goal is one a week but if you can't do one week, do three a week. It's fine--
- [Aaron] If you have to do one a day, you know what, you can get done faster--
- [Jennifer] Have fun with it.
- [Aaron] And just do it all over again.
- [Jennifer] Have fun with it. No, but you can use these whenever you want and you can even sift through them and pull from it.
- [Aaron] You know what would be fun is if they downloaded this and then found another couple to do a challenge with. How many they can get done in a year?
- [Jennifer] Interesting, the other thing you could do is print them out and cut them out and stick them in a jar and pull them out randomly.
- [Aaron] Yeah.
- [Jennifer] That would be fun.
- [Aaron] That's a great idea. Datenightideas.com, one word and it's free. Go get it, so the topic we're talking about, these Q&As, they're all on a similar topic. We polled our followers on Instagram and many of the questions were around children. Having children, children after marriage.
- [Jennifer] So we're like let's stick them all in one episode so we can hit them all at once.
- [Aaron] And so we're just gonna, some of these we're gonna wing answering. If we don't have good answers, we might say we don't know. We're not afraid to say we don't know.
- [Jennifer] And just keep in mind that these are just our positions on these questions. How we would answer them based off of our experience and knowledge and--
- [Aaron] And things that we know of the Bible.
- [Jennifer] Things that we know of the Bible and what we believe in so--
- [Aaron] Take it for what it is.
- [Jennifer] Yeah and thank you guys again for asking these questions and sharing them with us and we really appreciate that. If you wanna jump on board for the next Q&A, just follow along on Instagram @marriageaftergod.
- [Aaron] And you can always send us your questions in a message and we may not answer it in the message but we'll take down the question and potentially answer it in a future Q&A episode. We'd love to get those from you. So why don't we just jump right in to the first question and this is a doozy I feel like 'cause it's controversial, it could be.
- [Jennifer] It could be yeah.
- [Aaron] And they ask us their question and they said, our view on birth control.
- [Jennifer] So what's your view on birth control?
- [Aaron] That's a good question.
- [Jennifer] It's a big question.
- [Aaron] Okay, next question is, no I'm just kidding. Our view on birth control.
- [Jennifer] Let me share my point of view first.
- [Aaron] Okay, go ahead.
- [Jennifer] I'll just be honest. I went on birth control 'cause that's what I heard you do when you get married. And so I went on the month before I got married and I chose to go off of it a month after we were married. So I was on it for a total of two months and I got married at 21, you were 22. And we were so excited married and so excited to--
- [Aaron] Be with each other physically.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, experience what sex was like and it was awful. I'm just gonna be honest. It was very painful for me and so I scrambled, you guys. I tried to figure out why is my body responding this way because it was my body that was keeping us from experiencing--
- [Aaron] Physical intimacy.
- [Jennifer] Healthy, physical intimacy. And so one of the things that came to my mind was something that was super obvious because over the course of that month of being married, not only were we having these issues but I gained a lot of weight. I got acne.
- [Aaron] There was a lot of things going on. There was emotional stuff.
- [Jennifer] Emotional ups and downs and mood swings and it was awful and I didn't feel myself. And so the obvious question then is what happened in the last few weeks that has changed me?
- [Aaron] Other than getting married.
- [Jennifer] I know it's a big transition.
- [Aaron] I that that guy you married can make you feel crazy, I get it.
- [Jennifer] But we narrowed it down to birth control and so I chose to go off of it and I haven't regretted it.
- [Aaron] And it didn't fix everything but it did actually drastically change your mood.
- [Jennifer] And some of the physical things that I was--
- [Aaron] Some of the physical things you were experiencing.
- [Jennifer] Yeah.
- [Aaron] So that's an experience you had with birth control. We know tons of people use birth control. I also know that there is certain people that say birth control is a sin. I'm not gonna go that far. I'm not gonna make statements like that. What I will say is I'm not an advocate for opting to put a chemical in your body to adjust and manipulate how your body is naturally meant to work. So that's my, you're meant to do a certain thing. Your body has been created to do a certain thing and birth control is meant to stop that thing from happening, to manipulate the way your body responds to certain things and I don't think that's great. We have a lot of stuff going on this world. A lot of sickness, a lot of problems and for us to be healthy and to do something like that to our healthy body, I don't think is very wise, personally.
- [Jennifer] So just to clarify for those listening, you're not saying that you won't put anything on or in your body that helps stimulate positive things to happen in your body. You're saying, you wouldn't do something that would stop the natural function of your body.
- [Aaron] I'm saying I don't think it's a good idea to put something in our bodies electively to stop the natural.
- [Jennifer] That alters the natural.
- [Aaron] Yeah 'cause there's, again, I'm not gonna. The question is about all the other things that happen in this life, we know taking things when you're sick.
- [Jennifer] I was gonna say there's supplements and there's oils and there's things that are out there.
- [Aaron] Right, that's different than I'm gonna take this birth control to stop my ovulation so that we don't get pregnant. I'm not gonna do that. That's just my personal perspective on this. And to be honest, there's most things like medically that I'm a little hesitant on just because I like to stay mostly natural as much as possible. But this is about birth control. I'm just saying that taking a woman's body, putting something in it to stop her from doing what it's naturally meant to do doesn't sound wise to me. Now on the spiritual side of things, we have to always ask ourselves the question of why are we trying to stop ourselves from having kids? Why are we trying to protect against that? And there's tons of worldly wisdom that we receive on why we should wait and what, there's this and that. And don't you wanna travel? Why don't you establish your marriage first? And none of those things line up with the things that we hear about in scripture about children being a blessing. That it's good for women to have children. People prayed when they were barren because they wanted children and all these positive. It's positive, positive, positive but our generation and the last couple of generations has heard the message of negative. Children are a hindrance. Children get in the way. Children are difficult, they're expensive. They're hard, some of these things are all true. Not all of them but some of these things are true but not in the sense of they're not a blessings. Not in the sense of we shouldn't do it. I think we should always be asking ourselves about our heart posture towards children because God's heart posture towards children from the words of Jesus. "Let the children come to me", that's what he said.
- [Jennifer] I love that, that's so beautiful.
- [Aaron] Don't hinder the children.
- [Jennifer] That's really good. I was gonna say that personally, we think that it needs to be thoughtfully considered not just in its physical impact on someone's body but its spiritual impact. And I think you just hit it on the head with being a heart posture.
- [Aaron] Absolutely.
- [Jennifer] And asking ourselves why.
- [Aaron] Yeah and what do we believe about God? Is he good? Does it give us good things? And has he made us a certain way? And yeah those are all true. So we don't believe in birth control, the chemical form. I would say do any form of birth control, and we're about to have our number five so everyone can logically find out, we don't do birth control. We would probably lean towards just what's it called? The rhythm method?
- [Jennifer] Natural planning.
- [Aaron] Natural planning. And again, that's not even perfect. It's more of to our own abilities, we're just gonna try and plan around this and if God gives us a child, we're gonna be stoked.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, all right let's move on to number two. Okay number two says, what made you wait to have kids?
- [Aaron] Made us is a good word because half of it was physical.
- [Jennifer] I was gonna say this is a two parter for us.
- [Aaron] We just talked about how we couldn't have sexual intimacy.
- [Jennifer] Yup.
- [Aaron] So it was not impossible but highly unlikely 'cause it was .
- [Jennifer] We weren't doing the thing that makes the babies.
- [Aaron] Yeah, the thing that makes the babies wasn't happening so there was no babies being made. And then the second part of that is, and this might have been out of a bitterness because we couldn't be with each other. I have feeling that some of it was from that bitterness but also some of it just straight from our own selfish pride. We would tell people, they would ask us when are you guys gonna have kids? And we'd be like, oh we're not gonna have kids for a while or maybe ever because we're too selfish.
- [Jennifer] We like sleeping in.
- [Aaron] We like traveling. We like this, we like that. We said these things out loud. This isn't thoughts we had.
- [Jennifer] And I would agree. Some of it was probably just to give them an answer 'cause we weren't gonna straight dig into well, we can't have sex. So we found a different way to answer it but I think at the core, we truly believe those things as well. We were selfish.
- [Aaron] I remember I would pridefully say it like it was something to boast about.
- [Jennifer] Looking back--
- [Aaron] You are too selfish.
- [Jennifer] Looking back that's so embarrassing.
- [Aaron] I know what a fool I was that I would actually say that. God's looking at me at like I know who you are.
- [Jennifer] I love you Aaron.
- [Aaron] I was like a little child to him and he's patient with me, thank God. But what a fool that I would just boast about my selfishness which is opposed to God, to be selfish. I was literally boasting about my opposition to God.
- [Jennifer] I wanted to share a little bit about this question. What came to my mind is well the physical. We couldn't and the selfish but I was also really terrified of having children and I don't remember it being a super affirmed thing growing up. And even though I came from a big family, it wasn't like I had this dream to have a big family myself.
- [Aaron] And it wasn't like children are good. Children are a blessing. All you saw was there's all of this chaos at home sometimes.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, so I remember just being really scared about having children. And so I was actually okay with not having children for a long time if any. I didn't have a hearts desire to have children.
- [Aaron] And I actually, now you bring that up. I remember specifically a thought I had and I had it regularly was I didn't want children because we couldn't be together. All I thought I was like yeah that would be so perfect. We'd get pregnant the one time we do come together and then now like we couldn't enjoy each other, and now we have a kid. This totally negative connotation on having children because it was just gonna get in the way of the thing I wanted.
- [Jennifer] Yeah and I think we talked about that even back then. Something that I didn't talk to you about that I really struggled with was the thought that if in that turmoil, those first three years if we did have a kid how much more it would tie me to you which is really depressing and sad to think about. I just am broken-hearted over those kinds of thoughts now.
- [Aaron] But that's when we were in our sinful hearts.
- [Jennifer] But that's where I was and I didn't have hope in our marriage. I truly believe that we're coming to the end so it was like I have to make sure even more that I don't get pregnant which was avoiding you.
- [Aaron] Which made the whole thing worse.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, it was a mess, you guys.
- [Aaron] The devil is good at what he does. And it's why we have to resist him and it's why we have to put on the full armor of God 'cause these thoughts and things will come if we're not focused right.
- [Jennifer] Now I have a part of this question to ask you. It has to do with this question, that's not here but would you have waited if you could have sex?
- [Aaron] Back then? Well probably 'cause again I had my selfish heart of I thought tons of horrible things. I was thinking about your body and I was thinking about our sex, and I was thinking about being inconvenience with now I have to raise a child, and we're doing all these things. So absolutely, I think back then, selfishly would have waited. Not because I thought it was wise but because I didn't want to have to deal with it.
- [Jennifer] Okay and I was thinking more like answering now having had children.
- [Aaron] No, I wished we didn't have waited.
- [Jennifer] I like that you're answering really honestly.
- [Aaron] No, if I knew what I know now.
- [Jennifer] I wouldn't have waited.
- [Aaron] We'd have a 13-year-old.
- [Jennifer] That's weird to think about.
- [Aaron] How incredible would that be? We'd have a teenager.
- [Jennifer] Wow, lots more growth opportunities for us.
- [Aaron] No, I wouldn't have waited at all but to be honest it's God's sovereignty.
- [Jennifer] Yeah.
- [Aaron] He knew who we were. Our sin kept us away from it and it's probably better back then because we had some maturing to do. Not that I'm telling anyone they should choose to wait. I just think God knew what he was doing and he let us through a lot of stuff to grow us and make us into the men and women he wanted us to be.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, all right. Number three, do you think numbering your children is necessary?
- [Aaron] Yeah, I'd give a 10 to Elliott and then like all if I give--
- [Jennifer] What are you talking about?
- [Aaron] I'm just kidding. Numbering, I'm thinking like .
- [Jennifer] That's not what they're asking.
- [Aaron] Numbering, the question is about should we have one, two, three, how many should we have?
- [Jennifer] I was gonna change the question to what we usually get is what number do you guys want or what are you looking for? Because we do get asked that.
- [Aaron] Yeah and it's usually with this like are you done yet look. Do you realize how many you have? We know exactly how many we have. So the question is do you think numbering your children is necessary? And I'm imagining the heart but it is do you think it's important to consider how many children we're having? Should we only have one or two or three? That's a pretty common thought. Most of the time, it comes in the form of, we only one, two or three. That's where that comes from. So Jennifer, do you think it's necessary. That's how the question is phrased.
- [Jennifer] No, I don't think it's necessary. I don't think that we need to have a set number and we personally don't have a set number.
- [Aaron] Our answer when someone asks, how many do you want is whatever God wants.
- [Jennifer] Yeah.
- [Aaron] Because to be honest, I don't know.
- [Jennifer] To couple with that though, I do think that there's wisdom in every situation and so what I like to say is we take every pregnancy as it comes.
- [Aaron] Yeah.
- [Jennifer] Submit it to the Lord--
- [Aaron] And in between the pregnancies, we submit those to the Lord as well.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, and you know what, it's a journey of walking with God saying God I trust you and it's not easy but--
- [Aaron] And I'll say this.
- [Jennifer] He's doing this.
- [Aaron] I'm gonna be a little candid here. There was a challenge after we had was it?
- [Jennifer] Elliot.
- [Aaron] Elliot and we went right back to that place in our hearts of we don't want any more. Elliot was difficult. It was our first child.
- [Jennifer] He had colic.
- [Aaron] He had colic for a couple months.
- [Jennifer] I had nursing issues.
- [Aaron] It was really difficult. And we just were like no, we can't do this any more. This is crazy, we are also--
- [Jennifer] Honestly--
- [Aaron] Publishing a book and we're thinking like how we're gonna do all this stuff and have another baby and everything was coming together.
- [Jennifer] When I look back on it too, I don't remember it being a negative feeling. I just remember being okay with it being one.
- [Aaron] We're like, we're fine.
- [Jennifer] Yeah.
- [Aaron] But again from all selfish positions. How are we gonna keep doing these things? That was too hard, I don't wanna do that again. And we were challenged by someone really hard and I'm gonna just explain to you what was challenging to us, and I'm gonna leave it at that. And they came to us and we were just sharing our hearts with them. And they very softly and gently said, you know the reasoning that you were coming to with this deciding not to want any more. And he brought up, is like it's usually for Christians, we say things like we want one, some or none. And it's like that sounds great. It sounds wise. One summer night, I'm gonna choose the size of my family. I think that's wise based off of whatever. Then they said that's very similar to the reasoning that pro-choicers have. It's your choice. Christians aren't gonna choose the abortion option right, hopefully. That's where the heart of a Christian shouldn't be that direction at all. We don't do that. But one, some or none is very similar and it's my choice. Pro-choice, I get to choose what I want. And he's explaining this to us and it cut us to the heart, and we realize wow, we're telling God, who's in charge of this area of our life. We want God to be sovereign in every area of our life except for this one. And so when they were explaining to us that we were essentially making decisions very similar to the idea of pro-choice. It's our choice and I want it to be pro-me whatever I want. And it really challenged us and it actually made us go and pray and dig into what we believed about children, and what we believed about our family, what God wants for us.
- [Jennifer] I remember shortly after that conversation maybe even walking out of the restaurant, I told you that as I was sitting there listening, I could picture myself holding my hand shut tight and it was me as a Christian telling God, you are sovereign, you have every part of my life. I love you, lead me oh but you can't have this over here.
- [Aaron] Don't touch this over here.
- [Jennifer] And I was gripping it so tightly and I remember explaining this picture to you and just saying I feel like God wants me to open up my hands and trust Him. And I feel like we got pregnant about a week and a half later.
- [Aaron] Yeah really quick.
- [Jennifer] Really quick.
- [Aaron] And I'll say this. It's easy to say, hard to do. Every single pregnancy we've had to go to God and say God, we need your help. We need to trust you more. We need to know what you have for us because it's difficult. Pregnancy is difficult. Children are difficult. It's just part of life so it's not like all of a sudden everything became rainbows and unicorns. It was like we have to trust God every single time which is what he wants. And then I'll say this as gently as possible 'cause I know the person that asked this question. I'm not trying--
- [Jennifer] There's a lot of people out there that asked.
- [Aaron] There's a lot of people who have this question. I think the question is irrelevant and here's why I say that. You can say I want three kids and God only give you two. Is God wrong? Nope, I God bad? No.
- [Jennifer] You could want two kids and never be able to conceive.
- [Aaron] You could want one kid and never be able to conceive. You could want whatever you want. We could desire whatever we want. We can have this picture for our life and it's so perfect that oh if we just had a boy and a girl, you have six girls. I know people like that, okay. You could say lots of things.
- [Jennifer] You can say you don't want any kids and then get pregnant.
- [Aaron] We know people that are on birth control and I've gotten pregnant. We know people that have been barren for years.
- [Jennifer] And have gotten pregnant.
- [Aaron] And then have gotten pregnant. We know people that have had their tubes tied and then unfortunately have still gotten pregnant and had to have surgery because of the dangers of that.
- [Jennifer] We also know the word of God and in Psalms when it talks about God knitting together a baby, a human inside a mother's womb, we know that's true. So it's from Him.
- [Aaron] What we wanna do is we wanna say instead of asking well how many do we want? What's wrong with saying, God how many do you want? What do you want our family to look like? How do you want us to shape our family? You could say you want two children, right? And you have those two children and you stop, and there's no way for you to know that that third child was gonna be another Moses, another David. You don't know what God wants for you. So that's why I think that question is a little irrelevant because you think you have control.
- [Jennifer] This is what the question should be. Do we trust what you have for us Lord?
- [Aaron] Yeah and if that's a zero, and that doesn't mean that doesn't come with heartbreak but if it's zero, then God gets to choose that. If it's one, then God gets to choose that. Me and Jennifer are on number five and this could literally be our last child. We have no way of knowing. Something would happen. We could just not get pregnant again. Things happen or we could have another five. I don't know. But we want to trust the Lord with everything. I wanna encourage you to do the same. Whether that's zero, one, two, three, five, 10. That's the question we should be asking. Number four, what's the best way to prepare for or not be fearful of having a newborn? This is a good one 'cause we're literally right there.
- [Jennifer] Yeah and you know what fear is a natural thing and it always comes with that feeling of I don't know what's on the other side of labor, or delivery, or having a newborn, and I struggled with all those fears. But when I look back and I think about my first baby, holding him in my arms, it's the most beautiful, miraculous thing I can think of.
- [Aaron] And you don't necessarily look back and dwell on the pain.
- [Jennifer] No.
- [Aaron] You know it's there.
- [Jennifer] I know it happened.
- [Aaron] You look back and we think about those--
- [Jennifer] The joy and the love and the incredible miracle that comes with having a child. And I think that we should also just note that this probably whoever asked this question is going to give birth to a baby but I think even for adoption. When you think of the other ways that people build their families. I think there's a lot of fear that comes. A lot of fearful thoughts that could come with the unknowns but we just wanna be an encouragement to you guys that you're not alone. God is with you and do everything in prayer. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, to pray constantly.
- [Aaron] To pray for everything.
- [Jennifer] To pray for everything and to be thankful. And so I think the first way that I would respond to this question is pray, and pray with your spouse. Pray together over your family and over every situation.
- [Aaron] Present those fears to the Lord and say Lord, here's some things I'm afraid of. Give me peace, give me your peace. That's what he tells us to pray for everything. With thanksgiving, lift your request to Lord.
- [Jennifer] And the other thing I would say is meditate on his Word. What does God say about children? What does God say about birth? What does God say about families? Things that comes to my mind is John 16:21. It says, "When a woman is giving birth, "she has sorrow because her hour has come "but when she has delivered the baby, "she no longer remembers the anguish "for joy that a human being has been born into the world." That's what I remember.
- [Aaron] That's an awesome statement by the way. For joy that a human being has been born. That's so cool and it is true because the pain is real. It's a thing you get to experience. You can talk about that in a second about experiencing the pain but you remember the joy of that child, holding the baby, seeing their face for the first time hearing their coos for the first time.
- [Jennifer] I know I said this. It's miraculous, it truly is.
- [Aaron] Yeah and seeing them grow up is miraculous too. I can't imagine my life without any of these kids.
- [Jennifer] I know and I feel so grateful that the Lord trusted me and gave me these gifts. It's so wonderful. Another verse that comes to my mind and something good to dwell on is Psalm 127:3. It says, "Behold children are a heritage from the Lord. "The fruit of the womb, a reward."
- [Aaron] So preparing yourself for having a newborn is you're preparing to have a reward and to build a heritage that he's giving you. That's really cool.
- [Jennifer] A good resource for becoming new parents, you should check out "Redeeming Childbirth" by Angie Tolpin. It was just a really good book to bring perspective to having children and what that looks like biblically. So if you wanna check that out just go to courageousmom.com. One last thing that I just wanna encourage you guys with, and this you can do prior to having your first baby but you should also be doing it throughout parenting, and that's just talking about those fears with your spouse whenever they come up. And using those opportunities to encourage one another. If the wife is afraid, the husband can go to the word of God and console her and comfort her and encourage her. If the husband has some fears and he's being vulnerable about them, she can encourage him through the word of God and through prayer, and I just think that is so vital for us to be one in the way that we are experiencing the same thing, right parenthood. And another thing you could do is find someone who you admire, who has experience that you can ask questions to. I know as a new mom, I had so many questions. I still have so many questions. And so finding someone who you can be in communication with even if it's just a quick text or if you can get into community with several people who you can have questions too, and really just have that support system. It's really important
- [Aaron] Yeah and that actually leads into our last question, number five really well. This person asked us if we can talk about the best ways to invest in our spouse before having kids.
- [Jennifer] Okay.
- [Aaron] Which is a cool thing because we could have done this.
- [Jennifer] I know we did this for, no, we should have been doing this for years. The first thing that comes to my mind is having regular date nights and when you don't have kids and you're married, it can be so easy to just make everything feel like a date because you're with each other but making it significant somehow.
- [Aaron] Getting it on the calendar, making it a regular occurrence.
- [Jennifer] And doing something out of the norm, right? So like if you guys regularly already do something together, don't consider that your date. Go do something else.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and what's good about that is it puts you into a really healthy pattern and habit so that after the kids, you guys will long and be like, hey, we need to get back on track.
- [Jennifer] Not after the kids are grown and raised, you mean after having kids.
- [Aaron] I'm saying after six weeks of healing and getting better. You guys are like, hey, we need to get back on schedule with our date nights, that's important. And for awhile, you're gonna have the baby with you and then eventually you'll get a baby sitter. But you start that up and it's there. It's existing.
- [Jennifer] And just to encourage you guys, we've gone on dates with babies before and it can be done.
- [Aaron] Just find those restaurants that--
- [Jennifer] Are really loud.
- [Aaron] Either really loud or mostly full of older couples 'cause they love seeing young couples with their babies.
- [Jennifer] Most of the times.
- [Aaron] Most of the times.
- [Aaron] Some restaurants don't like it but the experience we've had, we have people come up and be like, oh, your baby's so wonderful. This is so cool seeing a couple with children now. Anyways that's a good tip. For the husband's preparing your spouse before kids just doing what a Ephesians five says, "Washing your wife with the Word." Continually speaking God's truth into her life over her reminding her what the word of God says, reminding of her of who she is, what she's capable of, how God made her and building her up because those are the things that are gonna continually give her confidence. Make her feel like she can be a mom that she can handle pregnancy and labor and that she is going to be a victor in that area. So it's immensely powerful the words that a husband speaks over her life which is why we're commanded to wash our wives with not any words but the Word. With God's Word, reminding her of who she is, what God's doing in her life. That the thing that she's going to do. Having a child is such a powerful and beautiful thing that as she disciples that child, she's literally making world changers. Growing the Kingdom of Heaven within your home. It's a powerful thing.
- [Jennifer] That's awesome, I love that. Another thing that I would say and this is something to continually do throughout your marriage, but to get really good at it is practicing transparency. Aaron and I talk about this a lot and it's something that I feel like we were actually pretty good at in our marriage but could have been even better way sooner at, and that's just being transparent and honest with one another when you're struggling with sin. You confess that you repent. When you're wrestling with insecurities or doubt or frustrations, you talk about it and you find a way if you're at conflict with one another, you reconcile. All those really important--
- [Aaron] Getting better at those things.
- [Jennifer] Communication things.
- [Aaron] Which will be huge for your children to see and to benefit from.
- [Jennifer] And your parenting because there's gonna be a lot of situational things that come up that you'll have to be transparent with one another in and talk about so that you're on the same page when you parent.
- [Aaron] Which leads into the other thing, and this is hugely important. Overcoming sin and bad habits. So for the husbands, if you guys are struggling with pornography, and you think it's just like not a big deal. And you're like, oh it's every once in a while. Just realize what you do, you're gonna teach your children. And I wish I would have known that earlier. I wish I would have recognized the the magnitude of walking in what I saw as hidden sin or things that I was getting a handle on. But it's just every once in awhile, it's not that big of a deal, minimizing those things. Maximize them, take those things in your life and say no, I need to get this out of my life. I'm not gonna smoke any more. I'm not gonna show my kids that habit. The way I eat. The hidden sins of my life, pornography. The way I talk. If you have issue with bad language. Those are things that you're gonna teach your kids and so work on it. Confess them, find freedom from them. Walk in the freedom that Christ has already given us on the cross and walk in it so that you can teach your kids to walk in it. The same freedom.
- [Jennifer] Have authority in their lives.
- [Aaron] Yeah as a pastor once told me, purity is power. Walking in purity is powerful. Say that last line right there, babe.
- [Jennifer] I just put a note on here. Have children, because the question was how do you invest in your spouse before having kids.
- [Aaron] Which can be--
- [Jennifer] It could be any range of things. It could maybe you're already pregnant and you're just waiting for the baby to come but it could also be we chose not to have kids right now, so what can we be doing? Well I'll tell you what, if there's one thing in Aaron's and I life that has stimulated growth in our relationship--
- [Aaron] That God's used to sanctify us in huge ways.
- [Jennifer] Absolutely, or to just grow closer to each other in opportunities in ways that we never would have known or experienced, it was through having children. And so I've really appreciated that about our journey and where we've been, and so hopefully that just encourages you guys.
- [Aaron] Those are five questions that we received from the community. Again we're not the end-all be-all to these answers but we try the best of our ability to look at the word of God, to look at experience and see how God is trying to change the way we think about things.
- [Jennifer] I'll say this, answering the questions is not easy for me. I'm a peacemaker and I don't wanna ruffle anyone's feathers or ever put things out there that make people feel uncomfortable, but at the same time I want you guys to know where Aaron and I are on some of these topics because you're you're listening in, you're following us. And for whatever reason, God has trusted us with an opportunity to share these with you. And so I hope that through our experience and through the things that we have shared with you today, if anything, you get to go back to the table with your own spouse and talk about them, and share your own perspectives, and thoughts behind them. And we just encourage you to, like Aaron said, get in the scriptures and dive into what God has to say about these and let that be the foundation for what you believe and your your viewpoints and your perspectives on some of these topics.
- [Aaron] 1 John tells us to test every spirit and to discern. So don't just take what we're saying as pure gold. Go yourself to the word of God and find them out. But if you're not willing to go to the word of God, and you just wanna disagree and have your own opinion, you have to understand something that we're not called to just do that. We're called to trust the word of God. And so I wanna challenge you if you are in that place, go to word of God. Take the things we've said and go dig in. Find out what God thinks about all these questions. What God thinks about children in the womb and raising children. You find out for yourself and come up with your own conclusions based off of what the word of God says, not off of what we say. But we love you, and as always win in prayer so please join us.
- [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift and blessing of children. Thank you for creating and designing us with the ability to recreate. What an incredible miracle life truly is. We thank you for the opportunity to build our family and have children. We pray for others to either have not had children yet or are in waiting their first in anticipation. May you lead them in a way you desire them to walk and to grow together. We praise you for all those who have children and we pray also for those who can't have children for whatever reason maybe. You are sovereign and we trust you. We continue to surrender our hearts to you as you lead us in parenting and raising our children to know you. Please help us with our fears and insecurities. Please remind us every day of the purpose we have with our family. May your name be glorified in Jesus' name, amen.
- [Aaron] Amen. And guys as always, I just wanna invite you to leave us a review, a star rating. We love those. They're incredibly powerful and effective in spreading the word about the podcast. We love you all and we pray that you guys would just grow closer to God and you chase his will for your life and get his heart on the matter of children. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| Why Suffering Is GOOD For Every Believer | 20 Jan 2020 | 00:52:29 | |
I would imagine that suffering is not a very popular topic amongst most churches today but suffering is a vital and important part of every believer's life and It should not and cannot be a topic that is left out of our Biblical thinking. Suffering comes in many forms and our heart today is to discuss the biblical view of suffering and how it is a powerful mindset and tool in our lives. Download Free ThingTopic NOTESI have bee systematically teaching through 1st peter and last week we got to chapter 4:1- Devotional - what are we learning from the Word Romans 8 "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry."
Romans 8 to explain whoever suffers … putting away of flesh is causing our flesh to suffer “want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. We have been freed from the “want to do” God gives us new desires new cravings. As we walk in our new selves it grows Define: Sensuality - Not just sexual FROM WIKIPEDIA: Hedonism is a school of thought that argues pleasure and suffering are the only components of well-being. Ethical hedonism is the view that combines hedonism with welfarist ethics, which claim that what we should do depends exclusively on what affects the well-being individuals have. Ethical hedonists would defend either increasing pleasure and reducing suffering for all beings capable of experiencing them, or just reducing suffering in the case Passions - Not just what are you passionate about in life Drunkenness - Not just being drunk from intoxication Removal of natural function - (Inhibition) Conscience Orgies - Not just a sexual experience HISTORICAL "secret rites used in the worship of Bacchus, Dionysus, and other Greek and Roman deities, celebrated with dancing, drunkenness, and singing." Drinking parties - Not just drinking at a party or hosting one intentionally Lawless Idolatry - All of this ends with self-worship Dear Lord, Thank you for your word and how it cuts us to the heart. Thank you for teaching us through your word. We pray your word would continue to transform us as we learn it and choose to walk out all that you command us to. We pray we would be people who recognize parts of our hearts that need to change, sin that needs to be repented of, motivations that are not pure, and actions that do not reflect your ways for the purpose of repentance and reconciliation and growth. May your will be done in us and through us. May your light shine brightly through our marriages as we encourage one another to draw closer to you. In Jesus’ name, amen!
READ TRANSCRIPT - [Aaron] Hey, We're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.
- [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
- [Aaron] And today we're going to talk about why suffering is good for us. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.
- [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife.
- [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution.
- [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade
- [Aaron] And so far we have four young children.
- [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.
- [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.
- [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life.
- Love.
- And power.
- [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God.
- [Jennifer] Together.
- [Aaron] Thank for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.
- [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God.
- [Aaron] Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God Podcast.
- [Jennifer] Hi.
- [Aaron] We love you guys. I just wanna say, the first episode of this season of this year, I think it got up to number 32 or 33 on the charts in iTunes. So that's all because of our listeners.
- [Jennifer] Thank you guys!
- [Aaron] Downloading all of these episodes, your guys rock, I just wanna say thank you.
- [Jennifer] Hopefully they liked it, you know, thought it was a good episode to kick off the year with.
- [Aaron] Yeah, if you liked it, share about the episode, take a screenshot of it, post it on Instagram, Facebook, tag us in it, we love seeing those.
- [Jennifer] @MarriageAfterGod.
- [Aaron] And we might even share about your post on our Instagram account.
- [Jennifer] That'd be awesome. Okay, so Aaron, why don't you just give a little update where you at, how's your week, what's going on?
- [Aaron] I think we talked about it last time. I'm starting to get up earlier. For a while I've been getting up around 5:30 and going to the gym, I've been doing that for a couple years now and recently I told you, Jennifer, that I wanted to get up even earlier.
- [Jennifer] I was shocked actually.
- [Aaron] To give myself an hour in the morning to get in the Word 'cause remarkably if I don't purpose to do it, it doesn't happen. So I figured what's the best way to do that.
- [Jennifer] Or your amount of time spent in it wasn't as much.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and so I figured the best thing to do would be get up earlier.
- [Jennifer] Okay, so now what does your morning routine look like?
- [Aaron] So I've been getting up a four, my alarm goes off at four, and then I hit snooze a couple times. I've been getting up around 4:20, 4:30.
- [Jennifer] Now, the first time you did it, I was woken up because usually you sneak out of the house pretty quietly.
- I turned the light on.
- You turned every light on.
- [Aaron] I didn't turn every light on.
- [Jennifer] It was so bright and then I was up at 4:30.
- [Aaron] What the problem was is I forget to set all of my stuff out the night before and I couldn't find anything.
- You weren't prepared.
- I wasn't prepared. You should always be prepared. If you wanna have a good morning routine.
- Good marriage.
- Oh.
- Oh.
- [Aaron] If you wanna have a good morning routine and a good marriage, prepare, put your stuff out, get everything ready that you're gonna be grabbing, so you don't have to look for it and scavenge.
- [Jennifer] And I'm just using it, I'm not even mad about it. I went back to bed.
- [Aaron] I mean I'm only a few days into it and it hasn't been terrible because I go to the gym now earlier and I'll say this, I really enjoyed going to Starbucks and sitting down, there's no one there, and getting into the Word, that was awesome. And also I started back up doing my intermittent fasting.
- [Jennifer] You did that for a while like a year ago.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and I only stopped because I was just trying to do something different, get more calories. But I'm going back to it because I feel like I got too much calories.
- [Jennifer] Okay.
- [Aaron] I really like intermittent fasting. And if you don't know what intermittent fasting is go look it up, it's pretty cool.
- [Jennifer] Why don't you just explain real quick briefly what you mean.
- [Aaron] Essentially you fast for 16 hours and then you have an eight hour window of eating. Essentially you just miss breakfast.
- [Jennifer] I was gonna say most of us fast throughout the night, but this is more intentional, don't have that before-bedtime snack or anything.
- [Aaron] Yeah, I'll usually not eat from seven o'clock until 11 or noon the next day. Which is not always easy.
- [Jennifer] You also fit in those calories at lunch and dinner 'cause you work out, they know you do CrossFit, you lift heavy weights so you need that energy.
- [Aaron] Yeah, I need enough. But it also does help me maintain how much I'm eating and it also makes me think about what I'm eating so I eat better instead of just spreading all those calories out. Anyways I've gotten back into that and kinda liking it.
- [Jennifer] Awesome, very cool. Okay you guys, we also wanna encourage you to sign up right now for the Marriage Prayer Challenge if you have not done that yet. It's really awesome. Aaron, how many couples have already joined?
- [Aaron] Almost 30,000 couples. There's actually a number counter on the sign up page, and it's a real number counter. I didn't make it up or faked it, it's actually counting people that sign up.
- [Jennifer] Okay, so you just go to MarriagePrayerChallenge.com you can sign up for the husband version or the wife version and what do they get?
- [Aaron] They're gonna get a email every day around the time that they signed up, giving them a prompt and a reminder to pray for their spouse.
- [Jennifer] Awesome, come on you guys, go sign up, it's awesome.
- [Aaron] Yeah, so it's MarriagePrayerChallenge.com. Completely free, just give us your email and your name and boom, you'll start getting those emails every day for 30 days.
- [Jennifer] So today's topic is on why suffering is good for us. And we're not just talking about physical suffering or sickness or things like that, but we're gonna get into, well we're just gonna get into something that you spoke on recently Aaron that really, really moved me because I love it when you can look at Scripture and see it a different way, I need that help sometimes, someone else coming in and going, "Hey, look at this, this is awesome." So I just wanna dig in. So this is kind of like a devotional style episode.
- [Aaron] Yeah, Jennifer and I came up with this idea to do one devotional focused episode every month and so this will be that one. And the topic is something I actually taught on this last Sunday. And you said, "Hey, we should "do an episode on that teaching." So that's what we're gonna do. We'll talk about stuff I brought up from Scripture and then you might have some questions for me, but it's pretty cool, and it's on a very small section of Scripture.
- [Jennifer] I'll say this, one reason that I love that you're my husband is that you teach me and I love that. I love that you can look at Scripture and teach me from it and so I'm excited about this episode because I feel like you're gonna have the opportunity to teach others with the same impact that you've had in my life just over this one Scripture.
- [Aaron] Well thank you, that's awesome.
- [Jennifer] Keep it up, Aaron.
- [Aaron] I wanna emphasize that my hope and prayer is that whenever I'm teaching the Word of God that it's not my opinion, not my own flavor of things, but that I'm just trying to clearly teach what the Word of God is saying. So I hope that's what I'm doing right now.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, it's good.
- [Aaron] So I'll just kick it off that the section of Scripture that we're going to be discussing is mainly from I Peter, chapter four. And it's only the first four verses, which is gonna be the chunk of what we're talking about. And it doesn't sound like a lot of Scripture, but there's actually a lot in here. We're also gonna dig into Romans eight, and that has a little bit more, so there's still a lot of reading.
- [Aaron] There's a lot of Scripture to help give context to these few lines of text. So are we gonna start out with you reading I Peter?
- Yeah.
- Like give 'em just the context of what we're going to be talking about?
- [Aaron] So it's actually verses one through three, I'm gonna read it right now, starting at verse one. "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, "arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. "For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, "so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, "no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. "For the time that is past suffices for doing "what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, "passions, drunkenness, orgies, "drinking parties, and lawless idolatry."
- [Jennifer] Okay, so before we jump into these set of Scriptures, can you just expand a little bit about when it comes to doctrine and universal doctrine?
- [Aaron] Yeah, so I start off this teaching actually on Sunday just explaining how when we come up with doctrine, which are the fundamental things that a believer should walk in, teach. These are the things that are core, doctrines in the Word of God. A doctrine, in order for it to be a doctrine, it's gotta be universal. You can't pull something from Scripture and say, "This is doctrine, but it doesn't apply "in Iran, it doesn't apply in Africa, "it doesn't apply in the suburbs."
- [Jennifer] Right, or just certain groups of people. Or certain churches.
- [Aaron] Right, so if we interpret or pull things from Scripture that isn't universally applied when taught then it's gotta be interpreted through universal doctrine. So that you can't just pull that and say, "Well, that's doctrine." And one example of this would be the prosperity gospel, this idea that God wants every single person to be wealthy, and perfectly healthy, which isn't backed up with Scripture at all.
- [Jennifer] We also don't see it in real life.
- [Aaron] Yeah, you don't see it played out. There's people all over the world that are not wealthy or healthy, but they love the Lord, God uses them, this is reality on both sides. We see Scripture, like in Ecclesiastes that God gives rain to the evil and the good, evil and the righteous. So there are certain things that he has a certain level of blessing on every person, he gives breath, he gives the sunlight, he gives rain, he gives food, sustenance, regardless of how they are. So the prosperity gospel in the sense of God wants you to prosper financially and with possessions doesn't work universally. But what does work, and this is where I ended off was the universal doctrine of suffering. Without suffering there is no salvation. Christ learned obedience through the things that he suffered. He says that believers will suffer.
- [Jennifer] Which kicks us off for this verse that you read, which I don't know if you wanna read it again.
- [Aaron] Yeah, it says, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh," it doesn't say suffered in the spirit, he suffered in the flesh. It says, "Arm yourselves with this same way of thinking."
- [Jennifer] Not just some of you, not just you over there in the corner, arm yourself.
- [Aaron] Yeah, it tells every believer to arm themselves with this way of thinking of understanding the suffering of Christ.
- [Jennifer] And the suffering of the flesh.
- [Aaron] And the suffering in the flesh, which we're gonna get into. So when I say doctrine, this idea that suffering is a doctrinal teaching. We cannot subtract it from Scripture, we cannot subtract it from the Christian life. We cannot say, "Yeah, that's good, but only for Christ, "and then he doesn't want his children to suffer." He says, "If I suffered, you will also suffer. "They hated me, they're gonna hate you." These are all things that the Bible teaches and no matter where you go in the world, it doesn't matter where you live it should be something that is taught and understood by the believer this idea, this doctrine of suffering. But there's many types of suffering. And what we wanna talk about right now is what is this talking about. What am I arming myself when realizing Christ suffered? What's the weapon that I'm using? And what it is is an understanding of what suffering is for the believer and why it's so good for us in the varying aspects. 'Cause the first thing we think of probably is suffering, massive pain or loss, which is definitely a form of suffering. But really what suffering is at the base level is our flesh--
- Dying to ourselves, yeah.
- Yeah, dying. That's what suffering is. When Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me," the cross is the instrument of death of your flesh, your body. You put a body on it and it dies there. And so suffering in the sense that we're gonna talk about is not just this overtly physical suffering. It's telling our flesh no, that's suffering. And as we go through this scripture, we'll see that more and more. But that's what we wanna get the believer, everyone listening to understand is we shouldn't be running from suffering. We shouldn't fear the idea that our flesh is gonna endure some sort of discomfort and pain and that we're not gonna always get what we want and we're gonna have to tell ourselves no and these are all forms of telling our flesh no, it's suffering. The body suffers when it doesn't get what it wants, that's suffering. When you feel pain, it's something that the body doesn't want, which is why you get that pain signal saying, "Hey, this is not good, stop it."
- [Jennifer] Right, we really hope that this episode is encouraging to you guys and gives you a fresh perspective of how suffering is good for us, especially in context to our sin nature and the suffering of our flesh.
- [Aaron] Which is the exact purpose of this. Of putting away that sin nature and having the spirit of God win and not the flesh.
- [Jennifer] Do you wanna jump in to Romans eight?
- [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause Romans eight gives us a perfect context for the second part of the scripture that says "Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking." Right, so we realize that Christ suffered in the flesh, we can have the same way of thinking of recognizing the suffering of our flesh is a weapon against something. And it says, "For whoever has suffered "in the flesh has ceased from sin." And this can be taken very literally, which it should be, I think because if we have perfectly suffered the way Christ has we would have perfectly ceased from sin because once we're dead and gone with God there's no more sin in us. But we're in the flesh, so it says, "Whoever suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin," and I think Romans eight perfectly clarifies what this is saying, and it says this in Romans eight, verse one, "There is therefore now no condemnation "for those who are in Christ Jesus." First and foremost believer, believe this. "There is therefore now no condemnation "for those who are in Christ Jesus. "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free "in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." So what has set you free from the law of sin and death? It's Christ and his Spirit, right? It says, "For God has done what the law, "weakened by our flesh, could not do. "By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh "and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh "in order that the righteous requirement of the law "might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to "the flesh, but according to the Spirit."
- [Jennifer] I feel like you should reiterate that last part.
- [Aaron] What he's saying is the law, which is good, and perfect, and righteous couldn't save any man because man has weak flesh. In our flesh we cannot fulfill the law. But Christ did fulfill the law in his own flesh. Right? And so what it's saying is that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us through the putting away of our flesh through Christ.
- [Jennifer] Right, I just love that last part that you just read, it says, "Who walk not according to the flesh, "but according to the Spirit," which is foundational to what we're gonna be teaching from I Peter and it's a choice, they're all choices, right?
- [Aaron] These are choices that the believer have because we've been set free, so we have the freedom to now choose righteousness rather than only being obedient to sin.
- [Jennifer] Right, and it's through our actions that we walk according not to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
- [Aaron] Right, so this says, "Walk not according to the flesh," so if you take anyone who has suffered in the flesh and say, "Anyone who walks not according to the flesh, "but according to the Spirit ceases from sin," that's kind of what this is saying. This is verse five, "For those who live according "to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, "but those who live according to the Spirit "set their minds on the things of the Spirit."
- [Jennifer] Okay, I gotta stop you again because I feel like there's often, I'm sure everybody can relate to this, but when you struggle with sin, and you wrestle with those temptations that come, your mind is on it, right, like when your mind is set on something that your flesh desires and wants to do it doesn't go away until either you do it or you tell it no.
- [Aaron] Which is suffering. And this is where we're trying to define this.
- [Jennifer] But that whole setting your mind, it starts there.
- [Aaron] And it says this, "For to set the mind "on the flesh is death, but to set the mind "on the Spirit is life and peace."
- [Jennifer] Raise your hand if you want life and peace.
- [Aaron] "For the mind that is set "on the flesh is hostile to God."
- [Jennifer] I don't want that.
- [Aaron] Hostile, like you're an enemy of God when your mind's on the flesh, "For it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." So when the Bible tells us that the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to each other, are against each other, that's what this is saying. Saying when you're walking in the flesh you can't please God, you're an enemy. When you walk in the Spirit, you please God. And it's God's Spirit that we walk in. And then it says this, "You," believer, "however "are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, "if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ "does not belong to him. "But if Christ is in you, "although the body is dead because of sin, "the Spirit is life because of righteousness." So remember we said whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin? Let's put it this way, although the body is dead, suffered in the flesh because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. So the Spirit that God's put in us has brought to life our mortal bodies, and listen to this, verse 11, "If the Spirit of him "who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, "He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead "will also give life to your mortal bodies "through his Spirit who dwells in you." So I thought this Scripture perfectly illustrated what says right here when it says, "For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. "So as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh "no longer for human passions, but for the will of God." So when we're gonna get more and more right now into this idea of suffering in the flesh, it's this idea of walking in the Spirit and not the flesh as Romans also says. When you gratify the desires of the flesh you cannot please God, right? But if you walk in the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Right?
- Yeah.
- [Aaron] So this is what this is getting to, Peter's talking here, and he's explaining how Christ suffering in the flesh has done this for us. Has given us a way to suffer in our flesh, not in a way of self-salvation because we can't, Christ already did it. His suffering was sufficient. But because of his suffering and from his own words 'cause he left and went home to be with the Father, he sent his helper, the Spirit, to work in us and through us for his will and his work in us. So what we can do now is we can learn to suffer in our flesh via the Holy Spirit. Meaning I don't gratify the desires of my flesh. So when you want a donut, I love donuts.
- [Jennifer] I love donuts.
- [Aaron] Or you want that new car, or you want your neighbor's thing, coveting, right? Or you want to avoid shame so you lie, these are all fruit of the flesh, these are all things to protect your flesh. I don't like the way that feels, I don't wanna be embarrassed, I don't wanna look shameful, I have pride, I don't want them to think this way about me. It's all the flesh, so suffering is, like here's a form of suffering in the flesh, humbleness. That's painful, humbling yourself. Getting down on your knees and saying, "I am this thing, I did this thing, I said this, "and I want to be forgiven by You." Like humbling yourself, recognizing you're not that great of a person is suffering, is telling your flesh no. I'd rather you suffer and my spirit be lifted up.
- [Jennifer] So you started out that little lineup of things that people struggle with was a donut so can you just explain, 'cause eating a donut doesn't have to deal with humility, what does it have to deal with?
- [Aaron] Well again, our flesh, and I explained this on Sunday, I was talking about how our brains work. Our brain matter, it's flesh, it's a compilation of cells and there's these chemicals that get released and you have sensors, and receptors, and you have all these things that God gave us to work a certain way, pleasure sensors and pain sensors and all these things, and those are all the flesh. Now what the point is is that you don't just shut 'em all off. It's to put them into submission to the Spirit. So a donut right, having a donut's not sinful. Like, oh, a donut's good. But not having any control and letting your senses control you is not walking in the Spirit, it's walking in the flesh. Like that See Food diet, I see food and I eat it. That's not having any control, the Spirit's not in charge, your conscience isn't in charge, it's, "Oh I see it and I'm gonna put it "in my mouth and eat it."
- [Jennifer] So the donut can represent a lot of different things.
- [Aaron] Think about pornography. Like you're not controlling your flesh. You're saying, "Flesh, you can have whatever you want."
- [Jennifer] That's not suffering.
- [Aaron] No, well we suffer in the Spirit.
- [Jennifer] And we suffer the consequences.
- [Aaron] Yeah, we suffer the consequences, but you're not causing your flesh to suffer, telling your flesh, "No, I don't want you to have it. "I know you want that, I know you crave it, "I know you think that's gonna be good for you, "but the Spirit of God that's in me says no."
- [Jennifer] That's good. Okay, so I wanna move on because there's a lot of clarity that comes from this next verse and how you broke it down, which is what impacted me probably the most out of this teaching. And so I'm gonna reread the verse, it's verse three, it says, "For the time that is past suffices "for doing what the Gentiles want to do," and I remember you stopped and said, "Underline that."
- Underline want to do.
- Want to do. 'Cause our flesh wants to do a lot of things. You just gave those examples. "Living in sensualities, passions, drunkenness, "orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatries.
- [Aaron] You've read this a lot, right?
- [Jennifer] Yeah, I've read this a lot, but I need to explain because I'm sure people relate to me on this. When you read certain scriptures, it's not that you don't say, "And I know I'm not perfect, "I know that there's sin in my life, "and I'm willing to have open eyes "and for God to reveal that to me, "but when I read this I go, 'well, I'm not really "'struggling with those things, "'I don't really have drinking parties or whatever.'" But you broke it down in a way that makes this verse relatable to all sinners. And so I wanna share that.
- [Aaron] And let's remember what the context of this is. Christ's suffering, being armed with this way of thinking, recognizing that our flesh, having our flesh suffer while walking in the Spirit is how we cease from sin, it is how we walk the way God wants us to. And so he gives the contrast, he says, "For the time that has past suffices for doing "what the Gentiles want to do." Now when it says, "Gentiles," it's meaning Godless people. Gentiles were anyone that wasn't a Jewish person. And so what he's pointing out is not specifically Gentiles, he's saying anyone doesn't have God, isn't walking with God. And want to do, saying this is the way they want to be. And then it says, "Living in sensualities, "passions, drunkenness," and what I did is I broke down what these things are.
- [Jennifer] And how they're all related.
- 'Cause they're specific.
- Yeah, they're very specific, and I didn't realize that they were even related. I just thought it was one of those lists, you know?
- [Aaron] Again, if you're listening and you have your Bible, the want to do part. Okay, it's want to live in sensuality, and passions, and drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry, right? And like you said, "Well see I don't "struggle with those things." And maybe someone like me that struggled with pornography might point out sensuality and passions like okay, yeah, but I've never done orgies, that's not me. But I wanna highlight that through Christ and his suffering and him giving us of his Holy Spirit we've been freed from the want to do, right? He's changing our desires to be his, he's giving us a hatred of sin because he hates sin.
- [Jennifer] And I think in conjunction, the convictions become stronger and so we hear the Holy Spirit loud and clear when we go to do something that we shouldn't be doing, right?
- [Aaron] Our prayer and constant desire should be that he's consistently giving us new desires and new cravings. I pray, "Lord, give me a craving for your Word." I don't naturally in my flesh have enough craving for God's Word, let alone reading. Sorry if you relate to that, reading's not something I just crave to do, but there's some people that love reading. But I want God to change those desires so the want to do is an amazing thing that God's freed us from that we're no longer slaves to sin. That's the want to do.
- [Jennifer] We're not slaves to our flesh.
- [Aaron] We're not slaves to our flesh, God severed that slavery with his Spirit. And now we can actually walk in that Spirit when we focus on that Spirit and we walk in his ways in his Word, that's how this works. So I'm gonna define some of these things. Sensuality, it's not just sexual. Our definition of sensuality is usually very sexual and this absolutely does mean sexual, sensuality. But it's not only sexual. Sexual's one sense. It's one sense being usually this physical pleasure.
- [Jennifer] That's what comes to my mind when I think about it.
- [Aaron] But sensuality in the biblical use is unbridled lust. Unbridled lust. This idea of lust, I see something, I take it. So think about your five senses, sensual, it's a sensation experience. You're looking for you five senses to be pleasured. I want my eyes to see the most beautiful things.
- [Jennifer] Or whatever I want them to see.
- [Aaron] Or whatever I want them to see. I want my hands to touch whatever is gonna make my mind feel good.
- [Jennifer] I want my mouth to say whatever I feel.
- [Aaron] Or taste, right? So you think about your five senses and sensuality is living to please your five senses with whatever pleases your five senses. That's what sensuality is. Often, sexual things encompass all of them, which is why it's usually accompanied with sensuality as a sexual thing because sexual things please pretty much all your senses. But food, music, all of these things, not that those things in themselves are sinful, I want everyone to clearly hear me. It's living in a way that you want your senses pleased. 'Cause that's the opposite of suffering. That's the opposite of suffering. It's living for pleasure in every sense. You want your five senses taken care of, and if anyone of them are hindered or hurt or suffer, you're not happy, and something's wrong, and God must be angry or I'm not close to God.
- [Jennifer] And you can see this in the flesh when you feel the conviction of either someone saying something to you about something that you're doing or the Holy Spirit just does it and you feel defensive. You immediately wanna justify that thing that it's not that bad, or that it's this or that it's that and you become, you wanna fight for it. There's gotta be a way that I can still have this in my life.
- [Aaron] Yeah, so example of this is you're doing something and you're not recognizing it, and a brother or sister in Christ comes up and says, "Hey, I noticed that you're talking a certain way "or you did this certain thing." And you're like, "Don't judge me, get out of my way." And you immediately feel like you've been judged or wronged or hurt. In reality, you're just getting checked in your spirit and your flesh doesn't like it.
- [Jennifer] I also wanna be realistic, most people don't say, "Don't judge me." What they'll do is say, "Oh, okay," and then never talk to that person again. They don't even communicate.
- [Aaron] Or say, "Well let's just agree to disagree instead of again, suffering the flesh, humbling yourself and saying, "Maybe there is something I need to grow on."
- [Jennifer] Or, "Man, that recognition alone just hurt. "And I'm gonna walk in that for a little bit "and see where God wants to take it."
- [Aaron] So I wanna read this, I read this from Wikipedia. It's the definition of hedonism, which by the way, is this idea of pleasure-centered living. Like I'm looking to please all my senses, hedonism. "And it's a school of thought," this is what Wikipedia says, "Hedonism is a school of thought "that argues pleasure and suffering "are the only components of well-being. "Ethical hedonism is the view that combines "hedonism with welfarist ethics, "which claim that what we should do depends exclusively on what effects "the well-being individuals have. "Ethical hedonists would defend "either increasing pleasure or reducing suffering "for all beings capable of experiencing them "or just reducing suffering." So think about that. It's as long as I'm not suffering, I'm happy. Or I wanna be pleasured, and if I can't have pleasure I just don't wanna suffer. Now I want everyone listening to think about that 'cause we have areas in our life, Jennifer and I, we were talking about this that we think this way. Like, "Oh, I'm good with all this as long as "I don't have to go without food for a day." Or "As long as I'm not gonna feel this pain over here "or I'm not gonna have to say no to my flesh in this area." Right, we all have this level of pleasure-centered focus or at least avoidance of suffering. That's what this idea of hedonism is.
- [Jennifer] Basically if we're living to pleasure our five senses we can't possibly be pleasing or pleasuring God.
- [Aaron] Exactly because he might ask us to do something that doesn't feel good. Right?
- Yeah.
- [Aaron] And so a litmus test is for us to ask ourselves in those situations when we feel like we're just, it doesn't feel good, something's going on, we're having this emotional, which I'm about to talk about, we can ask ourselves, am I trying to avoid letting my flesh suffer a little bit? Am I trying to avoid saying no to my flesh?
- [Jennifer] Okay, so the next one is passions and when I think of the word, passions, I immediately think of things that I'm either passionate about or people who've said--
- [Aaron] It's usually a positive thing, yeah.
- [Jennifer] "I'm just a passionate person." But yeah, it's usually a positive thing or maybe it has to do with extracurricular activities or something like that. But why don't you share more about that?
- [Aaron] So passions, the definition of passions in the dictionary is essentially uncontrolled or emotional outbursts. It's this like passion outburst of anger, which the Bible says wrath is not good, "The wrath of man does not produce "the righteousness of God." And wrath is an uncontrolled, emotional outburst. Or uncontrollable sadness, or uncontrollable joy or happiness. I'm just trying to get whatever emotions these are, out. And what this idea is is someone who lives purely off their emotions. Like, "Oh, I'm not happy, so things are wrong." But you know what, you know how many stories there are in the Bible of people that, like a lot of David's songs or him not happy. Now they still end joyfully 'cause he knows who his Lord is and his Redeemer, but he's in the muck and the mire. He's in a cave, cold and scared, the emotional, passionate person who lives by their emotions would say, "David was doing something wrong because he wasn't happy," but that's not true. David was right where God had him, he was doing what he could do in God's will. Now I'm not saying emotions are bad. God's given us all of these things. Our senses are good things. Our passions, our emotions are good things, but these are fleshly things, meaning if they're the things that drive us and dictate us then the Spirit of God is not.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, I was just gonna say if someone's motivated to maintain a certain emotion or are drawn out of their emotions to act, they can't serve their emotions and serve God.
- [Aaron] A good example in Scripture says, "Be angry and do not sin."
- [Jennifer] So that's a perfect example of having and experiencing an emotion--
- [Aaron] But not letting it control you.
- [Jennifer] But not letting it control you and not acting out of it.
- [Aaron] Yeah, you know how hard it is to love someone who is harming you or doing you wrong? But that's what Scripture calls us to do.
- Because Christ did it.
- Because Christ did it. So, there's things that our emotions will want us to do, wrath, outbursts, laughter, like lots of things. But God wants the Spirit to be in control, not our emotions. And I wanna add to this, often, so based on the sensuality things when our five senses aren't being met with what they want that's when our emotions react. I'm hungry, you know the whole term, "I'm hangry." So you're having a sense, one of your five senses not being taken care of.
- [Jennifer] Your emotions heighten.
- [Aaron] And so you let your emotions go to get what you want, right? That is not being in self-control. That is not walking by the Spirit, that's walking in the flesh. And so I broke these down all like this to show us that this way of being is not the way the believer should be. That doesn't mean we're not gonna fall into our emotions at times, we're not to be these emotionless robots. What happens is God's given us a way to walk in the Spirit, even amidst the heaviest emotional times. Like sadness and brokenness and fear, and we can walk in the Spirit in those things.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, how do you submit those to God and walk righteously amidst feeling those really deep things?
- [Aaron] So it all goes back to the, men, this is a universal doctrine that it doesn't matter where you're at, it doesn't matter what you're going through, God has given you the freedom and through the Spirit of God to rise above those things and to appropriate those emotions where they belong. In your sadness to go to God and weep before him. And he says, "I've bottled up every tear." So knowing that we can actually run to the Father, "I'm so angry right now, God, take my anger from me. "Show me how to not be angry with my wife, or my husband."
- [Jennifer] My kids.
- [Aaron] Or we can just handle it ourselves and let's just take that emotion, and let's just--
- Run with it.
- Run with it. And what usually happens, and everyone's thinking about those things when they've let their emotions run, we regret it every time. And we look back and we say, "Well, that wasn't godly, "that was not what Christ would've done."
- [Jennifer] Or "Man, I just wish I was different." When we can be, it's just the choices we're making.
- [Aaron] So I wanna go on to the next part, which--
- [Jennifer] Feels like an obvious one.
- Right, drunkenness.
- Drunkenness. Well, it's not just intoxication though.
- [Aaron] Well, you're right.
- [Jennifer] It is, when you look up the definition, drunkenness, it's being intoxicated by something like alcohol.
- [Aaron] Right, and this is clearly talking about no believer should get drunk.
- [Jennifer] The Bible talks too much about being sober minded.
- [Aaron] And not being drunk specifically. So I do wanna clarify I'm not saying this doesn't mean you can go get drunk. No believer should be getting drunk ever.
- [Jennifer] All of these things mean what they are. They also have--
- Deeper spiritual meanings.
- Deeper spiritual meanings that we can apply to address our sinful nature.
- [Aaron] So let's talk about what drunkenness is. Yes, it's being drunk on alcohol or some sort of drug. Your mind, it's overtaken by something else, which is essentially what drunkenness is. You're allowing a substance, an external force to take over your flesh, that's what drunkenness is. You drink enough alcohol, what happens? The Bible talks about it, you start saying things you would never say out loud, you start acting a way you would never act.
- [Jennifer] I always say that or associated it with the word uncontrolled, like that person's uncontrolled right now, but I never considered the aspect of it you actually being controlled by that thing that you just ingested.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and I'll give an example, Proverbs 20, verse one says, "Wine is a mocker." So it's saying that the alcohol has an influence to cause you to mock. "Strong drink a brawler." Wants you to fight. All of these things are very fleshly things. "And whoever is led astray by it is not wise." So now nowhere in Scripture does it say you're not allowed to drink. Now some people will take it that way, and we're talking about alcohol so I'm just bringing it up. But 100% absolutely no believer should be getting drunk on anything. But the next thing I'm gonna talk about. And it says, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, "and whoever is led astray," so I've given myself over to this substance, this thing to now do what it wants with me. Like not as if it's a real person, but we have these basic, all these things that are talking about the flesh, we have these basic ways of being in the deep parts of us.
- [Jennifer] It's the way he designed us, like he designed us to--
- [Aaron] But he wants it under control. Not let go of. And so the other part I wanna say is in Ephesians five, 18 it says, "Do not get drunk "with wine," again there's a direct command, don't get drunk with wine, "For that is debauchery. "But be filled with the Spirit." So it's saying, don't let your flesh go by letting it be overtaken with wine, alcohol, other substances, but be filled with the Spirit of God.
- [Jennifer] This also shows that deeper spiritual meaning of what we're trying to show here when you talk about drunkenness because drunken by the Spirit, that sounds weird, but it's because of that deeper meaning that we're talking about.
- [Aaron] And at the base level of what drunkenness is, it's literally the removal of the natural functions that God's put in us, that inhibition in us, that conscience, that ability and restraint that is naturally in us to like, maybe there's something I wanna say, but I'm not gonna say it 'cause that's not appropriate. You're drunk and it just comes out of your mouth. So what you're doing is you're living in the sensuality way you want all your senses met, you're living with your emotions and then you wanna be drunk and you want to release the natural built in barriers that God's given you to protect you from doing or saying--
- [Jennifer] Sinful things.
- [Aaron] Yeah, things that don't honor you, don't honor others, don't honor God. And so again, it's like this, I wanna just let it all out, I don't want any control, it's the exact opposite of self-control. It's no control. Which then leads us into the awkward one, orgies.
- [Jennifer] Which everybody's thinking sexual experience.
- [Aaron] Which again, it means that.
- [Jennifer] It is, but it also means more than that.
- [Aaron] Right, if you look at orgies at the base idea of what an orgy is, it's overindulgence. So all the things we just talked about, it's doing all of it without restraint.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, no barriers, no limitations, as long as you want, as much as you want.
- [Aaron] Yeah, oh and that was another good donut.
- [Jennifer] That was a good box of donuts.
- [Aaron] Those two boxes of donuts were amazing, right, but of course I would feel gross after that. Or alcohol, like alcoholics, they don't restrain themselves. And we're talking about these things that go in the mouth, but think about anything. Anything in your life that you don't want any restraint on.
- [Jennifer] So it's overindulgence, and it's giving into your flesh, and you're never satisfied, you're never satiated.
- [Aaron] Yeah, when you're in the flesh--
- It's never enough.
- The flesh never has enough. You know who says this, Solomon says it in Ecclesiastes one, eight. It says, "All things are full of weariness, "a man cannot utter it. "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, "nor the ear filled with hearing."
- [Jennifer] Okay so just that made me think of the porn industry. They get hooked at an early age, but then it's not enough to gratify what their eye is seeing, so it gets worse and worse, deeper and deeper into these things that are just wicked.
- [Aaron] And worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.
- [Jennifer] And still yet never satisfied.
- [Aaron] And this is like the exact opposite of what Christ wants for us. In that verse it says, "The time has past that suffices," means we've done enough of this. Literally he's saying that we have freedom from this unsatisfied, never ending cycle.
- [Jennifer] Well, what did Christ say to the woman at the well?
- [Aaron] Oh, yeah, so the woman comes to him and she asks for water and he says, "If you would ask me I would have given you water "that you would never thirst again." And she says, "Where's this water, give it to me."
- [Jennifer] So it's this contrast of allow your flesh to rule you and never be satisfied or walk in the Spirit and be who you are in Christ with freedom and be completely satisfied.
- [Aaron] Right, and Christ, God wants us to be satisfied in him alone. And so when we walk in the flesh, like this idea of orgies it's like I just wanna go somewhere that's gonna give me everything I want and as much of it as I can. And this is not the way of the believer. We are satisfied, completely satisfied in Christ. And so this was a historical note, I saw when looking up this idea of orgies, which I did very carefully by the way.
- [Jennifer] Which if you think about that.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and historically the word comes from, it's a Greek word, orgia or something like that, but what it was was it was a ritual, secret rites used to worship a Roman god. And the Roman god was the god of grapes and vines and caused men to be crazy. So it's this idea of when we have this way of being, we're like, "I just wanna go and I wanna throw "all my inhibition out, and I wanna drink, "and I wanna eat, and I wanna have fun, "and I want my five senses pleased, "and I wanna just be happy." You're literally worshiping something other than God. That's this idea when you walk in the flesh in this way. So we're gonna go to the next one, there's two more, we're almost done. Drinking parties, and this idea of drinking parties is exactly what it says, these parties that you're just going to get drunk.
- [Jennifer] Again, in reading the list in Scripture I skip over 'cause I go, "Well, I'm not doing that."
- [Aaron] But the deeper idea is parties meaning multiple, meaning many others, meaning you're inviting others to partake in all of this way of being. That's the way that the people that don't know God, the Bible says, "Don't associate with the wicked "for they can't even seep until they've caused bloodshed "or until they've caught people in their snare." Like these ideas of drawing others into the same way of living fleshly.
- [Jennifer] And it can be as simple as you're sitting in a room full of friends and you start gossiping. The invitations can be subtle, but I think that the reason people do it is because they don't want to do it alone, they don't want to be alone in their sin. They're seeking approval so if I can get so and so to do it along with me, then there's this sense of approval that it's okay. Or maybe wrestling with the shame and guilt that comes with sin that you wanna forget about and so you have others join in, I mean there's a lot of different reasons why.
- [Aaron] Well, I'll give a great example in my own life, and it's something I'm not proud of, but when I was deep into pornography, and I would meet new men in churches there were pastors or they were like older or wiser and deep down inside either I thought, "There's no way that he's not addicted to pornography "just like me," or I hoped that he was because I didn't want to be the only one. And I thought, "No, every single one "of these guys does too."
- It's so broken.
- It's so broken. So in my mind, this drinking parties idea, this idea of like, "Oh, we're in this together. "He's a sinner like me and he does the same things as I do, "and I actually hoped he did."
- [Jennifer] I think this is a good time to caution us to evaluate ourselves. Are we inviting others to partake in sin that maybe we're not recognizing as sin or we've pushed away that conviction from the Holy Spirit and let's ask God this week, "What areas of my life "have I been inviting people to partake "in with me that aren't righteous?"
- [Aaron] Well, it first takes that self-evaluation of like, "God, is there anything "in me that you want out of me?" A good example in the marriage, do you remember when we were going through financial stuff? I would let you spend the way we probably shouldn't spend knowing that it would let me spend the way I wanted to spend.
- [Jennifer] Right, 'cause then when you would request something I would have to say yes.
- [Aaron] Because I'd be like, "Well, I let you get your thing." And essentially we were just pulling each other down.
- [Jennifer] That's really good. So in marriage that's often where the invitation starts.
- [Aaron] Keyword, drinking party. Don't invite me, just kidding.
- [Jennifer] Don't invite me.
- [Aaron] Last thing, lawless idolatry. Everything we just walked through is lawless idolatry and here's why. It's self-worship.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, how I feel, what I want--
- [Aaron] Is god.
- [Jennifer] Well, it should be God.
- [Aaron] No, what I was saying is what you feel and what you want is god, is your god.
- [Jennifer] Right, is your god. But what we should be saying is--
- [Aaron] "God, what you want." "God, do you want me to be hungry right now?" And I keep talking about these physical things because this is the idea.
- [Jennifer] Well, that's where it starts.
- [Aaron] We are to be spiritual people. Jesus told the woman at the well that same story. She's talking about where they worship 'cause she was a Samaritan, he's a Jew and he says, "There's gonna be a day "that you will neither worship there or here, "but my people worship me in spirit and in truth." Not worshiping in passions and sensuality and as Jude says, and that happens even in the church. I'm gonna worship God with my senses, and if I don't sense God and feel God, and my senses aren't being met and pleasured by the Spirit of God then I must be far from God. But you know what, there's many people in the Bible that were in the pit. I think of Paul, and he's singing worship songs, naked and cold in prison. In that moment most people would be like, "I don't feel close to God. "He's not helping me, this doesn't feel good." But Paul knew exactly who his savior was and he knew that what he was dealing with as he says in Scripture, he says, "For I have ascertained that my current suffering "is nothing to be compared with the coming glory." What that means is that this temporary suffering, the little bit of saying no in my flesh, the little bit of pain that I feel, the little bit of depraving of my own desires for the sake of God's will and God's thing that he wants done in my life and in others is so little to be compared with the glory that I'm gonna experience when he returns.
- [Jennifer] Which is a hopeful message for us as Christians. We should hear that and be like, "Yes, we're in agreeance here." We should be willing to suffer, and this is why suffering in the flesh is good for us.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and a lot of people don't like talking about suffering, but this again is a universal doctrine that Christians should understand and walk in that my flesh does not get to win in my life.
- [Jennifer] And when we feel those convictions from the Holy Spirit going day to day, whatever it might be, when you don't tell yourself no, you're putting yourself in a place of worship that you should not be in. You're idolizing yourself, you're saying, "God, I'm more important that you."
- [Aaron] My comfort's more important that your will. My pleasure's more important that your Word. And so each one of these is like this progress of worshiping self verses Creator. Worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. My comfort, my pleasures, my senses are much more important than what God's doing in my life.
- [Jennifer] A dangerous place to be.
- [Aaron] And a good example of this is the reason why many people have a hard time getting out of debt or quitting certain addictions or making life changes is because that's too difficult for my flesh to handle, even though God's like, "But I'm gonna "give you the strength to do it."
- [Jennifer] Yeah, I think too, just to shed a little bit more perspective on this idea of suffering, I think sometimes we only go so far to see what we would suffer in the midst of saying no to our flesh. So like it's that little bit of--
- [Aaron] "I tried."
- [Jennifer] Yeah, but we see what suffering equals when we say no to our flesh, but we don't look beyond that to see what suffering looks like when we don't say no to our flesh, the consequences, the hurt, the pain, the death, the sin that comes.
- [Aaron] The shame.
- [Jennifer] Because of the choices that we make. And that's what all of this, of what we're talking about today comes down to choice. You're gonna choose to walk in the Spirit or you're gonna choose to gratify the desires of the flesh.
- [Aaron] And you know what believer, you're listening to this?
- [Jennifer] You have been set free.
- [Aaron] Yeah, you're not a slave to sin and death. We can choose to walk in the Spirit that God's given us. He dwells in us, giving life to our mortal bodies. How amazing is that? So this isn't a go suffer and find your righteousness through just self-depravity and self-abasement. That's not what we're talking about. There are some faiths and some religions that believe that. If you just make yourself suffer enough, you'll be righteous. Now the point is we're already righteous, and the way a righteous person walks with the Spirit of God is we don't gratify the desires of our flesh. And when we do, we recognize it, we repent, and we say, "Thank you, Lord, for forgiving me. "And give me your power to walk better next time "to beat that thing that is in my life "because you have beat it on the cross."
- [Jennifer] Amen, so here's the charge for us this week and forever. And it's that first part of that verse that you started us off with there and it's, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh," our Christ, our Lord, our Savior suffered in the flesh, "Arm yourself with the same way of thinking." We have to think like him.
- [Aaron] This current fleshly body we live in is temporary and the simplest way to put this is Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me." The cross is the instrument of the death of our flesh. So let's crawl up on that cross and let's take it with us and let's ask the Holy Spirit, "Lord, teach me. "Teach me how to say no to my flesh "when it craves things that are in opposition to you." Some of us struggle with pride, I just wanna throw that one in there, that's a flesh thing. That's pride, that's the flesh wanting to be elevated and recognized, rather than humbled and God being recognized. So we always end in prayer. Jennifer, why don't you pray for us?
- [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for your Word and how it cuts us to the heart. Thank you for teaching us through your Word. We pray your Word would continue to transform us as we learn it and choose to walk out all that you've commanded us to. We pray we would be people who recognize parts of our hearts that need to change, sin that needs to be repented of, motivations that are not pure, and actions that do not reflect your ways for the purpose of repentance and reconciliation and growth may your will be done in us and through us, may your light shine brightly through our marriages as we encourage one another to draw closer to you. In Jesus's name, amen.
- [Aaron] Amen, we love you guys, and we thank you for joining us this week. Please consider leaving us a review and a star rating. You just gotta go to the bottom of your podcast app and tap one of those stars and leave a review, we love those, and they help other people find the episodes, find the podcast. And also don't forget to get the free Marriage Prayer Challenge, MarriagePrayerChallenge.com. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also if you're interested you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| Fun & Unique Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas For Your Spouse | 13 Jan 2020 | 00:41:21 | |
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, we thought it would be fun to share some gift ideas to help inspire you. All of the gifts we share in this episode are things that we love and use often. ONE QUICK NOTE: If you are trying to get out of debt we suggest skipping gifts for a while. Instead, find free ways to bless each other and show your spouse your are thinking of them. We never want to promote spending when we can't or shouldn't.
PRAYER: Dear Lord, Thank you for being the ultimate gift giver. Thank You for the gift of marriage. We pray our hearts would be pure in the way we give gifts to each other. We pray we would be thoughtful in the ways we give to each other. Help us to study and know our spouse well enough to give them gifts we know they will love. More than giving good gifts, we pray our love would be genuine and deep and extraordinary as we pursue intimacy with each other. Grow our love for one another…. In Jesus’ name, amen!
READ THE TRANSCRIPT - [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with "Marriage After God."
- [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
- [Aaron] And today we're gonna share some unique Valentine's Day gift ideas for your spouse. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.
- [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife.
- [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution.
- [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade.
- [Aaron] And so far we have four young children.
- [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.
- [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.
- [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life--
- [Aaron] Love--
- [Jennifer] And power--
- [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God.
- [Jennifer] Together.
- [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.
- [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God."
- [Aaron] Hey, welcome back to another episode of the "Marriage After God" podcast. This is the second episode in season three of the "Marriage After God" podcast, and it's gonna be a fun one. We're gonna talk about gift ideas and Valentine's Day, and these are fun episodes that we get to do. It's just to become a resource for you to help you in stuff that you guys are trying to pursue with each other. But before we begin today, I just wanna check in with my wife. How are you doing?
- [Jennifer] I'm doing good, I'm doing better, I should say.
- [Aaron] Yeah.
- [Jennifer] I don't know if people can hear it in my voice, I--
- [Aaron] She hasn't stopped laughing for 15 minutes.
- [Jennifer] It's been really hard, guys. We went to go record this episode and I could not stop laughing. Something was hysterical but really it was nothing, and that made it even funnier.
- [Aaron] And I'm sitting over here not laughing.
- [Jennifer] Though I think it's spiritual because we're trying to record. I couldn't stop, but I finally got my bearings and I'm here, and I'm excited to do this with you, Aaron.
- [Aaron] Yeah, so, me too, now. It's the second week of the year, 2020, new decade. How do you think things are going? I know it's new, but.
- [Jennifer] Yes, I would say so far, so good. I mean, I'm still looking forward to this year. I think one thing that I've already been noticing is that I have this hopefulness to savor this year so that it doesn't feel like it flies by super fast.
- [Aaron] Yeah, 2019 felt like it went really fast.
- [Jennifer] Really fast.
- [Aaron] Every time I looked at the calendar, I was like, wait a minute, we're in the third quarter. What's going on?
- [Jennifer] Yeah, how is this already possible? So I'm hoping that this year just is a slow year for us and for our family.
- [Aaron] Yeah. Well, seeing our kids grow up also.
- [Jennifer] It breaks my heart, really.
- [Aaron] It feels like it's going way too fast.
- [Jennifer] Why do they have to grow up every year? If they skipped a year, it'd be cool.
- [Aaron] I actually think time is going by faster 'cause when I was kid, I remember time feeling like it was going so slow.
- [Jennifer] Playing in the backyard for hours.
- [Aaron] And then people say when you get older, time flies or goes faster. But we even asked our kids, and my son Elliott, he was like, "Dad, why does it feel like every day goes by so fast?" So my son--
- [Jennifer] Even feels that.
- [Aaron] Is even feeling time go by fast, so I'm wondering if there's something to that. Maybe the earth is spinning faster or something like that, I don't know.
- [Jennifer] There's still 24 hours in a day.
- [Aaron] Yeah, just real quick, what is something you're looking forward to in 2020? I know that there's stuff around our house that you like to do.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, so specifically this week, I'm really excited to prune our trees. When we moved into this house, it was kind of bare ground in the sense that we got to do whatever we wanted with it and we decided, on the side of our house, we had this space. I really wanted to plant a little mini orchard. So if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see pictures of it throughout the seasons.
- [Aaron] We've got some apples, we've got some peaches.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, and I've never been able, I've never really had the opportunity to cultivate fruit trees before. I really don't know what I'm doing, thank you YouTube and friends who share their information with me. But I've just learned kind of the art of pruning and I practice it, and January's my time to practice. And so this week I'm gonna get out there. I use pruning to shape the trees and also to keep them, to keep their form small because our backyard is small.
- [Aaron] Yeah, we don't want them to get huge. We wanna keep them small trees.
- [Jennifer] But also, though, pruning stimulates growth which is exciting, so it's kind of like--
- [Aaron] It's almost biblical.
- [Jennifer] It is biblical, which I also love that whole thing about that.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and you've been loving doing it. It's therapeutic for you.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, so even in the summertime, I'm actually looking forward to January 'cause I think, oh I get to prune my trees again.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and we also get to see the fruit that comes from it, literally. Like literally fruit grow on these trees. Something that I'm looking forward to doing this year, and I'm trying to do, I've already implemented it already. I bought a journal for each one of my kids and I'm gonna, we did this parenting class a couple months ago and I felt convicted that I'm not taking time to study my children. And that sounds intense, but I'm not taking time to just evaluate the things that they like, the things that they say, how they act.
- [Jennifer] What they're going through.
- [Aaron] What they're going through, yeah. Evaluating their spiritual, where they're at spiritually, where they're at in their heart and emotionally, and even physically. So I'm just, I don't know how exactly I'm gonna do it. I started doing it, I'm just writing notes down in a journal about each kid.
- [Jennifer] But I have to, I was gonna say, I have to explain this whole, what happened, because you didn't tell me that you were gonna be doing this and he's unboxing these journals on the bed. And I didn't know they were journals at first. I just saw these different colors.
- [Aaron] She's like, "What are you doing?"
- [Jennifer] I'm all, "Are those Christmas presents?" 'cause this was just a couple weeks ago. And I thought they were a part of all the other gifts that were coming in from Amazon. And he goes, "Oh, they're journals for the kids "and each one," and he holds up the yellow one. And I'm like, "Is that for Wyatt?" and he goes, "Yup," 'cause yellow, Wyatt calls himself the yellow boy, yeah he likes yellow. And you got a pinkish purple one for Olive.
- [Aaron] A blue one for Elliott.
- [Jennifer] And I think a gray one for Truett.
- [Aaron] Yeah, oh I think that's backwards. I think the gray one's for Elliott and blue one's for Truett.
- [Jennifer] Okay. And so he's putting them on his shelf and he's like, "You know, I just, I really feel "like I need to study my kids," and my heart sank in a good way. It was such a beautiful picture of a dad's heart for his children and something I never even thought to do myself.
- [Aaron] You do have a journal for the kids, though.
- [Jennifer] I write to them, though.
- [Aaron] You write them letters.
- [Jennifer] I write them letters and prayers, and it's quarterly, so I don't do it all the time. But this is different. This is a way for you to get to know them in a very deep and personal way, and to keep your eyes on them. And I just, I was blown away by that. And so I'm really excited for you and jumping into this, even though I know you're still figuring out what it's gonna look like.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and I'm not doing it every day. My intention originally was to do it every day. And I'm like, okay, I can't do that.
- [Jennifer] We got a lot of kids.
- [Aaron] Yeah, but when I think about it, I'm gonna pull them out and I'm gonna write down observations of my children in it. And so it's not necessarily for them, it's for me. But one day they'll probably read it and they'll learn a little bit about themselves, probably. Okay, cool. So I just wanna encourage everyone that's listening to download a free thing that we came up with for you guys. It's called "52 Date Night Conversation Starters". It's an e-book that we made for you. And the point of it was to inspire your date life. We have a whole episode talking about date nights and putting it on the calendar, and you should go check that out. We're real huge advocates for having a scheduled date night.
- [Jennifer] We're also huge advocates for conversations and communicating well with your spouse, which is why we've combined these two. And we wanted to give you something that would stimulate those really good conversations during date night.
- [Aaron] Yeah, so you go to DateNightConversations.com, all one word. And you can download it for free, just give us your email address and boom, you'll have that PDF. And what you do is you can print it out. And there's one for every week of the year. And so the encouragement is, hey go on a date every week. And what's awesome is that you're gonna have a conversation about something deep. Why don't you give some examples?
- [Jennifer] I was gonna say, so that's your freebie. But here's your freebie. This is for everyone listening. We're gonna give you three sample questions that you could ask on the date night. This is what you would get if you were to sign up for this. So the first one is, I thank God for our life together because.
- [Aaron] Dot, dot, dot.
- [Jennifer] So you get to answer that.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and then you spend the time, while you're eating or getting a dessert, or going for a walk or whatever, and talk about that question.
- [Jennifer] So the next one is, is there any part of my work routine that is negatively impacting our marriage or our family? So I feel like this is a really good one to kind of evaluate, where are we at, what's going on, and what can I contribute to this by sharing my heart with you?
- [Aaron] Right, and if work routine doesn't work in both roles, you could say routine. Is there anything during my day that I do regularly that maybe needs to be massaged, moved around, cut out all together?
- [Jennifer] Yeah, and the recommendation is that you guys ask each other the same question.
- [Aaron] Exactly. Number three is, if we envision ourselves in our 90s, sitting on the porch in matching rocking chairs, if you would look over at me and say, "I wish we,"
- [Jennifer] Dot, dot, dot.
- [Aaron] Yeah, so it's this idea that, why don't you transport yourself to 90 years from now, or when you're 90, and then ask yourself what you would have been doing today. That's kind of the idea. But these are fun, creative, there's 52 of them. This is just three of the 52. So we wanna encourage you to go get that DateNightConversations.com. Completely free, go download that.
- [Jennifer] All right, today's topic is unique gift ideas for him and her on Valentine's Day. And the reason we wanted to bring this up is 'cause in just a few weeks, everyone around the world is gonna be celebrating Valentine's Day. Not everyone, but you know, a lot of people.
- [Aaron] Not in some countries. I don't even know who celebrates it, but, lots of people.
- [Jennifer] My point is this, it's gonna be in our faces. It's gonna be everywhere. And we just thought we'd give it some thought beforehand because if you're like Aaron and I, getting inspired is key for gift giving in marriage.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and can I be a little honest about my disposition towards Valentine's Day?
- [Jennifer] Quickly, go.
- [Aaron] Okay, I'm just gonna be quick.
- [Jennifer] Hold on, let me cover my ears.
- [Aaron] I'm not a huge fan of feeling obligated to give gifts, and I feel like sometimes certain holidays do that. That's not to say if you love doing this, and you love the holiday, don't listen to me. But if you're kinda like me, then don't feel like this podcast is for you, necessarily. Or maybe it might inspire you and you won't feel like I feel sometimes. I'm just being honest, sometimes I feel. But I've had to, I've been challenged by people in my life to not take it as an obligation, but take it as an opportunity.
- [Jennifer] Opportunity, I like that. Also, I just wanna encourage those of you who are listening and maybe you're not married yet, that you can use these gift ideas for a significant other in your life. Maybe you're dating or--
- [Aaron] Or a family member, maybe.
- [Jennifer] Or a fiance.
- [Aaron] Or a friend that's also single with you. That's a good idea.
- [Jennifer] Okay, so gift giving is actually an art. I think it is. I don't think I'm very good at it.
- [Aaron] Some people are gifted at it, for sure.
- [Jennifer] When I think about how I give gifts, sometimes I'm so embarrassed because my wrapping skills are off the charts terrible.
- [Aaron] Your rapping skills, like rhymes, or wrapping?
- [Jennifer] No, like wrapping paper.
- [Aaron] But that sometimes makes the gift even better, the way you wrap it.
- [Jennifer] I always opt for the bag and tissue 'cause I don't like, I can make it look cool without having to do much work.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and it is an art form. Some people are really gifted at it naturally. They're just so thoughtful in the way that they give gifts. And some of us aren't that way. So sometimes we just need to be inspired with ideas. That's kinda the point of this podcast.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, so Aaron and I, why don't we just share a little bit of our experience of giving gifts in marriage and what that journey's been like.
- [Aaron] I've tried to be really creative over the years, and some of them hit big, some of them flopped. And it's not necessarily that you didn't like the gifts, they're just, they're different, the way that they are received and the intention behind it versus how it actually turns out.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, I'd also say it depends on what's going on in that season of life that that gift is given because one of the things I'm gonna share later, I'll point it out later 'cause I don't wanna give it away yet, but it was very significant to the season of life I was in. It stood out to me more.
- [Aaron] And we've done all sorts of things. Sometimes we don't give gifts on certain days. Sometimes we do experiences, we do things together.
- [Jennifer] Sometimes we just look over at each other when the time is coming and we go, "We're not doing gifts, right?"
- [Aaron] And we're like, "No, no gifts. "Promise me you're not gonna."
- [Jennifer] If we're on the same page, it's good. If we're not on the same page or haven't talked about it, then feelings--
- [Aaron] Remember, conversations. We talk about these things.
- [Jennifer] I was gonna say, there have been times where I've felt a little neglected or left out. I don't know if you ever have, but sometimes you look at an opportunity and maybe you didn't get something you expected to get or desired to get.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and we weren't gonna talk about this, but I do wanna just encourage anyone that, a day like Valentine's Day shouldn't be an opportunity for us to feel neglected.
- [Jennifer] Or hurt.
- [Aaron] Or hurt. Let's not let it turn into that. If it goes the other way and it's an opportunity to bless and love, and to enjoy a moment together and time together, but let's not let it do the other thing. Let's be above that as Christians.
- [Jennifer] 'Cause it comes out in our responses.
- [Aaron] It does. And we make expectations and criteria that don't necessarily need to be there and we can put burdens and obligations on our spouse or on our fiance that doesn't need to be there. So let's be above that. Let's take the opportunity to maybe use it as an opportunity to bless and love your spouse. But let's not let it do the opposite.
- [Jennifer] That's good. And I just wanna make a note that our ability, Aaron, to give gifts to each other has really grown over time because as we get to know each other more, 'cause we're always getting to know each other. And we recognize the things that inspire us or things that we're learning about and we give gifts based off of those things. It's been really thoughtful.
- [Aaron] Thank you.
- [Jennifer] And then other times, just the thoughtfulness of bringing your spouse their favorite candy. Sometimes even those moments can stand out because they're like, "They know me." That feels good to be known in that way.
- [Aaron] And you've done that, you know I like candy. I don't eat it all the time, but.
- [Jennifer] Aaron's an easy gift receiver.
- [Aaron] I'm easy to shop for, I would say. 'Cause I don't ask for much, just candy.
- [Jennifer] Just candy.
- [Aaron] Good & Plentys, to be specific, so if anyone out there wants to get me candy, or Hot Tamales. Okay, I just wanna do one quick note before another quick note.
- [Jennifer] How many quick notes do we got?
- [Aaron] Lots of quick notes. We don't want this to, we're not gonna try to over spiritualize this. We didn't grab a bunch of scriptures to be like, "See how powerful gift giving can be?" To be honest, we just wanted to have fun with this and give you some gift ideas. And I think it'd be wrong of us to try and turn this into a overly spiritual, here's the rules on how to give gifts. We just wanted to give you some ideas, things that we've loved, things that we've used. And you can take them or leave them. I think it'll just be a simple fun episode.
- [Jennifer] Another quick note is that if you're trying to get out of debt, we suggest skipping gifts for a while. Instead, find free ways to bless each other and show your spouse you're thinking of them. And I'll just give you a handful right here. DIY gifts with materials you already have. Using a talent like drawing, I did this before. I think it was for Christmas. I drew you a picture of us kissing. And it was a really small five by seven, I framed it, it was cute.
- [Aaron] I think we have it somewhere still.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, I do, it's in the mudroom.
- [Aaron] Oh yeah, oh yeah.
- [Jennifer] I cherish it.
- [Aaron] No it's just somewhere I don't ever see. But I like it. Yeah, writing a note, a song, a poem. Those things have deep meaning. But again, the reason I wanted to bring this up is because I don't want anyone to think that we're advocating you should go spend money you don't have. Or that you should spend money when you're trying to get out of debt. Valentine's Day is just another day. It might be an opportunity to give a gift, but you don't have to.
- [Jennifer] We're actually bigger advocates for getting out debt than we are to give gifts.
- [Aaron] That's the best gift.
- [Jennifer] Get out of debt.
- [Aaron] Spouses get out of debt, yeah. So yeah, and real quick, some of our favorite gifts we've received, my favorite thing that I pretty much received is whenever Jennifer has done some sort of special event with me. Either planning a birthday party, which she's done a couple times, or planned a guy's hangout time. She's like, "Hey, I've already set it up. "Here's your friends. "You guys are going here, go hang out, go have fun." Those kinds of things have been really special for me. She knows that I love being around people.
- [Jennifer] He's so social, you guys.
- [Aaron] And Jennifer would love to sit on the couch with me and not do anything. So for her to set something up like that, which makes her not be with me, and gives me time to go be with friends is a huge thing for me. And so those have always been really special to me. And what's been special to you, gifts that we've given?
- [Jennifer] Well the first thing that comes to my mind is all my children, each one of them are a gift.
- [Aaron] You're right.
- [Jennifer] Do you love me for that?
- [Aaron] Couldn't have done it without me.
- [Jennifer] Okay, so the gift that I was thinking about earlier that was very significant to my season of life and it just stands out to me, was Mother's Day 2015. It was just a couple, maybe a week and a half after I had Olive, and there was a little bag sitting on the table for me for Mother's Day. And I opened it up and it was a pendant with an O on it for Olive to match my E that I had for Elliott. So it was one of those--
- [Aaron] You have a necklace that has, you put little letter pendants on it.
- [Jennifer] And it was so thoughtful. It was something I hadn't asked for, which I think that would be my big thing. Is when you give me a surprise or a gift of something that I never requested or asked for, but you know me and you did it because you love me. Those are the kinds of gifts that really stand out to me. Those are my favorite.
- [Aaron] And I know that about you.
- [Jennifer] That's good.
- [Aaron] That you, here's a little quick tip for all the husbands. Just listen to your wife and she'll tell you what she wants throughout the year and you just write them all down and then pick one of them. And they'll be surprised 'cause they'll forget that they said it, but you won't.
- [Jennifer] But it won't sound like a request. It'll just be like a nonchalant, "Oh I really like this." Or, "I really love that."
- [Aaron] "And I wish I had a--" Or, "I've always wanted one of those." That's how they come out.
- [Jennifer] We try and be subtle.
- [Aaron] All right, hey let's just get into some of these gift ideas. We're first gonna give ideas for the men.
- [Jennifer] So all the men have to close their ears, right?
- [Aaron] No. Or they could listen.
- [Jennifer] Sorry guys, this is kinda like giving it away but not.
- [Aaron] So these are all things that I use and have really enjoyed. They're not necessarily gifts that Jennifer's gotten for me, but I'm putting them out there as, hey this would be great because I've loved them and I think other men would love them. I'm gonna start off with my ESV Heirloom Study Bible. It's made out of goat skin, it's all black, it's huge. I love it, I never thought I'd love this big of a bible, but I really love it. And it's pricey, right now it's on Amazon for 217 bucks, where it's usually $375, so it's actually like a hundred bucks off, over a hundred bucks off.
- [Jennifer] Also just a quick side note that these prices could change, depending on when you're listening to this episode. If you're not listening to it at the weekly launch, prices can change.
- [Aaron] Yeah, we have no clue. I have no control over the price.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, and this goes for everything that we list.
- [Aaron] Yeah, I also wanna give a note, we're not being sponsored by any of these people. These are things that we actually have used and loved and enjoyed. I love this bible. It's got 20,000 plus study notes in it. It's got 80,000 plus cross references. Over 200 charts, 50 plus articles, and 240 full color maps and illustrations which I really love because they'll show you an illustration of the temple right in the middle of a chapter when it's talking about a temple. So you get this picture, and you're like whoa, and you see the temple, and it visualizes what you're reading.
- [Jennifer] There's something else it has that you've left off and I just know this because I like this feature about your bible. The different ribbon.
- [Aaron] It's got four ribbons.
- [Jennifer] Instead of just one.
- [Aaron] And I use them, actually. When I teach at church, I have all the ribbons in the spots that I'm trying to jump to.
- [Jennifer] And it's really great because sometimes I don't want to move my ribbon because I want it there for a reason, but I wish I had another one, so I end up sticking a napkin or something.
- [Aaron] Yeah, something in there.
- [Jennifer] Something, whatever's closest to me, a business card, so I like that feature.
- [Aaron] Yeah, it's ESV, I love the ESV translation. It's an amazing bible, it's beautiful too, when you look at it. I know it's expensive, but I wanted to put a note out there. We spend money on lots of other less important things. Why not spend some money on an heirloom family bible that you're gonna hand down to your kids? Just a thought. The second thing is a wallet. Not any wallet, this is a special wallet. It's by a company called Saddleback Leather. And it's awesome. I've had this wallet since 2014.
- [Jennifer] Just to clarify, it's not a dad wallet. So a dad wallet is about five--
- [Aaron] It's not this 14 inch dad wallet.
- [Jennifer] That has everything. But it's more compact and it's simple, and it's perfect.
- [Aaron] It's made out of genuine leather. It's hand stitched. This thing's beautiful. Saddleback Leather has what they call a hundred year warranty. It's like a lifetime warranty, but it's way better 'cause it's called a hundred year warranty. If anything happens, if the threading comes off, if the leather starts to tear, they'll replace it, no questions asked.
- [Jennifer] And it's not the kind that folds open. What you have is just a single kind of billfold.
- [Aaron] Yeah, they call it a front pocket wallet. It's a single thing and it's got these slots. And it's got an open pocket for the ID. And so it doesn't fold open. It literally just stays really compact, really small. And it lasts forever. I've had this since 2014. It's got a few, it's really worn down, really nice and soft. I love this wallet. It keeps me from having too much stuff in my wallet, as well because it only can hold so much. I wish you could see it. I'm holding it right now in my hands. Go check it out though, go to SaddlebackLeather.com, SaddlebackLeather.com, and check it out. It's 49 bucks, it's super cheap actually, 'cause I've seen prices on other wallets and they're really expensive. But for how long this lasts, for the quality of it, for how it feels, for how small it is, I think it's an awesome gift idea for any guy. Unless you're the kind of guy that loves their super thick wallet. Number three, and this goes back to, remember we were talking about the journals I bought to write in for my kids. This is by a company called Baron Fig. Baron, B-A-R-O-N F-I-G, Baron Fig. And they're called the confident hardcover notebook. And these notebooks, they did a lot of research on what people are looking for in a notebook. It lays flat, the way the paper feels, the thickness of the paper, the way the pens write on the paper. Everything about it has been manufactured to fit perfectly what you would want in a journal.
- [Jennifer] And you've been using them for years.
- [Aaron] For years, when I buy a journal, I buy one of theirs. They range from $12 to 22 bucks. Their standard size one, I think it's like $17 or $14. It's not expensive at all. And they ship really fast. They've got 100 and something pages in it. They're just great journals. I use them all the time, I have a couple in my desk right here. Their largest one, I use as my bible study journal and they lay perfectly flat. You just open it up, it lays flat on the table. It doesn't have to, the pages don't bend or anything like that. It's called Baron Fig confident hardcover notebook. Those are awesome. And those are all the journals I bought to write for my kids in it. Number four, this is a little bit more pricey of an item, but--
- [Jennifer] Like much more pricier.
- [Aaron] It's much more pricey, but man, this has got some major benefits to your wife.
- [Jennifer] It's true.
- [Aaron] So wives that are listening, it's not just a gift for your husband. This is a gift for you and you'll see why. It's my Traeger smoker, it's a grill where you can smoke pretty much anything you want on it. And how often do you think I use my smoker?
- [Jennifer] At least once, but even sometimes up to three times a week. It just depends on what it's for, what's going on.
- [Aaron] Pretty much every Sunday, I bring something smoked to church. I smoke a tri tip, or a brisket. That's kind of something I love to bring to church for our after church potluck. And so my church benefits from it even, too. I'm selling this pretty hard. I love my smoker. But they range from anywhere from 400 to $900, a smoker grill.
- [Jennifer] And Traeger's just one brand.
- [Aaron] Trager's one brand, they're not the cheapest brand but they're super high quality. It's the one I have. But there's tons of other brands. There's one called Green Mountain. They have pretty affordable models. They're a great brand. Another one is Pit Boss. Camp Chef is one of the top of the line brands that are out there. And then while doing my research on this, there's a really affordable brand called Z Grills and yeah, you should expect to pay between 400 and $900. But man, we get a lot of use out of this thing. I use it all the time. There's nights that Jennifer's like, "Are you gonna be--"
- [Jennifer] What sides should I make?
- [Aaron] Yeah, "What sides am I making, "'cause you're smoking some pork." Or we're smoking some chicken, we use it all the time. And the flavor you get in the meat is just so good. Anyways, I love my smoker. I couldn't not bring it up because of how much I love it. And how useful it's been to the family, to the church, to giving you breaks for dinners. It's just been amazing.
- [Jennifer] Would you recommend a wife just picking one out for her husband, or more of like a certificate of I wanna get this for you, let's talk about it.
- [Aaron] That's a good point. To be honest, I think they should just, when it comes to these kinds of purchases, you absolutely should discuss it.
- [Jennifer] That's what I was thinking.
- [Aaron] That's a big purchase. 'Cause either he's gonna have a preference for the kind, the brand.
- [Jennifer] But you can still do something cute like put a little note or certificate in a box and say this is for you.
- [Aaron] Buy him some tongs, like a--
- [Jennifer] Oh, a barbecue kit.
- [Aaron] That way he's like, "Wait, what's this for?" And you're like, "For the smoker you're gonna get. "We have to talk about it 'cause it's expensive." But yeah, you should always talk about a purchase like this, just with how expensive it is. Never just do it.
- [Jennifer] And get them what they want and not just pick something because of the expense.
- [Aaron] And then the last gift idea. It's a new thing that I've--
- [Jennifer] This was a gift to yourself, actually.
- [Aaron] I did give this to myself this year. It's called the Ember self-heating coffee mug. And I drink coffee every day, I love coffee.
- [Jennifer] Multiple times a day.
- [Aaron] Multiple times a day. Well that's often because my coffee goes cold and I have to go in and get a new cup. This coffee mug, it's got a heating plate built into it. And it has an iPhone app. It literally keeps the coffee at the exact temperature you want until you're done drinking the coffee.
- [Jennifer] This is for all those coffee lovers out there.
- [Aaron] Oh yeah.
- [Jennifer] I guess tea would work, too.
- [Aaron] Yeah, and these range from 75 to a hundred bucks. They have different sizes. They have an older model that you can get that's even cheaper. You can probably even find them used on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. But it comes with a little charging plate. They can last up to 80 minutes, a charge, which is like an hour and some. And if you have it on the charging plate, it lasts all day.
- [Jennifer] I feel like this would be a great gift for moms too, 'cause I feel like moms are probably constantly reheating their coffee.
- [Aaron] Well, there's a ton wives out there that love coffee and they'd probably really enjoy one of these.
- [Jennifer] Maybe like a matching set?
- [Aaron] Yeah, they have a gold one, a white one, a black one, they have all these different colors. But I've really loved it. Keeps my coffee hot. It's super practical. I love gifts that are useful. That it's not just a trinket.
- [Jennifer] It's gonna make my life better.
- [Aaron] It's gonna make my life better. I'm gonna use it on a daily basis. At the end of the day, if it every breaks or falls apart, or I lose it, I'm gonna miss it. I'm gonna be like, where's that thing at? I want that back in my life. So my Traeger, my coffee mug, these kinds of things. My wallet, when I was writing this list down, I was like, "What things do I use all the time?" And these are all those, so.
- [Jennifer] All right, my turn. Women close your ears, no just kidding. I just have to make a note that we just hope that this episode brings inspiration to the way you give gifts and especially if you're just in a place where you want to give a gift, especially for Valentine's Day, but maybe you don't know what to give. So hopefully this is sparking some creative juices flowing.
- [Aaron] Yeah, the two words I would think of is meaningful and useful. Is that right? That's kinda what these are.
- [Jennifer] All right, so for her, gentlemen. The first thing that I wanted to share was something called a growth book. And it's similar to the journal that Aaron mentioned, the Baron Fig journal. I would say--
- [Aaron] But way more useful.
- [Jennifer] Well I would say the quality is up there with it. It also is, it's like a journal. But, instead of lines, it's dots. And so it's actually really useful because you can use it for multiple things.
- [Aaron] You can draw in it.
- [Jennifer] You can draw in it. You can do calendar stuff or scheduling. You can journal in it. I use it for journaling my time with the Lord. I use it for taking notes during the parenting class that we took. I take it for goal setting, things that Aaron and I are aiming for.
- [Aaron] You keep yourself on track, too, with a little bit of homeschool stuff, don't you?
- [Jennifer] Yep. So, it's just a really, really awesome way to kind of detail your life and what you're working on.
- [Aaron] I wanna note, one of the coolest things I thought about these is, doesn't it come with a sticker pack for you to label things?
- [Jennifer] So it comes separately. So the growth book itself, which you can find at GrowthRootsCo.com, the book itself is $32. The stickers that accompany it is $2 extra. So all together, you're talking about $34. And honestly, I've never liked something so much that I use on a daily basis.
- [Aaron] She's holding it right now and it's full.
- [Jennifer] And it's beautiful. They come in different colors. It's got the cloth feature for the cover. And then you open it up and the first thing you'll notice is it says volume, with a line and a date.
- [Aaron] So when did you start this and what volume is it.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, so this is my, my growth book is volume one from 2019.
- [Aaron] You started in September, looks like.
- [Jennifer] And I started in September. But I've been using and I'm about three quarters of the way through it. So it's got a lot of pages, and it has other special features. So, in the very back, which I love, it has all the books of the bible with all the chapters and you can cross them off as you read them. So if you're doing a bible plan.
- [Aaron] Yeah, keep track of where you are in the bible.
- [Jennifer] It has a spot for prayers that you're praying through and ways that God has answered and when. Books that you're currently reading, or a list that you can put together. So it just has a lot of features to it that I really love and I think it would be a great, a great gift but also it's a growth gift. It's like you're encouraging your wife in something that she's probably either already doing or working on, and you're just saying, "Here, why don't you record it?"
- [Aaron] Yeah, I wanna support you in this.
- [Jennifer] So along with that is my number two, and it's these colored pens that I got that a friend recommended. And they're just on Amazon. They're by Tao Tree, T-A-O T-R-E-E. But they're fine liner color pens and they come with 24 different colors. They're super fun. I use them specifically for journaling in my journal. They're 11.99, so a super cheap gift if you wanna combine those two, it'd be a fun little.
- [Aaron] And you use those a lot. You use the different colors for different types of notes. It helps you organize what you're writing.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, so that's my number one gift right now, is that--
- [Aaron] Growth book.
- [Jennifer] And that's by GrowthRootsCo.com, so you can get that there. And then the colored pens are at Amazon. Okay, now my number three. Aaron mentioned his favorite ESV bible. I'm gonna share mine. It's the journal bible that is about eight and a half inches tall and it's almost square, it's not quite square. But the cover of it is really beautiful. It's this linen print that is yellow, mustard yellow, and flowers, it's just so beautiful. And I use it every day. And it has, what I love about it, is it has a margin on the side, a ruled margin, so you can write notes. I use it, I love reading through the bible. And when I get to one of those notes from two years ago and it was me in labor with Wyatt, or whatever, and just looking back on prayer requests or things that I've mentioned next to whatever it was that I was reading at that moment. So it's kind of like you said, it's a heirloom, a family heirloom.
- [Aaron] And it's single column, also right, so on each page is one column of text. And what's nice about that is I believe that the lines actually coincide with the lines on the text, pretty close. And so you could actually have notes that are directly, line by line if you wanted to. It's a really pretty bible. I've always liked it.
- [Jennifer] And it's available, also--
- [Aaron] It's hardcover, too.
- [Jennifer] On Amazon.
- [Aaron] It's a hard, nice--
- [Jennifer] It's a hard, solid bible. And it's just a pretty bible, so you wanna keep it out.
- [Aaron] It's really pretty.
- [Jennifer] And that runs about 33.99 on Amazon.
- [Aaron] Which is not expensive at all, for a bible. It's great.
- [Jennifer] Okay, my number four is Made by Mary, and I talked about this stamped pendant necklace earlier. They are just a really great company, MadeByMary.com. And they have something new out, which actually I really am fascinated by. It's called a birth flower pendant. And so you can go on there, and depending on what month you were born in, or if you were gonna get one for your daughter, you just order the month, and it comes with that specific month's flower. They're beautiful.
- [Aaron] Every month has its own flower?
- [Jennifer] Yeah.
- [Aaron] I didn't know that.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, they're really cool. But they also do birthstones and you can get, you can order either a bar or a circle, or whatever shape you want, and they stamp whatever it is you want. So currently, what I have is a single circle with an initial of each of my kids, so E for Elliott, O for Olive, W for Wyatt.
- [Aaron] And when you say currently, that's a hint.
- [Jennifer] No.
- [Aaron] At what's coming next.
- [Jennifer] No, it was because the one that I mentioned earlier, I was doing individual pendents, like circles with individual letters.
- [Aaron] And you were getting--
- [Jennifer] It was heavy.
- [Aaron] It was 24 circles on the necklace and it's getting real heavy.
- [Jennifer] It was getting heavy, so I switched to a single circle with each of them stamped on there. But Made By Mary, just really beautiful jewelry on there. And they range--
- [Aaron] Super meaningful, too.
- [Jennifer] Super meaningful, but they range in price. And I'll just say it's about $38 for one of those pieces of jewelry. The last thing that I will mention and it's one of my all time favorites gifts, and it's from a local spa. And it's just going to get a massage. It's time alone. Or a couples massage. But it's that time that you get to feel rejuvenated and relax, and--
- [Aaron] And usually they're rare, so they're really special.
- [Jennifer] So this would be my pricey gift. Aaron had a really pricey gift. This one would probably range between 65 and 250 to $300 because it depends on what service you get and where you're getting it done.
- [Aaron] And my gift was the gift that kept giving, though. No, I think that's a great gift idea, is the occasional local spa.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, just go spoil yourself.
- [Aaron] Yeah, just letting your wife go and have a couple hours to herself, getting pampered and loved on, and massaged, it's nice.
- [Jennifer] A great thing about that kind of gift, we talked about giving a certificate to your husband for his grill, but this would be the same kind of thing where you give a certificate and then she can make her own time to go do that and make sure that she's able to really enjoy that time.
- [Aaron] Or secretly in passing be like, "Man, I wish there was really good spas around here." And then your wife would be like, "There is, the best one's down the street." And you'd be like, "Oh, that's interesting." And then just keep that note hidden away and then you just get her a little gift certificate. So we wanted to give you those five gift ideas each. We hope they inspired you and maybe even sparked another idea for you, which is awesome. But, we wanted to give you a couple bonus ideas, and these are more gifts that would bless both of you in your marriage, in your parenting. And the first one is we wanna share with you, some good friends of ours launched an online course called "Courageous Parenting" and it's an online program and you take it together. And there's videos, and there's questions, and it's a whole thing to help you grow in your godly parenting with your children. We all need this, Jennifer and I, when we talk about the parenting class, this is exactly what we did.
- [Jennifer] We just got to walk through it with them in person.
- [Aaron] Yeah, we're blessed to do it with them in person because they're a part of our church. But their program is called "The Courageous Parenting Program" and you can get that at CourageousParenting.com.
- [Jennifer] Now it is a little bit pricey. It's 399 per couple, so that's why we're recommending it as a gift, it's a huge investment, both financially, but also mentally and spiritually.
- [Aaron] It's actually cheap when you consider the lifelong lessons you're gonna learn from it based off of parenting your children.
- [Jennifer] And we're saying this because we're sitting here right now, having just gone through the course and we're going, "Wow, we have some stuff ahead of us "that we're working on and working towards, "and we're so grateful for the information "that we got from them." And so this would be a really great opportunity for you guys to do something together that's going to, like Aaron said, just be an investment for your whole family.
- [Aaron] Studying my children, that concept, came from "Courageous Parenting". They were teaching about that and it convicted me. I was like, I'm gonna study my kids.
- [Jennifer] So another option, bonus, that would benefit both of you guys--
- [Aaron] Shameless plug, enter now.
- [Jennifer] It's our devotional. So it's "Husband After God" and "Wife After God".
- [Aaron] You can get those at Shop.MarriageAfterGod.com. They're 30-day devotionals and you do them together, or separately, and then you can come together and talk about them. But there's a husband one, and it walks through specific things for the husband and his role. There's a wife one, talks about specific things that a wife and her role. And then there's questions, there's journaling pages, there's scripture. Man, thousands, and thousands, and thousands of couples have gone through this devotional together.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, and it's about $32 for the bundle on our site, which is a really reasonable gift, especially when you think about it being a together gift.
- [Aaron] Husbands, this is a great gift to just go and get.
- [Jennifer] Yeah, just go get one right now.
- [Aaron] And your wife will probably hug you for it. I'm not kidding, you should do this.
- [Jennifer] Okay, and this is a great way to cultivate intimacy and communication, and just invest in your marriage in this way.
- [Aaron] Okay, the last one that we wanna say, this is for both of you, is Jennifer and I went to one of these years ago and we loved it. It was pretty amazing, we still advocate for them. It's called "Weekend 2 Remember" by Family Life. You can find out about it by going to FamilyLife.com/Weekend-2-Remember. You can also just go to FamilyLife.com. I'm sure they have a huge graphic for it because it's one of the biggest things they do. It's helped save countless marriages.
- [Jennifer] So what they do is there events held throughout the year, nationwide. And so you have to go on their website to find out which one is nearest to you. Or if you wanna get--
- [Aaron] And there's probably gonna be one near you.
- [Jennifer] I was gonna say, or if you wanna make it a road getaway and go somewhere, you could do that too. But they're hosted at hotels and it's literally a weekend. So you go and you spend the night. And they have sessions.
- [Aaron] No kids allowed.
- [Jennifer] It's beautiful. It's such a great time to really intentionally focus on your marriage and what God desires for your marriage, and what his purpose is for your marriage. And Aaron, we did it coming out of a season of darkness and hardship.
- [Aaron] It really helped us.
- [Jennifer] It was reconciling for us. I remember just sitting there, holding your hand, going, "This is exactly what we needed." So we've always been an advocate for "Weekend 2 Remembers" and chances are, there's one very close to you. So they range about 175 per person, which again, this is an investment, but you're talking about your marriage and it would be a great gift opportunity for both of you to sit down and really consider getting away for the weekend to do something like this.
- [Aaron] Hey, we hope you enjoyed these ideas. And if you have more ideas, would you share them on our social media so that other people can see them? Just post about it in your stories and tag @MarriageAfterGod, or on Facebook just tag us. People are always looking for ideas. We all need some inspiration sometimes, everyone of us. Well, we thank you for joining us. We're gonna close in prayer, and then yeah. So let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for being the ultimate gift giver. Thank you for the gift of marriage. We pray our hearts would be pure in the way we give gifts to each other. We pray we would be thoughtful in the ways we give to each other. Help us to study and know our spouse well enough to give them gifts we know they will love. More than giving good gifts, we pray our love would be genuine, and deep, and extraordinary, as we purpose intimacy with each other. Grow our love for one another. In Jesus' name, amen. We just wanna thank you for joining us this week on this episode. If you haven't left us a review yet, would you please do that? Your reviews are incredibly powerful at spreading the news about this podcast. It helps other people to find it. It encourages our hearts. And it helps other people know what to expect in the podcast. So leave us a star rating and a review today. We greatly appreciate it. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| It Is Time To Be People Of Our Word | 06 Jan 2020 | 00:56:46 | |
In this episode, we explore the topic of new year resolutions and how being people of our word is so much more important. Jesus tells us that we must be people who mean what we say. Our YES must be our yes and our NO must be our NO. We also give simple tips and ideas on how to be better at keeping our word this year and how not being people of our word can hurt not only ourselves and our relationship with our spouse but also with our kids and others.
READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT: Aaron: Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.
Jennifer: Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
Aaron: And today we're going to talk about how to be people of our word. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.
Jennifer: I'm Jennifer also known as unveiled wife.
Aaron: And I'm Aaron also known as husband revolution.
Jennifer: We have been married for over a decade.
Aaron: And so far we have four young children.
Jennifer: We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.
Aaron: With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.
Jennifer: We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life.
Aaron: Love.
Jennifer: And power.
Aaron: That can only be found by chasing after God.
Jennifer: Together.
Aaron: Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.
Jennifer: This is Marriage After God. Well, happy 2020, everyone.
Aaron: I was wondering if you're going to say 2020 or 2,020.
Jennifer: I'm a 2,020 er. I guess.
Aaron: Yeah, I'm a 2020 er. I think.
Jennifer: I don't think I've said it before.
Aaron: Or 2,020? 2020. It's the first time we're saying it.
Jennifer: It's the 20s.
Aaron: It's the 20... We're in the 20s. I did see a meme that said... It said, "Everyone be aware the 20s is starting in a couple days." And it showed this picture of all these really dapper men wearing the 20s suits, and it looked really cool. I was like, "I wish. I wish it was that 20s." Now, we're in 2020.
Jennifer: If they were here. This is crazy if you think about it.
Aaron: We're in a new decade. I don't know if everyone's thought about that. But we're literally in a new decade. That's insane. So this is the first episode of the year for us. If you're noticing it's launching on a Monday, that's a new thing for us.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: We usually launch on Wednesdays, but now we're going to try launching on Mondays and see if we like that timeframe of launching episodes.
Jennifer: Hopefully, you guys like it too. If you want to give us some feedback, just head on over to Instagram at marriageaftergod and let us know what you think.
Aaron: Yeah. We had a... Man, I feel like we had an awesome 2019.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: 2019.
Jennifer: I liked it.
Aaron: 2019? 2,019.
Jennifer: 2,019.
Aaron: And I just wanted to do a quick recap of just what 2,019 looked like for us as a family. And we're going to talk about things that we're excited about for 2020.
Jennifer: Yep.
Aaron: And then we're going to talk about the topic. So, the first thing I can think of from 2019.
Jennifer: Even though it happened mid-year.
Aaron: It's like mid-year.
Jennifer: It was a lot of work in preparation leading up to it.
Aaron: Our book, Marriage After God.
Jennifer: Yep.
Aaron: Launched June 2019.
Jennifer: June 4th.
Aaron: June 4th, yeah. And man, thousands and thousands of you guys have gotten a copy of this book. And we've had such good feedback from it. And we just love seeing what the Lord's doing in and through this book. Not in the book, I guess. Through the book in marriages. And so if you haven't gotten a copy of the Marriage After God book, you can head over to Amazon, you can head over to our store, shop.marriageaftergod.com and pick up a copy today. You get a bunch of free resources with it when you do. But that was a huge thing.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: That's like a lot of time, a lot of work writing, the publishing process.
Jennifer: Like two years worth [crosstalk 00:03:02]
Aaron: The waiting, then the marketing and then all of that stuff. I feel like we just wanted to take a ton of break off, like after that. A ton of time off because it was exhausting. And what else happened in 2019?
Jennifer: Well, shortly after the launch of Marriage After God, we found out we were expecting again.
Aaron: Yeah, we're pregnant with number five.
Jennifer: Number five. So most of my summer was sitting on the back porch just not feeling well. But the kids played and it was great. And it was beautiful. And I think a lot of that hopefulness of this pregnancy and meeting our daughter, [crosstalk 00:03:35] Edith.
Aaron: Edith.
Jennifer: Yeah, I'm just sat with us the rest of the year.
Aaron: Yeah, and this has been a difficult pregnancy, but it's been teaching us a lot, which is really cool. Number five [crosstalk 00:03:46]
Jennifer: Not difficulty because I've had, like health issues or anything like that, but just feeling nauseous and already having little kids that we're helping nurture.
Aaron: Yeah, there's been no complications just it's been a rough physically.
Jennifer: It's been harder than the other ones, for sure.
Aaron: Yeah.
Jennifer: I just wanted to clarify.
Aaron: But you're on the other side of that. Yes, you have a little bit of hard time sleeping sometimes. But this has been... We're excited to meet Edith.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: In March.
Jennifer: I felt like getting through the holidays and focusing on Christmas was like my goal, because I knew once the new year came, my next thing [crosstalk 00:04:21]
Aaron: You're like, "This is coming."
Jennifer: Welcoming this baby. And so I'm just so excited to be kicking off this new year with that in my heart and getting ready to meet her.
Aaron: Another big thing that happened in 2019 for us was we branched off from our home church and planted a home church with a few couples.
Jennifer: So we've been doing home church since Olive was about three months old.
Aaron: Oh, wow.
Jennifer: Yeah. So it's been a few years and it grew. And the point of branching off and planting a new home church was for growth.
Aaron: Yeah. Instead of just the mentality that we have with our home churches, instead of growing and staying together and buying a building and expanding that way, we just plant churches in homes. So there's been two other churches planted from that one home church over the last couple years. And so we've been doing it for eight months now. And it's incredible. The families that have come, the people that God's brought in, and the relationships that we're building.
Aaron: It's teaching us new levels of love for one another. It's teaching us how to grow in our giftings. I've been teaching a lot more in our home church. It's just so cool. And so that's been a huge thing. It really exciting. Probably one of my... Other than having another baby coming, it's probably one of my favorite things that happened last year was planting that home church.
Jennifer: Another thing that stands out to me is, I've been homeschooling the kids. I feel like since they were born just because of the nature of who I am and what I love [crosstalk 00:05:47]
Aaron: The way we worked out.
Jennifer: The way we work.
Aaron: We don't talk to them like babies.
Jennifer: well, and not just that, but I was in the Christian preschool education system for so long. And so I had this background to know just how to incorporate teaching and learning with young kids throughout the preschool years. And so I've always just naturally done it with my kids. But this was the first year that we officially started Grade One. And it was a big deal to me because [crosstalk 00:06:13]
Aaron: It's like a real grade.
Jennifer: Well, it's a grade, right? I was nervous. I've never done it before. Aaron and I both have been public schooled. And so we didn't have you know, a lot of background with homeschooling, we have a great community that encourages it and has support where if I have a question I can go talk to my friends.
Aaron: Lots of homeschoolers.
Jennifer: Lots of homeschoolers around here, which has been great, but just starting off with Grade One and it feeling so official. I don't know. It just freaked me out a little bit.
Aaron: Do you feel like it felt like diving into a pool without knowing how to swim?
Jennifer: Yeah, I mean, I guess. Yeah.
Aaron: Well, we spent months considering all the options.
Jennifer: Well, and I spent a long time preparing what we were going to teach him and how we were going to teach him and you know what, you guys? I don't [crosstalk 00:07:01]
Aaron: I'm going to say this before you finish.
Jennifer: Okay, what?
Aaron: You're crushing it.
Jennifer: You're sweet.
Aaron: She has a student binder, she has this program she's doing, she's scheduled in the breaks that we're going to take. She's like [crosstalk 00:07:10]
Jennifer: I was just going to say this [crosstalk 00:07:11]
Aaron: She's crushing it, guys.
Jennifer: We're both really enjoying it. Me and Elliott. We are really enjoying it.
Aaron: Well, and it's not just like Elliott, you're bringing all the kids along. They're all at different stages, but, man, you're doing a really good job.
Jennifer: Thank you.
Aaron: Yeah. So how excited are you for 2020?
Jennifer: Okay, I already mentioned this, but I'm so excited for 2020 because I get to meet my second daughter. I can't get over that. I can't believe it.
Aaron: Olive's super excited. She just cannot wait. She's like, "I'm going to have a sister." So yeah, 2020's got a lot of potential. And that's what's awesome about New Year's is there's so much potential because it hasn't happened yet.
Jennifer: Yeah, we've shared about this in our book. But Aaron and I love to dream together and vision cast and every end of the year season, we do this together, but this last year, we did a little bit earlier in December and it was so refreshing just to... We went on a date but we spent like three and a half hours just sitting there writing down notes and talking and getting out of our hearts what we had been thinking about and dreaming about and just asking each other some hard questions about our relationship, about our relationship with the kids.
Aaron: About work, about books.
Jennifer: It felt so good.
Aaron: About lots of things.
Jennifer: Yeah, where we're headed for this new year. And then my birthday was a couple days ago, and we got another date night in where we just got to just go over a little bit of those things that we had talked about, and set our sights on them and aim for some goals this next year.
Aaron: Yeah, just so everyone knows that... Maybe don't know Jennifer's birthday is on the 31st. December 31st. So she's a New Year's Eve baby. And then our wedding anniversary [crosstalk 00:08:47]
Jennifer: Is today.
Aaron: Is today.
Jennifer: Happy anniversary.
Aaron: Yeah, we've been married [crosstalk 00:08:52]
Jennifer: 13 years.
Aaron: I almost messed it up. 13 years. I was going to say 12 but we're done with 12 now we're in the 13. Yeah. 13 years, we've been married. So that's our... We're launching on our anniversary.
Jennifer: Awesome.
Aaron: Our marriage birth day. Is that how that works?
Jennifer: Launching the podcast's new season.
Aaron: Yeah, this is a new season. This is season three, I think of the Marriage After God podcast. And this is our 13th anniversary today.
Jennifer: Awesome.
Aaron: Yeah. So we have a lot that happens in the end of the year, in the beginning of the year, which is why we get to talk about a lot of things. And we always encourage, you can go back and listen to our episode on dreaming together on our podcast, episodes and episodes ago, but you should go check it out. But it just talks about what we do, and why we do it, and how powerful it is to set goals and dreams and writing them down and talking about them together and how unifying it is. And it's something we try and do. And what are some of the things that we've talked about? What things are we looking forward to this year that they may or may not happen? But the goal is we're going to [inaudible 00:09:54]
Jennifer: Yeah, we've submitted these things before the Lord and we just really... We hope to see them come to be. And I'm really excited about the first one, I'm going to share it with you guys. It's been one of our biggest goals. Like it's been on the table for some time, but we haven't actively pursued it. And it's children's books.
Aaron: Yeah, Jennifer's written two amazing children's books.
Jennifer: You're being so nice to me.
Aaron: I know. We're not going to tell you what the names of them are, because they're special. But you'll find out when they launch, whenever they launch because we don't have a publisher yet. But we're looking for one. And they're going to be incredible. You're going to love them.
Jennifer: I hope so.
Aaron: So we're going to be pursuing that this year, we're going to try and find a publisher. We're going to try and get those children's books published this... Either this year or next year. I don't know how long it takes to get a children's book published but we're going to try.
Jennifer: Yeah, because there's art involved. But one reason why I'm so excited about this, you guys, is having young kids and having this message that we want to share with them. It just feels like a gift. It feels like something that we can create for them, right now, in their season of life that they'll get and that would inspire them and hopefully, a lot of others kids.
Aaron: Yeah. And a little secret about it is they're going to have a marriage focus.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: Which is interesting, because you're like, "How do you do a children's book but have a marriage focus?" Well, you'll have to find out. Another goal that we have this year is to try and do more giveaways. We want to give away... We've been doing these giveaways with Bibles. And we've been partnering with a couple companies that sell Bibles and have these really incredible Bibles. And I've been really enjoying it. And there's something special about giving away a Bible, getting Bibles into people's hands.
Aaron: And so we're going to try and do that more when trying to partner with some companies that have some awesome Bibles, which Jennifer just did a giveaway. And we're actually going to ship those books out soon with a really beautiful Bible for women. It's got this fabric cover and it's ESV, which we love, and I give away a Bible. I actually have the Bible, I use it. I've given a couple of them why now, but we just... I think we want to do a little bit more of those Bible giveaways this year.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: More often.
Jennifer: It's a fun way to spread the gospel.
Aaron: Yeah, I know right now I have three Bibles sitting on my desk that I want to give away. So we're going to do that soon. So in order to be a part of those giveaways, by the way, follow us on Instagram at marriageaftergod and unveiledwife and husbandrevolution. So those are other ways to find out about the giveaways because we post about them. But that's one of our goals this year is to give away more Bibles.
Jennifer: Yep. The last one that we're going to share with you guys is just that we love the Marriage After God community we love being able to host this podcast for you and our hearts in talking about the podcast was just that this is going to be a year of intentionality where we are going to put so much thoughtfulness into the content, not that we haven't in the past, but we just really [crosstalk 00:12:44]
Aaron: We want to put more.
Jennifer: We wanted to share that with you guys because we want you to know how God is stirring in our hearts to make this podcast and this content something that's really encouraging and challenging and makes you walk away really truly considering how God is moving in your life and in your marriage and in your relationships. And so I just put that out there to let you guys know that this podcast is the main priority for us. And we're excited and thrilled to... And honored to be able to do it for you.
Aaron: Yeah. So one last thing before we get into the topic, we want to invite you to join our free Marriage Prayer Challenge, we have almost 20,000 people that have already joined this challenge and are currently in it. And so if you want to join it, it's marriageprayerchallenge.com. It's completely free. You'll get a series of emails over the next 31 days, prompting you and giving you things to pray for, for your spouse, and you can choose to take the husband challenge or the wife challenge depending on who you are in the marriage.
Aaron: And it's awesome people are loving it. I get thank you emails almost every day from people thanking me for the challenge and we just want to let you know we've created these resources for you, not for us but for you to grow in your relationship with the Lord, to grow closer to your spouse and to see him move in your marriage. And so we want to invite you, marriageprayerchallenge.com. That's marriageprayerchallenge.com. All one word. And join that prayer challenge.
Aaron: So let's slide right into the topic at hand. And it seemed like a no-brainer. It's the new year, people are talking about resolutions, commitments, people want change, they're going to take this new year and say, "Okay, we're going to start today, and we're going to do this new thing. I'm going to pursue this idea. I'm going to make this change in my life." And we wanted to talk about that. But in a different way. We want to talk about in a core way, when that is deeper inside of us, at the core of who we are, rather than trying to help you figure out how to keep your resolutions this year.
Jennifer: Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of vantage points too to this conversation, a lot of layers to be peeled back on it. And so we're just going to peel back one of those layers on this discussion and talk about what it means to be specifically people of our word.
Aaron: Right, if you look at it, the resolution side of things, I set a new year's resolution. I'm going to lose five pounds. I'm going to start this business. I'm going to fill in the blank. And that's a thing that we say, a statement we make and then if we don't follow through with it, we weren't a person of our word. I said I was going to do one thing, and I did another. Or I said, I was going to do this thing, and I didn't do it.
Aaron: And so that's what I want to talk about. Are we men and women of our word? Regardless of the resolutions we set, because if you are a person of your word, if you set a resolution, you will follow through with it. If you set a commitment, you're going to follow through that commitment. So it's a important attribute of a believer's life that are our yes be yes and our no be no.
Jennifer: [inaudible 00:15:47]
Aaron: That's nothing in between that.
Jennifer: Let's read that verse. So Matthew 5:33-37.
Aaron: It says, again, you have heard it that it was said to those of old, you shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn. But I say to you, do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God or by earth, for it is the footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you can't make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply yes, or no. Anything more than this comes from evil. This is Jesus talking.
Jennifer: Okay, so before we unpack the principle here and why you chose this verse to kick this topic off. Would you just spend a little bit of time on the last part of that verse and maybe explain what it means when it says, simply, yes or no, anything more than this comes from evil?
Aaron: Well, let's think about this. If I tell someone, I'm going to do this thing for them. That's a yes, right? I'm going to do this thing for them. And I don't follow through with that. Am I a liar?
Jennifer: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Aaron: Is lying a good thing? Now, we can come up with tons of excuses. And we can say, "Well, I mean, there's circumstances and something comes up." And yeah, that may be true. But when we tell people, when we say to ourselves, to others, to our kids, to our wife, to our friends, to our pastor, to the people that we walk in fellowship with one thing and do another, that's not good. That's an evil thing.
Aaron: And so what Jesus is saying, he's like, "Don't swear by God because... Or don't swear by heaven, because that's the throne of God, you have no control over heaven. Don't swear by earth, because you have no control of earth. It's not yours." He even says, "Don't swear by your own head." Because these are things that people will do, "I swear by the hair in my head or I swear by my own." It's like, what he's saying is, is you're trying to give authority to your word that doesn't exist.
Jennifer: So where does that authority come from? Through your actions, right?
Aaron: It comes from your actions. So what he's saying, he's like, "Let's just be people that when we say something, we do it, we mean it." And that is where your authority comes from, the action. And so if we have to... And he's saying, "Don't even give oaths." And if you read throughout the Old Testament, I'm not going to bring these stories up. If you read throughout the Old Testament, there were men who made oaths that regretted them. And they had to follow through with them because it was a law. If you made a note and you didn't follow through with it, you were breaking God's law.
Aaron: And so Jesus is taking it even further and saying, "Don't even need the oaths. The oaths don't mean anything. Because what means something is that you do what you say." And so that's what we're getting to as believers is, are we men and women who do what we say that we're men and women of action, right? There's another scripture I was just thinking about James that it says, if you hear the word and do not do, you're like a man who looks in a mirror and walks away and immediately forgets what you look like. It says, but rather, do what you hear, like be doers of the word.
Jennifer: Yeah, there's another verse that comes to my mind in talking about this and it's Ephesians 4:29. It says, "Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear." And usually, we hear this verse in context. And we've shared it before in other episodes, but in context to the word choices that we use, and things that we say.
Aaron: And negative things.
Jennifer: So when you hear [crosstalk 00:19:13]
Aaron: Hateful things, hurtful things.
Jennifer: And those are very obvious. But in light of simply saying yes or no, and sticking to it with your actions, I feel like we can easily fall into this crep talk if we are saying one thing and doing another.
Aaron: Right. And a good example of this would be, as a husband, I tell my wife, "I'm going to be home at a certain time." Now, the one time it happens, and hey, I really tried there was traffic there was this, right? It's one thing, but if I'm telling my wife, I'm going to be home. And I'm just using my words to appease her or tell her one thing and make her think one thing. And then consistently [crosstalk 00:19:50]
Jennifer: Day after day, after day.
Aaron: I'm home five minutes late, 10 minutes late, 12 minutes late.
Jennifer: An hour late. Yeah.
Aaron: Right? And I'm always having an excuse. I'm not building up my wife, I'm not giving grace to her. All she hears when I say it now is like, "Yeah, right."
Jennifer: That talk is actually corrupting your marriage relationship.
Aaron: Right. So it goes back to if I can't say yes to her, I need to tell her... It's a truth thing.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: The truth is, I won't be able to make it at that time. In reality, or the truth is if I say that, then I need to make changes in the things that I'm doing to make sure that the thing I said, it's true. Because I don't want to be a liar. We want to be men and women of light, of truth. And so, yeah, when we say things that we don't mean, which is another level of corruption, I'm just saying it. I'm giving lip service is what the Bible calls it.
Aaron: I'm telling God, I love him with my mouth, but hating with my actions. That's called lip service. I'm telling someone, I'm going to do something but in my heart, have no intention of actually following through with it. That's corrupt. And that is from evil. That's what Jesus was saying. Anything else other than your yes and your no is from evil because what you're doing is you're either making yourself look good just for the sake of showing a certain face, you're trying to intentionally deceive someone, you're trying to make someone think one thing while you're going to do another. None of those things are good.
Aaron: And so that's... When I think about that scripture of crep talk, is our words... Are we corrupt? Are we trying to walk in? I mean, and this isn't to talk about those occasions of misfortune or accidents.
Jennifer: Right. There's grace for those things.
Aaron: Right. Of course, this is the core of who we are.
Jennifer: Pattern, a belief system, a way [crosstalk 00:21:33]
Aaron: When we say something, do we mean it? Or do we just say things? Which brings me to another thought is, are we thoughtful about the words that come out of our mouth? Or do we just let things come out? Am I just making empty promises, because in the moment, it just, "Oh, yeah, everyone's... Oh, yeah, I'm going to do that too. Yeah." And so that's what we want to talk about. Because this is much deeper than just keeping resolutions. This is everything in our life. Do our kids look at us and know they can trust what we say?
Jennifer: Right. Even in the smallest of things, because I've recognized that as a parent, I've had to stop myself mid-sentence because I'm going to say something that I know I don't mean. Saying the word maybe or saying the word yes when I really mean no, or not right now. I need to be truthful to my kids if I want to build trust with them.
Aaron: But we want to be reliable. The Lord wants us to be reliable. So how could our kids feel secure if they never know? They can't. And that's a good example, I was thinking about that with my kids. They'll ask me questions and the easy response is maybe or, I'll think about it, or let's see, and I do that often, actually. But if I took a moment to think about I could either say, yes, and then my kids know, "Oh, we're going to do that thing." Or I could say, "No, we're not going to do that today." And it'd be done.
Jennifer: But what's required of us to be able to stop and be people who really, truly consider our words and think through all of that?
Aaron: Well, we have to consider... We have to understand who we are, our own limitations, our own abilities, what the day has to hold, it calls us to be more thoughtful.
Jennifer: We have to count the cost of whatever that is that thing that we're committing to.
Aaron: Yeah, which is a biblical wisdom that we are talking, counting the cost, thinking through, making our plans, not just being frivolous, not just being flippant. And actually, being thoughtful.
Jennifer: Everybody gets to answer the question, are we ready to pay the price for this? In the sense that if you are someone who doesn't follow through with your word with the commitments and the goals and the resolutions that you've made, you're either going to pay the price in your relationships, in a negative way. Or you're going to be a person who's going to count the cost ahead of time and pay the price the right way.
Aaron: Yeah, what's it worth to keep your word?
Jennifer: What sacrifice do I need to make for that to happen?
Aaron: Yeah. And all this goes back to building that trust, the reliability. And it's a name that we're building. And it's not just our name... We're going to get into this more, but there's a name that we represent as Christians.
Jennifer: Okay, so this leads me to a question what is easier to simply say yes or no? Or the following through of our yeses and our nos?
Aaron: Well, it's easier to say yes or no. But it's not right. And I would say, since it's new year, we were talking about resolutions, a perfect example of this is new year's resolutions. It's so easy to make them and we think that January 1st is going to give us something we didn't have December 31st. We think that January 1st is going to open a door that was closed on December 31st. And so what we do is we say... It's almost like making an oath on heaven or earth or on our head because we think, "Oh, New Year's has some power that's going to make my yes a yes. January 1st has this authority that I can make an oath by, that's going to give me some self-control that I did not have before."
Aaron: I'm technically making an oath on. And Jesus saying... He's like, "Don't do that. It's not yours. You can't make an oath on 2020 thinking that 2020 is going to make it come true." So, new year's resolutions is a perfect example of it's easier to say yes, than it is to follow through on that, yes, it's easier to make the resolution than it is to resolve the resolution, complete the resolution. And so, is that what we're doing when we make resolutions? When we tell someone we're going to pray for them? When we tell our kids we're going to do this thing this year? Or we're going to hit this goal this year? Or we're going to do this as a family? It's easy to say yes and make ourselves look good in the moment to someone or to [crosstalk 00:26:04]
Jennifer: Or to our ourselves.
Aaron: Or to even ourselves. Yeah. But it's much more difficult and it's much more spiritual to be able to follow through on things.
Jennifer: There's a statistic out that says that less than 10% actually follow through with their new year's resolutions.
Aaron: Yeah, and I would imagine, that's probably a high probability that it's even less than that.
Jennifer: I mean, we've experienced this before mid-spring fall out, you have all this momentum, and you're goal-oriented and you're set-up for success and then your flesh gets in the way and all of a sudden you're off the rails, you are not staying committed to what you've decided. We've experienced this in the past. And I would say in those times, it was because we weren't committed truthfully, in our hearts. We weren't committed to those yeses. Like we should have been.
Aaron: Well, and that's a good point. When we say yes, even to ourselves, let's say, it's our diet or exercise or getting in the word or how we're going to commit our self at church, whatever those things are, do we even actually believe it in our own heart? Or are we saying it hoping it's going to change? Like that fake it until you make it. Like, "I'm just going to keep saying it until it's true." Rather than actually believing it. Because the root of transformation, the root of any change in anyone's life, starts with belief. It's how the gospel works.
Aaron: It says if you believe in your heart... Our salvation is based on belief, we believe. And then the faith is the action of that belief. So, belief leads to faith. So I believe what God has said is true and my faith is the acting out of that belief. And so in our own life, we are going to do anything, we're going to say yes to anything or no to anything if we're going to make any actual transformation change in our life.
Aaron: It's got to start with belief. So if we're just saying things, but knowing it's not... Not believing it, but hoping that the belief comes someday, it won't. Because it has to start with the belief first. And we talked about this a lot with our own life and things that we have struggled with.
Jennifer: Yeah, I was just going to say, there's been times in my life where I believe that I should make this commitment. And I believe that I can do it, for a period of time. But there's also this part of my heart that I don't talk about that I believe that I'll do it for as long as I can. And then once I can, it's okay.
Aaron: It's what you believe.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: And so you were only able to get as far as your belief brought you, what you believed was true. And so what we believe, it creates how we act because that's what faith is. It's the action of our belief. It's acting on the thing you know to be true, right? So if we believe we can't, then we won't. So no matter how many times you say you can if you believe you can't, you're not going to.
Jennifer: Yeah. One of the things that I wanted to bring up since I did already mentioned that there's been times in our past where we've experienced that fall out of not following through with commitments or goals that we've made. Something that's really helped us out is strategy. So when we actually communicate and verbalize with each other and utilizing the gift of marriage for this is so perfect, because you have someone who's on your team. When we sit down, and we talk about the things that we believe, the things that we want to change, the goals that we want to make, and we write them down, and we make a plan. We have been, what would you say 99% more successful in accomplishing those things. Because we've been actionable.
Aaron: Yeah. And then the second part of that is not just writing it down, because what that does is it makes you accountable to it out in the real world. It's this idea of if you say it in your head, but never say it out loud, then it only exists in your head and it doesn't ever have to be real. So it could be fluid, it could change. And be awry because no one knows. And I mean, yeah, it was this way, but now it's this way. But then when we say it out loud and write it down, it actually becomes a real thing.
Aaron: And you're like, "Oh, that's a commitment. That's a real thing." And in order to change that, I have to erase it, or scribble it out, which means I'm having to confront my own change. And then the other part of that is accountability, meaning if I write it down and say it out loud, but never tell anyone, then I have a backdoor to be able to make that... To change however I want. And no one will know. No one will be able to say like, "I thought you were doing x, y, z." You're like, "Oh, what are you talking about?"
Jennifer: Right. So if you tell somebody like I've told you things that I've been wrestling with that I want to change or set a goal for, and the moment I tell you, I'm held accountable, and then you think about it [crosstalk 00:30:52]
Aaron: Well, and later on when I see something, I'm like, "Hey, I thought you were... You told me we're going to do something else?"
Jennifer: Or, "How are you doing with x, y, z?" There's that accountability, and it's a beautiful thing for marriage.
Aaron: It's also really hard.
Jennifer: To see it play out. Yeah.
Aaron: But if you want to be that person, that person that is a man or woman of your word, when you say, yes, to something, yourself, another person, that yes means yes. Every time. Now, we always want to go back to this grace and mercy. And this is not about perfection. But it's about character. It's about principle. It's about value. It's about where do we get these things from? It comes from the word of God. It's the people God's called us to be, not just called us to be but empowered us to be. We have the holy spirit.
Aaron: In 2 Peter 1:3 says, we've been given all things that pertain to life and godliness, all things for those who are in Christ Jesus. If we are in Christ Jesus, we have his spirit, his power. It's not ours. And so we have to lean on that we say, "Lord, I need your help. I feel so weak in this area." Jennifer, do you ever feel like this in your life with anything like that? You've tried in your own strength, and you're like, "I don't know why it can't change or I can't do this thing." And what's my response to you?
Jennifer: Well, you're not supposed to be doing it on your own strength.
Aaron: You're right.
Jennifer: You always tell me to be praying about it, you tell me to go to the Lord, what does God's word say about me? Say about what the thing that I'm wrestling with?
Aaron: And where does the power come from? Him
Jennifer: Him.
Aaron: And so when we fail, we look to him and say, "I failed. I need more of what you have for me, I need more of you, Lord. I need to come to you." And then God says, "My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in your weakness." And so we get to be reminded of our own weakness that we're not supernaturally powerful. We have his power, which is actually supernatural. I meant to say, we're not inherently powerful.
Jennifer: We're not superheroes.
Aaron: We're not superheroes. Yeah.
Jennifer: He is.
Aaron: So I have a question for you. Why do we even make commitments? Why would someone be obligated or obliged to say yes to someone or agree to something that they may [inaudible 00:33:00]
Jennifer: Everyone that just made new year's resolutions a couple days ago is thinking, "Yeah, why did I do that?"
Aaron: "I shouldn't have done that."
Jennifer: I think it comes down to what we... We want something. There's something that we want. And if it's a commitment we're making to someone else that somebody else wants, it's to [crosstalk 00:33:17]
Aaron: Maybe make ourselves look good to them.
Jennifer: Or maybe we do want to follow through with it, but we don't actually believe we can. And so there is that wrestling.
Aaron: We don't want to let them down.
Jennifer: Yeah, but I think the question is, do we make commitments just to look good or impress or think a certain way? Or do we actually truly want to be trustworthy, reliable, full of integrity people?
Aaron: And that's a good place that we could start when we are thinking about things we're going to say yes to or no to is asking us why are we saying yes? Can we fulfill this? Will we be able to do it well?
Jennifer: It requires us to slow down a little bit because in this fast-paced world we live in, it's easy to just say yes to everyone and everything. But I think it's really important for us, especially as Christians to slow down and consider, why are we saying yes to that thing or no to that thing?
Aaron: Even with ourselves, why do I want to get healthy? Why do I want exercise? Why do I want eat better?
Jennifer: What are our motivations?
Aaron: Why do I want to get into the word more? Why do I want to... You fill in the blank of the thing that you want to commit for yourself because oftentimes resolutions or commitments, they're internal. The things that... We don't like something about ourselves, that there's something that we want to grow, and we recognize that we need to change.
Aaron: So asking yourself like, what does that mean, and why? And then asking yourself how that's going to work? And we're going to get into some practical tips in a little bit. But these are some good questions we need to be asking ourselves about these yeses and noes in our life.
Jennifer: As we're asking ourselves those questions also, we need to keep in mind why it's important to be people of our word. That was one of the reasons why we wanted to take this episode in this direction. So maybe we can just ask them some of the hard questions. Through the examples in probably all of our lives that we've experienced.
Aaron: Well, think about this, we are called Christians. What is a Christian?
Jennifer: A Christ-follower, someone who follows in his footsteps.
Aaron: Right. And so we're in the world, so, we're his followers but God calls us something else. He calls us representatives. He calls us ambassadors. So we're ambassadors and ambassadors represent a country, they represent a place, a land, they are not itself, the land or the place. They are representative of the thing, of the place. And so that's what we are. And so, going back to this idea of people of our word, it's not just for our own sake, there's something bigger involved.
Aaron: We're ambassadors for a land. We're ambassadors for a people, for each other. And we're most importantly, ambassadors for God, representing Christ on earth right now. We're his body. And so, when we're not people of our word, we end up being horrible ambassadors. There's people that aren't believers, and they always hear us say one thing and do another, "Oh, yeah, that person always or never follows through." Like at our jobs. Think about this.
Aaron: That we work for a boss, we tell him we're going to get something done, and we don't. Or we have a partner at our job, and we are supposed to get something done and we've let it fall through the cracks because of whatever.
Jennifer: Or we tell that friend, we've seen a dozen times, "Yeah, we're going to get together, we're going to get coffee."
Aaron: And never call them.
Jennifer: "We're going to have dinner, we're going to do something." And then yeah, never call them.
Aaron: We have that person. We're like, "We're going to bring them a meal or we're going to..." And we just don't, "Oh, I didn't have time."
Jennifer: Someone asked for a prayer request.
Aaron: "Oh, I'll pray for you."
Jennifer: And you don't.
Aaron: And you walk away and you never pray for them. These are real things that represent what we believe about ourselves, about God, about people. And it gets in the way of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ that he's actually changed us. And because of what he's done for us, because of him, in his completed work on the cross, saving us, puts a deep desire in our hearts to look like him, and to be like him and to follow him and to chase him. And do we think Jesus was a man of his word?
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: Do you think Jesus ever told someone one thing and did another?
Jennifer: Mm-mm (negative)
Aaron: No, Jesus was who he said he was and he did what he said he did. And even said, at one point, he said, "I only do the things that the father tells me to do. And I only go to the places the father sends me." Right? And he's saying... He's like, "If I say it, it's what God said. If I do it, it's what's God doing. If I go there, it's where God wants me." That's what Jesus did.
Aaron: And so there's no going back and forth, there's no being wishy-washy. There's no being double-minded. There's no being double-tongued like I say one thing out of my mouth, but I mean another. I say another thing over here. And we want to be ambassadors... We're [inaudible 00:38:12] We don't want to be, we are ambassadors for Christ. And the question is, are we representing him well? Of course, in his spirit, he's empowering us to do it. But are we?
Jennifer: Yeah, when I think about the importance of keeping our word, the hard question I would ask is, how does your actions impact spreading the gospel? Because either you are or you're not, right?
Aaron: Yeah, exactly. And I'll give it a just a couple of examples. So in my own life, I do all the customer service for our store, if anyone didn't know that, that's true. So when you email me, it's me talking to you. And often, people ask for prayer, and I don't write out prayers for people. I can't... We don't give advice but I often will say, "I'm praying for you." That's all I'll say. And I actually stop for a moment and I pray for those people to the best of my ability, because I don't know all the details of their life, but the holy spirit does.
Aaron: I don't just say it just to look righteous and let people know like, "Oh, look, they pray for us." I actually do it because I want to be a man of my word. Even through an email with a couple of words to this person who doesn't know me. I want them to know that... And I want you to know, right now, if you ask for prayer and I said, "I'm praying for you." I did. And if I can't, I don't, right? And so that's just one example. Like when we talk to other people, and we say, in person, I try not to say, "I'm going to pray for you." And then go away. I try to pray for them right then.
Jennifer: Some things are a longevity game, though, and it requires that constant prayer.
Aaron: But that's one little activity.
Jennifer: No, it's good. Good example.
Aaron: In my own life, but there's lots of other things. My kids, I was thinking about, if I tell my son, I'm going to do something with him later, or "Hey, maybe I'll think about it." I do that a lot and we talked about it at the beginning. But I want to be better. I want to tell him like, "Yes, I'm going to do it, let's do it." Or [crosstalk 00:40:06]
Jennifer: "No, I can't."
Aaron: "No, I can't."
Jennifer: Yeah. And I think that if we consistently fail at keeping our word whether to ourselves in the goals that we've made, the commitments that we've made, or to others.
Aaron: Or to our kids.
Jennifer: We're creating distressed in the root of people's hearts, and in our own hearts. And so when we go to share the gospel, when we go to teach from God's word, we can't do it effectively, because people will not trust what we have to say.
Aaron: Yeah, and we want to be trustworthy. We want to be men and women who mean what we say and say what we mean.
Jennifer: And do what we say. And we want to be a foundation for people, a place of security, a place of safety and trust, not of insecurity.
Aaron: And you know what? If we are these people, when we don't follow through, when we drop the ball, when we should have said no but said yes, we will recognize it quickly. We'll be like, "Man, I was not a person of my word." And you know what we'll do? We'll go to that person, we'll go to ourselves, we'll go to our spouse, we'll go to our kids and we will apologize. We'll repent.
Jennifer: And instead of it being a confirmation for what that person believes about our character, it will actually be an opportunity for them to extend grace and love and understanding.
Aaron: Yeah. Well, and it builds trust because they know, "Oh, man, when so and so drops the ball on me, they're going to recognize it." And it's not going to be this thing where no one ever mentions it and in the back of my heart, I'm thinking, "Do they even care? Do they care that they hurt me? Or that they frustrated me, did they care?"
Aaron: Because we want to care, now, it brings us back to loving our brothers and sisters. And that's a powerful thing, going to someone and saying, "Hey, I dropped the ball on you. And I want you to forgive me. And I hope you do. And I'm going to try harder next time to not drop the ball on you."
Jennifer: So there's a big statement that I want to make. And I think it's important to just recognize because we're people of vision and future and hope and we don't just do things by the seat of our pants, we don't just keep... We know what's coming as far as [crosstalk 00:42:16]
Aaron: The Lord's return.
Jennifer: The Lord's return, right?
Aaron: Yeah.
Jennifer: And so we have work to do on this earth. And if we can keep our yes and our no in the small things, then we can do even better in the bigger things.
Aaron: Yeah, thinking about that scripture that says, if you're faithful little you will be faithful with much. And that's true. If you're faithful with the little yeses and the little nos, if you're faithful to keep those little, little commitments, you're going to be faithful to keep bigger ones.
Jennifer: Yeah. And can God look down on you and say, "I trust you." You're faithful."
Aaron: Yeah.
Jennifer: All right, so let's jump into a handful of practical ways of becoming a person of your word and also what some of the benefits are.
Aaron: Yeah, so get a pen and paper. We're not going to go deep on all these. We're just going to throw out some ideas. Say things out loud, we talked about that in the beginning, like when you say it out loud, it becomes real. And you can confront areas of weakness, and you can work on them. To make better habits.
Jennifer: You can write down your goals, which helps you strategize and aim for them because you have them written down in front of you, word for word, holding yourself accountable. And I would also say sharing those very specific goals or commitments with your spouse and communicating through them.
Aaron: And then a trick. So if you're going to just try and lose weight, this is just an example. It could be anything but writing down a strategy is infinitely more powerful than just saying, "I'm going to eat better."
Jennifer: Right.
Aaron: How? How are you going to eat better? What are you going to do when you go the grocery store? What kind of foods are you going to buy? What are you going to stop buying? What things do you currently buy that you're going to write down that we're not buying this anymore. This is no longer part of our diet? So writing down the strategy, breaking it down for little goals [inaudible 00:43:58] we are going to stop eating this thing.
Jennifer: Attainable goals.
Aaron: I'm going to stop putting cream in my coffee. I'm going to stop getting that thing. Write it down and have attainable goals and then you can know at the end of the month, you'll be like, "Wow, I actually stopped."
Jennifer: I'm doing it.
Aaron: Doing that thing. So whether you lost a pound or not, you actually reached part of your goal by making a change in your life that is actually long-term and sustainable.
Jennifer: Yeah. Here's one, make your schedule work for you in that sometimes we make commitments and we don't change anything else to make that commitment happen.
Aaron: It's just going to fit somehow.
Jennifer: It's just going to fit somehow. So take a look at your schedule and make sure that everything's conducive to that yes, you made or that no, you made.
Aaron: I think this isn't on the list. But I'm going to just point out, maybe think about over the last year, 2019, write down commitments that you dropped the ball on, and then you might be able to find a pattern of the things that you like to say yes to but you never follow through on. Maybe it's dinner dates, maybe it's having friends over, maybe it's whatever and then figure how this year you can change that, going back to your schedule thing. Maybe you leave one afternoon open a week for that thing that you said yes to and always had to say no to later. And so maybe just do a little evaluation of broken commitments, and figure out how you can fix them for this year.
Jennifer: If you're going to go that far, then I would add on a little bonus if there's ones that are leaving broken relationships to go and repent, and especially if it's with your spouse, like just say, "You know what? I just took inventory of what's going on in my life. And I'm sorry that I did this to you."
Aaron: Yeah, I promised you a date night every month, last year and we never did it once. And let's figure out a change. It's going on the calendar, like whatever it is. The other one, invite others to keep you accountable. So find someone and truly let them know say, "This is going to be hard for me. I might fight you on it. But here's something I want to change in my life. And if you see me would you just gently say, "Hey, I thought you made a commitment to that." Or "Hey, I thought you were going to..." And remind me." Invite someone.
Jennifer: And then the last one is don't go all out, up front. So you got to be realistic. And this is one thing that Aaron's actually taught me.
Aaron: I'm going to go five days a week to the gym and I'm going to do three hours of work, I'm going to lift every day, I'm going to cut everything out of my diet, I'm going to... Don't do that.
Jennifer: Make a commitment to go to the gym and hit at least once a week until you work your way up to a strength that you can maintain.
Aaron: I talked about this actually, in the episode when we talked about healthy living. One of the biggest things for me is that I didn't commit to just going to the gym every day. What I said is like, "I'm going to get up once a week at six o'clock, and I'm just going to go to the gym down my street."
Jennifer: Have those little victories in your life so that in the next year, you can look back and say, "Oh, look how much growth I've experienced." Because of those little attainable goals. Another one would be like when you think about your Bible reading with the Lord. Some people will look at the new year and go I'm going to read the Bible in a year which is great and a goal you should attain for.
Aaron: But do you realize how much reading that is?
Jennifer: Not just that, but if you're not doing it day by day, even in small chunks, there's no way you're going to fit in that kind of goal. So be realistic with yourself and what you're capable of doing.
Aaron: So to condense that the idea would be, instead of taking like, "I want to be completely like this person next week." And realize that's not possible.
Jennifer: It takes time.
Aaron: What you want to do is you want to find little things that you can change in your life that become how you are. Because right now you're not a certain way. And to be that other person takes 1000 little other things that need to change in your life.
Jennifer: Right. Okay, so what are some of the benefits of being a person of your word, Aaron? If you say you will be home at a certain time, what's the benefit?
Aaron: My wife is going to feel honored, we're going to have more stability in our home, our kids are going to know what to expect. I think you'll respect me more. I mean, you respect me, but they'll be a deep respect, they'll be like an honor. There's power and authority also. That's something we didn't talk about but there's power and authority in being a man of your word. There's people I know and when they say something, they do it every time all I think is like, "That man is so reliable. He is powerful." And I think to myself like, "I want to be more like that guy." So I think it'd be a good example my kids, they would say, "Wow, I want to be like that."
Jennifer: Okay, if I say that I'm going to do a meal plan for the week. And I do it. Our family gets blessed, food's on the table, we're going to save money.
Aaron: We'll eat better.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: Which that meal planning just in itself helps a lot of things. You can control what's going in the pantry and in the refrigerator.
Jennifer: I won't be frustrated come 3:30, 4:00. Not having a plan. If you say you will stick to a budget.
Aaron: Save money. Get out of debt.
Jennifer: Not buy useless things.
Aaron: Yeah. And have junk that has to go in the trash someday. Those are little commitments that [crosstalk 00:49:04]
Jennifer: Not have to confess and repent to your spouse.
Aaron: About your spending, about this thing, "I shouldn't have done it."
Jennifer: These are just a handful of things that we're thinking of.
Aaron: And it really is... It's integrity and it's power.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Aaron: This is something we've been talking about lately when you do these things, which are... They all go back to self-control, which is a fruit of the spirit, right? Self-control. There's power in self-control, someone who can control themselves, that's power. And that's God's power showing like, "Look at this person who's not just walking in their flesh, not just going by every whim, not every craving, every desire. They actually control themselves. They have poise and they're distinct." Because that looks different. That is surprising to the world. How do you have that much control?
Jennifer: Yeah, faithfulness is cultivated. Integrity is cultivated. So deciding in your heart to do what you say not just say it with your mouth.
Aaron: A good example of this is we talked about not having our phones in the bathroom like having devices in the bathroom like we're trying to put in place, in our own lives, things that we're going to expect of our kids.
Jennifer: Yeah. Boundaries.
Aaron: And it can be easy to be like, "Oh, I forgot." Or I can think every single time like, "I said, I'm not going to do this." And I could put my phone somewhere. And I know a lot of people use their phones in the bathroom. So they're like, "No, that's my thing." I don't know. But that's integrity. Even when my wife doesn't know I'm doing it, am I choosing to honor what we've talked about?
Jennifer: And when I think of integrity, I think of it even having integrity with yourself. Because otherwise, you're going to be constantly in conflict with your mind, as your spirit and your flesh wrestle with the things that you know you should do that you're not doing. And there's no peace in that. So if you're a person of your word, there's going to be peace. If you're a person of your word, change can happen, goals can be met, victory can be experienced.
Aaron: All the things that people are wanting.
Jennifer: Maturity.
Aaron: To grow.
Jennifer: Growth, your spouse will respect you, people will respect you. I think you mentioned that. These are all good, good things. And when you do it, when you are a person of your word, you are showing yourself and your spouse and your children, that you are a person who can be believed.
Aaron: And trusted.
Jennifer: Trusted. Therefore, when you do go to preach the gospel or teach them from God's word, they will listen and they will trust what you have to say and belief will grow in their own hearts.
Aaron: Yeah, and what's better than being able to show your kids what they're capable of in the holy spirit, that they actually can change and make decisions and say, yes, and mean it and do it. That's teaching your kids the power that they can have in God, and that they don't have to be a slave to their lack of self-control, to be a slave to their cravings and desires, but they can have control over those.
Jennifer: Yeah, and you touched on this earlier about we're not alone in these commitments that we're making. If we're Christians, then God is with us, his holy spirit is empowering us and we need to rely on him to walk us through that. But that means we need to be open with God and share with him when we're struggling and share with him when we need his help and pray over these things and keep them submitted to him.
Aaron: And also ask him to show us as David did. Search my heart, Oh, Lord, and see if there be any wicked way in me. Ask God to show us if there's anything in us that he wants changed. Any deceit, any falsehood.
Jennifer: A verse that has become very foundational in Aaron and I's marriage that I wanted to share with you today is proverbs 16:3. And it says, "Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established." I think it's a powerful verse and a good reminder that anything that we do, anything that we say yes or no to, we need to be committing these things to the Lord, we need to be submitting them to him and knowing that we're not alone and trusting him to guide us through them.
Aaron: And committing to the Lord doesn't mean, "Here's what I'm going to do, God. Now, bless it." It means, "Lord, here's my plan. What do you say?"
Jennifer: I was just going to say, what does using this verse look like? Or holding [inaudible 00:53:00] look like in our marriage? And it's exactly that. It's saying, "God, here's what we think we should do or desire to do. But we want you to align your heart with ours."
Aaron: We want to align our heart with yours.
Jennifer: Yes.
Aaron: No, but it's usually the other way around. We want your heart [inaudible 00:53:18] Psalm 37:5 says, "Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act."
Jennifer: So he's acting.
Aaron: Yeah.
Jennifer: It's not just us going about our day acting and trying and doing. He's with us. And I think that's empowering.
Aaron: Well, that comes at the end of... I want to say one last little quote before we close out in prayer. And it goes to this idea of often we see, like, "Oh, I'll start my diet on Monday." Or "I'm going to start reading tomorrow." Or "I'm going to make this change next week." And so I always say, if change is always tomorrow, then it's never today. And so if we get in the practice of, "Oh, I'm going to make that change right now." Like, "I'm going to make that decision now. I'm not going to save it for another day. I'm not going to say it's more convenient tomorrow."
Aaron: All that means is we're not going to do because there's always another tomorrow. But there's never another today. And so we got to be men and women of our word. And let's ask the Lord to help us be that.
Jennifer: Yeah, and with it being the new year, and you guys probably have already made commitments. We just want to encourage you, guys and say carry on. We are cheering for you, we're here for you. And we love you guys. And we hope that you are women and men of your word.
Aaron: And don't be afraid to adjust your commitments if you need to, to make it more realistic. Because what we are is that you have lifelong maturity and growth and transformation, not a short-term, exciting, burst of transformation and then you go back to your old ways. All of us, we want to be men and women who are growing and maturing and becoming more and more like what God's called us to be. And that's this lifelong sanctification process. So don't be discouraged if you can't hit that awesome resolution that you made. Let's set [crosstalk 00:55:12]
Jennifer: Attainable goals.
Aaron: Set attainable goals in your life and ask God to transform you.
Jennifer: All right at the end of every episode, we pray together, so we just want to ask that you would join us in prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for another new year. Thank you for today. We honor you, Lord, and we praise you for you are good and your love is everlasting. We submit this new year to you, we pray your will would be done in our lives and through us. We pray your will is done in our marriages and through our marriages. We lay our lives down, our hopes, goals, and desires and we ask that you, Lord, would align our hearts to yours. That everything we planned for and say yes or no to would be for your glory and not our own. Help us to be people of our word to stick to our commitments, especially when it feels hard. Remind us daily of the importance of being trustworthy and our impact for your gospel. In Jesus name, amen.
Aaron: Amen. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the first episode of the year. We want to invite you to leave us a review if you have not done so, those reviews help other people find the podcast, they bless us. And they're incredibly encouraging. So please leave us a star rating and a review today. And it'd bless us. Also, don't forget to join the prayer challenge for free. It's marriageprayerchallenge.com and you can do that anytime. See you next week.
Aaron: Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| Answers to Your Questions | 28 Nov 2019 | 00:50:14 | |
Hey Friends! Connect With Us
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| Stop Hiding Before It's Too Late | 20 Nov 2019 | 00:41:20 | |
In Today's Episode on Marriage After God podcast, we are encouraging you to stop hiding before it's too late! This episode was inspired by our own experience of concealing our relationship issues, as well as other couple's stories we have seen unravel. Over the years, we have received countless emails and messages from couples sharing that they were on the verge of divorce. Some of whom we knew personally, and some we didn't. The ones that we knew especially hurt us, and we felt blindsided by the problems in their marriage. How can problems go unseen? You can avoid community and fellowship altogether, or you can do what Jennifer and I had done at the beginning of our marriage - hide in plain sight. Though we had close friends, we never let people truly know us or our struggles. Our hearts for this episode is that it would encourage you to stop hiding. The Devil wants us to hide in shame and be isolated, so we don't bring about change. We pray that this episode encourages you to seek true fellowship and hope it eliminates the fear of being fully known. Join the Marriage Prayer Challenge for FREE! Go to www.marriageprayerchallenge.com Connect With Us
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| The Lord's Prayer | 14 Nov 2019 | 00:50:42 | |
Prayer is such a vital part of every Christian's life. In today's episode, we are going to be discussing the Lord's prayer. The Lord's prayer is spoken by Jesus when he gives the Sermon on the Mount. This teaching is super important because it emphasizes the importance of prayer and a personal relationship with God. "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that others may see them. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."Matthew 6:5-13 ESV Our hearts are that today's episode encourages you to build on your prayer life, not for salvation, but to build real intimacy with God. Intimacy takes intentionality; just like our marriages, we need to invest in our relationship with God. We pray this Marriage After God podcast encourages you to cling to God and deepen your relationship with him. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Signs of the End Times: Are We Witnessing Biblical Prophecies Unfold? | 28 Jun 2024 | 01:16:28 | |
In today's episode, we explore the captivating and often anxiety-inducing topic of the end times as described in scripture. Are we witnessing the signs of the last days? Join us as we examine this question and how believers can approach it with faith and hope rather than fear. We start by sharing personal reflections on growing up with teachings about the end times and discuss the influence of pastors like Jack Hibbs, who emphasize prophecy in their ministry. We also offer practical advice on how parents can discuss these topics with their children in a way that encourages faith and understanding. The episode examines various biblical prophecies, including the significance of Israel becoming a nation again, the preparations for the third temple, and other signs mentioned by Jesus. Key scriptures such as Luke 21:28, 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, and Matthew 24:32-35 are discussed to provide a deeper understanding of the Bible's teachings on the end times. Our goal is to bring peace and excitement to believers about the return of the Lord. We encourage listeners to live with an expectation of Christ's return while making daily choices that reflect a long-term commitment to faith and godly living. Please subscribe to our channel on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify and leave us a star rating and review to help us reach new listeners. Your support and feedback mean the world to us! Topics Discussed in the Episode:
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Smith Family Resources, Inc © 2024 KEY WORDS Marriage After God, Aaron Smith, Jennifer Smith, Christian marriage, end times, prophecy, scripture, biblical prophecy, last days, Israel, third temple, Christian teachings, spirituality in marriage, faith-driven life, prophecy understanding, biblical interpretation, religious education, marriage enrichment, faith and family, religious podcasts, spiritual growth, Christian podcasters, marriage advice, exploring faith, life lessons, spiritual discussions, theological insights, deepening faith, understanding scripture, religious beliefs, Christian lifestyle, engaging discussions, podcast reviews, episode guide, listener engagement. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Encouragement for Chasing Boldly After God Together | 06 Nov 2019 | 00:46:42 | |
In today's episode on the Marriage After God podcast, our goal is to encourage you on your pursuit to chase after God. Everyone needs encouragement and to be reminded of the hope they have from time to time. We urge you to listen thoughtfully to this episode and share it with your spouse or anyone else that could use some cheering.
"The first encouragement we want to give all of you on your journey is: don't be afraid! This journey can be fear-filled sometimes, and the enemy wants to make us afraid. So, I just wanted to read this verse, Jeremiah 17:7-8 ESV 'Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." - Aaron Smith
We pray this message leaves you hopeful as well as excited about God's plan and purpose for you. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Boundaries With the Opposite Sex - Part Two | 30 Oct 2019 | 00:39:38 | |
Today, we are entering into the second half of our topic, "Boundaries With the Opposite Sex." If you didn't listen to last week's episode, listen to it right now before jumping into today's podcast! "I want to encourage everyone out there, that maybe their spouses aren't at this place yet, and remind everyone that it's a growing process. We didn't just show up to our marriage with this way of being and understand it fully and walk in it perfectly. We are walking this out day by day. " Jennifer Smith We pray that today's podcast would start a healthy conversation between you and your spouse and that your hearts would be submitted to God and protecting your marriage from the enemy. If your heart is already for this, we encourage you to walk out what you desire your spouse to step out and fervently pray for their heart.
Connect With Us
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| Boundaries With the Opposite Sex - Part One | 24 Oct 2019 | 00:36:28 | |
In today's episode, we're talking about hard conversations again, but this time, we're very specific. "Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding." Proverbs 3:13. As always, we hope to inspire you to be a light in this world. Our hearts desire that everyone listening, listens with a teachable heart. We pray this episode blesses you. Connect With Us
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| 7 Battle Verses for Overcoming Sin - Part Two | 18 Oct 2019 | 00:33:19 | |
The word of God is sharper than any two edge sword it cuts through the bone and it pierces to the soul, it’s the thing that transforms us. Today in the Marriage After God Podcast we are going over four anchor verses to meditate on when you are trying to overcome sin. “If you’re a believer and you’re practicing sin and getting better at it, you better think long and hard of what you know of God, and to who you belong. “ Aaron Smith Our desire is that today’s podcast not only helps equip you to overcome temptation and sin, but that it also prepares you to encourage your spouse when they are wrestling with sin. We pray that this episode blesses you. Connect With Us
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| 7 Battle Verses for Overcoming Sin - Part One | 09 Oct 2019 | 00:34:18 | |
The word of God is sharper than any two edge sword it cuts through the bone and it pierces to the soul, it’s the thing that transforms us. Today in the Marriage After God Podcast we are going over several anchor verses to meditate on when you are trying to overcome sin. “This is not a conversation about how to be saved, that we walk perfectly and holy and that’s how God is going to receive us. No. This is a conversation that the believers are already saved, and being sanctified. But it’s through the knowledge of the word of God that we are more and more sanctified and walk in more and more holiness. The desire is that we hate our sin more and more the same way God hates our sin because our sin destroys us.” - Aaron Smith Our desire is that today’s podcast not only helps equip you to fight temptation, but that it also prepares you to encourage your spouse when they are wrestling with sin. We pray that this episode blesses you. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Encouragement for Newlyweds | 02 Oct 2019 | 00:44:16 | |
Everyone can use a little encouragement now and then so whether you just got married (congrats!) or you've been married for a long time stay tuned for today's episode! After all, don't we all want to have the newlywed exuberance, excitement, and love? Connect With Us
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| The Return Of Christ | 25 Sep 2019 | 00:37:46 | |
In this episode, we discuss the return of Christ and how it is to encourage us as believers. Connect With Us
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| The Gospel | 18 Sep 2019 | 00:42:31 | |
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The gospel is the foundation of everything us Christians believe, and the reason we started our Marriage After God ministry. In this week's episode of The Marriage After God podcast, we are discussing the singular most important topic we will ever discuss on this podcast - The Gospel. There is both infinite simplicity and complexity in the gospel, but today our goal is to simplify the gospel. Thanks for Listening, Aaron & Jennifer Smith Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| What Does God Love? | 11 Sep 2019 | 00:38:12 | |
Sign up for the 31-day marriage prayer challenge for FREE https://marriageprayerchallenge.com
I was reading in Psalms 37, and there was a line that says “For the Lord loves justice”… and I thought how cool is it that the word directly told us what God loves. I thought it would be fun and instructive for us to find out if there are any more places in the bible that tell us directly what God loves. If God loves it, maybe we should too. And we know from Psalm 107 that God's steadfast love endures forever. It never ends or changes so he must still love today those things he said he loves back then. Psalm 36:7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! THE WORLD John 3:16 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. The world, meaning the people he created in His image. Mankind 1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us. If God loves the people he created, then I think we must do the same. Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. CHEERFUL GIVER 2 Corinthians 9:7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. JUSTICE Psalm 37:28 For the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. It was God’s justice that put Jesus to death. Because the only way we could be Justified is if the penalty for our transgressions were paid for. The requirement of the law must be fulfilled. And it was in Jesus. Listen to what we will pay if we do not receive this amazing free gift from God. 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, So we should love that God is just. He doesn't just let the sin go undealt with. If he did he would be unjust. He is even going to justly deal with all the wicked things of this world. Revelation 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” RIGHTEOUSNESS Psalm 11:7 For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face. Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Proverbs 15:9 The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but he loves him who pursues righteousness. Psalm 146:8 “The Lord loves the righteous” The Jewish Nation Hosea 3:1 And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” We should love the jews. God chose them to be the people to receive the Law and to bring us the messiah. Jesus was a jew. All of the apostles where jews. Let’s be praying for those who have not received Jesus as their messiah. Let’s pray for revival. The disciples John 16:27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. God loved the disciples. God Loves Jesus John 10:17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. God loves His Son He always has and He always will john 15:9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. God loves Jesus
Prayer Dear Lord, Thank you for your steadfast love. Thank you for loving us even yet while we were sinners. Thank you for showing us in your word what you love. We pray that we would abide in your love every day. We pray your love would manifest in our hearts and pour out into our relationships with others. May your love change us and transform us. May your love radically impact our marriages by the way we love our spouse. Help us to understand even more deeply your love for us and receive it with a humble heart. We pray we would show you our love by obeying your word and keeping it. In Jesus’ name, amen! Connect With Us
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| Here We Go Again! | 04 Sep 2019 | 00:56:02 | |
Take the 31-Day Marriage Prayer Challenge Completely Free. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Understanding the End Times: Are We Living in the Last Days? | 05 Jun 2024 | 01:08:01 | |
In today's episode, we explore the intriguing and often anxiety-inducing topic of the end times as described in scripture. Are we currently living in the last days? Join us as we examine this question and how believers can approach it with faith and hope rather than fear. We begin by discussing common feelings Christians have about the end times and sharing personal reflections from our own experiences growing up. We highlight influential pastors, such as Jack Hibbs, who regularly address prophecy and end times in their teachings. Additionally, we offer practical advice on how parents can discuss these topics with their children without causing fear. The episode dives into various biblical prophecies, the significance of Israel becoming a nation again, and the preparations for the third temple. Key scriptures such as Luke 21:28, 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, and Matthew 24:32-35 are discussed to provide a deeper understanding of what the Bible says about the end times. We aim to bring peace and excitement to believers about the return of the Lord. We encourage listeners to live with an expectation of Christ's return while making daily choices that reflect a long-term commitment to faith and godly living. Please subscribe to our channel on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify and leave us a 5 star rating and review to help us reach new listeners. Your support and feedback mean the world to us! Topics Discussed in the Episode:
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Ways to Support This Podcast:
Smith Family Resources, Inc © 2024 KEY WORDS Marriage After God, Aaron Smith, Jennifer Smith, Christian marriage, end times, prophecy, scripture, biblical prophecy, last days, Israel, third temple, Christian teachings, spirituality in marriage, faith-driven life, prophecy understanding, biblical interpretation, religious education, marriage enrichment, faith and family, religious podcasts, spiritual growth, Christian podcasters, marriage advice, exploring faith, life lessons, spiritual discussions, theological insights, deepening faith, understanding scripture, religious beliefs, Christian lifestyle, engaging discussions, podcast reviews, episode guide, listener engagement. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Tips For How To Say Something Difficult To Your Spouse | 28 Aug 2019 | 00:34:46 | |
There comes a moment in every marriage, if not many moments in marriage, that a couple needs to have a hard conversation with each other. This is one of those conversations that require a bit more than just chatting over dinner.
We thought we would use this time today to share with you how we have experienced these types of conversations in our marriage and what we have learned, in hopes of encouraging you when these moments come up in your marriage. The wrong way
Dear Lord, Thank You for the intimacy of marriage. Marriage can me messy and challenging at times, but it is such an incredible place for deep love to exist. Please help us to be transparent in marriage. Help us to walk in light, as well as grace. Lord, please help us to confront the issues that need to be confronted and to say the hard things in love. We pray we would be courageous and humble, willing to make time for each other, to share and to listen. We pray we would have hearts that truly desire reconciliation. May You go before us and with us as we share these moments in marriage and may these moments be growth opportunities that make us stronger and that help us to love deeper. In Jesus’ name, amen! Connect With Us
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| The Parable of the Good Samaritan | 21 Aug 2019 | 00:32:04 | |
In this episode, we discuss a powerful and edifying way to interpret The Parable of the Good Samaritan. Also, We would like to invite you to take the 31-day marriage prayer challenge completely free. Please click here to join in with thousands of couples. https://marriageprayerchallenge.com Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| An Easy & Fun Way To Start A Family Bible Time In your Home | 14 Aug 2019 | 00:43:28 | |
In this episode, we share a very fun, engaging and easy resource to help you start a family bible time in your home. Also, We would like to invite you to take the 31-day marriage prayer challenge completely free. Please click here to join in with thousands of couples. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| What does Hobby Lobby, Giveaways, and Marriage Have In Common? | 12 Aug 2019 | 00:02:35 | |
God is so good!!! Jennifer and I are so excited that our newest book, Marriage After God, is now available at your local Hobby Lobby! How incredible is that! PS. Hobby Lobby is the cheapest place to find our book. It's only $14.99, which is a whopping 40% OFF. But instead of just announcing it to you, we wanted to launch a fun giveaway instead to see if we could encourage you to go to your Hobby Lobby. Since there isnt enough reasons already ;) First, let's talk about what we are giving away.
We will pick and announce the winners on Friday, Aug 16th! Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Some Creative Ways To Help You Get Out Of Debt | 07 Aug 2019 | 00:44:43 | |
There are many reasons why you might want to make some side money. Getting out of debt was the reason we did. In this episode, we share with you some very unique and creative ways to make some extra cash today. We start off the episode with how the Bible teaches us to view money to get our minds and hearts in the right place. PRAYER Thank You for providing scripture about money, about how we should view it and how we should steward it. We pray we never have a love of money. We pray we would be wise in how we make our money, how we spend it and save it. We pray our finances would honor You. Help us to be united in marriage when it comes to money. Help us to communicate respectfully about money. In times that we are striving to make extra cash, we pray that You would guide us and show us what we should do. If any of the striving is in vain, please convict our hearts and redirect us. May the pursuit of money never be at the cost of our relationship with You, Lord, or with our families. Thank You for your provision, thank You for the opportunities we have to grow and thank You for the moments we get to share Your Gospel with others. We pray we would be a light in this world. In Jesus’ name, amen! Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| The Power Of Confession In Your Marriage & How To Do It. | 31 Jul 2019 | 00:46:02 | |
The Bible tells us in James 5 to "confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."
Confession is one of the most powerful gifts God has given us. It is by confession that we are saved. (Romans 10:10) It is by confession that we are healed. When we confess our sin we are saying that God is right and we are not. It is humbling our selves. It is the killing of our flesh just as Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow him. But confession can be hard especially because it is exactly the opposite of what our flesh wants. Confess exposes our nakedness and our natural instinct is to protect that nakedness and to cover it up. But when we hide we allow our sins and wrong ways of thinking to live on instead of being cut away. In this episode, we talk all about the power of confession and how it can be done well in our marriages. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Date Night Ideas Are Fun | 24 Jul 2019 | 00:25:58 | |
We all need a little inspiration every once in a while. Who am I kidding? We need it all the time lol. Here are some fun and creative date night ideas for you to try out with your spouse on your next date. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book, The Marriage Gift - 365 Prayers for your Marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| The Story That Makes Us, Well, Us! | 17 Jul 2019 | 00:52:54 | |
FREE EBOOK ALERT! We wanted to give away a fun and free resource to help you and your spouse go deeper on your date nights. This episode of Marriage After God is reflection back on our first few years of marriage, including what we went through and how God saved us. We vulnerably share about pornography addiction, our experience with painful sex, a discovery that helped us heal, and much more. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Right When I was Ready To Give Up on My Wife, God Changed My Heart! | 15 Jul 2019 | 00:34:26 | |
Download our FREE eBook and take your date nights to a new level! Subscribe to the Naked Marriage Podcast Today. Dave & Ashley Willis have become some of America's most trusted teachers on marriage. Their books, blogs, videos and speaking events have been reaching millions of couples worldwide. They are part of the MarriageToday team, which is the largest marriage-focused ministry in the USA. Connect With Us
Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| For Those Who Have Some Fears About Their Family Growing | 10 Jul 2019 | 00:30:51 | |
Download Our FREE 52 Date Night Conversations Starters eBook Today!!!! TRANSCRIPT
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Sponsors Get our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Prophecies about Christ and the Anti Christ and Is He Alive Today | 21 May 2024 | 01:11:28 | |
In today's episode, we tackle an intriguing blend of personal reflections and profound biblical themes, discussing the contrasting figures of Christ and the antichrist, exploring prophecies surrounding them, and understanding why these teachings remain crucial for believers today. We'll also go into into theological discussions, highlighting the unique role of Christ as our high priest in the order of Melchizedek, a figure whose mysterious presence in the scriptures sparks fascinating comparisons. Additionally, we'll examine the concept of the antichrist, not just as a singular menacing figure in eschatology but as a pervasive spirit opposing Christ's truth. Please subscribe to our channel on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify and leave us a star rating and review to help us reach new listeners. Your support and feedback mean the world to us! Topics Discussed in the Episode:
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Smith Family Resources, Inc © 2024 KEY WORDS Marriage After God, Aaron Smith, Jennifer Smith, Christian marriage, biblical prophecy, Christ, antichrist, Melchizedek, family adventures, Ohio, Kentucky, family wedding, plant names, parenting challenges, Christian teachings, spirituality in marriage, faith-driven life, prophecy understanding, book discussion, spiritual leadership, priestly roles, scriptural insights, end times, eschatology, antichrist spirit, biblical interpretation, religious education, marriage enrichment, faith and family, religious podcasts, spiritual growth, Christian podcasters, marriage advice, exploring faith, life lessons, spiritual discussions, theological insights, deepening faith, understanding scripture, religious beliefs, biblical figures, Christ's priesthood, spiritual guidance, faith-based parenting, religious exploration, Christian lifestyle, engaging discussions, podcast reviews, episode guide, listener engagement. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriageaftergod/donations | |||
| Does God Have A Calling For My Marriage? + FREE 52 Date Night Conversations Starters Download | 03 Jul 2019 | 00:39:16 | |
What is God's Calling for your marriage? Listen to today's episode and find out :)
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DOWNLOAD HERE - > http://datenightconversations.com TRANSCRIPTAaron Smith: We're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God ... Jennifer Smith: ... helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Aaron Smith: Today we're going to be talking about God's calling for your marriage. Lots of people think they have a calling, or don't know what their calling might be, but we believe that there are six callings that every Christian marriage has, and we're here to share them with you. Jennifer Smith: So, Aaron, before we get started, can you just explain a little bit about what does it mean to have a calling? What does it mean when you hear the word I have a calling on my marriage? Like, so people understand what we're saying. Aaron Smith: Just growing up in the church, we've all heard this idea of our calling, and a lot of times it's our individual calling, like what's God called ... ? Am I a missionary? Am I going to be starting a church? Am I going to be a pastor? Am I going to be a worship leader? There's all these finite things that people might feel called to. But when it comes to our marriage, do we believe our marriage has a calling? And we believe every marriage has a specific calling- Jennifer Smith: A specific purpose- Aaron Smith: ... a specific purpose- Jennifer Smith: ... that God's going to use them for. Aaron Smith: Yeah, based in their unique giftings, talents, position in life, that God wants to use in those marriages, for his purposes. But that might be vague for some people, and some marriages might be thinking, "Well, what's my purpose?" So what we thought we'd do is sit down and share with you six callings that we believe every Christian marriage is called to. These are callings that God has for your marriage today, whether you know what the specific calling is from God, and in the ministry that God has for your marriage as a couple, these callings are for every Christian marriage. Aaron Smith: There's more than this, but we picked out the six that we love the most and that we've kind of walked through in our life. So this gives you a place to start in marriage and say, "Okay, God already has a calling for us. We don't have to guess or we don't have to pretend we don't know or not know how to figure out where to get that calling." You can actually start today and say, "Oh, this is ... at least we know these callings, that God has for us." Jennifer Smith: That's really cool. I'm so excited to jump in. I just want to encourage you listening, if you, as we go through each six, if you could just take evaluation of your marriage and see if you guys are already fulfilling these callings in your life, or if you're not, if these are areas that you're wrestling with or struggling with, then hopefully our encouragement today will help you step up in those areas. Aaron Smith: Yeah, and you can let us know in the comments what areas that you think you've already been walking in, you're like, "Oh," and you never saw them as callings. Or you can let us know areas that you didn't recognize, that you needed to be walking in. Let us know in the comments. We like to read through those. Aaron Smith: So let's get started. We're going to start. We have six of them. The first calling that every Christian marriage has is to prayer, and this could be together or separate. It should eventually be together, but some of you might not be able to do that. Aaron Smith: But let me read the verse that goes with this. Philippians 4:6-7, and it says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to god. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Aaron Smith: Every marriage, every Christian marriage, has a calling to pray, and that seems easy. It seems like the easy Bible answer, but I want to talk a little bit about this, real quick, from our own life, and I have a question for you. How would say prayer has played a role in our marriage? Jennifer Smith: Well, I would say it was significant in saving our marriage, for sure. We started out in our relationship with praying for each other and praying for the purpose that God had for our marriage. Aaron Smith: We prayed every night during our dating years. Jennifer Smith: Yeah, and throughout our engagement. Aaron Smith: Yeah. Jennifer Smith: And then even through our marriage, and when we hit that hard spot in our marriage, when we were contemplating divorce and just were both really isolated from each other- Aaron Smith: And broken and frustrated, yeah. Jennifer Smith: ... and broken, you were really adamant about prayer. So every night, you were still praying for us. My heart was a little bit harder towards God and I was really frustrated and wrestling with the issues that we were facing, but you were faithful to prayer and- Aaron Smith: Which was hard. For all the husbands watching, my prayers started off very hopeful in the first few years of my marriage, and eventually got very angry and bitter, but I still prayed because I had that foundation in my heart, and I was like, "No, this is the only way I see us getting healing," and so I kept praying. You actually got to a point where you stopped praying. Jennifer Smith: Yeah, we used to pray together every night, and then slowly I just kind of faded out and listened to your payers, still participated but didn't pray as much. Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: But I will say that your faithfulness in praying every night really helped me to embrace God and come back to him, to turn my heart back to him, and to trust him because I knew that you trusted Him. So that did play a big role in saving our marriage. Aaron Smith: Yeah, so prayer's a little ominous for a lot of Christians, which it shouldn't be, but there's no classes on prayer. I know some churches probably have that, but it's not like a ... We just assume, like, "Oh, prayer's supposed to be easy to us." You know, what would you say are some ... ? Is prayer just talking to God? Is it like you have the right words and you have ... you bring in scripture at the right time in the prayer? Is there any ... ? Like, how does it look in our marriage? What does prayer look like for us? Jennifer Smith: Well, how I've always viewed it is it's just our way of communicating with God, so it's basically opening up our hearts and just sharing what's on our hearts and what's on our minds, and sharing it with God. What's really cool about what I've experienced through praying with you, is that not only are we submitting everything to God and asking for his guidance in our relationship, but every once in a while there's a compliment in there about me when you're praying, and thanking God for me, and- Aaron Smith: Well, when you hear me pray for you, you actually hear my heart for you. Jennifer Smith: Yeah, exactly. I get to hear your heart for me, and that affirms me, and it affirms my relationship with you, so that's been a huge encouragement. But I think that people can get really overwhelmed when they think about prayer and going to God and overthinking it. Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: You know, feeling like it has to be done perfectly, and it doesn't. Aaron Smith: So you're saying that the couples that are watching now could start today? Jennifer Smith: They can start today. Aaron Smith: They can just say, "Okay, Lord, I don't know what I'm saying to you, but I want help," or, "Thank you," and it could be as simple as that. Jennifer Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Aaron Smith: Yeah, so we encourage you. So the first calling that every Christian marriage has is to prayer, and this means together. Some of you might be married and your spouse, your husband or your wife is not a believer, or is where my wife was, in a place where she's kind of angry or bitter, or they're angry or bitter. You can still pray without them, for them, and with them, and over them. Aaron Smith: So don't let a disunity keep you from prayer because you have a unity with Christ. And Christ, as our mediator, gives us direct access to the throne of God, that we can actually open up our hearts and we can pray directly to God. We don't need a high priest anymore because we have Christ, who is our perfect high priest. Aaron Smith: So we just want to encourage you today. You can actually start praying today, whether together or individually. Start praying today. Jennifer Smith: Yeah, and if you're doing it individually, which is great, every once in a while, invite your spouse to pray with you, or say, "Hey, I'd love to pray for you. Can you give me a list? Can you give me like five things that I can really focus on." I know that that's super helpful. Aaron Smith: And I know it'll totally bless them, too. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: I just want to bring this quote up, that our pastor always says to us, "Prayer isn't preparation for the battle, prayer is the battle." So we don't look at prayer as, like, well, that's a supplementary thing that we do for our faith, or it's something that we do only when it's really bad. Prayer is the battle, and we're in a spiritual warfare every day, against our own flesh, against the enemies in the world and in the spirit. Aaron Smith: And so prayer, we need to go to battle on our knees in prayer, in praying for the things that we care about, and praying for the things that we are concerned about, and going to our Father and saying, "Lord, we need your mind on this, we need your heart on this, we need your help on this." Aaron Smith: So prayer is the first calling that every Christian marriage has. Okay, so what's the next calling that every Christian marriage has? Jennifer Smith: Okay, so the next one is love, and I want to share a scripture but it's probably not the one you're thinking. Most people go straight to 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, which defines what love is, which is great, but today I'm going to share Matthew 22:37-40, which says, "And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.'" Jennifer Smith: So contrary to how culture will tell us that love is a feeling and love is something that we ... Aaron Smith: Fall into. Jennifer Smith: ... fall into, God is saying that love is a command. He commands us to love him, and he commands us to love our neighbor, or in this case, in regards to marriage, our spouse. Aaron Smith: Yeah, and so for all the marriages out there, your calling, our calling is to love. Not just love each other, because it says love your neighbor as yourself, that's the second and greatest commandment. Because my wife is my closest neighbor, I am her closest neighbor, we practice loving our neighbors by loving each other well. Aaron Smith: And then the second part of this is that, as a couple, we love the Lord with all of our hearts, minds, soul and strength. So if you're sitting out there, wondering what your calling in life is, this is a amazing calling, is to love each other well and to love God. Jennifer Smith: Yeah, and I just want to share that, because of the way our culture is very self focused, especially in marriage, we can get caught up in thinking that, "I can't love you right now because you're not loving me," and that can just cause a crazy cycle to happen. I know we've experienced it before. Aaron Smith: Yeah. In the beginning of our marriage, because I wasn't living up to the high expectations you had for me, you would just withhold all of your love. You would- Jennifer Smith: Yeah, so I would get really frustrated because I- Aaron Smith: You would tell me. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. I had all these expectations of romantic love and these grand gestures of you showing me love- Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: ... and I relied on you to initiate all of that. And when you didn't do it, I didn't want to do it. Aaron Smith: And you wouldn't initiate it, because you were expecting, like, that's what my husband does. He's going to pursue me and he's going to do all the loving. And I'm sitting over there thinking, like, my wife's not even pursuing me, why would I give her love? Aaron Smith: Now, we were both wrong because we both were commanded to love each other. I was commanded more specifically from Ephesians 5:23, I am supposed to love you, but we're supposed to walk in love the way the Bible tells us to. Jennifer Smith: Right. Aaron Smith: So we were totally dropping the ball on that calling in our life, and it's only been the last three, four years that we've been learning to actually walk in that calling for us. Jennifer Smith: In that command. Aaron Smith: And what happens when you start walking in that calling, just with each other, as most areas of marriage, in a Christian marriage, we start loving each other more biblically and more authentically and we start pursuing each other more. So what happens is we have extra in us to ... Jennifer Smith: ... love others. Aaron Smith: So then we can actually, instead of you just always constantly thinking, "I'm not getting what I need," you have more than enough and you actually have the energy, I have the energy and the love available, to be able to sit and love our other neighbors. Jennifer Smith: Right. Aaron Smith: Our friends, our family. So that's where that calling gets even wider- Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: ... is showing that love to the world, so ... Jennifer Smith: There was a turning point in our marriage, where I felt like we really began to understand God's command on love, but also the way that he set the example for unconditional love- Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: ... and I wanted you to share a little bit about your vision of being with Jesus in the garden, just a really brief version. Aaron Smith: So, just really briefly, when we were at our breaking point in our marriage, I felt the Lord bring me a vision of Jesus being in the Garden of Gethsemane before he goes to the cross. I remember God showing me Jesus weeping and, as it were, great tears of blood because he was so anguished over what he was about to go through. Aaron Smith: We've all heard the story, we know exactly what it's about and we understand it, but I felt like God showed me a new perspective on it, and he was saying like ... because in the garden, Jesus three times said, "Lord, let this cup pass for me," the cup of wrath, essentially, is what he's saying. Jennifer Smith: He knew what he was about to do, and he knew who he was doing it for. Aaron Smith: Yeah, who was he doing it for? His bride. So, essentially, what he was saying is, "Lord, I don't want to die for my bride, because this is too painful." Jennifer Smith: Especially knowing that part of his bride would reject him, or not- Aaron Smith: Or spit on him. Jennifer Smith: ... want him, yeah. Aaron Smith: Or turn away from him. Instead of what he wanted, in his flesh ... because his flesh was saying, "I don't want to do this," ... his spirit submitted to the Lord in his will for her. He said not my will be done, but your will be done. Jennifer Smith: And he did it. Aaron Smith: And so he went to the cross anyway, for a broken and filthy bride, an adulteress bride, knowing that that was what God's will for him was, and that's how he was going to love us. Jennifer Smith: So here you are, already married to me, three years in ... Aaron Smith: Yeah, and I feel like I had a choice, but the choice was this, was, in my flesh I was saying, "Lord, I can't do this," and God was saying, "Sure, you can, because Jesus did it." Jennifer Smith: Not your will, but mine. Aaron Smith: Not your will, but my will be done. So God's will is that I would love my wife anyway. If my wife never gave me what I feel like I deserve or what she's supposed to give me, I should be able to love her, still, through the Holy Spirit. Jennifer Smith: We were in church, it had just gotten out so people were scurrying all over the place, and we were just standing in the middle of the sanctuary and you were crying, telling me all of this and- Aaron Smith: I had something in my eye. Jennifer Smith: Yeah, sure. Aaron Smith: I wasn't crying. Jennifer Smith: But right there, we committed to walking, as Jesus walked, in unconditional love for each other, regardless- Aaron Smith: If nothing ever changed- Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: ... in our physical issues that we were having. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: And you know what changed? Jennifer Smith: Our hearts. Aaron Smith: Everything. Jennifer Smith: Yeah, everything changed. Aaron Smith: Our hearts changed and our hearts melted. The Bible calls our hearts stone and he takes our hearts of stone and he turns them to hearts of flesh. I feel like that's what he did, in that moment, was turn my heart from a heart of stone, and your heart from a heart of stone, to a heart of flesh. That's the power of the calling of love in our life. Jennifer Smith: Exactly, and our obedience to this command is not reliant upon what other people are doing, especially your spouse. So our encouragement to you guys today is to love anyways, and to love unconditionally, and to let- Aaron Smith: It's your calling. Jennifer Smith: Yeah, it's your calling. Aaron Smith: Yeah. So let's move onto the third calling. We have three more after this. So the third calling that every Christian marriage has is to forgive. This is a hard one. I'm going to read the scripture, it's Colossians 3:13. There's lots of scriptures on forgiveness. I'm not going to even read the harder ones. I'm just going to read this one. Aaron Smith: So Colossians 3:13 says this, "Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." So just like that last command to love, forgiveness is a command. Forgiveness is not an option for the believer, especially in marriage. We don't get to choose not to forgive. We don't get to say, "Well, my wife wronged me so badly that I don't have to forgive her." Aaron Smith: Well, it's actually a command to forgive, and I always tell myself ... because when we were going through what we were going through, I felt like I didn't have to forgive you, and there was a lot of things that I did, that you just held onto, and you're like, "I can't forgive you for that." Jennifer Smith: I didn't want to forgive you, no. Aaron Smith: You didn't want to forgive me. And you know what the Lord showed me? Showed us? Who are we to hold forgiveness against anyone? For what God forgave me of, and the patience that God had with me, how dare I withhold forgiveness from anyone? Especially my bride, who is one with me. So technically, if I withhold forgiveness from my bride, I'm withholding forgiveness from myself because she is me and I am her. But we did this. It was so destructive. It was not a oneness, it was complete disorder. Aaron Smith: And just think about this, the calling in your life to forgive your spouse, you have nothing else in you to withhold against your spouse that you did not do to Christ, himself. Now, when Christ died on the cross, he forgave all sin, just like that. The thing that he was praying that he could have the cup passed for him, he did anyway. He drank that cup, every last drop of it, the cup of the wrath that we deserved. Aaron Smith: That doesn't mean we don't repent. It doesn't mean that things that happen to us don't actually hurt us, and that it doesn't take time to learn to trust again, and that it doesn't take time to figure out how to walk with each other and get back into oneness and unity, but that does not mean we get to not forgive. So if you're wondering what your calling is in your marriage, as a marriage, it's forgiveness, towards each other and towards others. Aaron Smith: So I have a question, has it been easy for you to forgive me? Jennifer Smith: Not in the beginning. There's definitely been times where forgiveness was too painful to accept in my heart. Aaron Smith: I just thought of something. What was it that you were afraid it would mean, if you forgave me? Remember, there was something you used to say? Jennifer Smith: Do we want to say what, specifically, we're talking about, in regards to- Aaron Smith: No. Jennifer Smith: Okay. Aaron Smith: There was a reason you withheld forgiveness, and you were afraid of me not changing. You were afraid of, like, if you forgave me ... Jennifer Smith: Then you would just have the freedom to do it again, or ... Aaron Smith: Right, and so you would withhold that forgiveness because you used it as a tool to control the situation. Jennifer Smith: Well, I wanted you hurt like I was hurting. Aaron Smith: Exactly. Jennifer Smith: I thought if I withheld forgiveness, then you would feel the pain of not being reconciled. Aaron Smith: Right. So you were breaking this command in your heart because you thought that you had the right to, because of what I did, but in reality we don't, right? Jennifer Smith: Yeah, we don't. Aaron Smith: We don't have the right to withhold forgiveness from anyone. There's another verse that's terrifying, and we'll put it in the comments, in the description below, but it essentially says if you don't forgive ... Jennifer Smith: Your Father won't forgive you. Aaron Smith: And that is terrifying. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: So this third calling for every Christian marriage is to walk in forgiveness. Jennifer Smith: And to encourage you, what I've experienced with us is the more you practice forgiveness, and your heart is motivated toward reconciliation, the easier it becomes, because you have this bigger picture of what it means to forgive and why it's so valuable for oneness in marriage. Aaron Smith: Right. So why don't we move onto the fourth calling that every Christian marriage has? Jennifer Smith: So the fourth one is trust, and I feel like it goes hand in hand with forgiveness, because in order to trust again, you have to be able to forgive- Aaron Smith: It's true. Jennifer Smith: ... and reconcile, and experience oneness and intimacy again. But I know that for a lot of marriages, trust is a big issue, and it's really hard once you've been sinned against or hurt, to extend that trust and rebuild it again. Aaron Smith: Yeah, and so I would encourage one thing, is this is not a calling to just blindly trust. When I would wrong you, in things that I was walking in, right, and I broke your trust, your calling wasn't to just be like, "Well, I'm just going to trust you again." Your calling was to forgive me, and your calling was to reconcile with me, and to walk with me as we grow towards oneness again and heal, right. Jennifer Smith: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Aaron Smith: But what were you supposed to trust in, in that season? Jennifer Smith: No matter what, I was supposed to trust God. Aaron Smith: With what? Jennifer Smith: With my heart, and with you. That he was working in your life- Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: ... and that he was there to help us. Aaron Smith: And that was actually hard for you, because the first four and a half years of our marriage, you didn't trust God. Jennifer Smith: No, it was definitely a learning curve. Aaron Smith: So it was impossible for you to trust me. I mean, I didn't give her a reason to trust me, but you didn't trust God, you didn't trust me, you didn't even trust your own emotions. Jennifer Smith: I think that's why I felt so lonely and I felt so ... Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: I just felt so alone in what we were facing as a couple, because I felt like I wasn't connected with you, and then I felt disconnected from God, so there was a lot of mistrust, and not having that really hindered my ability to experience intimacy with both of you. Aaron Smith: And trusting God, with your spouse, puts you on the right path of the spirit of God, helping you trust again. Because as you see God work in your spouse as you pray, and as you forgive, you start seeing the transformations and you say, "Okay, Lord, I can trust you. I can trust my spouse with you, I can trust me with you, and I can trust my marriage with you. And so I'm just going to walk in the things that you've asked me to because I trust you, Father." Jennifer Smith: And a foundational verse for trust, and especially trusting God, is Proverbs 3:5-6. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths." Jennifer Smith: And I had to lean on this verse, especially in regards to our marriage, because I felt like I had all this understanding of what I should do as a wife, and how I should respond to my husband, but I couldn't lean on my own understanding. Every time I was faced with this verse, I had to remind myself, I can't do that. Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: I need to be able trust God and- Aaron Smith: Well, and your understanding kept you from being able to trust me, and kept you from trusting God because you're like, "I just don't understand-" Jennifer Smith: Yeah, and kept me from reconciling with you- Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: ... because my understanding lacked ... Aaron Smith: The spirit of God. Jennifer Smith: ... the spirit of God. Aaron Smith: Yeah. Jennifer Smith: It really did. It was selfish. Aaron Smith: Yeah, right. Jennifer Smith: It was very selfish. I was trying to preserve myself and protect myself, instead of re-engaging with you and trusting that God was going to walk us ... bring us to a better place. Aaron Smith: Well, and going into the word of God and into prayer, and actually battling for me and being my helper, because you were just thinking, like, "No, I've been hurt, so I'm not going to try." Jennifer Smith: Yeah. There's this picture that I see when I think about trust in a marriage relationship and I hope that this encourages you guys, but it's this idea of all the walls in a person's heart, that we've built up over time. Every brick that is placed to build that wall will keep your spouse out of your heart. The whole idea of oneness is to understand each other and to know each other intimately, and you can't do that unless you bring those walls down, so this picture of taking these bricks down from these walls in your heart and building a bridge to close that gap and to allow connectedness, bring you guys together. Aaron Smith: Right. Which could take a lifetime, to break those walls down, but through the Holy Spirit, could happen overnight. Jennifer Smith: True. Aaron Smith: So we just, we encourage you guys, in your marriage, to take up that calling of trust, and trusting God with your spouse and your marriage, and seeking his word on how you should live, and how you should be, and how you should act towards each other and towards outsiders, and walk in that, and you'll see what will happen. You'll see, like, what we've experienced is freedom. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: Freedom from the bondages of our own desires, our own misunderstandings, our own- Jennifer Smith: Sin. Aaron Smith: ... sin. Which brings us to the fifth calling for your marriage, and it is purity. In Hebrews 13, verse 4, it says, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous." Aaron Smith: I did not do this. I totally broke unity with my wife, often. I had dealt with pornography my entire life. I thought marriage would fix it, and it didn't, of course. I'm sure a lot of you out there, that are watching this, could understand this, but I walked, actually, worse in it during the first few years of our marriage, and that, by itself, broke unity, spiritually unprotected you and us, brought in all sorts of filth into our home, brought in filth into my mind, made me see my wife in a broken way. It encouraged you to have lack of trust with me, rightfully. It made it hard for you to forgive me, rightfully. Jennifer Smith: Made me not want to be with you, physically. Aaron Smith: It made you not want to pray with me. Jennifer Smith: Made [crosstalk 00:24:43]. Aaron Smith: So all the things that we've been talking about, that are callings in our life, my daily decisions hindered from making it easy and possible for us to do. That doesn't mean that they're not callings, still, for us, but my own impurity, my own walking in filth, my porn addiction- Jennifer Smith: Hindered all those other callings. Aaron Smith: ... hindered all of those other callings, which, when we're walking in that sort of sin ... and I know there's a lot of marriages watching this that are dealing with that, either both or one of the spouses is dealing with pornography on a daily basis, is walking in this unrepentant sin ... and it literally is going to not just bring death to your home, because the Bible tells us that our sin will find us out, and sin leads to death when it's full-grown. And we had spiritual death in our marriage. Praise God that he was patient with us and kind to us and extended grace and mercy, and I just always think about his patience because of how long I was walking in that, and how he didn't just destroy us, because he totally could have. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: And it almost did destroy our marriage. Aaron Smith: But purity, and walking in all these other things, make our marriages into a ministry. But when we're not walking in purity, we have zero authority. I had no authority to lead my wife. I had no authority to lead myself. I couldn't sit with another brother in Christ and say, "Hey, let me encourage you. Let me walk you through this," because I was completely walking in unrepentant sin. Aaron Smith: I thought I was repenting, but the fact that I just kept going back to it without having an actual change in my heart, without having an actual understanding of what I was saying yes to ... I was completely destroying our marriage, and that is a calling for your marriage as much as it's a calling for our marriage. This isn't unique to some marriages. Your marriage is called to purity, husband and wife. Aaron Smith: So I'm talking about my own impurity that I struggled with, with pornography on the internet. What areas of purity did you struggle with, that you didn't recognize in the time, and to be honest, I wasn't even able to bring up to you because of my own sin, but I was able to bring up to you after I started walking in purity. Jennifer Smith: Well, the first thing I want to just share very vulnerably is that I also had my own struggle with pornography for a season. I'm sharing that because I know that there's wives listening, and it can be so hard to confront and admit that you're wrestling with this. Once you confess that sin and repent of it, you will find so much freedom. You need to deal with it, but one of the other major impurities in my life was hiding the fact that I had a problem with food and using it whenever I was emotional, whenever I felt down or defeated, whenever I had a craving. I was so selfish with my desires for it and used it as a crutch. Jennifer Smith: Anytime we were facing discord or disunity, I went to sugar, you know, anything that would make me feel better. I knew that I was living in an unhealthy way and I kept that from you because I didn't want you to point the finger at me, or challenge me, or keep me accountable in any way. Aaron Smith: When you thought I didn't have a right to, anyway, because of the way I was walking. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. When you did try and step in and encourage me to be healthy, I wouldn't let you. Aaron Smith: You'd use my sin as an excuse for your own. Jennifer Smith: Right. Yeah, so that was this crazy cycle in itself, of not being able to walk in the freedom that Christ gave both of us because we were stuck in- Aaron Smith: Impurity. Jennifer Smith: ... impurity. Aaron Smith: Yeah. So the fifth calling for your marriage is to walk in purity. And if you are struggling, or ... I don't even want to say struggling. If you're in these problems, these sins, addiction to pornography, eating habits, things that you haven't submitted to the Lord and you're holding onto and saying, "This is mine," you need to repent today and walk in the freedom that Galatians 5:1 tells us we have, "For freedom Christ has set you free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery." If you have the Holy Spirit living in you, you have the power to walk in freedom and purity. Jennifer Smith: And as you're evaluating your life, I would also suggest that, you know, maybe it's not pornography, maybe it's not food, but maybe it's music, maybe it's what you're reading, maybe it's the ... Aaron Smith: Yeah, maybe you love romance novels- Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: ... and you dwell on those and you read them often and ... Jennifer Smith: Maybe it's other types of websites that you're viewing online or maybe it's a bad shopping habit. There are so many different ways that we can live impure lives, and God calls us to a higher standard than that. And it's for the protection of our hearts, for the protection of our marriages, for the protection of our families, that we live pure lives. Aaron Smith: And in doing so, it makes our marriages be able to walk in the higher calling that our marriages have, which is ministering to the world, which is doing the will of the Father, and when we aren't walking pure, we're missing it. We cannot do that. It's the plank eye effect. Aaron Smith: The Bible doesn't say not to go take the speck out of your brother's eye. It says you can't see the speck in their eye clearly because we have a plank in our own. So the idea is that we need to remove that plank. We need to be walking in purity, we need to repent of our sin and accept the freedom that Christ has given us, and the authority and power that he's put in us. So let's move onto the last one. Jennifer Smith: The last one. Aaron Smith: And this is a fun one for us, but it's also a hard one. Jennifer Smith: It was a hard one for me, for sure. Aaron Smith: And this isn't an extensive list of all the callings that every Christian marriage has, but these are the six that we chose for this podcast, this video, and so what's the sixth one? Jennifer Smith: So the sixth one is generosity, and I'm going to read 2 Corinthians 9:6-7. It says, "The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." Aaron Smith: So what do you have to say about that in our marriage? Jennifer Smith: Well, I want to be honest with them and say that, in the beginning of our marriage, I fought generosity and I didn't realize that I was fighting it. I didn't know that I wasn't a generous person, but- Aaron Smith: Yeah, when I said I wanted to start giving to our church or to some non-profits, what was your answer? Jennifer Smith: I thought that by giving of my time, was enough. Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: I really believed that, and- Aaron Smith: I remember you telling me, be like, "Why do we have to give our money? We give our time." Because we volunteered a lot at the different churches we were part of and ... Jennifer Smith: We also didn't have very high paying jobs and what we did have went to our living situation, and I never- Aaron Smith: And debt. We were getting out of debt at the time. Jennifer Smith: And debt. And I just, I never felt like we had enough, and so to give away the little bit that we had was really frustrating to me and I didn't understand why it was of importance. Aaron Smith: Especially when we didn't have the things that a lot of our friends and married couples had. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: We didn't have our own home. We only had one car. We didn't have- Jennifer Smith: When we did have an apartment, I remember going down to the thrift store to get a can opener- Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: ... or whatever little thing that we needed to be able to live. Aaron Smith: And we were doing all that for the purpose of getting out of debt, but in our mode of getting out of debt, I believed what the scripture said about generosity and giving, and so we wanted to walk in obedience to that. So even though we were trying to get out of debt, we're like we're also going to give to what God's doing. Jennifer Smith: And I will say that this is a huge testimony to God's way of submission, because as your wife, I submitted to you in this call of generosity and it actually changed me. It changed me heart. It changed my perspective and my view. Aaron Smith: Right. Jennifer Smith: At first, it was challenging for me and I complained, and I do feel bad about that still. But over time, I saw this verse come to life, that when you sow bountifully, you reap bountifully. I saw it even in our own marriage. Aaron Smith: Yeah. Jennifer Smith: The times that you were generous with me, whether it was with your time or your resources or with gifts, I would feel something in my heart to want to do it back. Aaron Smith: Yeah. Jennifer Smith: So I even saw that come alive in our own marriage, but also out in our other relationships. Aaron Smith: And this calling for your marriage, of being generous, there's not a dollar amount on this. This is not a, like, you have to give this amount of money all the time. The New Testament, specifically, is very clear that God wants all of it. He wants to know that our hands are open and that whatever he puts in, he can also take out. So this isn't a prosperity gospel of, like, if you put money in the basket, money's going to come right back out to you. Sometimes that happens, but in many ways, the blessing that we've gotten from walking in generosity, just in every aspect of our life, is having a healthy perspective on money. We don't crave money. We don't crave more money. We don't seek wealth. Jennifer Smith: Or things, really, I mean we just- Aaron Smith: I mean, even things, yeah. We see things as useful objects. We don't see them as things that are going to fulfill us. Man, the amount of things that God's been able to do, just through our little bit of generosity, in other marriages lives, in other people's lives, around the world, has been a huge testimony to God's goodness in our life. Aaron Smith: So what happens is, God blesses us, because we're all blessed. Everyone's blessed, right. Just Jesus Christ alone, he's the best gift anyone's ever been given. But even just in our day to day life, the things that we have, recognizing that they're not ours. Jennifer Smith: Yeah. Aaron Smith: That they're used for his Kingdom. Aaron Smith: So in your marriage, the calling of generosity, are you being generous with your home? Are you being generous with your cars, with your finances, with your time? Are you walking in a marriage, in a level of generosity where you just trust God and say, "Okay, Lord, we're open to what you have for us and we're going to do it." We don't know what's that looks like means, but we're going to say, "Lord, this is your money, how do you want us to use it? Do you have someone that needs help in the church, that you want us to bless? Is it $5 to help someone with a meal? Is it $20 for gas for someone? Is it $100 to a missionary?" It could be anything. Jennifer Smith: And when you submit your heart to God in prayer and you tell him, "I'm yours and everything I have is yours," you will hear him speak to you, as far as that tugging on your heart to give. In those divine moments where someone else is in need, he'll show you. Aaron Smith: Yeah, and he does it all the time, and that's where our hearts are at. "Okay, Lord, what do you have next for us?" We actually start the year off, every year, "God, how do you want to use us this year, financially?" Jennifer Smith: Yeah. It is a part of our goal setting. Aaron Smith: Yeah. So we hope you enjoyed these six callings that the Lord has for your marriage. We try and walk in these calling ourselves, and we hope that by you walking in these, and chasing after these biblical concepts and callings for your marriage, that you'll be led towards God's greater calling for your marriage, whatever that may be, and that your eyes would be open and that your heart would be open into receiving what he has for you as individuals in your marriage, and as a unit, as a whole. Aaron Smith: If you enjoyed this video, please hit the subscribe button and also hit the bell next to the subscribe button so you get notifications when we post new videos. Jennifer Smith: Also, leave a comment. If there are other callings that God has for Christian marriages we'd love to be encouraged by that and see more. Aaron Smith: See you later. Aaron Smith: Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| How to Encourage Your Spouse In Times Of Doubt & Fear | 26 Jun 2019 | 00:38:26 | |
Times of doubt and fear will come and how we handle it matters. If you have been blessed by this podcast and would love to support it please take a moment and pick up a copy of our new book Marriage After God. https://marriageaftergod.com PRAYERDear Lord, Thank you for the gift of marriage. Thank you for the gift of life. We pray that doubt and fear would not overwhelm our hearts and minds. We pray we would not let doubt or fear keep us from doing the things you have called us to do. May your Holy Spirit remind us of Your Words and encourage our hearts to be faithful and brave, people who rely on your strength and power. We pray we would be quick to encourage one another through moments when doubt or fear arises or when something happens that triggers these emotions to stir up. Help us not to worry and help us not to be anxious. May your peace comfort us and remind us of our security in You. In Jesus’ name, amen! Connect With Us
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| We Create A Family Mission Statement | 19 Jun 2019 | 00:42:02 | |
Having a mission statement for your family isn't required but it can be very beneficial for creating and maintaining the culture of your home. Jennifer and I have never created a mission statement before so we thought we would make one while you listen. If you have been blessed by the Marriage After God podcast please consider supporting it by picking up a copy of our book titled Marriage After God. https://marrigeaftergod.comREAD TRANSCRIPT [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna do something fun and we're gonna talk about creating a family mission statement. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just "Happily Ever After". [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as "Unveiled Wife". [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as "Husband Revolution". [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years, through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God". Firstly, we want to just thank everyone for joining us on this podcast today. We're super excited just to have you join us 'cause this is gonna be an interesting episode. We have a lot in store for you, but first we just wanna ask that you would take a minute to leave us a review. It's easy, you just scroll to the bottom of the app and just leave us a star rating review or comment review. This is one way to support the podcast "Marriage After God" because it allows other people to find the podcast, and we wanna do that. So, please take a moment to help us out there and thank you. [Aaron] Also, our book's out. Our new book, "Marriage After God", is available. It's been such and awesome ride seeing the response we've been getting, and if you have not picked up a copy yet, we'd love for you to go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, and pick up a copy today. One of the most powerful ways you can support us, is by buying our book, and it also supports your marriage and your life. We wrote the book for you. We wrote it to encourage you in the ministry that God has for you and your spouse, so go grab a copy today. [Jennifer] Okay, so we are going to start off here with an ice-breaker question, and Aaron came up with this question, so I'm hoping he has an answer. What is the ideal family trip or vacation? [Aaron] I actually didn't think about it when I said it, so I don't have... Okay, let me think. Ideal family trip. So, I can look back on something we have done that I really enjoyed, when we went to the East Coast, but we did like a plane-drive, plane-drive. [Jennifer] It was over a period of a week and a half, two weeks. [Aaron] Yeah, and I thought that was a lot of fun 'cause we got to fly the portions that I thought would've been boring, maybe. Get to a new area and then drive around, stay for a day or two, go to the next place-- [Jennifer] And here, you said, "Ideal family trip". That doesn't sound ideal for any family. [Aaron] For me! Oh, are you saying ideal for everyone? [Jennifer] Yeah, I don't know if that was your question, but I'm just thinking everyone listening right now is probably shaking their heads, no. [Aaron] I thought that was a fun trip for us. [Jennifer] I think the majority of families, especially with young children, would say flying and driving multiple times in one trip would be a difficult challenge. [Aaron] Okay, I didn't know it "ideal for everyone". Ideal for everyone would be like, going somewhere awesome and staying there for a while. Like, with a house that's comfortable and you have all your family with you, and there's a pool or a beach. [Jennifer] Where would that place be, Aaron? [Aaron] Maui? I don't know. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] What's ideal for you? What would that be? [Jennifer] So, I think you and me just like adventure because I really had fun that time too, that we went to the East Coast, but I think an ideal family trip is visiting family in California. I think that's just because I know it's something the kids enjoy. We usually hit up the beach. We stay there all day. [Aaron] Yeah, that is fun. [Jennifer] I think it's just an easy, kind of, go-to is when you're visiting family somewhere, you're staying with them, and you're just doing something simple. [Aaron] All right, that's good answer. [Jennifer] Relaxing. [Aaron] I'm sure everyone listening has their own ideal. Like, staying home. Eating ice cream, that sounds ideal. [Jennifer] Now that it's summertime, I'm sure there's a lot of people traveling and doing, you know, maybe family vacations or summer trips. [Aaron] Camping. So, we hope you guys are, and we hope that if you can spend that time with your family and doing something fun, even if it's local, like camping in the backyard, you're doing it, 'cause those are memories that your kids will love forever. [Aaron] Oh yeah. So, I just wanna, before we get into the main topic, I'm gonna read a quote from the book "Marriage After God", and it's about this idea. It's from Chapter 13 of "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] About what idea? Just that you clarify. [Aaron] Yeah, it's about the idea of creating a vision statement or mission statement for your marriage. It says this, "Casting a vision together for the future "of your marriage is an intimate experience "where hope for the future "stimulates perseverance for today." What's awesome about that is, when we create a vision for the future, it doesn't mean we're necessarily planning to the "T" everything that's going to happen in the future, it's just saying like, "This is where we'd like to be." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] "This is what, you know, "the trajectory we want to be on as a family." It helps in those moments when it's tedious; when it's hard; when you're going through something and you say, "Well, we're in this together. "We're going the same direction. "We know where we wanna be, and even if we never get "to that exact point in time, or ideal situation, "we're going there together." [Jennifer] Yeah, and in Chapter 13 of "Marriage After God" we really, you know, drive home this idea that this is an intimate experience that you guys get to do together, and it's something to look forward to casting a vision together and having hope for your marriage and hope for your future together and for your family. This is something that we've kept as a valuable thing in our marriage for years, and I enjoy it. I enjoy the process with you, and so even though in "Marriage After God" we don't strictly talk about creating a family mission statement, we do talk about casting a vision together. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] And in the back of "Marriage After God" we even list some questions for you to sit down and have one of those date-night conversations and be mindful of the next five years, the next 25 years and what that looks like, because when we look to the future of things, there is hope there. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I think that's important. [Aaron] And we have, like you said, we've always cast vision, planned for the next 60 days, next six months, next year, five years. [Jennifer] We kinda do seasons. [Aaron] We do seasons of that, but we've never sat down and actually wrote down a family vision statement. [Jennifer] Yeah, so even thought we kind of operate out of this same understanding, we've never sat down to do it, and it was actually because of the "Marriage After God" podcast series, which if you guys haven't checked that out, we've been going through-- [Aaron] Yeah just-- [Jennifer] Yeah, 16, 17 episodes about this idea of 'Marriage After God' but several people who we interviewed brought up this idea of creating a family mission statement, and how it has impacted their marriage. I know people share about it online too. So, we just kinda wanted to use this time to, first, encourage you guys in your marriage. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] Encourage you guys to have hope for the future as you vision plan together, but even more so create a family mission statement. That's our challenge for you at the end of this episode and because Aaron and I have never officially done this before or wrote it down, we thought it would be fun to-- [Aaron] We're gonna do it with you. [Jennifer] Do it with you, so-- [Aaron] We're just gonna start talkin' about it in this podcast episode, and we're gonna start coming up with kinda the foundational ideas for our own mission statement. [Jennifer] This was an idea that I had after having those interviews and being encouraged by people because I thought, "So often we hear people say, "'We did this thing. "'We created this family mission statement "'and here it is, or it's still a work in progress.'" [Aaron] That sounds wonderful. Good for them. [Jennifer] That's awesome, but where's the example of doing it? Which I don't know if everybody needs an example of that but sometimes it's helpful to go, what does that actually look like in a conversation? [Aaron] Yeah, how do you have that conversation with you spouse? I feel like every time a couple that we interviewed brought it up, we looked at each other and we're like, "We need to do that!" We wave our hands like, yeah, we just need to do that. [Jennifer] So, the unique part of this episode today is actually that we're gonna be jumping in here in a bit to kind of experience it with you guys. This is like a behind the scenes kind of-- [Aaron] We have not talked about this before recording this. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, you'll hear the candid conversation about how we see our family, where we see we're gonna go, yeah. So, you're gonna join us on this little adventure with us. [Jennifer] Okay, so-- [Aaron] Before we start, why don't you read that quote from "Seven Habits of a Highly Effective Family" by Stephen Covey. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] 'Cause it's in his whole book about creating a mission statement. [Jennifer] So, I will let you guys know that we actually haven't read this book, but I just jumped on really quick and I typed in Google and said, "family mission statement". [Aaron] This is a part of the process. [Jennifer] Yeah, I encourage you guys to do that too. So, we haven't read this book. We probably will in the future, but there was several people who were quoting this from his book, and it says, "A family mission statement "is a combined unified expression from all family members "of what your family is all about, "what it is you really want to do and be, "and the principles you choose to govern your family life." [Aaron] That's cool, and that's essentially what we're doing. We're not doing it with our kids this time. Our kids are, I think, too young. They'll eventually get older and then what we'll do is we'll probably sit down with them and invite them in and we'll adjust 'cause maybe our kids will have other perspectives they wanna bring in. I know that we have families that they have large families, lots of kids, and they bring their kids in, their older kids, and invite 'em to be a part of this vision planning and mission statement. [Jennifer] So, two things, since we're being candid here. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] The first one being, I don't think our children are too small to be incorporated, even at this stage of the game because it's not finalized yet, right? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] This is our initial go at it. And so I think-- [Aaron] And Elliott is pretty smart. [Jennifer] Yeah, Elliott's smart. [Aaron] He'll be like, "Why don't we..." [Jennifer] But I think... Okay, so our kids are six and a half, four, two, and eight months. So obviously, Truit's not gonna say much. [Aaron] I don't know. [Jennifer] But having a family fun meeting, where we're saying, "Okay guys, here are some questions "mommy and daddy have for you", and getting them involved. Maybe even if some of the questions are over their head, it'll still be a fun time to spend together and maybe we'll be surprised." [Aaron] Let's write down the funny answers and then we'll keep those for the future and say, "This is what you said when you were four." [Jennifer] Maybe we'll be surprised by them. [Aaron] That's probably true. [Jennifer] So, I do-- [Aaron] I concede. [Jennifer] The second thing is I wanna encourage those listening, if you do have children, that you do find a way to incorporate them in this process because they are a part of the family; and if you're doing it and you don't have kids yet, that's okay too. You and your spouse-- [Aaron] And I guess it's gonna give them more ownership and be like, "Hey, you are members of this family, "not just people that are in it." [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] "You're part of it." [Jennifer] Yeah, and I think what I've gathered from trying to understand this family mission statement saying, is that it's not something that is like, "here are the rules", you know. It's more of something that's supposed to encourage the family unit to be in agreeance and have the same understanding of what those family core values are. So, even though this quote up here says "to govern your family life", I think there's freedom in that. It's not like a list of rules, but it's something creative, a creative way to establish standards and core values. [Aaron] Okay. So, should we do it? [Jennifer] I think we should jump in, yeah. [Aaron] Should we start working on this? I know our kids aren't here but we're gonna start at least with the foundational stuff, maybe? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Answer some questions. [Jennifer] And just again to preface, this is not something that's... There's not a final answer to. We're kinda just jumping in to show you guys how the conversation could go. [Aaron] Well, it's gonna go. [Jennifer] Well, it's gonna go. This is it. [Aaron] This is our legitimate conversation that we're gonna talk about our mission statement as a family. [Jennifer] Okay. You might hear keyboard typing 'cause I'm taking notes. That's how I'm doin' it. [Aaron] Yeah, so you have a question there, but I guess I wanna start with the first one. I know we kind of hit it up, but when you hear "mission statement"... 'Cause I'm sure everyone has their own little definition of it, and you even had to Google it, like, "What's everyone do?" Everyone's got a little different take on it. When you think mission statement, what do you think? Like, is this our one word phrase or few words phrase? Like, when we are out and about we say, "This is who we are!" [Jennifer] Yeah, we get t-shirts made, right? [Aaron] Yeah, we can get some t-shirts made. [Jennifer] That's not a bad idea. The word that comes to my mind is it's a motto. It's a way of being. It's a way of doing life together, and I do think it is something that should be shortened and concise so that it's easy to remember. [Aaron] I agree. [Jennifer] There might be portions of it that are expanded upon, but I think it should be something that is easy to remember. [Aaron] Okay, it's almost like a statement of faith on our website [Jennifer] Exactly! [Aaron] It's like, "This is what we believe, "this is who we are." [Jennifer] Exactly. [Aaron] Yeah, and this is how we're gonna live. Of course, because we're believers and we love the Lord and we love the Bible, that's probably gonna be a big part of this. [Jennifer] Well, yeah. I would assume that Christians who create a family mission statement, it's built upon the Word. [Aaron] Right. Okay, so we're gonna have to have some verses and we'll get to that probably. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, here's the first question. What are some words that describe our family or what we want our family to be? [Jennifer] Hmm. [Aaron] I'm just gonna throw out the first thing-- [Jennifer] Okay, go. [Aaron] I thought of is generous. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And for those listening, a lot of the things we're gonna say, because we kind of have just walked in certain things over the last 12 years that we've been married and even before then. I think there's just gonna be some natural things that come out of us. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But now it's gonna be solidified as, "This is who we are." So, generosity is something I believe has been a mark of our marriage for a long time. [Jennifer] I like that. A word that comes to my mind is, I think I already said it, but "adventurous". Meaning that we find the fun in things. [Aaron] Write that down, "we find the fun in thing", 'cause there could be lot's of different "adventurous." Adventurous like, we like to take financial risks. Or adventurous like-- [Jennifer] No, more like, we do fun things. [Aaron] Okay, that's a different kind of adventur-- [Jennifer] We like to explore. We like to eat. We like to go-- [Aaron] We love change. [Jennifer] We love change. [Aaron] Not too much change but we like new environments. We like-- [Jennifer] Yeah, I would say, not change so much to our rhythms and routines, because those are important but more so just experiential. I don't know how to explain it. [Aaron] Like new environments. [Jennifer] New environments. [Aaron] It goes into the adventurous side of... We like to go to new places. We like to be around new people. [Jennifer] I don't know if we've shared this before but we've kind of done these Saturday adventure days with the kids throughout the summer time. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] 'Cause we go through seasons where it's just easier. [Aaron] We did a podcast about the adventure days. [Jennifer] Okay. So, that's an important thing. When I think of adventure, I think time set aside where we know we're gonna be doing something with the kids, whether it's local or maybe a-- [Aaron] Out of the norm. So, like, we have our normal flow. We have our normal rhythm, and then we're gonna go do something 'not'. [Jennifer] Go on a hike. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Go look at the river. Go whatever it is. [Aaron] Go for a long drive to a new place through a rose garden or apples. [Jennifer] I do, I make... You guys don't know this about me. I make Aaron go out of his way for me all the time because-- [Aaron] She's like, "I found this orchard "on the other side of the mountain. "Can we go?" And then like, it's not open or... I'm just kidding. No, we've actually had a lot of cool adventures just 'cause you Google and find a cool place to go see. [Jennifer] Yeah, even like, we were in Portland this time last year. I remember it was hot and only Elliot was awake, the other kids were napping. I was like, "Will you just pull over and let me go see "the rose garden? "I've been wanting to see it." You know, but it was a fun little detour and it worked out for everyone. I like that kind of stuff. [Aaron] So, adventurous in the fun kind of way, in the environmental kind of way, the experiential kind of way. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] I would say another word I think of is community. [Jennifer] Mmm. [Aaron] I know it's like an easy buzz word for Christians. [Jennifer] No, it's good. [Aaron] We've made big decisions in our life and one of the main criteria in that decision was community. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Often. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] When moving, our prayer was, "Well, we can't move until something changes "in our community because we have these relationships, "we have these connections. "God has us here." [Jennifer] So, being loyal. [Aaron] Yeah, I like that word, loyal. We walk with people and we don't just say, "Well, "they'll get over it, we're gonna move on "and find new friends." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Not that we've been perfect at this, but community's been a huge part of how we make decisions. Even now we think, "If we ever had to move, "who's are we gonna convince to move with us?" And it's not that we don't like being... Like we couldn't do it on our own. We know that community is so important and we want to take it with us. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, I would say a part of that is also walking in light, and we've done this time and time again where it's just being transparent, being able to communicate-- [Aaron] Oh, put that word, that's a good word, transparent. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] I guess it is tied to community, but it's transparent in other things too 'cause our online communities we are transparent with and we don't know any of them. [Jennifer] If nobody knows what he's talking about, we have these online communities who are amazing people. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Who have been following us [Aaron] Facebook, Instagram. [Jennifer] For eight years now. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] It's so awesome. [Aaron] Yeah. So, we try and be the same person to every person we meet. Would that be like-- [Jennifer] Integrity? [Aaron] Integrity. [Jennifer] I like that. [Aaron] I don't know if that's in-Integrity's like being the same person when no one's around. Right? [Jennifer] But also when different people are around. It's all the time. [Aaron] Right, okay. Say like, I'm not showing this person that face, and then that person this face. [Jennifer] I only show you different faces. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] I used to have to work on this. [Aaron] Showing me like... I'd be like, "Why do you give everyone the 'good' face?" And then when you get home I get that face. [Jennifer] Yeah, you said, "I want the best of you." [Aaron] Yeah, that was-- [Jennifer] 'cause I had a problem with showing you too much-- [Aaron] Well, I think it's normal. Just as a little tangent. It's easy to let down the face you have on for everyone else, when you're around the person you know loves you. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But we should really say, "No, I'm actually gonna work harder to give the best "to my closest neighbor, my spouse." It doesn't mean we give the worst to our other neighbors. [Jennifer] Everybody else. [Aaron] Yeah, I guess it's just-- [Jennifer] I needed balance in my life when it came to that. [Aaron] Yeah, it's learning how to be real. Like, when you're around someone, you could at least be real and say, "I'm not feeling good right now" or "I'm not"... Anyways, that was a tangent. So, transparent, I like. That's a good word. That's something that's always been, we've always prided ourselves in... I don't wanna say "prided ourselves". Just being transparent. Not wanting to hide things, be open. Integrity is a good word. So, I think community, transparency, generous, let's think... [Jennifer] I would say faithfulness to our Christian walk, to being obedient to God's Word. Our faith is foundational. [Aaron] I like faithfulness though as the word, because it's easy to say faith. Faith's important, but faithfulness means to our faith and to the Word, and to God. [Jennifer] It's like active. [Aaron] Yeah, it's like a movement word. Is that a verb? It's an action word. What are some... I feel like there's other words that we often say. [Jennifer] Just real quick as a side note to those listening. [Aaron] Extraordinary. I just wanted to say before I forgot it. [Jennifer] Okay. That's fine. [Aaron] Extraordinary is a big word for us. [Jennifer] Yes. Do you wanna explain why? [Aaron] Well, we talk about it a lot in the book "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] But it's this idea that we've always had a heart to not just be normal. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And that doesn't mean that our goal was to be special and like how we wanted to have this... 'Cause starting this ministry online wasn't even an idea in our hearts when we first got married, but our idea was like, "Well, let's just do what God wants "and that's going to be extraordinary." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] We went to the mission field for a while and then we went to Canada, and we went to Florida, and we did all these different little things. [Jennifer] I can actually see how even smaller decisions in our life, like buying this house, that wasn't a small decision, but-- [Aaron] It was at-- [Jennifer] But I just think of decisions that we've made together and we've even out-loud said to ourselves, "Well, that's extraordinary", or "That's not the normal way!" [Aaron] Right, well we could do the ordinary or we could do it the extraordinary way. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And the reason you brought up this house, for those that don't know, they can actually find a YouTube video about us doing the house process. We bought a, I wanna say a fixer-upper. [Jennifer] Decrepit. [Aaron] But it was a beater-upper. It was really bad. We had to tear down most of the house to fix it back up, but when we thought about it we were like, "Well, this is how we're gonna get what we can afford." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] "And then we can make it ours." Which, lot's of people do that, but it was extraordinary in my mind. So, extraordinary is a good word for us. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, when you paused back there I was just gonna note that that's okay when you're doing this process together. There's gonna be times when something might be on your heart or right at the tip of your tongue, and you don't know how to explain it. I think that's why the majority of people will say, "You don't just sit down and write a mission statement. "It's a process, and the process is what counts. "The process is the important part "because you're actually communicating with each other "on what matters most to you." [Aaron] Good tip. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, you just mull it over and come back to the drawing board over and over and over again until you narrow it down. [Aaron] Yeah, and I think after we go through this, we'll be able to see these words and think of better words. [Jennifer] Probably. Or use the good old dictionary! [Aaron] Or just the thesaurus. [Jennifer] Thanks, Google. [Aaron] Thesaurus. [Jennifer] Okay, so are there any phrases that we repeat often or say? [Aaron] Yeah, there's a-- [Jennifer] I know one! Go ahead, what were you gonna say? [Aaron] We do hard things. [Jennifer] Yes! That was what I was gonna say! [Aaron] That was... But you know what? That's a phrase that we only started saying when our kids started getting older. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But-- [Jennifer] To encourage them we would say things "We're the Smiths and we do hard things." [Aaron] And so they own it, and they say, "Oh, okay. "This thing that I said is hard, we do those things." [Jennifer] Yeah. What's cool is they've recognized when we're doing Bible time, certain stories in the Bible of people doing hard things they'll recognize and go, "Hey, David does hard things!" [Aaron] Yeah! So, I think "We do hard things" is a important phrase, and we didn't come up with that of course. [Jennifer] But we use it. [Aaron] We use it often. [Jennifer] I don't know where it came from. [Aaron] And it doesn't just remind our kids, it reminds us because how many times a day do we get to this point of like, "Ugh, I don't wanna do this right now." And they're like, "Ugh, we do hard things." [Jennifer] It's the fight against the flesh. [Aaron] Yeah, we just did our lawns for the first time this season, and I just kept wanting to quit. I was like, "I did enough. Next week I'll finish the weeds." And I'm like . And then I go through and I'm like, "Oh, I'm just gonna go "a little bit further and make this look nice. Then I'm like, "Ugh, I just wanna give up." And then I go a little bit further, and I just kept telling myself, "No, I can finish this. "It's like my first time ever doing this, I should be fine." [Jennifer] That same conversation happens to me every single time I go to work out. It's like, you have ten squats on the list to do and you get through four and you're like, "Ahh!" [Aaron] "I should be able to do this." [Jennifer] "Okay, I'll do one more." And then you want to bail out but then you just keep going, you keep going, you keep going. [Aaron] I think it's a good phrase. What's another phrase that we say? Oh, it's kind of a word but we use it as a phrase. [Jennifer] What? [Aaron] "Gotta have self-control." [Jennifer] Oh, self-control. [Aaron] So, it's a word but-- [Jennifer] Self-control. [Aaron] We use it in a sense that we say it probably a million and a half times a day to our kids. "Are you having self-control? "You need to have self-control. "Remember self-control!" [Jennifer] We say it to each other now, too, because in conjunction with "We're setting the example. "We're setting the example". [Aaron] One of us will be having an attitude about something, just tired or exhausted or frustrated; and I'll be like, "Okay, are you self-controlled right now?" We say it a little quieter to each other. [Jennifer] Okay. So, what-- [Aaron] Is there any other phrases? We say other things. [Jennifer] I'm sure there are and we can come back to this if we think about it, but I was gonna ask, "What is it that we value? "What are some things that we really value?" [Aaron] The Word of God. We have to start with that. I know that sounds like the default answer, but it has to be the number one thing we value. It's what we tell our kids is the most important thing, it's what we try and teach them, we try and live it. So, I think the Word of God is... Now, I will say this, and it's something I've been convicted on recently and something that God's been convicting me on for my whole life, probably. I think this, and then I'm like, "But do I actually show this?" Am I in my Word as much as I could be? I don't want to say "should be" because I don't think there's a number or how many chapters or how many words or how many verses, or whatever; but I know in my heart when I'm in and out of it. I know when I'm giving God's Word the attention it deserves in my life. We could feel it. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Recently you've been kind of just overwhelmed with the book launch that-- [Jennifer] Lots of stuff to do. [Aaron] Lots of stuff to do and I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, "I wonder what-I didn't say this to you, but I was wondering when you were in the Word. [Jennifer] It's so funny, it's not funny, it's... Wow, this is really convicting because I know exactly the moment in that conversation where I had this thought that, "I wouldn't be feeling this way "if I was in the Word", and-- [Aaron] When was it? 'cause I was thinking about it. I didn't say it to you, I was just... 'Cause I was just encouraging you and comforting you and letting you know it was gonna be okay. [Jennifer] No, it was really impactful for me, and I've been in the Word since. I think sometimes we just get in these ruts or seasons where we're busy or we're going strong on certain areas of our life, and we don't realize when another area have kind of-- [Aaron] Yeah, we've neglected an area. [Jennifer] Been neglected, and that was happening with me for a couple days. I'd say about a week and a half. [Aaron] Well, me too, and I was feeling... Remember I told you how I was feeling? [Jennifer] Yeah, I think it was compiling. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I think the Lord is good. [Aaron] Well, I was just thinking on Sunday, the message was about... Actually the message wasn't about it, but Matt said, "Hey, we can't know all of this in one sitting. "We have to just go line by line, verse by verse, "chapter by chapter, over years of reading and reading, "and re-reading and re-reading, and re-memorizing "and re-stating, and chewing it over." Then this morning, I was listening to J. Vernon McGee, and he was in Isaiah and he was bringing up the scripture that talks about "precept upon precept, line by line", and he was saying... You know, it took five years for J. Vernon McGee to teach through the Bible. That was just him going through one time. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Five years. How much do we go 'precept by precept'? Are we just reading through it? Laying on the knowledge that we're getting out of it. That was another good tangent, but Word of God I think is the most valuable thing. It needs to be-- [Jennifer] Bolded? [Aaron] Yeah, bolded and-- [Jennifer] Italicized? [Aaron] Italicized, highlighted in green, but I think it needs to be more evident in our own lives for our kids sake and for our own sake. [Jennifer] Yeah. What a great tool, this mission statement, to remind us to do that. If this is gonna be a foundational thing that is in front of us by maybe putting it on a plaque in our house or however we're gonna display this once we do finalize it. To be reminded of that, you know, every single day. [Aaron] Yeah, "Let's go back to the Word of God. "What does the Word say about this situation." [Jennifer] So, what other things do we value? I feel like we value-- [Aaron] Stewardship? [Jennifer] Stewardship. [Aaron] Is that a good word? [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Like we value-- [Jennifer] I'm gonna write that down. [Aaron] Being good stewards, which we talk a ton about in 'Marriage after God'. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Because of how important it is to our ministries. [Jennifer] It's like the whole book's message, really. [Aaron] "Are you stewarding the way God's given you well?" That's the whole book actually. [Jennifer] I guess part of what I was gonna say goes along with this. I don't know if you would agree, but recognizing our need verses want in minimalism. Not that we're minimalist people because we have stuff. We have stuff, but I don't feel like we exaggerate and go outside of what we need. Does that make sense? [Aaron] I would agree. I think there's been seasons in our life that, because of discontentment or dissatisfaction or whatever, we've chased after things. [Jennifer] Or acquired. [Aaron] Collecting things, or buying things that we don't need. That's rarer, I would say. I'm not gonna say, "It's not super rare", but we tend to get what we need and not much more. Again, there's plenty of things that we have. [Jennifer] I think we've been good over time of challenging each other or encouraging each other, you know, "Maybe we don't need that thing right now", or "Hey, if you are gonna go get that, think about this." [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] You've done it with me with kids clothes before. "Hey, instead of buying off that website "can we just try and"-- [Aaron] "Because they're not gonna fit in it "in six weeks." [Jennifer] "Or they're gonna be stained up." [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Or whatever the reasoning's were. That was just the first thing off the top of my head. I think that... [Aaron] Stewardship minimalist. Yeah, I agree. We're not minimalist, but we definitely think on a more, "What do we need verses what do we want? "And what do we want, is it something we need, "and is it something we can use and is it gonna be"-- [Jennifer] We're willing to be confronted by that, for sure. [Aaron] Right. What is other things we value? Relationships? [Jennifer] I was gonna say people. [Aaron] People, yeah. I would say this goes up higher. [Jennifer] You can even see this in our kids because Olive really values relationships. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] All of our kids do, but I could just see it in them. [Aaron] Yeah. Well, it's of course, the Word of God points us to-- [Jennifer] God's relationship. [Aaron] I would say that's almost the number one message in the Bible, other than Jesus Christ and him crucified, which everything points to that, is why he died for us is to give us relationship with the Father, and then through that gives us relationship with other people, right? Like, John 17, which we should put down because the next thing we're gonna talk about is scripture, but John 17 is a major one, which is the high priestly prayer Jesus prays for his disciples and for everyone who believes in the message that the disciples bring to the world; is that we would be one. That we'd be unified just as Christ and God are unified. [Jennifer] Yeah, but before we move on to the scripture section, I had some things I wanted to share about the values. So, 'cause this is all about brain-dumping and just getting out of our minds and heart what we believe to be true about our family, to build up this mission statement. So, words like 'creativity'. I feel like we value. Inspiring each other towards greatness. [Aaron] Can I throw in a word? Creating. [Jennifer] Creating, okay. [Aaron] I mean, we've done the self-publishing thing, the blogging, the social media. It's just kind of been a part of what we do. So, creativity, inspiring, but we also create. It's part of us. [Jennifer] Mmm, that's good. [Aaron] Elliot loves to draw, Olive loves to paint. [Jennifer] Yeah. That's good, lots of Lego building. [Aaron] Lots of Lego building! By the way the Lego thing you built yesterday is awesome. It's like this huge city. [Jennifer] It was supposed to be Bleecker St. in New York. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] I just didn't get to finish it. [Aaron] I didn't see the signs. [Jennifer] Oh, go back and look at it. So yeah, some of the things that we value are experiences where, being able to go to a museum if we're near one, or-- [Aaron] I feel like that falls under adventure, adventurous, right? [Jennifer] Okay. Yeah, but it's like learning experiences. [Aaron] Well, put learning then. That's a good word. [Jennifer] Learning. So, whether that's-- [Aaron] Learning is a big thing-- [Jennifer] Experiences or books, resources, pretty much anything I can get my hands on for us or for the kids that encourages growth and investment. [Aaron] All the educational films like Marvels, Avengers, and Iron Man, those are really for us. [Jennifer] For us. [Aaron] For us, yeah. Yeah, I think learning is a great word. So, under value... [Jennifer] Does food count? [Aaron] Oh, you know, can I say wisdom? [Jennifer] Wisdom, yeah. [Aaron] And you actually should put food on there because that is a huge thing for us. Food. We love food! [Jennifer] Not just food. [Aaron] God loved food. [Jennifer] I know but the experience of food, like the actual tasting good and figuring out what flavors are there, but then the experience of eating with people. [Aaron] Yeah, so actually food kinda encompasses all these. [Jennifer] Okay so, on our family mission statement it's gonna say, "The Smith family", and then in bold right beneath that-- [Aaron] "Food." [Jennifer] 'Food'. [Aaron] That'll be our... It's short. [Jennifer] Semi-calling Gods word. So, it's like both, right? It's like the Word of Life. [Aaron] Well, God's Word is the bread of life. So, it just literally all fits in. Everyone here that's listening, our mission statement is [Jennifer And Aaron] Food. [Jennifer] This is how our conversations really go in real life, to you guys. We're not makin' this up for you. [Aaron] I'm pretty sure I can fit every single one of those things into food. [Jennifer] We'll figure it out. [Aaron] Yeah. Wisdom, what I mean by wisdom is, wisdom is the application of knowledge. [Jennifer] Yup. [Aaron] 'Cause you can know lots of things and do nothing with it. [Jennifer] Not ever implement it. [Aaron] Yeah, wisdom is like, "Oh, I actually know how "to navigate this kind of relationship, "therefore I'm going to navigate it that way." Or, "I know that I should keep my mouth shut "in this situation", so I could choose to act on the knowledge or not. So, wisdom is taking the Word of God, taking life experiences and letting it teach us and then saying, "Oh, last time we experienced that. "Let's make a different decision this time." [Jennifer] Mmm. [Aaron] We were actually just talking about this in the car. All the experiences the God's given us, hard ones that have taught us things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That a lot of people won't ever experience. [Jennifer] Right, but everyone listening has their own set of experiences that-- [Aaron] That no one else will have. [Jennifer] No one else will have. [Aaron] That God wants to use to teach them wisdom. [Jennifer] Yeah, but wisdom is saying, "Okay, I'm going "to learn from that, and not just learn from it, but"-- [Jennifer] Apply it. [Aaron] "I'm gonna apply the knowledge to my life now "regardless of how easy it is or how it feels to my flesh." [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, wisdom is a big one. [Jennifer] Okay, cool. So, moving on, were there any more scriptures that you wanted to share? [Aaron] Think of some scriptures... [Jennifer] One, you brought up generosity earlier, and so one of the scriptures that came to my mind was 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, it says, "The point is this: whoever sows sparingly "will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully "will also reap bountifully. "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, "not reluctantly or under compulsion, "for God loves a cheerful giver." So, I just thought about that. [Aaron] That's a great one. Cheerful giver. [Jennifer] I think it defines how we give, which I love. [Aaron] Yeah we don't ever, I mean we try not to give out of compulsion. As in, "Oh, we must do this!" No, we'd be like, "We want to do this." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, that's a good one. Another one I think of is the Great Commission in Mathew 28, where Jesus literally tells the church what it's job is. It says, Mathew 28:18, "And Jesus came and said to them, ""All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son "and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe "all that I have commanded you. "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." [Jennifer] I love that last portion. [Aaron] Yeah, and we can take this as our individual mandates, but really it's the mandate for the church as a whole, 'cause there's all these different functioning parts. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Discipling, evangelism, teaching-- [Jennifer] Baptizing. [Aaron] Baptizing, all these different things, and we sometimes get to do all of them, and sometimes get to just play at planting or watering. [Jennifer] A portion of it, mm-hmm. [Aaron] It's what the church's job is and I think it should be what our job is. [Jennifer] I feel like if I could summarize that whole verse, it would say, "to make Him known", you know? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Like, to know Him and to make Him known. That's such a big-- [Aaron] Put that down. That's a awesome thing, make Him known. I think that should definitely be in our statement because that is our life. We want our children to do that. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] We want our children to know Him. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] And then we want our children to make Him known. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Is our desire. [Jennifer] Okay, so we want to encourage you guys that as you do jump into experiencing this process of creating a family mission statement, to go to scripture, to see where your family values line up according to His Word, because it is foundational to how we live our lives and do what we do. This was just to give you guys a glimpse into the behind the scenes, Aaron and Jen, and how we communicate through things like this. Being able to share your vision for your family and life, being able to come up with, and create a family mission statement. It's supposed to be a unifying experience of togetherness, intimacy, understanding one another, identifying "who are we" and "what are we doing"? [Aaron] Yeah, "Who are the Smiths?" [Jennifer] Well, "who are they listening, who are you?" And kinda just build this missions statement to look forward to sharing it with your family. [Aaron] Yeah, and we're not done with this. We are going to on our own, now, finish this up; but this was our getting started. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] We started it out. We're glad that you got to join us on this candid conversation of us trying to think out "who we are and what we're about". [Jennifer] Yeah. I did want to share a couple practical things. When you do do a family mission statement, based off of what I've seen and you guys have probably seen too. Some fun ways to have this experience and share it with each other is use a whiteboard, or get some poster paper, or a pen and paper, or like we just did, use your computer, your phone, whatever it takes to make those notes. You can brain-dump and then cross stuff out as you go, but have fun with it. Also, some examples of making it visible in the home. I have some people say, "In this house", and then they list all their words. [Aaron] So, once we're done with it we can put this up somewhere so we're always seeing, "Hey, look what we... "We're not acting the way we say we're gonna act." [Jennifer] Exactly. Some people do the last name in bold at the top and then share the core values or the mission statement. Some people put it in a frame. Some people put it on script, on canvas. There's so many different ways that you can visibly show it in your home and the great thing about that is-- [Aaron] Tattoos, that's a really good one, right? [Jennifer] Just tattoo it on our backs? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] No, but this is a great thing, like you said, to be mindful of how we operate as a family. We can even share as our kids get older, and teach them through it like, "Hey, we're the Smith's and we do hard things. "See it says it right there." So, those are just some things and we wanted to encourage you guys in that. [Aaron] Yeah, and I hope you had fun with us, too. We had fun. We're gonna finish it up, we'll probably do it on a date night or over the next... It doesn't have to be done right away, right. It's something that we can evolve with us. [Jennifer] It's a work in progress and so many people who have shared theirs with ours have said, "It's still a work in progress, "and you can change it and alter it as you go." Remember, you can incorporate your family, your kids and everyone to participate in it, but we did wanna challenge you guys with doing it. Even if it's just the initial go at it like we just did. [Aaron] Start it on your next date night. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That's the reason, you're like, "Oh, we have to go "do our mission statement. "Oh, we'll need a babysitter! "Let's go do this." [Jennifer] Have fun, have fun, have fun! [Aaron] Yeah, and then invite your kids into it also. Not on date night. Go to date night, start it, come home, invite them in afterwards, or on another day. [Jennifer] And you guys don't need a specific set of questions to figure out. What we just did is we just said, "What are some phrases "and words that define our family, "of what we know of our family already?" [Aaron] We just started. [Jennifer] We just did it. Ask each other hard questions. [Aaron] Cool, so we like to end our episodes with a prayer, and so, Jennifer, would you pray for us? [Jennifer] Sure. Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of marriage. May we continue to walk in obedience to Your Word as we seek to fulfill Your will for our lives and our marriage. We pray, we would consider the purpose You have for our marriage and we pray we will work together to communicate what our family mission statement is. We pray we would humbly submit it before You and that it would become a pillar in our family and in our life, that reminds us what we are doing and where we are headed. May this family mission statement build up according to Your core values, be an anchor for our marriage and family, motivating us to live our lives on purpose. May the experience of considering and building our family mission statement be a time of togetherness intimacy and understanding. Thank you for the hope You give us every day. May we honor You with our lives. In Jesus name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen. So, we just want to thank every one for joining us this week and listening to this episode. I hope you had fun with us. It was a lot of fun for us, as I said earlier. But go, start a mission statement with your spouse and with your family, and see what happens. See how it focuses you. You might end up finding out that you're participating in things that don't even line up with what you guys believe as a family. That might be cool. Or you might realize that there's opportunities out there that you could be tapping into because of it. We just wanted to thank you. We look forward to having you next week, and if you have not yet went to shop.marriageaftergod,com and picked up a copy of our new book, "Marriage After God", we'd love to invite you to do so. We thank you for everything. You guys are awesome. All the reviews, all of the comments and stuff we get on our social media, and just all the listens. You guys listening to these podcasts, we just so appreciate you guys. We look forward to having you next week. See you later. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes, also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| Can I Fall Out Of Love In My Marriage? | 12 Jun 2019 | 00:45:16 | |
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READ TRANSCRIPT [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna be tackling the question, can you fall out of love in marriage? Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us on another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. We just wanna invite you at the end of the podcast or anytime, really, to leave us a star rating and a review. That helps other people find our podcast, and we also love reading those reviews. So if you wanna take a minute, and again, the easiest way to do that is just to hit one of the stars at the bottom of the app, and that will just give us a rating right there, or you can leave us a text review. We love reading those, so we just wanna invite you to do that. [Jennifer] Another way you can support the podcast is by shopping on our online store, shop.marriageaftergod.com. We have a ton of resources that we've wrote for you guys, including some prayer books, but also, I wanna take a minute to highlight our newest book that we wrote for you, Marriage After God. In fact, today's episode, we're gonna be sharing from Gary Thomas's book, but he read Marriage After God, and this is what he had to say about it: "Marriage After God is not your typical marriage book. "Rather than focus on the common symptoms "of marriage dysfunction and lack of intimacy, "Marriage After God dives into and focuses "on the root causes: the need for faith, biblical truth, "fellowship, ministry, and God-ordained vision. "The Smiths take the wise path of urging us "to grow a better marriage by focusing first "on growing closer to God." [Aaron] Yeah, so we just wanna invite you to pick up a copy of that. We wrote it to encourage your marriage, to find out what God's purpose for your marriage is, and we believe God has a purpose for every one of us in the body, especially your marriage. So please pick up a copy of that book today, and we'd love to get it in your hands. [Jennifer] All right, as always, we're gonna jump into our icebreaker question. Aaron, why don't you start by answering this? What is your favorite game or activity to do with the kids right now? [Aaron] I think I really like wrestling on the ground with the kids. They all climb on top of me. Partly, it lets me lay down for a little bit. Or building forts with our huge, big couch pillows. I think that's awesome. With Elliott specifically, I like practicing drawing. We put on a YouTube show and learn how to draw a dragon or a dinosaur or something like that, and that's a lot of fun. [Jennifer] Yeah, some other games that I would say we've been really into lately is Blokus or Blokus, I don't really know how to say that. [Aaron] Oh yeah, I just played with that them. [Jennifer] So that's super fun, super easy to catch onto, and we've been playing Battleship a lot. [Aaron] Oh, that's a good one. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But he gets frustrated when I win. [Jennifer] Everybody gets frustrated when they don't win. So we're working through some of those things, but yeah, those are some games. [Aaron] That was a good question. [Jennifer] That we love with the kids right now. [Aaron] So before we get into our topic, discussing whether or not we can fall out of love in our marriage, I wanna read a quote from Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, on page 157. "The opposite of biblical love isn't hate; it's apathy. "To stop moving toward our spouse "is to stop loving him or her. "It's holding back from the very purpose of marriage." [Jennifer] Well, I feel like that answers the question right there. [Aaron] Yeah, and well, it's a great start to the conversation, because I feel like people might think, of course, yeah, you can't fall in and out of love, but that's kind of where our world's gone, in the secular world and in the Christian world, and we see it often in emails we get, in messages we get on our social media. We just thought it's a very pertinent topic to bring up with our communities. It's something that we've had to deal with in our own marriage, just feeling that like, well, maybe this isn't gonna work, maybe this isn't right, and just maybe dispel some of the lies about it, think biblically and clearly about it, so that those that might be feeling this way can think better and pursue God in the decision. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, when I thought about this topic to discuss today, the first thing that came to my mind is we need to be aware of the things we're saying, the phrases that we use to describe the life that we're living, the things that we're choosing. And so I just kind of went back to the beginning of like, okay, so where did this phrase come from? What does it mean? [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause we grew up, this is like. [Jennifer] This is what we know. [Aaron] I wanna fall in love. Everyone wants to fall in love. [Jennifer] Yep, or people ask you, oh, when did you fall in love with each other? [Aaron] Right, like it was a day. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, I Googled where this phrase came from, and Wikipedia says this: "falling in love is the development of strong feelings "of attachment and love, usually toward another person. "The term is metaphorical, emphasizing that the process, "like the physical act of falling, is sudden, "uncontrollable, and leaves the lover in a vulnerable state, "similar to fall ill or fall into a trap." [Aaron] I love how it uses those negative phrases. [Jennifer] I know, I was gonna say, as I kept looking into this, I found other phrases like fall asleep or fall behind. Someone else likened it to a surprise, like falling down the stairs. [Aaron] Yeah, there are all these negative connotations with falling, which is really unfortunate, that one of the most, supposed to be the most euphoric and most powerful and magical things that we get to experience is love with another person, and we've turned it into, with our common language and how we describe things, it's so weak, in my opinion. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. It kind of strips the beauty of one, knowing what true love is, and then choosing it, because here it's making you sound like it's just happening to you, that there's no control in any of it. [Aaron] Yeah, and I think that one of the traps of the enemy, you know, falling into the trap, like you said, that's he's taken something so beautiful that God invented and created and something that he's given as a gift to his children, and boiled it down. You know, if he can change the terms and the words and the definitions, then he can change the meanings of thing. And so, I think that's the first thing that our listeners can start to think about, is if they fell in love, right, and I know people are really thinking, like, I think you're just going overboard. What's the big deal? It's just a phrase. But it's not just a phrase, because like you said, if we're not aware of the things that we're saying, we don't realize that we define things by the things we say. Words do have meaning, and if we say them over and over and over again, they have meaning, and if we believe them, like, if I believe we fell in love, then it's not hard to believe that we can fall out of love. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Because the definition, it's something that happened to me, I had no control over it. We were just in this whirlwind, and oh my gosh, the passions, and you're beautiful, and I love you, and oh, we have similar things that we like, and oh, and the way you think, and you're so funny, and all these things, which are totally good things, and they totally add to my attraction to you or attraction to another person and draw us, and actually do invoke emotions in us and feelings. And those are all given to us by God. But if we boil down love to just those things, those feelings, then the moment those things change, the moment those things disappear, the moment those things that we used to be enamored by now bug us, because that happens. Like, oh, it was so cute the way you would say that one thing, and now that way you say that all the time really bugs me, and I don't like it. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, here's the other just sad, sad part about all of this, is that in marriage, we come up against this very thing that you're talking about, is if things change. So let's say there's hard circumstances, or you really get to know each other after years and years of marriage, and there's just things like, as you said, bug you. If we say that we fell into love with one another and that goes back to this sudden thing that there's no control over, who's to say that we can't fall in love even after we're married? [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] And someone else comes along, and no, I've done it again. I've fallen in love again, but not with you. That's dangerous. [Aaron] Yeah, and you know what, I had no control over it. We've actually heard this. I'm sorry, I love you still, but this other person came along, and they're feeding my love tank. [Jennifer] It becomes a justification for sin, and nobody's taking responsibility. That's shat I'm trying to get at. [Aaron] Right, and I think that's what we wanna talk about in this, and where we're gonna try and go with this, is to take away the decision and the control and the thoughtfulness in love is to take away the power of the love in the first place, of what God's doing. The Bible says that God is love. So he invented it, he designed it. It's his creation. It's something that, something that he is love. It existed with him. And so for us to boil it, like, oh, I fell in love, oh, I fell out of love, it's something I go in and out of, and it's not a choice. It's just whatever I feel at the moment. And what's so dangerous about that is the Bible tells us to not operate in our feelings. That's what's called carnal. Our carnal flesh is our feelings, the chemical reactions in our brain, which is exactly what feelings are. You get a burst of oxytocin, and you get a burst of all these different hormones that are good hormones that God created us with, and we define something very spiritual with a very fleshly reaction. And I think that spiritual things definitely bring those emotional reactions, which is why they're good: God made it that way. But love's not defined by those things. And a perfect example is if we're thinking about falling in and out of love, or when things are hard, I must not be in love anymore, or they must not love me anymore, or maybe they've fallen out of love with me or we're falling out of love with each other, I just think of Christ on the cross, you know? He goes into the Garden of Gethsemane, and he prays, Lord, let this cup pass from me. And he's praying that the suffering he was about to partake, that he was about to be obedient to endure, was for his bride. And he's saying, I don't know if I can do this, but I'm not gonna choose. Lord, you chose. And his will was that he went to the cross, because salvation was at hand, for the body of Christ, for the world. And so, if we look at Christ, would he fall out of love when he's on the cross? He's like, oh, this is too hard. I just don't love them anymore. No, he loved us beyond what his flesh wanted, and that's exactly what I wanna talk about. The power of love goes way beyond how we feel, because there was times that you didn't feel in love with me. [Jennifer] No, definitely. In those early years, when our circumstances were really hard, yeah, I didn't feel very much in love with you, and it even brought us to a point of seriously contemplating divorce and separation, but there were other factors involved. Walking in sin, just choosing to isolate from each other time and time again led to that in our marriage. [Aaron] Yeah, we tried. We stayed together. We were friends, to an extent, and there was areas of our marriage, intimacy, sexual intimacy, that wasn't exactly how we wanted it to be. It was actually the opposite of what we wanted. And it led to thoughts in us, sinful thoughts, and I remember me thinking, man, I should have experimented before I got married. I should have had more partners before I got married. [Jennifer] And I remember having thoughts of, well, maybe we're just not compatible, physically, emotionally, mentally. I just thought like, we're not for each other. [Aaron] And wasn't there even a season where you looked outside of our marriage? You didn't go actually do anything, but you desired? [Jennifer] Oh, for sure. [Aaron] Another man, and your heart wasn't with me? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And that is what happens when how we feel is defining what we do. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I wanna get to some of those things that come up, reasons why people would feel as though they fell out of love with one another, because I think it's good for us to acknowledge them and address them, because we're all experiencing this thing called marriage, and if we're not willing to confront the hard things, then maybe our hearts would be prone to wanna avoid them or not confront them, and that's not good. [Aaron] Well, and before you get into that, I think the reason, again, going back of the beginning of this, of like, love being something that you fall into, it's accidental, it's I had no control over it, it leaves room, because that's what we believe about it, it leaves room for us to use that lack of control, like, it has nothing to do with me; therefore, when the things we're about to talk about come up, well, I'm just not in love anymore, and that, you know, that's what it is. You can't force me to love someone I don't love anymore. Unfortunate, but that's how it is. Thanks, God. [Jennifer] And that it's his fault for making us wrong or something. [Aaron] Yeah, or taking away the love or whatever it is, and now we have an excuse that's outside of us. Well, see, I mean, too bad I don't love him anymore. I would love to still love him, but it's just not working out. It's not where my heart's at anymore, and I'm moving on. And so it leaves a back door that you don't have to be responsible to go through. You just get brought through it, without any of your own control, when in reality, that's not true. [Jennifer] Yeah, we want everyone to hear this right now. We have an obligation to each other. [Aaron] It's called oneness. It's called a covenant. It's not just an earthly contract. It's not just like a, well, if you fulfill your end of the bargain, I'll fulfill mine. That's actually not what biblical marriage looks like, sounds like, smells like at all. It's a choice that we make to walk in, 'cause Christ chose to walk in his relationship, going to the cross regardless of how we responded to him. And that's our example. It's exactly the picture we get in Ephesians five. Like, hey, bride, you're the church. Hey, husband, you're Christ. You're the picture of Christ in this marriage, and this is how you act. And so, as long as it's something that happens to us, we have no control over it, we have no responsibility to it. [Jennifer] So, I've gotta bring this up real quick. This isn't in our notes, and it's not the direction we were gonna take it, but I think it's important to ask, and so I'm just gonna put it out there, and then maybe you guys can have a conversation about this with your spouses. We can even talk about it later. You talked about love being a choice. You talked about it being a powerful experience and not something that we don't have control over or based on feelings. My question is, do we fall in and out of love with God? Because I would look at Christian culture and say there's a lot of people that base their relationship with God off of how they feel. [Aaron] And what they get. [Jennifer] Or what they get out of it. [Aaron] Yeah, what they believe they deserve. [Jennifer] And so you see this tendency of flowing in and out of God during seasons of, I'm for him, I'm not, I'm for him, I'm not. And so I think that it's important to consider this question in light of our relationship with him. [Aaron] Well, before we move on to some of the reasons why people might feel like they fell out of love, let's talk about how we fell in and out of love with God, because of our marriage, because of the things that we were feeling and going through and experiencing, the hardships within our sexual relationship, the hardships with the sins that we were choosing to walk in and being unrepentant of, and walking in total immaturity and bitterness and anger that man, you had your own relationship dealings with God where you were just angry at him 'cause you were like, God, I deserve a good marriage. [Jennifer] Yeah, I felt like I did all the right things to equal a good marriage, like it was some sort of formula, so when I didn't get it, I was mad at him, because I believed that he was powerful enough to just make everything perfect, give me everything I want, and it be beautiful, and I believed this. I truly believed that. It wasn't just for my benefit that I had a perfect marriage, that it would be so that we can do ministry together for God. [Aaron] It was good reasons, yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah, there's always good reasons. [Aaron] Well, and we wanna be happy. We wanna have joy in our marriage. But this relationship with God was built on what he owed you. And like you said, you fell in and out of love with God the same way you fell in and out of love with me. I couldn't give you what you thought you deserved in a husband. I wasn't giving it to you. It's not that I couldn't give it to you. I was treating you the way you thought you deserved to be treated. I wasn't acting the way you thought I should act. I wasn't speaking the way you thought I should speak. And so your love with me was conditional. It was based on those things. Your love with God was conditional. And I was the same way. I thought that, all I wanted was a wife that I could love and be with and have sex with and enjoy and that would go and do amazing things for God together, and none of that felt like it was real. I was like, okay, God. I wait for marriage, I save myself, I try and be pure, which, in reality, I wasn't. My addiction to pornography, my other things that I was dealing with. I had a picture of who I was. I thought I was better than I was. And then I'm like, God, you owe me this thing, and you're not giving it to me. And so my relationship with God was transactional. Like, hey, I did this thing; now you do this thing. What are you doing? So I think that's a great thing you brought up, that we think our relationship with God is something outside of what we choose and something that happens to us, or our feelings. Like, I feel close to God, which is so dangerous, because I would imagine there's times when Paul, naked and beat in prison, did not feel close to God. I would imagine when Joseph was in the pit after being thrown in there by his brothers and then sold into slavery and then lied about by the wife and then put in prison and forgotten about by the baker, or the cupbearer, I believe there was times he did not feel close to God, but the truth would be is God was close and was doing something very specific in all of those situations. [Jennifer] Greater than what they could even have imagined. [Aaron] And so, we don't get pictures in those stories of them saying where's God, where are you. God was close, whether they felt him close or not. And that is the reality, that God is so close to us. He's not far off, even when we feel like he's far off. [Jennifer] Was he close to us when we were enduring those four hard years of our marriage? [Aaron] He was probably closer then. When I look back, I'm like, oh, God was there every moment. [Jennifer] But did it feel like it? [Aaron] No, it didn't feel like it. It felt like I was praying and he was just ignoring me. It felt like I was being picked on, or that he was being vindictive, like laughing at me. That's how I felt sometimes. But that's not true at all. So just like we're talking about this falling in and out of love, what I felt about God was false. My feelings were lying to me. [Jennifer] What changed? How did you go from that to being able to choose to love God and remain faithful to him, no matter what? [Aaron] Him confronting me with the truth that what he says is true and what I feel is false. I brought up Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He brought that story to my attention, and said, look what Jesus did for you. And then he was like, are you not willing then to do the very little thing of just loving your wife, even if you can't get what you want from her? Like, what it cost Christ on the cross is infinitely heavier than what it's gonna cost you to say yes to your bride and keep going. And he just revealed the fallacy in me that my feelings are true and that that's how I'm gonna dictate where I'm gonna go and the direction I go and what I believe, and they're wrong. The Bible tells us, and we'll get to that scripture in a minute, just to not walk in the flesh, but to walk in the Spirit. [Jennifer] Let's talk more about that. So, we're gonna first go through a brief list of why people feel as though they "fall," air quotes here, "out of love." [Aaron] So going back to things that don't feel good, and especially when it's in conjunction with your relationship with your spouse. So tough times. [Jennifer] Yeah, hard circumstances. [Aaron] Like, financial situations and pain and suffering and confusion and those sorts of things, crazy things like loss of children. The hard things can immediately make us not feel good. And you know what? When we don't feel good, Christ wants us to lean on him. He wants us to have his strength and his peace, you know, that surpasses all understanding, and when we don't go to God for those things and when we look to our spouse to fulfill them, which we did that. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's so dangerous. I remember feeling so disappointed in you and in our relationship, because you couldn't do the things that I wanted you to be able to do, which only Christ could do. [Aaron] To fulfill those desires in your heart or to take away the fears that you had, the insecurities, and only God gets to play that role in our life, because you know what, I'm a human. [Jennifer] Yeah, you will fail me. [Aaron] And I remember I tell you this, I even told you this when I asked you to be my wife. I said I'm going to fail you. [Jennifer] Yeah, I should have listened. [Aaron] I warned you. I gave you a little, what do you call it. [Jennifer] Framework, I don't know. [Aaron] Yeah, I gave you a pre-warning. This is what you're getting into. [Jennifer] Okay, so yeah, tough times definitely. Needs not being met. So I'm over here thinking, no, I need this from you and being convinced that I can't continue on in my part until I get what I need. [Aaron] Right, so in our situation specifically, we couldn't have sex. [Jennifer] Yeah, it was painful. [Aaron] And that was very painful. [Jennifer] For me. [Aaron] And I'm thinking, in my mind and in my heart, in my spirit, okay, the one thing that my spouse is supposed to be able to give me directly to me physically is sex, and she can't give it to me. Well then, I'm validated in my sin over here, or I'm allowed to be angry like this, or God, how dare you? And so my love for you was dictated by what you can do for me or what you're not doing for me, and vice versa. You put me on that pedestal of holding you up emotionally and being strong for you when you weren't strong, which husbands should do, but I'm not the main source of that. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] I can never fulfill that. That's called idolatry. We can actually put our spouses in a position of God, and what happens is because they're not God, you immediately translate that, we translate that to, oh, they must not love me. [Jennifer] But God is love. [Aaron] God is love, yeah. [Jennifer] Your spouse isn't love, although your spouse is called to love you. God is love. He's the only one that can truly fulfill that. [Aaron] So needs not being met spiritually, emotionally, physically, and I just wanna mention that there are some relationships. I think of veterans that have been hurt physically, or mentally, and they might not be able to fulfill a certain marital role, physically and emotionally and mentally. Does that mean they don't love you? Does that mean you've fallen out of love? No, that's a situation that God's allowed to happen, and that has to be navigated through the Word of God, through the Holy Spirit and patience and perseverance and recognize that those things don't define whether or not you're in love with your spouse or not. And that's a reality for some people. There's some people that will permanently never be able to have sex. [Jennifer] And that's just one thing. [Aaron] That's one thing, yeah. [Jennifer] There's other people who can't walk or can't talk. There's a lot of things. [Aaron] There's people that deal with postpartum depression, wives, moms that go through postpartum depression and might not be able to give emotionally, and that's gonna take a husband to step up more, be like, well, I'm gonna love more right now. I'm not gonna make them feel like I'm abandoning them and skipping out. [Jennifer] Yeah. Okay, so another one would be desiring a different kind of life because of unmet expectations, and you kind of touched on this before, but I struggled with this. I felt like I had these expectations of what marriage should be like. [Aaron] Yeah, what our life should be like, where we should be. [Jennifer] And after years of not receiving that or them being unmet, I started desiring a different kind of life. And that can easily feed a wandering soul. [Aaron] Right, so we fell in love, and we individually had unique pictures of what our relationship would look like, what our life would look like, what our marriage would look like. And so what we do is, well, so I have this picture, picture A, and my marriage is picture Z. Oh, we must not be in love. This must not be right. Something's wrong here. Let's throw this out, start over. And so we look over the fence, or we look other places. So, and this leads to happiness. [Jennifer] Desiring happiness. [Aaron] Desiring happiness. The Bible doesn't promise happiness, but being a Christian should guarantee, if we choose it, joy. [Jennifer] Right, which is more powerful. [Aaron] Which is more powerful, because Paul, when he was naked and beat and in prison, had joy. All the disciples, all of the missionaries and martyrs had joy amidst terrible things. But happiness is not something necessarily promised. Now, happiness can be a fruit of joy, but does lack of happiness equate to lack of love? Like, we're no longer in love, I'm not happy anymore. I wanna speak about this happiness for a second, Jennifer. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, I hear it all the time. People say, doesn't God want be to be happy? [Aaron] Yeah, well not just doesn't God. They actually, and I don't know who has taught them this, but they literally, they start their message off to us about why they're leaving their husband with saying, God wants me to be happy, and I'm not happy. Therefore, I'm leaving. And so, what they've done is they've literally turned their disobedience and their sin into approval by God, because they've equated happiness to God's will. And that's not true. [Jennifer] Is there a scripture in the Bible that says God wants us to be happy? [Aaron] No. Not to my knowledge. But there's plenty about joy in all circumstances. The joy of the Lord is our strength, and that's something that can come amidst, so if happiness is God's will for us, take that truth, take that gospel, to all of the people suffering through terminal cancer. [Jennifer] Or famine. [Aaron] Or yeah, hunger, or loss of children or worse. I can't even come up with all the situations that a Christian might go through, or even a person, and go to them and saying, hey, God wants you to be happy, and then the moment they're not happy, God doesn't love me, or I'm outside God's will. It's a false gospel. The happiness is good, and it comes. But I think joy, the Bible talks of joy, which is a fruit of the spirit. Happiness is not a fruit of the spirit. So if we equate, again, if we take words and we equal them to other things, like happiness equals love, happiness equals God's will, the moment we're not happy, boom, we're no longer in love, we're not in God's will. We can make all sorts of crazy decisions based off of that equation. And it's just wrong. [Jennifer] So, moving down the list, we have two more. One is just experiencing overall discontentment in life. [Aaron] Right, I'm not happy with what I have. This isn't what I want, that I want more. [Jennifer] Just constantly, like you're playing that mental reel over and over and over again about all the things that make you not content, and then desiring a pain-free or comfortable life, which I think everybody, at the root of their heart, wants a pain-free life. But is that a reality? [Aaron] It's not that we need to pursue that. I don't think that's what our goal is in life. But if our goal is in our marriage, if that's our definition of a good, healthy, loving marriage, 100% of marriages are gonna be let down. But that's why we see such a high divorce rate in the church and in the world, because we've defined love with all of these terms. Comfort, happiness, fulfillment, contentment. And if I don't feel those things, boom, I must not be in love anymore. [Jennifer] Okay, so what's the bottom line? [Aaron] The bottom line is love was never intended to be just a feeling. God gave us these feelings as a gift to accompany our love, but when those feelings disappeared, love doesn't disappear. It's called the honeymoon phase. Like, you're enamored with your spouse. Everything's new and fresh. But what happens when it's not new wand fresh? What happens when life's boring? [Jennifer] Or hard. [Aaron] What happens when life's hard? Love in this situations should grow. [Jennifer] And endure. [Aaron] Yeah, because they endure. The relationship turns into one of stamina, endurance, perseverance. [Jennifer] I Corinthians 13:7 says love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Not some things, not the few things that I can handle. It's all things. So if we say that we love one another, we have to be able to bear all things and endure all things and have that kind of perseverance. [Aaron] And it comes down to, that's what Christ did. He endured the cross, because he loved us. And that's amazing. Even now in the church age, in the age that we live in now where God's grace and mercy is just poured out on the world and he's being patient, it says that his patience and kindness is to lead us to repentance, talking of love. Why doesn't he just strike us all down, because we are sinners, you know? He's righteous; we're not. But he's patient with us, and his love for us is in such a way that he shows us by example of how we should love, in forgiveness and patience and endurance, because that's what Christ did on the cross. He took the sins of the world, that anyone who believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. That is love, and if Christ can love that way, and this is what God showed me, is if Christ can love you like this, Aaron, what has your wife ever done that's worse than what you or the world has done to me? Nothing. Literally it doesn't matter what you do to me. It's not unforgivable. So I guess I would just say, if love is based on something that we have no control over, something that happens to us, if love is a feeling, then we're literally basing the most beautiful thing that God has ever given us, love, which he is love, it's who he is, and we boiled it down to a fleshly thing. Like, that is a fleeting, like, oh, some might get it, some might not. And I think we should rather look at love as a muscle that needs to be strengthened. [Jennifer] I like that, exercised. [Aaron] Or, actually, here's a better analogy. Love is a seed. You plant a seed, and then you nurture it and you grow it. Our love started, I should say. We didn't fall in love. Our love started back when we were dating, when we were learning each other. [Jennifer] We were attracted to one another. [Aaron] We were attracted. [Jennifer] We chose to spend time with one another. [Aaron] Yeah, back then, our love was so, if you think about it, our love was so immature, because it was based on very vain things, how we looked, how we talked, how we spent time with each other, things that made us laugh. And now, our love is based on. [Jennifer] So much more. [Aaron] Oh my, so much more. Surviving hard things, flourishing in hard things, renewing in the way we think about each other, communication, knowledge. [Jennifer] Ministering to our kids. Ministering to others. [Aaron] Yeah, having children and learning how to become one in our parenting. So our love now is built, it's growing. I wouldn't say it's a big sycamore tree or something. But I would say it's a tree now, where it once was just this seed that could easily be stamped out if we didn't take care of it. So I think that is a more accurate way to take a picture, is that love was something we planted, we chose to plant. Hey, we're gonna take a risk on this seed. We're gonna love this, and let's grow it. So then, if that's the case, then "falling out of love," air quotes again, is really choosing to let the tree die. [Jennifer] Right, which, I mean, going back to that quote by Gary Thomas from Sacred Marriage, biblical love isn't hate; it's apathy. [Aaron] Letting it die. [Jennifer] Letting it die. [Aaron] Stop watering it, stop feeding it, stop giving it sunlight, smother it, and it can even be worse than that, intentionally harming the love because you want out, because you're not happy, and now doing very hateful, wicked things within the marriage. [Jennifer] Being disrespectful, letting your anger lash out. [Aaron] Cheating. [Jennifer] Cheating. [Aaron] Yeah, unfaithfulness with your heart, eyes, physically. [Jennifer] All things that are lack of self-control, because you're not exercising that muscle of self-control. [Aaron] So here's another quote from Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, and it says this: "Christian love is an aggressive movement, "an active commitment. "In reality, we choose where to place our affections," which goes back to, are we gonna choose to nurture our love seed? Feels so weird. But this tree that we're growing together, as we're being weaved together and we're growing this love. And I just love that picture of that. It's an aggressive movement, an active commitment, that we are not going to just whimsically and apathetically see if love continues on without us doing anything, that we're gonna recognize that it's no, no, I'm going to choose again to love you today, and then when something happens, actually, I'm gonna choose right now to love you anyway. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I like that. This quote, you know, when it says in reality, we choose where to place our affections, I think sometimes we can choose to place our affections on what we see outside the marriage. [Aaron] So, let's just give 'em some practical ways, 'cause now we've dispelled it. You don't fall in and out of love. It's a lie the enemy uses to break up marriages all the time, and as mature Christians, we're gonna pursue loving our spouses the biblical way and saying, yes, Lord, I'm gonna choose to love, because you are love, and I wanna love like this. So what are some practical things that the couples listening can start thinking about, start pursuing and saying, oh, we're gonna invest in this seed that we've planted, at whatever point that seed was planted. [Jennifer] Okay, so first thing I would say is intimacy. I think I had this idea in our marriage that intimacy just happened, and it was something that was natural. [Aaron] It was always gonna be magical. [Jennifer] Yeah, I came to find out, it's actually something that needs to be planned for and prepared for. [Aaron] Sought after. [Jennifer] And requires intentionality. And so, I would say, be intentional in pursuing one another in those ways. And intimacy is a lot of different things. It's not just physical. It's also in the way that you communicate and just being thoughtful of one another. [Aaron] Yeah, but intimacy, the physical intimacy cannot be neglected. [Jennifer] Sure, so important. [Aaron] But the emotional intimacy can't be neglected either. [Jennifer] Either, yeah. [Aaron] The Bible, I just wanted to bring this up, it uses the word knew or knowledge when it comes to physical intimacy in the Bible. It says so-and-so knew so-and-so, and it's talking about sex. This intimacy we're talking about, it's radical transparency, radical openness, that you're not afraid to be naked emotionally, naked physically, naked spiritually before your spouse, and that you know each other, and that's a lifelong pursuit. So, and that combats falling out of love, or feeling like you're falling out of love, or in the truth, choosing to not love anymore. [Jennifer] Yeah, and if you do feel like, you know, not that you're apathetic towards one another, but that you just have some isolating tendencies going on in your marriage, be the first one to initiate intimacy. [Aaron] Yeah, go open those doors, go open those windows. Let light in. [Jennifer] Okay, another one is have an eternal perspective and a hope that fuels your heart so that you can persevere. Having a hope for why we're doing this thing called marriage and what we have to look forward to changed the way that we were able to persevere in our relationship. [Aaron] Yeah, and so recognizing that my wife is also my sister in the Lord. Like, the Bible tells us how to interact with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Then I get to see her and say, well, I'm gonna treat her well. She's my closest neighbor, so I'm gonna love her as myself. I'm gonna use the gifts that God's given me to bless her and to serve her. And so if we recognize that, that we are both part of the body, then we're not gonna mistreat and take advantage of and do things that we wouldn't do to another believer. So, another one is discipline yourself in walking faithfully and humbly. [Jennifer] So real quick, I just wanna read one another quote. I know this is a heavy Gary Thomas episode. [Aaron] Well, this book was hugely influential on our marriage. [Jennifer] Yeah, if you guys haven't read Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas, you should definitely go grab a copy. But on page 156, it says this: "One of the great spiritual challenges for any Christian "is to become less self-absorbed. "We are born intensely self-focused. "The discipline of Christian marriage "calls us into the Christian reality of sharing "and enjoying fellowship in a uniquely intimate way. "Maintaining an interest in and empathy for someone else "is by no means an easy discipline to maintain, "but it is a vital one. "It is a skill that must be learned." I love this quote, because I think it's so important to recognize that there is discipline required of us, and there's an obligation, like I said earlier, to one another, to love one another, but to also enjoy fellowship with each other, which is what Gary's saying right here, and to maintain an interest for, an empathy for each other, and again, he says this isn't easy, but it is vital, and it's something that we need to learn. Like you said, it's a muscle that we should be exercising. [Aaron] Yeah, a lot of times, the Bible uses the term walk in love. So it's something that you walk out on a daily basis. In I John, it says practice righteousness. So these are things that we get to practice toward each other, with each other, for each other, on a daily basis, on a moment by moment. And even if you're in a super, super hard situation and season of your marriage, you can right now choose to walk in love with your spouse. [Jennifer] And truly, this is walking in maturity. This is what makes us mature, is by choosing to walk this way. [Aaron] Yeah, so again, walking in maturity. I would say be okay with hardship, and ask God how it can be used to mature you, to mature us? So God, this season's hard. God, I don't feel in love. I don't feel close to my spouse. Help me, show me how I should see correctly. Show me where I can change. Show me how I can love my wife still, love my husband still. How can I serve them? Help me do it in your Spirit. And then another one is the last one, actually, is recognize there's something greater at risk. It's what we talk about in the Marriage After God book, is that our marriages are meant for more than just happily ever after. Having a good, strong, healthy, mature, growing, thriving, loving, intimate marriage isn't for that alone. That's not the end. It's the means to the end. The end is that we are witnesses for Christ, that we are preaching the gospel with our words and our lives, that our marriages are pictures of the gospel to the world, that the husband represents Christ, that the wife represents the church, that their relationship represents an unconditional love that Christ had for his church, and how we interact with each other and how we raise our children and how we treat each other. And so, and not just that, but in I Timothy chapter three, it talks about the ministry of an overseer in a church and how it's a noble task, it's a noble thing for any believer to pursue, any man in the church, and it talks about having one wife and managing their home well, and it says, how can you manage the household of God if you can't manage your own home, right? If there's no self-control within me, if there's no love between me and my wife, if my children don't honor me and cherish me, those are things that the Bible says are results of how we choose to walk with our spouse. And our authority, our power, our message gets diluted or destroyed when we don't love that way. When love is something that we can just fall out of, what it essentially is saying is God can just fall out of love. Like, oh, today I don't love you anymore. And that's just false. He is love. He cannot not love us. And so, we need to show that. And so the greater thing that's at risk is the gospel. And when we don't have a correct understanding and definition of love in our marriage and what that looks like, we show an incorrect gospel to the world. And we need to recognize that. [Jennifer] So, the beginning of this episode started with can you fall out of love in marriage. That wouldn't be the right way to say it. It would be, are you choosing to not love your spouse anymore? And so I think that this is a really important topic, and it's something that we should address, even if maybe you're not feeling this way. If you feel like you love your spouse and you're walking the way you should be biblically, I think it's still important to address some of these things and these practical things that we've brought up and just see, you know, evaluate your marriage and see, are you walking the way that God wants you to be walking, and are you choosing love, regardless of your circumstances and regardless of anything else that's going on? [Aaron] Yeah, and maybe you're not, like Jennifer said, not at that place of not in love anymore, but are you choosing apathy? Are you just not caring? [Jennifer] Are you being lazy? [Aaron] Yeah, are you being lazy? And I think that's something that we should be aware of and repent of if we are. If we're being lazy in our marriage, then we're not loving. We're kind of being self-focused and hoping that our husband or our wife is gonna love us the way we wanna be loved, but we're not gonna give the love the way we wanna be loved. I just don't think that's the way a Christian should walk, and I think we need to, I mean, I'm guilty of this sometimes and need to change. Like, I'm being lazy, I'm gonna step up, I love you. Let's work on this, let's grow, let's water this tree. [Jennifer] I love it. Okay, we wanna invite you guys to join us in prayer. Dear Lord, may we always choose love. May we always have hearts that are motivated by love to be unified, pursuing intimacy and peace in marriage. Thank you for equipping us and empowering us by your Holy Spirit to choose to love unconditionally and sacrificially. We pray against our flesh from getting in the way, and we pray against our selfish ways. Please continue to sanctify us and transform us so that we would be more like you. Protect our marriage from the threats of the enemy and his evil desire to tear us down. Lord, please help us to be unified as one and help us to love each other in the way we interact with each other every day. May our commitment to remain steadfast in our love for each other glorify you in our marriage. In Jesus's name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. Hey, we just wanna thank everyone for listening this week, and we pray that this episode blessed you. We pray that it's gonna cause some good conversations, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| The Importance Of Doing A Marriage Devotional Together | 30 Jan 2019 | 00:39:55 | |
Get the Husband and Wife After God 30-day devotionals today. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/husband-and-wife-after-god-devotional-bundle Quote From Husband After God on page 16 “Marriage is an opportunity to bring glory to God as you share with Quote From Wife After God on page 117 “Being a submissive wife is beautiful, as it reflects God’s divine Why its important to do a marriage devotional together:
Firstly, we wanted to share this information with you today because we are going into a Podcast series starting next week about our upcoming book Marriage After God! We hope you are pumped for this, we are and we cant wait for this book release! This series launching next week will give you insight into the book and of course, leave you with wanting even more! So before we get into that series, we thought we would dive deep into our devotionals for husbands and wives BECAUSE those of you who have already been through them have asked us what's next...which was a catalyst for us to write the marriage after God book...and also for those of you who havent had a chance to go through these devotionals yet or any of you who want to go through them again, we wanted to let you know that right now is the perfect time to do them leading up to the Marriage After God book release. We have about 4ish months till then which is ample time to get through the 30-day devotionals. A few things people have said about these devotionals: "Life changing - This book is truly a godsend! My marriage is better "Just what our marriage needed! Awesome! It brought us closer together "Simply AMAZING I bought both bundles; Husband/Wife After God and 31 *Dear Lord, Thank you for creating marriage. Thank you for considering our counterpart and complement. Thank you that we do not have to endure life alone. Not only do we get to live with the presence of Your Holy Spirit and our spouse, but we also get to benefit from living in community with other believers. May we walk together in unity as You have always intended us to. Please continue to draw us closer to Yourself and closer to each other. Continue to transform our hearts and our minds, so that our character reflects your character. Help us to intentionally invest in marriage by learning how to fulfill our roles as husbands and wives. Thank you for revealing to us why You created marriage and the purpose it has in this world. May this purpose motivate us to walk righteously every day. Remind us daily that our marriage is a symbol to this hurting world of Your powerful and unconditional love. We pray that as Christian husbands and wives, we aim to minister to one another in our marriages by being obedient to all that You have commanded through Your Word. May we be prayer warriors who do not neglect to pray for one another. We pray that as we make ourselves known to You and to each other, that we experience extraordinary intimacy. We pray for your will to be done in our marriages and through our marriages and may You be glorified. In Jesus’ name, amen!* READ: [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna talk about the importance of doing a marriage devotional together. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. Love. And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey, as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us this week. We wanna invite you, as always, to leave a review on the podcast. The reviews, the star ratings, those all help other people, other marriages, find this podcast and get the content,. So if you enjoy what you been hearing, and you haven't done it yet, would you leave us a review today? That'd be awesome. [Jennifer] Also, if you've been enjoying this podcast, we would like to encourage you and ask you to shop on our online store as a way to support this podcast. So if you go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, you can see all of our resource there. We just want you to know that we wrote those for you guys, but also it helps support things like this podcast, so thank you so much for shopping with us. Also, I'd just like to highlight the discussion that we're going to be talking about today happens to be on marriage devotionals. So be sure to check out Husband and Wife After God. [Aaron] Yeah, those are our two devotionals that we wrote for husbands and wives to go through together. They can go through them separately, too, right? Yep. But we'll talk about that. [Jennifer] But if you're shopping on the store, you can check those out, and there's more information there for you, specifically on those devotionals. [Aaron] Awesome. So, icebreaker question, all right? [Jennifer] Dun dun dun. [Aaron] What is your definition of "and they lived happily ever after?" [Jennifer]Okay, so, we've talked about this before, but we're not really into this phrase. It's a hopeful and a happy phrase, for sure. [Aaron] Yeah, it's-- [Jennifer] But at the end of my book-- [Aaron] It's got a dead end on it, I feel like. [Jennifer] Well, I think at the end of my book, the end of our story, I'd much rather hear the line, and "they entered heaven, "and God said with a smile on His face, "well done, my good and faithful servants." To me, that's more powerful. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Than happily ever after. Which means that we used our marriage for His purposes, and not just our own, and in the process being happy is a byproduct of Yeah. serving Him. Yeah, just, it-- It might mean-- It feels one goal focused, and word focused of we're just going to be happy for the rest of our lives, and I don't, first of all, it's not even possible. The Bible tells us that we will endure trials and things like that, so when I think of it, I actually wanna reword it and say, "and they lived joyfully ever after God." [Jennifer] Oh, there you go. [Aaron] Like as a marriage, we're chasing after him. [Jennifer] Kinda the same thing. [Aaron] Yeah, but its with joy, which is more of, it's something that exists even when we're not happy. Because when things aren't easy and hard, we can have joy, but instead of just "happily ever after" like the white picket fence, just the American Dream, or just things going well for the rest of our marriage. We have a bigger purpose of, it's not just to make us happy, but it's to pursue God and what He's doing in His kingdom, so I would just change. Yeah, we've never really liked that phrase. It's not that it's a bad phrase. [Jennifer] No. [Aaron] It just doesn't feel deep enough Or complete. Or long, or long-lasting enough, yeah. [Jennifer] It's not complete. [Aaron] Alright, we'll move on to the topic. That was an okay question, we'll have a better question next week, one that's funnier I think, 'cause those are usually funny questions, huh? [Jennifer] Not always. [Aaron] So we're gonna be talking about our devotionals a little later, but we have some quotes from them to start off the episode with, and this is a quote from my devotional Husband After God. It's on page 16, it says, "Marriage is an opportunity "to bring glory to God as you share with the world "His testimony by loving your wife "the way Christ loves the church." [Jennifer] Okay, and I'm gonna share my quote from Wife After God, it's on page 117. "Being a submissive wife is beautiful, "as it reflects God's divine order. "When a husband loves his wife like Christ loves, "and a wife submits to her husband, "that reflection clearly represents "God's grace-filled love story. "The benefits in a marriage like this are extraordinary." So they kinda mirror each other, they go hand in hand. [Aaron] Well, now that's the reason we wrote the devotionals, was to highlight for the husband and wife, why they're married and why God has His order and His ways for us to follow. It's because we have a message to proclaim. [Jennifer] Mm-huh. [Aaron] We have a purpose in this world. Which again goes to the bigger picture of what we wrote Marriage After God for, which comes out in June, which is just that. That our marriages are a ministry and that when we walk the way the Bible calls us to walk. We actually proclaim His message to the world, which is pretty incredible. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] To think about that, our marriages have much more to do in this world than just make us happy, which goes back to our question, really. But let's start off the topic with why it's important to do a marriage devotional together. 'Cause I'm sure there's a lot of marriages out there, people listening, that are wondering like, "hey, we do our devotionals separately, but what benefit could it be for us to do one together? [Jennifer] Or maybe they're not doing any together or any at all, and they've been waiting for something, they're looking for something. We're hoping that this catches their attention and maybe inspire them to get started on one today. [Aaron] Yeah, so let's talk about some of the benefits, some of the things that come to mind that could be, that could come out as fruit, [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] from doing a devotional together. [Jennifer] So the first thing that comes to mind is just cultivating oneness and intimacy from the experience of doing it together. Right. So, focusing and being intentional in the act of doing something together like a marriage devotional. [Aaron] Right, 'cause usually, if we have books that we read at night, often it's just to ourselves. It's, we're the only ones benefiting from it, or enjoying it, but a devotional that we can do together. If it's in the evening or in the morning, or in the afternoon, whenever that works. It's an intentional time to be together in the Word of God. It requires conversation, introspective thinking, dialogue, lots of stuff that would go on, that which cultivates more and more intimacy. Yeah. Right? Instead of us just, I work, come home, how was your day, awesome. We actually can go deep and say, hey, what did you think of that scripture or how does that make you feel or hey, that reminds me of when I was a kid and... [Jennifer] Yeah, and just to take it one step further, when you consider a devotional, you're usually gonna find those kind of journal questions or discussion questions or, like you said, to think introspectively, that you can use as conversation starters. 'Cause some people, they want to share their hearts with their spouse, but they don't really know how to-- That's a good point, yeah. or where to start, and so a marriage devotional will usually take the hardness out of the equation and say, here talk about this. Right. [Jennifer] And both people can look at the paper and go, oh! Or look at the book or look at whatever they're looking at and say, that's what we have to discuss, so we're gonna talk about that right now. [Aaron] Yeah, so they could stretch our intimacy muscles. How deep can we go in the conversation? The things that we could talk about. Those questions are usually formulated to cause deeper discussion than you would normally get into. It's a good point, and you know what? Growing spiritually is a very intimate thing. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] The deepest part of us is our spirit and we're cultivating that with each other. Praying with each other is an extremely intimate thing. We're entering the throne room of God together, we are praying together, we are lifting each other's hearts up, we're hearing each other's hearts, and then discussing the Word of God together, those are super intimate things. [Jennifer] Yeah, growing in the word of God together, that's a powerful thing for a marriage to be doing. I think that we all should be doing that. [Aaron] Okay, well, of course. Like as Christians, we're called to grow and mature, but as marriages, as a single unit, as one, we should be growing and maturing together also. Not growing and maturing separately only. That should be happening, but growing together, and I think what's awesome about doing a devotional together, also allows us to be accountable to each other. Yeah. Right? If we've been discussing, self-control, or our anger, or anything that this devotional might be calling out of us, we can actually pay attention together instead of me trying to work on it privately, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] and you don't really know what I'm working on. We actually could say, hey, remember the devotional last night we were just talking about this, like hey, let's working on that. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] And I feel like you might've forgot the thing that we've committed to because of that question we answered the other night. So it helps us to be working on similar things throughout the day and keep each other accountable, and look out for each other's growth and maturity. [Jennifer] Another benefit is being an example for your children, and when those children become adults and they're married, you can say, have suggestions for them. Hey, we did this marriage devotional, we did that together. You and your spouse should try that. [Aaron] Yeah, and then they also see us, especially if we do visible, like in front of them, periodically, maybe not every day, but, hey, mommy and daddy are gonna do our quiet time together now, you guys can look at your books or go play quietly with your legos, and they know that that's an important thing to us, that we separate time to be in the Word together. It actually kinda convinced me thinking about it right now, we should do that more. [Jennifer] Yeah, we should. [Aaron] We should be getting away more together, so let's start doing that. [Jennifer] Okay, deal. [Aaron] I was gonna say, another thing I think about is, again, going back to the main purpose why we, our marriage exists, what God wants to do in us, is that there's a message to be proclaimed, there's a mission to be accomplished. I think of that scripture that tells us to be ready in and out of season, it tells us to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have in us, and doing a devotional together and growing together on the same page, in the Word of God and learning what He has to say to us and what he wants to do through us. It helps us be ready for when our neighbor says, "hey, what's so different about your life, "why do you believe in this God of yours?" We're prepared together, instead of maybe you not-- Not knowing or... Not being ready or me not be in the same place. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's good. [Aaron] Yeah, but we would both be prepared to give an answer for our faith. [Jennifer] Yep, and the last thing I think of with all of these things that we've already shared about the importance of doing a marriage devotional together is simply that it's investment for your marriage. So, the quality time you're spending together to do it, the intimacy that you are cultivating when discussing difficult things or very deep things, and, like you said, being ready to share the hope that you have. All of these things are an investment into the marriage relationship, and when you invest into your marriage, you're growing in that relationship, you're building trust, you're building closeness, that bond between you, and I feel like that will strengthen a couple to go even further. [Aaron] Yeah, and keep going. [Jennifer] Like year after year after year. So I just wanted to make that note. [Aaron] That's good, so and the end result of pursuing God together, growing and maturing together, growing the Word of God together, doing a devotional together, all of these things to cultivate the oneness and intimacy and strength. The benefit and result is becoming and living as biblical men and women. [Aaron] We become more like what the Bible says. We represent that more, which has benefits also. When we just become the kind of people God desires us to be. There's benefits, and what are some of those? [Jennifer] So, you know, I just think of advancing as a Christian, and we get to do that together. So we see areas of our life that are weak, and maybe doing a devotional together could point to an aspect of our lives that needs to be transformed or worked on or practiced. Or cut out altogether. [Jennifer] Or cut out altogether, and we get to see us take steps towards growth in those areas. So we're moving forward not backwards. [Aaron] Yeah, when we walk in the way that the Word tells us to and calls us to, we experience more love, we learn about it more, we're filled more with God's love in us. So our marriage, we benefit from that, and our children benefit from that. [Jennifer] Totally. [Aaron] And our neighbors. The people that we interact with, there's more joy, more love, more peace. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] All those, you know, fruit of the spirit is in us. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's good. [Aaron] And that's a huge benefit of walking in obedience to the things that the Word calls us to. [Jennifer] Yeah, some other benefits are just, when you're working on areas of yourself to be more like God, I feel like He draws things out of your heart that need to be worked on, like being healthier with choices that you make, or being wiser, you know, like those kinds of things. [Aaron] Be better stewards of our resources, our money. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Which all benefit our marriage, our life, our relationships, and then the most important thing, and we brought this up a moment ago, is the Gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ and what He came to this Earth to do for us is spread because we are in His Word and we're growing. And we look for opportunities to talk to people about God, and to love on people for God, and to share our story with people. That's the fruit that comes out of us, it's an overflow of what God puts in us. So we're talking about the benefits of doing a devotional, of getting into the Word of God together, but is that, I think of the devotionals we made and how can we share with them more about our devotionals and whether or not they might wanna jump in today. Just getting in the Word of God. 'Cause even if you don't get our devotionals, ever, or anyone else's devotionals, being in the Word of God together is more than adequate. It's what God wants us to do, Yeah. invest in His Word. [Jennifer] And we don't have to over complicate it, like seriously, just open up the Bible, read a chapter or two and talk about it. Ask each other the simple question of what stood out to you, start there. [Aaron] Yeah, and we try and do that. Sometimes, some nights I just read out loud. We don't talk about anything, we just, I read out loud until Jennifer falls asleep, or until we're just like, okay, awesome. And usually it ends up in a really great conversation about something that was triggered by what we read. You know, oh that made me think of today when, or last week I forgot to mention, and we have these really good conversations around the Word of God, but you know, we've had a lot of people over the years ask us about devotionals and want things to do together, and we made two devotionals, Husband After God and Wife after God, separate ones, because there are some marriages where the spouse isn't in the same place and so, we've had many people just buy just the devotional for themselves and start going through and start praying for their husbands or getting into the Word of God. [Jennifer] Or sometimes they buy the bundle in hopes that the other person will read theirs. [Aaron] Yep, we've seen that a lot also. We've actually seen people say, "hey, I didn't think my husband was gonna do it," And then he did. and then he totally started doing it. But the main point is that you do it together. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] You get these devotionals, you read through them, and so let's talk a little bit about these devotionals. Why don't you start off and then we'll just dig in to some of the information about them and maybe people will love the idea. [Jennifer] Yeah, so like Aaron said, our biggest thing here today is just to give you guys a little bit of insight to our marriage devotionals, but overall just encourage you to be doing something together, because it will cultivate that intimacy and oneness. But we wanna give you some insight into our devotionals, just to give you an option and show you what's out there. So, I wrote Wife After God. The subtitle is Drawing Closer to God and Your Husband. It's a 30 day marriage devotional. I wrote this back in 2013, right after I had Elliot. That was a long time ago. [Jennifer] Yep, and, I wanted something that a wife could hold in her hands that would help her better understand God's purpose and design for marriage and her role as a wife and to see that reflection, that picture, that's talked about in Ephesians 5 of Christ's relationship to the church. [Aaron] Yeah, it started off with, we wanted to, you wanted to show wives the ministry they had in their marriage Yes. toward their husband. Yes. [Aaron] Which is what the Bible shows us on both sides that the husband has a ministry to his wife and the wife has a ministry to her husband, and the symbol, like you said, it shows to the world. [Jennifer] So I'm just gonna read couple of these, I'm not gonna read through all of them, but these are just some of the chapter titles, so that they can get an idea for it. God's Purpose for Your Marriage. The Need for Companionship. Ministry of Reconciliation. Perfect Posture. [Aaron] That's a good one. You actually get a lot of comments about that chapter. I do. Wisdom Calls Out. Who You Are Called to Be. The Parts of Marriage. Fruitfulness. Intimacy With God. Love Letter to Your Husband. That's what it ends on, which I love that one. But that's just a handful of them and we'll get to the Husband After God. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] After we kind of, summarize Wife After God, 'Cause I want the guys to hear what's in yours, which is, Yeah. it's just as good. So anyways, the way that I outlined this is share about a page to a page and a half of whatever that topic is. [Aaron] And it's usually story-driven, it's either from our life, or another story we've heard to illustrate the point. [Jennifer] Yep, and then it goes into a prayer for that day specific to that day, and then you'll see a challenge, which is usually a challenge for you and your relationship with God or you in your relationship with your husband. So hopefully those inspire you guys just to do something you either have never done before or maybe haven't done in a really long time to cultivate that intimacy. Then there's the status update, which I don't know if a lot of people see in books, but we've decided to put the status update challenge in there for people who want to share this message that they're learning with people on social media. That's another way that this message of Wife After God gets out. It can be a catalyst for people to ask, hey what are you doing? What is that thing that you keep posting about? And it just gives a real quick glimpse in one sentence of that day's topic. [Aaron] Yeah, it's also a way of solidifying and vocalizing some of the things you're choosing to walk in. So you're stating it publicly. I'm going to be or I'm going to do, and then it makes it a real thing. Instead of it just in your mind, you're like oh, I'll work on that some day. [Jennifer] And what I love seeing is when people tag me in these and they post a picture of their wedding day with it, or a recent picture. They do that a lot. They post pictures from their wedding day, which is awesome. [Jennifer] Or a recent picture of them together. [Aaron] Yeah, I love that. And it encourages other couples, they say, "oh what is that?" And they want to be a part of it, and it's just a neat way of spreading the Gospel, spreading the message of being a godly wife, being a godly husband and what that means. [Jennifer] And each day has specific scriptures that support the topics that we're sharing, which I don't want to skip over, but just so you guys know, the reason we didn't quote the scripture in there is because we want you to get into the Word of God yourselves, so we just list the scriptures. [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause people always ask, "what version of the Bible did you use in the verses?" All we say, well, we just put the references, not the actual scriptures, so it's all our content, and what's awesome is it requires you to open your Bible. [Jennifer] Yep, and-- [Aaron] Which is the focus. [Jennifer] The last thing I wanna share is one of my favorite parts of these devotionals and it's the journal questions after each day's, at the end of each day, and you can use these. We gave space under each question that you can fill it out right then and there or you can use them and fill it out in your own personal journal, or you can use these as discussion questions either in a group setting. So if you're doing this with a handful of other wives, or you can use them as discussion questions between you and your spouse to answer. [Aaron] Or all of the above. [Jennifer] Or all of the above if you wanna, that'd be awesome. [Aaron] So, I'm going to go through the Husband After God and pull some of the points. It's formatted exactly the same way, but the content is complementary. It's different content focused on the husband with some different topics, but some of the topics are similar, but with different content, if that makes sense. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So you could totally do this with your spouse and you would have different questions that you can go back and forth on. You would have different stories and different points to pull from, even different scriptures, but the themes might be the same in some areas, so I'm gonna read some of the topics. Marriage By Design. Lead By Example. Your Wife is a Gift. Sacrificial Love. Set Yourself Apart. Be Brave. The Good Fight. Pride. Everyone loves that chapter, I think. Forgiveness. Words Matter. Prayer For Your Wife. Avoiding God. Walk in Victory. And then the last one is The Husband Revolution, which is a fun one. It's proclaiming that mission that we have as husbands and that ministry we have. But yeah, there's a point in the beginning, a couple, a page and a half or two pages, and then there's a prayer for that day, specific to that topic. There's scripture to read. There's questions for you to answer. There's a status update, like this one says, "I will strive to reflect the image "and character of God in my marriage." That's status update, so it's like a statement. Statement, yeah. I'm going to do this and you're telling all your social media friends that you're gonna do it, and then it also let's people know, wait what is he doing? It says #HusbandAfterGod, what is that? [Jennifer] Yeah, what is that? [Aaron] Yeah, there's a challenge on every chapter. This one says share and discuss with your wife what you are learning about the purpose of marriage. So boom, right there, there's an intimate moment that I get to have with my wife where I share with what I'm learning, what God's teaching me about the purpose of marriage. 'Cause imagine if I sat down, or you sit down, husband, with your wife, and you say, oh, you know, I'm learning that God's purpose for our marriage is that I would love you like Christ loves the church. She's gonna be like, what, that's amazing! [Jennifer] And yeah, imagine what that would do to a wife's heart? I know personally, it just makes me feel like, oh my goodness, he cares about me, he loves me, he wants to do this with me and with God, and I don't know, I just love that. [Aaron] I wanna read another challenge. This one's from, what chapter is this? This is from day 21, Prayer For Your Wife, and the challenge is this. Spend time praying for your wife. Share with God why you are thankful for her. Lift up any needs she may have. Pray for her character to reflect Christ, and petition God to protect her. So, the challenge is go find some quiet time and just pray for your wife. [Jennifer] Which we all need those reminders. Every single one of us. [Aaron] So that's the Husband After God devotional. And the topics in each one of them are focused on the wife's role, scriptures that are aligned with that, and then the husband's role and scriptures that are aligned with that, but at the end of the day, what they're doing is they strengthen the marriage overall, making the ministry of that marriage more powerful, and more focused on what God wants for it. [Jennifer] And there's 30 days or 30 topics, so you could easily do this in a month's time. [Aaron] Yeah, well that would be the challenge, is do it every day for a month, for 30 days. [Jennifer] Yep, so I just, real quick, wanna jump into a couple reviews that people have left for these specific devotionals, just so that you guys get an idea of the kind of impact that it's making from other people, and other people's lives. So Aaron, you wanna read the first one? [Aaron] Yeah, this one's from Diamond S. and it says this, "Life changing! "This book is truly a Godsend. "My marriage is better using these books. "My husband and I read them daily and it's helping us "to grow in our marriage and closer to God. "We were just recently baptized December 31st, 2018," which is incredible, [Jennifer] Wow, recently! [Aaron] Yeah, "and this has been an awesome read "for us to continue to have God "at the center of our marriage. "Daily this book hits home and I'm learning more "about being a godly wife. "Thank you so much for this book "and I truly hope all Christian couples read these." [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] Which, I was like, yay, makes me feel good. [Jennifer] Okay, I'm gonna read the next one. It's from Crystal W., "Simply amazing. "I bought both bundles, Husband and Wife After God, "and 31 Prayers For Your Husband and Wife, "and my husband and I are doing both together. "Oh my goodness, it is really good! "Very well written, and when I say these will open up your eyes, I'm not kidding. "And get your steel-toed boots on, "these two books have helped us start off "in a place where God can show up and take over. "We have only been doing these less than two weeks, "and God shows up every day, "relating these books to our daily lives. "God speaks through people and uses people "to minister to others, and, boy, has He here. "If you want God to show up and you really want to love God "through your spouse, and how to do it, "these books, right here is where you wanna start." [Aaron] That one's a good one. I like that one, she said "put on your steel-toed boots." [Jennifer] I know, it's great. [Aaron] Alright, so this last one is from William M. "Just what our marriage needed, awesome! "It brought us closer to God while also enhancing "our individual walk with God, opened our eyes to the things "we were and weren't doing and being accountable. "Very powerful devotionals. "Highly recommended. A++++." [Jennifer] Awh, some people are just so kind, and it always encourages us and we feel like, awesome. We have given couples a catalyst to get into God's word together and to do something that's impacting their relationship, and I'm just praising God. [Aaron] Yeah, and our goal all along, has not been to replace the Bible. Our purpose of these books was to point people to the Bible. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Always pointing back to the Bible, always pointing back to God. [Jennifer] Awesome, okay, so I wanna move into this next, sort of, sessions. [Aaron] These are kinda like questions, Q&As. [Jennifer] Yeah, Q&As on... [Aaron] Oh no, they're FAQs, that's what it is. [Jennifer] Okay, on the topic. So, can these be read together at the same time or not? [Aaron] Both! We recommend them being done together. They could be read separately, or they could be read together, taking turns, but our sentiment is, hey, do them, and then come together and discuss the chapter for the day, discuss the thought for the day, how you answered the questions, do the prayers together, pray- [Jennifer] Sometimes they pray the prayers out loud, too. [Aaron] Yeah, so I would say both. Like we said earlier, there's some marriages where the husband or the wife are not there, they're not doing it. So the other spouse is just doing it on their own. [Jennifer] And the great thing about these devotionals is you can utilize them more than just once, go back through it again, you know? It's really good content, so it's not wasted, just keep going through it again. [Aaron] Yeah, they're good reminders of what the Word says about who we are and what God's called for us. The next question is can they be used to lead a small group? [Jennifer] And the answer for that is, yes. So, some tips for this. If you're gonna do, host small group, let's say that you have five other wives who wanna go through Wife After God together, we would suggest everyone gets a copy, just so that they can go through it on their own throughout the week, and then meet up, once a week for a month or two, depending on how you want to do it, and just use the journal questions, in the back of each day as the discussion questions to talk about. [Aaron] Yeah, and you might be able to break up the chapters, so like the first four chapters on week one, and the next four chapters or five chapters on week two. [Jennifer] Yeah, and you don't have to use the journal questions, You can just simply say, okay, what have you been learning? What stood out to you? That kind of thing. [Aaron] Ideally, they would, whoever has these devotionals, the people listening, if they have these devotionals or if they're going to get them, when they're done going through them, they should invite married couples over to their house, and start a little marriage Bible study with those couples. [Jennifer] That would be awesome. And here's the other tip, if you guys were to do this soon, there's even enough time, by the time you finish that small group, Marriage After God will be out. The new book, yeah. The new book, and then you could do that same group study With that book. With book. [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause that book is significantly different than these devotionals. [Jennifer] Okay, so I want to give one more tip and this is just a fun thing to do with your group, if you're gonna do a group. I did a small group, which actually led me to writing this devotional. I did it for three months with a handful of wives from my church, we were all young wives, kind of in the same season of life, and-- [Aaron] No one had kids yet, back then. [Jennifer] No one had kids yet. One friend had one young, young baby. So, anyways, we got together weekly, once a week, for three months, and the second to the last, or maybe the third to the last one, we made handmade invitations for our husbands. [Aaron] Oh, this is definitely a good idea. [Jennifer] We planned and prepared a dinner that we were gonna host for our husbands on that last evening and talk about the discussion questions and what we learning on that night with everyone. And so we thought it was gonna be fancy, we thought we wanted to dress up, we thought we all wanted to cook together. So we made these handmade invitations and then a couple weeks later, we all got together, we got there early, set the table, got flowers, made the dinner, and all the husbands showed up, dressed super nice, we were just at a friend's house. [Aaron] That, I remember this. That was a lot of fun and I felt really honored. [Jennifer] Everybody just, everybody felt honored. Everybody had smiles on their faces and what's really cool about that night is the guys actually, because they knew it was coming, they all talked and prepared on how they were gonna encourage us women and share how they've seen us change over that time we'd been meeting together. So then at the dinner table, everyone went around and shared. It was incredible, it was so awesome. [Aaron] It was really powerful, and very enjoyable, and the food, I can't remember what it was, but I remember it was really good. [Jennifer] Yeah, so you could do something fun like that together. [Aaron] So last question is, why should they read these devotionals now, as a primer for the Marriage After God book coming out in June? [Jennifer] So, first thing you guys should know is, we did write these devotionals a couple years ago, and when we get people who have been through them asking us what's next, we want to give you something. We've been wanting to give you something since they first came out. [Aaron] We've had four kids since then, so... [Jennifer] Yeah, we've been a little busy, but this was a catalyst, you guys asking and desiring this has been a catalyst for why we wrote Marriage After God. So I feel like these devotionals are the brief version. [Aaron] I think they're the first stepping stone. [Jennifer] It's like a stepping stone, because then, I feel like your hearts will be ready. More unified. And more unified for jumping into the message that is in the book, Marriage After God. [Aaron] Yeah, the Marriage After God book. You're going to be hearing a lot about this, so we're starting to talk about it more because as it gets closer to launching, we want you all to know what it's about, and why we wrote these books. And we wrote Marriage After God as a culmination of everything that God's been teaching us over the years about the ministry that God has for our marriages. And so these devotionals are step one in that. [Jennifer] Yeah, they'll get you thinking about the purpose of your marriage in light of God's Word. [Aaron] Yep, and by the time the book comes out, you'll be ready to take that next step into what God has for your marriage and where He wants to take it. 'Cause that was the whole purpose of writing the book was, we want marriages all over the world who claim the name of Christ, who love God, to recognize the power in the ministry that they have in Christ as a marriage, as one. And so we're super excited about that. [Jennifer] Yeah, I think another thing is, is if you do these devotionals together, it will start to build that habit of spending time together and reading together and asking each other some deep questions. So that when the Marriage After God book comes out, that habit will already be there and you'll want to replace the devotionals with the book. So I think that it's just a natural step. [Aaron] Yeah, and I wanna go, I got really excited about something. I wanna go right back to the small group subject again. I love that idea, and I actually wanna challenge our listeners. We weren't planning on doing this, but I want to challenge our listeners to get a copy of our devotionals, the Husband and Wife After God devotionals. Go through them, and at the end of the 30 days, during the 30 days, be praying and asking God, what other couples are in your life that He wants you to invite to a study at your house, a Marriage After God study? And then invite them to get the books. It could be two couples, it could be one couple, it could be five couples. I wouldn't do more than maybe six couples, that's a lot of people. Do multiple studies, maybe, but I just wanna challenge you to be praying through the books as you do them, and asking God who it is. You might be thinking right now, oh my gosh, I have this friend, these friends, they would love to do this with us, and start a Bible study and walk through these studies, these books together and see what God has for all your marriages. What we're trying to start here is a movement of marriages after God, of marriages who desire to grow the kingdom of God, to see Him move through their marriages, and that we would use our marriages for ministry for Him. That's why we started the podcast. That's why we started our blogs. All of this goes back to that, that we're moving the kingdom forward with God, and that we see our marriages as the ministries He's given us and the tools that He's given us to serve Him. [Jennifer] Mmm, that's good. [Aaron] So would you agree with that challenge? [Jennifer] I agree, I like that challenge, and just to simplify it and make it easy for them to understand. Just tell these people it'll be four or six weekS, whatever you want the timing to be on it, which is not a long time to meet together. It's not at all. [Jennifer] It's once a week, for four weeks, or once a week for six weeks. [Aaron] Try the four weeks, I think the four week one, just one month to see if it works, see if you're like wow, this is awesome. And but first, I would say you go through the devotionals as a couple first. And during that 30 days, you pray, and fast if need to, and you ask the Lord. Say, Lord, reveal to us, who is it? And I know the Lord will. The moment we ask God, like God use me, He's like okay, He wants to use us. [Jennifer] Marriages need it, you guys, that's why we're doing this, because marriages need the support, the encouragement of other believers, they need to know why God has them together. [Aaron] The reminder of not just happily ever after, but it's that we're chasing after God together, that we're building His kingdom together, that we have a mission in this world and our marriage is the tool to accomplish the mission. Yeah, and going back to the message of the Marriage After God book, that's what the whole book's about, what is the mission God has for us? [Jennifer] And if you guys have already been through these devotionals, and this is old news to you, because you've already been through these, I want you to go dust them off, go get them, and go do exactly what Aaron is challenging you to do right now and consider- [Aaron] Let's start our movement. [Jennifer] Yeah, consider who you can invite over to go through them with you. [Aaron] Ooh, how can they let us know if they're doing it? 'Cause actually I would love to know. I'd love to see the groups-- Groups, a group photo! We wanna see a group photo- Tagged! [Jennifer] @MarriageAfterGod. [Aaron] Yeah, tag @MarriageAfterGod and #MarriageAfterGod, and we will look 'em and actually I think we'll repost them. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Not all of them, but we'll repost a lot of them. So if you do this, please let us know. We'd love to be praying for you, being part of it, and we are praying for you, but if you're going to be doing a group, we want to pray for your group, we want to pray for your Bible study. I'm getting all excited, okay. [Jennifer] Okay, so last note before we go into the prayer for this episode, and that is, get ready, because we have 16 weeks ahead of us of a book series for Marriage After God that we're going to be diving into starting next week with the introduction. [Aaron] That's true, and you know what's awesome? We forgot to mention this, this is episode 52. This is, we've been doing this for one year. Woohoo! Today. [Jennifer] Thank you guys for following along, and listening, this is awesome. [Aaron] Yeah, so for the next 16 episodes, we're going to be talking about content from the book. [Jennifer] And it's actually 17, 'cause it's 16 chapters, plus the introduction, so 17 weeks. [Aaron] So you're going to be learning a lot about the message of the Marriage After God book, which is essentially of the Marriage After God podcast, and how our hearts is to start a movement in Christian marriages around the world. And we'd love for you to be a part of that, and to take ownership in that, and know that God's gonna do something amazing. And we're excited to see what that is. So before we close, as always, we've dedicated to pray for you and your marriage and for what God's doing, and so Jennifer would you like to pray for us? [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for creating marriage. Thank you for considering our counterpart and complement. Thank you that we do not have to endure this life alone. Not only do we get to live with the presence of Your Holy Spirit and our spouse, but we also get to benefit from living in community with other believers. May we walk together in unity as You have always intended us to. Please continue to draw us closer to Yourself and closer to each other. Continue to transform our hearts and our minds so that our character reflects Your character. Help us to intentionally invest in marriage by learning how to fulfill our roles as husbands and wives. Thank you for revealing to us why you created marriage and the purpose it has in this world. May this purpose motivate us to walk righteously every day. Remind us daily that our marriage is a symbol to this hurting world of your powerful and unconditional love. We pray that as Christian husbands and wives, we aim to minister to one another in our marriages by being obedient to all that You have commanded through Your Word. May we be prayer warriors who do not neglect to pray for one another. We pray that as we make ourselves known to You and to each other, that we experience extraordinary intimacy. We pray for Your will to be done in our marriages and through our marriages and may You be glorified. In Jesus' name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen, thank you Lord. We're excited to see pictures. We're excited to see what God's gonna be doing in your marriage through these devotionals, through the Bible study that you're gonna start, I'm making it a definitive. [Jennifer] And tag @MarriageAfterGod so we can see and cheer you along! [Aaron] Yeah, and just start praying and asking God how He wasn't to use you and your spouse. That's our heart, that's our goal, that's why we do this, is that you would recognize the place that you have in the body of Christ, and that it's a significant one. Doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter where you live, God's got a plan for you, He's got a purpose for your marriage, for your life individually, and you are a part of the body of Christ. And God's got work for us to do, [Jennifer] Let's do it. [Aaron] as his children. Yeah, so let's do it and we love you guys. We thank you for joining us on our 52nd episode, one year in, here's to another year, and we'll see you next week! Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| My Personal Struggle With Pornography and Lust as a Wife | 23 Jan 2019 | 00:41:54 | |
We are sexual beings. God created us with a beautiful way of expressing deep love in marriage through the physical action of being one with our spouse, and it is the way he designed us, humans, to recreate, to multiply his image. Just like any wonderful and necessary part of God’s design and purpose, the enemy has found a way to destroy it. The last episode we talked about Aaron's struggle with pornography and how it affected our marriage. Today we thought we would share my struggle and pull into the light the truth that pornography is not just a guy problem. Dear Lord, We pray first and foremost that husbands and wives would give you their hearts, that they would obey all that you command in your word and that they would love you with all of their hearts. We pray that if any of them are addicted or struggling with pornography that they would choose to stop today. Holy Spirit, please remind us daily of Your desire for us to live holy and pure lives. We pray we would not live in hiding, but rather, may we be transparent with others, confessing our sin and repenting of it, so that it will not have a stronghold in our lives. Give us stamina to pray for protection against the enemy and against our flesh. Remind us every day to pray for ourselves, for our spouses, for our children, and for our children's future spouses. May we be men and women who choose to walk faithfully with You. In Jesus’ name, amen! Support this podcast by grabbing one of our marriage books. http://shop.marriageaftergod.com READ: [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. And today, we're gonna talk about my personal struggle with pornography and lust as a wife. [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith everyday. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life-- [Aaron] Love-- [Jennifer] And power-- [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God-- [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us on another podcast episode. Last week's episode was super, super powerful and impactful. We've had tons of messages from people just sharing how my story of addiction to pornography and how God freed me from it has blessed them and has brought them freedom. And again, it's not me. It's God working through my testimony. And in reality, it's his testimony 'cause of what he did in my life. But we thank you for joining us on this week's episode which is also gonna be very vulnerable and very sensitive to us, but we pray that it has an impact in your life. And if you've been enjoying our podcast and you haven't done so yet, we'd love to invite you to leave us a review, a star review, a star rating, and a text review. Those help other people find our podcast and we love reading 'em. They're really encouraging. [Jennifer] Also, we just wanted to invite you guys to take a minute to check out shop.marriageaftergod.com. That's a great way that you can help support our podcast, the Marriage After God podcast, by shopping through our store. And just to highlight one specific book, The Unveiled Wife, we're gonna be sharing on this sensitive topic today about my personal struggle with pornography and lust as a wife. And I share even more detail in The Unveiled Wife. So if you are on the store and you want to check that book out. You know, if this episode stirs anything in your heart and you just feel like you need an additional resource, check out The Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] Awesome. So here's the icebreaker question for this week. Who is the best cook in our marriage? [Jennifer] Before I answer that, I feel like I'm glad this question was a little bit light hearted because we're going into some sensitive stuff. So at least we can get all the laugh and everything out of the way. [Aaron] We'll laugh a little bit, I think. I'm nervous. We'll be careful. Yes, it is a nerve racking topic. [Jennifer] Okay, who's the best cook? I am. [Aaron] Yeah, okay. [Jennifer] You are? [Aaron] We both are. I would say I think we have strengths in different areas of cooking. [Jennifer] I was gonna say you are. [Aaron] You are an incredible baker. Your biscuits are amazing. And I love smoking stuff in my Traeger. [Jennifer] You're great at it. [Aaron] Yeah, so I think we're good. We didn't use to be good at it. We have some funny stories. [Jennifer] We were terrible at cooking. [Aaron] Remember that one time you made spaghetti and you forgot to boil the noodles? [Jennifer] Yeah, so it was baked ziti. [Aaron] Oh yeah, baked ziti. [Jennifer] And it's one of those dishes where you kind of like layer and then bake. And so I just threw everything together and started baking away, and we had friends coming over. [Aaron] We pull it out of the oven. [Jennifer] It was like nine o'clock at night and I'm like you guys, it's still not done. I don't know. [Aaron] We try eating it. It's like crunchy. We had to pull all the noodles out and boil 'em-- [Jennifer] Yup, and then mix everything back together. [Aaron] But you have totally redeemed yourself because the baked ziti you brought to church this last Sunday was incredible. [Jennifer] Thanks. [Aaron] So. Yeah, I would say we're both really good cooks. [Jennifer] I appreciate your love of cooking because it helps me out on times that I'm not interested or can't get to it. So I think we make a good team in the kitchen. [Aaron] Yeah, cool. That was a good question. Alright. So I'm gonna read a quote. We try and do a quote every week. And this is a quote from my own devotional which you can get at shop.marriageaftergod.com. It's called Husband After God. It's a 30 day devotional for husbands. And of course, we have the wife companion devotional called Wife After God as well but this is a quote from my book. And it says this on page 65. What you bring into your heart, you bring into your home. It's a short quote but I think it's a powerful statement that what's in our hearts, whether people see it, whether it's visible, whether our spouse knows about it, it is brought into our home and one way or another, it's gonna come out. It's gonna come out in the way we treat our spouse and in the way we treat our children. And it may even become visible, like you know with pornography, if it's something I'm searching on my computer, on my phone, or some roundabout way, my children, my wife, someone in my home's gonna stumble upon it. It's gonna affect the way I think, the way I act, and not just me, but us. So just a good reminder and especially going into the topic we're going to talk about. What we bring into our heart, we bring into our home and we have a responsibility to protect what we are viewing, listening to, consuming as Christians. [Jennifer] Yeah, I was gonna ask you to explain really quickly what it means to bring something into your heart. Like is it just, you know, an overall what you expose yourself to? Or do you actually have to like receive it? Like what does that look like? [Aaron] To be honest-- [Jennifer] 'Cause you know people are gonna try and justify that line of like what, well, I didn't bring that in. Just because I did that thing doesn't mean I, you know, brought it into my heart. [Aaron] No, that's a good point. I think just usually it's gonna come from things that we enjoy. I enjoy movies, right? And I used to be able to justify well, there was only that one little scene but the rest of the movie was okay. And what I'm doing is I'm allowing something into my heart through my eyes, through something I'm entertaining and enjoying. And those things, they come in. And unless we deal with them. The Bible tells us to take every thought captive. Unless we deal with the things that we're allowing into our heart. I may listen to certain music, right? And they just the kinds of salacious lyrics and the kinds of things that I'm listening to over, and over, and over again. The Bible calls that meditation. And that's how we bring the scripture into our hearts is be meditating on it, regurgitating it, going over, and over, and over again, repeating it, memorizing it. So if we're doing that with other things, that's how things get into our heart. That's how we absorb things. [Jennifer] And the bottom line is we're choosing it. [Aaron] We're choosing it, yeah. Like I wouldn't say walking down the street and then just something happens. I don't have to let that into my heart. Now, if I'm dwelling on something and I see something, or someone, or a poster, or something on a TV screen in a shop or whatever, I could let it in because I want it. So we have to be careful what things we allow into our hearts 'cause as the Bible says, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so there's things that we could be allowing in and we may not think directly it's affecting those in our home, but in some way or another, it is or will. [Jennifer] Come out. [Aaron] Come out, yeah. [Jennifer] Good. Okay, so just to be real honest. I think I mentioned in the last episode that I was nervous about it and I didn't really want to do the episode but I knew it was important. And even more so, I really don't want to do this episode but I know it's important. [Aaron] Yeah, last episode, we focused a lot on my walk and how I dealt with pornography and how it affected us. But not a lot of people know your side of the story. Not just your perspective on my sin but your own walk with it. [Jennifer] Yeah. And so naturally, when we're even trying to discuss the title for this episode, it was like I don't want my name attached. I don't want the word wife in there. [Aaron] It was 15 minutes of us. I'm like babe, how are people gonna figure this out? They need to know. She's like I don't want it to be put in there, but it's about you. [Jennifer] It's so hard to talk about our past struggles, and sins, and things that just make you feel so ugly and messy. And I know that God was redeemed me and that I no longer am that person. You know, that's an old self and I don't choose to walk in that way anymore which, you know, God gets that glory for sure, but it still is uncomfortable to talk about. But the reason that I'm willing, the reason that Aaron and I wanted to share this episode with you today is because we know that there are a lot of women who struggle with pornography, lust, and you know-- [Aaron] Sexual sins of this nature, yeah. [Jennifer] Sexual sins. And it's not being talked about a lot. I think it's starting to be. I think that people are starting to recognize that you know, it's not just a man's issue, that it's not just a husband's issue or even a young man's issue. I think that there are. I mean, there are a lot of people, a lot of women who do struggle with it. [Aaron] Naturally, our world is becoming more and more desensitized. We're oversexualized. Every single commercial, every single movie. You can't watch a PG-13 movie without some sort of sexual reference or partial nudity. The oversexualization of everything in our society is making it more and more common. [Jennifer] And so accepting. [Aaron] Well, that's what I'm saying. It's becoming more accepting. And so you have boys and men who expect a certain thing and then you have women who are like well, that's what everyone's expecting now. So there's this nasty cycle of expectation, and desensitization, and oversexualization. As believers, we actually can combat this darkness, right? [Jennifer] Yeah. I think a reason that a lot of people don't say anything or say a lot about women struggling with pornography use is just because it's embarrassing or maybe they feel like they can actually hide it and get away with it because everyone's so focused on it being a man's issue. And so we wanted to bring this to light and kind of just drag this topic out into the open and say hey, if there is a problem, we need to be talking about it. And so hopefully this is that stepping into freedom for anyone who is struggling with it today. [Aaron] Yeah, our prayer before this was that God would open the eyes and hearts of believers who might be walking in this, men and women. And you said that people might not talk about it because of fear or embarrassment. But it's also possible, and we've seen evidence of this, of people just thinking that there's nothing wrong with it. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And so they're like why would I talk about it? There's nothing wrong with it. We do this in our marriage. I enjoy this in this way and we're gonna talk about some of the definitions of pornography so we can shine that light on it completely, but that's the goal is that as believers, we would be white as snow. We would be a pure bride for our king. And so I appreciate you, Jennifer, for being so fearless. I know there's a little bit of fear in this. But for sharing your testimony in this area. [Jennifer] Well, I feel like we are, like human nature, we are sexual beings. God created us with this beautiful way of expressing our deep love in marriage for one another in this way through the physical action of being one. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Right? And it's his way, it's the way that he designed us to recreate and to multiply his image through childbearing and expressing that love. But just like any wonderful and necessary part of God's design and purpose, the enemy has found a way to destroy it. [Aaron] He's only here to seek out whom he may devour to kill, steal, and destroy. He takes the things that God's created and he manipulates them, mutates them, destroys them, ruins them, perverts them. And so that beautiful thing that God created, you know, sex, and the confines that he created it to exist in, marriage, he's constantly attacking and saying actually no, sex is better outside of marriage. Actually, sex is better when there's multiple partners. Sex is better when you do it this way instead of God's way. And he's done that by tempting believers and everyone in many different ways. But we get to look at the word of God and the way he's invented it and created it and why it's so beautiful. And we get to walk that way. [Jennifer] Okay, so the last episode, you kind of started with just your journey and exposure to pornography so I thought I'd kind of start there with mine. So I was about 10 or 11 when I saw a shredded up piece of a magazine that looked like it had been run over by cars and things laying in a gutter. [Aaron] Weird. That's like how my story started. [Jennifer] I know. I thought about what when you shared it. So I didn't pick that up though. [Aaron] 'Cause it was in the gutter. [Jennifer] Not 'cause it was in a gutter, because it freaked me out but the image was seared into my heart like instantly. It was like okay. And then I thought about it and dwelt on it and that was my first exposure to it. And shortly after that, just some exposure through finding magazines and fantasy books at family member's houses. [Aaron] So when I think about you say it seared into your heart almost immediately. [Jennifer] In my mind. Like I could see it in my mind. [Aaron] What I realize is the way God created us with all of our hormones and the chemicals in our body, and especially at such a young age. Or think of Song of Solomon. It says don't open up love before it's time. And there's a physical reason, a physical response to those sexual hormones. You saw that image and they evoked the correct kind of hormones in you but at the wrong time, and in the wrong way, and that's why it was like so instant in your flesh because your body was like that was something that I've never seen before. That was something I don't know what to do with. And yet, your body was functioning the way it was supposed to. Just in the wrong time, and in the wrong way, and in the wrong environment. [Jennifer] Yeah. And I don't feel like I was taught about sexual purity or even my body really. I wasn't taught to guard or protect my eyes. I didn't know what pornography was. And so in that moment, I didn't know what to do with it so I just kept to myself. I didn't know if I should tell someone. I didn't know how to combat those thoughts that I got from that point, you know, onward. I didn't know how to deal with it. I don't remember my parents really talking to me about sex, except I was told not to do it. [Aaron] Yeah, sex is sin. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Until you're married. And then it's not sin anymore. [Jennifer] They didn't even use the word sin. I just remember being told like not to do it. But no one ever explained why. I don't remember there being a strong why. You know that God created it but there was no affirmation that it is a good thing once you're married. [Aaron] Or that your body is something special that needs to be protected and kept for someone. Not many people, but someone. [Jennifer] And now that I'm thinking about it, even the idea of marriage wasn't really talked about in light of an affirming way. It wasn't like, you know. When I think about my kids, they get really excited to be married one day. [Aaron] I know, poor Olive. [Jennifer] Olive, we were driving in the car and she goes, "Mom, I just want to be a mommy right now." Like she doesn't want to wait at all and I get the opportunity and the privilege to affirm that in her and say Olive, you will be married one day. Just wait for it in God's timing. And I don't really remember having a positive perspective of marriage from a young age and I've shared this before, but my parents were divorced when I was really young, around four years old. And so even seeing the example wasn't really present from an early age. Yeah, I think that really impacted me as a young person. [Aaron] If anything, it didn't give you an environment to go, and unintentionally, I don't believe that your parents probably wanted you to feel this way. They probably didn't know how to help you. [Jennifer] They probably didn't know how to navigate it, yeah. [Aaron] But you didn't even know what to do with the feelings you had after seeing that image. You didn't know where to go. You didn't know if you'd be in trouble or if you were feeling was normal and you just didn't know why you felt abnormal. So you didn't even have the environment to help you to do that. And I don't feel like I did either actually. I don't feel like there was an intentional marriage conversation of. I know my mom always had us pray for our future wives. [Jennifer] That's awesome. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] That's so cool. [Aaron] So there was definitely positive elements but I don't know if there was a direct like hey, this is how you're gonna be as a husband. This is how you're gonna be. Maybe like here and there sporadically but. But yeah, that's probably most people's lives growing up, not having intentional, direct, like hey, if you come across something like this, if you ever feel this way, come right to us and we will walk you through it. We will tell you how to think, and how to feel, and we'll help protect you. [Jennifer] So as a note for those listening, if you're parents of just young kids, we have that obligation and opportunity to affirm them in this way and to have these conversations with them. And I think that's important that we do. [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause if we don't, guess who will? [Jennifer] The world. [Aaron] The world will. It did it for us. We were taught about sex not from the safety and Biblical perspective from our homes. We were taught from the world. And so thank you for reminding the parents that are listening if they're parents to take that responsibility seriously. [Jennifer] So the first time that I did hear anything about pornography in the church setting was when we were in our 20s and the pastor spoke on this specific issue and even didn't shy away from hey, women struggle with it too. Like that was the first time that I really heard pornography preached from the pulpit that it's wrong, and it should be avoided, and that it affects our home. And that too, I share about-- [Aaron] In your 20s? That was the first time? [Jennifer] When we were married. [Aaron] Wow. [Jennifer] So I actually mentioned this story in The Unveiled Wife, but we were sitting in church and this was right after I had confessed everything to you. I confessed my struggles with pornography which up until this point, I hadn't. Okay, so I feel like I'm jumping ahead. So let me just backtrack just a little bit. So I wouldn't say that I ever had like an addiction to pornography, but I was exposed to fantasy books, and magazines, and things like that, and so I was prone to that sin in my heart already. [Aaron] 'Cause I agree. I don't think you were addicted the same way I was but did you use lust, pornography, fantasy books, for coping with what we were going through with-- [Jennifer] Yeah, that's what I wanted to touch on before I hit this story that I write about in The Unveiled Wife. So those first couple years of our marriage were so difficult and so challenging for several reasons but one of them, the major one was we were not sexually intimate with each other. I had physical pain every time that we tried and so I was really depressed and I felt broken. I felt like my body was broken. And on the other side of things, you had mentioned last episode that you were still struggling with pornography at this time. [Aaron] Pretty regularly. [Jennifer] Pretty regularly. And you had confessed to me about your sin and we would have to find a way to reconcile. So with all of this happening, there was some things going on in my heart where because I felt broken, I was searching out the thing that I wanted to be which I wanted to be sexy in our marriage. I wanted to be a woman who wasn't broken. [Aaron] And you wanted to feel that pleasure that we couldn't experience. [Jennifer] Exactly. And then because you had confessed to me, eventually, I got to a place where I was curious. Like what is this thing he keeps going back to and I'm not participating in. And so there was all these things that drove my heart and motivation for struggling with pornography and lust. And even fantasy books like-- [Aaron] Yeah, you'd escape to these love stories. [Jennifer] Love stories. Relational things that-- [Aaron] That some of them had sexual content in 'em, but really it was the-- [Jennifer] It was the emotional affection. [Aaron] That emotional, romantic love story. [Jennifer] That I was being fulfilled in aside from our marriage. So even outside of pornography, I felt. This is why we need to define what pornography is and we're gonna get there in a minute, but I just wanted to be honest and say I did struggle and it was very difficult for me and painful. It makes you feel shameful, and guilty, and not pure. [Aaron] It defiles our marriage bed. So just like that quote I read at the beginning, what you bring into your heart, you bring into your home. So husbands listening, men listening, if you're bringing this into your home, you're involving your family. My wife, she just admitted that because she was hearing it from me, and not that I made her sin, but I invited her-- [Jennifer] There's influence. [Aaron] And showed her. I influenced her. [Jennifer] We influence each other. And that verse that you're talking about is Hebrews 13:4. It says let marriage be held in honor among all and that the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. And just like we share that story about me talking to you about your addiction to pornography and how it was adultery in our marriage, I knew that as well and I really didn't want that, you know? This verse came to my mind and I came to a place where it was like I don't want to be that person. I want to live above reproach. I want to live in purity. And so before all of this, I was hiding it from you. I wasn't openly communicating the things that I was struggling with and I broke. And I knew that I had to confess these things and so I, you know, sat on our bed and told you I needed to talk to you. And about two hours later after so many tears and divulging, and exposing all of my heart. I didn't keep anything from you. I received healing, and comfort, and reconciliation with you that I hadn't before because I always had this area of my heart that was only mine. And I remember that moment being so powerful in our marriage because I had the courage to tell you what I was really doing. And I remember kind of writing about this in The Unveiled Wife that you can't truly love someone unless you really know them. Like in that moment of me confessing everything to you, you had a choice. You could continue to love me and be with me or not. [Aaron] Or stop loving you, yeah. [Jennifer] And for me to know that I could share my entire heart and life with you and you still choose to love me, that was powerful. That's unconditional love. [Aaron] Yeah, there's a song out right now that says to be fully known and still be fully loved, right? Like then that's the idea of what you're saying. That you were fully known to me and still fully loved. Now, there are still consequences to our sin and we talked about this in my episode. You know, us learning how to walk in trust, us learning how to walk in freedom and practicing righteousness, and not bringing this into our children's lives. So yes, I think that was the last time you? [Jennifer] So what happened was that happened on like a Friday, Saturday, and that following Sunday was the church service that the pastor spoke from the pulpit. Nothing's a coincidence. The Lord was like-- [Aaron] Yeah, no coincidences. [Jennifer] Out of, you know, how many people at that service? 5,000 people? 10,000 people in that one service sitting there? I felt like the spotlight was on me. I couldn't stop crying. My mascara was down to my chin and the pastor just kept speaking one truth after another about the lies and deceit about pornography use, about how it's not just a man's issue. He gave statistics on it being a women's issue too and that gets really sticky because a lot of Christian women won't even participate in surveys like that 'cause they don't want to be known in that way. And so he called from the stage and said if any of you have been struggling with this, come forward and we will pray with you and we'll connect you with people who can walk you through this. [Aaron] And did you go forward? [Jennifer] Yeah, well, so I remember standing up, holding your hand with my head on your shoulder and you squeezed my hand when he said come forward. And a song started playing and I was so embarrassed 'cause I knew if I started walking, our friends would see. [Aaron] It would be known to our community. [Jennifer] We would be known. [Aaron] Crazy. I think we have an episode about that. [Jennifer] That was such a hard moment for me but it was defining, which was important. And so we went forward. The pastor prayed and then we went off to this, they call it the decision room where some other friends of ours who had been counseling us in our marriage sat down with us and then we got to be even more fully known with them. [Aaron] I totally forgot about all of this, wow. [Jennifer] It was heartbreaking but so heart-needed. Like it was so necessary for me to address this issue and confess what I was doing, and repent of it. And I did choose that day to walk differently. [Aaron] You know what I think about when I think about like that it's painful but it's so good when there's a broken bone in our body, they don't just wrap it up in a cast and call it a day. Often times, they have to reset the broken bone. They can't just. And if you don't reset it and you let it heal, it heals broken. And then you have to break it again to reheal it, heal it correctly. And so it's almost like God's like no, no, no, I know that you're mine and I know that I love you but I have to heal you and I want to heal you. And this brokenness you feel now is so that you can be whole later. 'Cause that's what he wants from us is wholeness. And so I remember that. and I want to ask you 'cause we talked about defining pornography and I know that the men and the women listening, when they think of pornography, when I think of pornography, the first thing I think of is like videos, photos, those sorts of things, right? The internet's just full of it. We can get it anywhere at any time for free, for money, whatever. But are there other things that we define as pornography that Christians should be thinking of and being aware of, and repent of if they're walking in those ways? [Jennifer] Yeah, so I want to note a couple things. So why is it important to define what pornography is? It's important because if we don't define what it is then our flesh will constantly justify where that line is and keep just pushing it so that you can keep doing the things that you want to do. [Aaron] I'm fine doing this because it's not that. I can keep doing this. Don't talk to me about this because this isn't that. [Jennifer] And even I have a really hard time saying that I struggled with pornography because how I want to define it is videos where that necessarily wasn't my struggle. And that way, I don't have to attach my name and my life to what that sin is. I don't want to be attached to it. Even like I said, struggling with naming this episode. Like I don't want to be attached to that because I hate it so much. But I think it's really important for us to define what it is and be honest with ourselves about what it is. And I think it can include things like what we mentioned, any sort of explicit photos or immodest photos. [Aaron] Like would you feel comfortable if I was like reading Sports Illustrated? [Jennifer] No, I would not. [Aaron] Or like any men's magazine that just is-- [Jennifer] I think it's important that we guard our eyes from immodest. [Aaron] What if I was following, you know, a girl online that she's famous but I just like her movies but she's always in bathing suits and always-- [Jennifer] Immodest. [Aaron] Yeah, it wouldn't make you feel good. And I would feel the same way if you were following. I mean, I doubt very many girls do this but like sexy man online or something that's always half-dressed or whatever. [Jennifer] And I just gotta make another little side note that if you're listening and you're a wife who posts pictures that are immodest-- [Aaron] Oh, good point. [Jennifer] I don't even need to question you on it but just let that sink into your heart and what it means for other people following you. Some other things that I don't want to forget to talk about are fantasy books. You know, things that-- [Aaron] Like when you say fantasy books 'cause fantasy could be. Are you talking about? [Jennifer] Not science fiction. I'm talking about what kinds of plot lines and actions are the characters doing. And if it's impure, and sexual, and I would even go as far as to say if I was reading things that had that emotional relationship fulfillment aspect. Like we need to be careful that we're not going there instead of being fulfilled in our own marriage. And I think that's the key. Now, 'cause there are Christian romance novels. I've never read any of 'em. But would you say that someone could be falling into sin in those books also if they're using those books to escape? [Jennifer] I think if they're using them as an escape because they're not being fulfilled in the marriage, they need to ask themselves what God thinks about that. [Aaron] That's a good point. And then more directly, what about books that have explicit sexual stories? Would you say that's pornographic? [Jennifer] I would. [Aaron] Yeah, because what it does is the exact same thing. Even though it's not visual, the thing is is we are-- [Jennifer] Stimulating that part of our bodies. [Aaron] Sexually stimulating ourselves in a way other than our spouse. For me, I've made it a point, because even after walking in freedom from pornography, I would justify going and seeing a movie that had a minimal sex scene in it, or some sort of brief nudity, or those kinds of things. What do I do now? [Jennifer] Well, you have to review it, research it, make sure that-- [Aaron] I read up. [Jennifer] You usually just end up not going. [Aaron] No, 'cause every movie nowadays has something in it. What I do is now I go to Plugged In. It's a site that reviews movies. It's a Christian site but it gives a pretty full synopsis. And if a movie has sexual content in it, it's a no. And you know what? There's been a bunch of movies I wanted to see that I haven't gone and seen because there would have been a scene in it. And lots of Christians, men are saying well, it doesn't affect me that way. I just shut my eyes or it's not a big deal. I'm not interested in even having a little bit of it in my life. And so I'm constantly asking myself like hey, is this even worth it? [Jennifer] Yeah, I was gonna say that just now. Like people might look at this list we're giving them and going wait a minute. Like so everything basically? But I want them to hear our hearts on this is what benefit does it really have? Our flesh wants to fight to be entertained by these things but what benefit does it have in our marriages and in our families? [Aaron] Yeah, Proverbs says that eye is never seen enough. Like it never has enough. You know, our ears have never heard enough and I think that's a good question, Jennifer, that you asked. Like what benefit does it have? And usually, the benefit is escape, fulfillment. We're looking for something in that piece of entertainment to justify the reason for going and partaking in it, and eating of it, and devouring it, and consuming it, and allowing it into our hearts. And yeah, you're right. I used to go to the movies like pretty much weekly 'cause I love movies. Often, I was escaping my difficult life or I wanted to just. I knew I was gonna go to a movie that might have a scene in it that was going to sexually stimulate me for a moment. But now, I rarely can go see a movie because there's something in it. I'm like okay, well. And you know what? I'm not like missing out on anything. [Jennifer] It continues to build that trust between us because I see you make those choices and I go, I have a good man. [Aaron] And I'm not just making them for you. Like I've intentionally-- [Jennifer] But it impacts me and it impacts our relationship and I appreciate that. You know, when you say that you used to put yourself in these positions or situations, I think that a lot of us do that hoping that we be fulfilled. You know, that our flesh would be fulfilled. And it makes me think of in the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were tempted and the serpent's going, basically he's saying it's not that big of a deal. [Aaron] Yeah, like you really think you're gonna die if you even touch it? Which is not what God said. [Jennifer] I know, but it basically boils this thing that they weren't supposed to be doing to it's not really that big of a deal and I think so many people do that in their lives. They say it's really not that big of a deal. [Aaron] Well, and then he even says that Eve saw that it was good for looking at and good for eating. And like we do that. We're like well, it's art. And this is entertainment. It's good for my spirit 'cause I need to relax and it gets me excited and enjoyment. Or we had Christians comment on our posts in the past saying well, it's good as long as we do it together and as long as it heightens our sexual experience and it makes us closer. That's good. That's exactly what Eve saw from sin in the Garden of Eden. She looked at the fruit that God said not to touch. Actually said don't eat of it. Satan said did he really say not to touch it? He lied to her. And she's like. She saw that it was good to the sight and good for eating. And that's what we do. We're like well, yeah, but I know that that's probably not the best thing for me but look, it looks good. It's gonna taste good. And then in the end, it's gonna kill us. And I don't think that's worth it. At the end of the day, my prayer is that my children would never have to deal with this sin. They'll never have to deal with this struggle. That doesn't mean they're not gonna be tempted. It doesn't mean the world's not gonna try as hard as it can to grab their hearts. But it is not going to be because I have it in the house. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I think that important to note here is that we're setting an example through our actions and behavior as parents. I think that it's vital and necessary for us to be warring and battle through prayer for ourselves, for each other, our spouses, and our children, and even our children's future spouses. [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jennifer] We need to be on guard in this way. We need to know that this is a growing problem, that it's affecting our children. [Aaron] It's cancer in the church. [Jennifer] Well, in the world. Like it's everywhere. [Aaron] Yeah, but we can't expect people who aren't regenerated by the Holy Spirit, that people who don't follow Christ to change in this area. They need salvation first. But you listening to this, you believer, you person who says you're a Christ follower, this is a serious, serious issue that we need to submit before the Lord and confess, and repent of, and walk away from, and never touch again. [Jennifer] And you can't sit there and say well, my addiction is to fill in the blank. It's too hard. It's too difficult. [Aaron] You don't understand. I've done this for too long. [Jennifer] But if you claim to be a Christian, you have the spirit living inside of you, empowering you to walk the way. He has not just called you but created you to walk. [Aaron] And so my wife, you struggled with this. [Jennifer] I did. [Aaron] I struggled with this. And thank God for God's patience with us. But we have been shown that he has already given us everything that pertains to life and Godliness. Second Peter 1:3 says that. And you listening, you have that same spirit, same spirit that raised Christ from the dead. He's living in you and he's empowering you to walk in freedom. And the Bible tells us that even when temptation, whatever temptation comes, first of all, it's not uncommon to man. It's like every temptation's common. It's not unique to you. But secondly, it says that Christ will make a way of escape so that you can escape that temptation every single time. [Jennifer] So before we close out 'cause I feel like we're coming to the end here of this episode, I do want to point out something that I wanted to mention earlier and that is that one of the biggest reasons why I didn't expose my sin to you for a while was because I didn't want it to minimize your sin. I thought-- [Aaron] You don't want me to say, so, we're the same so stop judging me. [Jennifer] Yes, exactly. I thought that had I said that we did struggle with the same thing, that I wouldn't be allowed to express such deep emotions over your failures because of mine. And that kept me isolated, and I was deceived, and I believed that it was better to hide from you than to tell you the truth. [Aaron] So it was a false authority that you would come to me and. Where when Jesus says don't have a plank eye, like, the reason we take the plank out of our eye so that we can see clearly in our brothers. So you walking in purity, you would have been able to see clearly in my life, not just emotionally, but actually spiritually. Like hey, like that time when you came to me. [Jennifer] Which I was pure then so maybe that's why I saw it then. [Aaron] And vice versa. You know, when we walk in holiness, when we walk in righteousness, we can without being a hypocrite go to our brothers and sisters and say hey, you've got to change this area of your life. And them say like wow, if you can do it, I can do it. So I think that's a good point to highlight is that we don't want to be plank eye Christians. We want to walk in holiness so that we can see clearly in our brother's and sister's eyes for their sake and not just because we want to be a holier art thou, you know, and be above and look down. That's not why. We want to walk in holiness ourselves because we love God. And then we want to walk in holiness so that we can walk with our brothers who are not walking in holiness and encourage them to walk in holiness. That's a good point, babe. So I feel like that was a lot and good and you did really well. [Jennifer] I'm still sitting here afraid. I don't know. It's so hard to talk about this issue but I want to be open and honest so that if another wife is listening right now, I hope that if she's struggling with any sort of pornography and lust, impure thoughts, that she would have the courage to be transparent with her spouse and talk about these things. [Aaron] Confess these things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah. And confess with the purpose of repentance so that you both can walk in holiness. [Jennifer] And be reconciled to each other and to God. [Aaron] Yeah, so that we can fulfill the mission he has for us in life. To be lights in this world. To proclaim the gospel to the lost. Yeah. So we thank you for joining us this week. We thank you for listening to our testimonies and our prayer is that you and your spouse would have the same testimony. It's the only testimony that we get. It's from Jesus Christ. It's what he's done in us and through us. And he's the healer. He's the provider. He's our rock. And so before we close out, I'd love to invite you to pray with us. [Jennifer] Dear Lord, we pray first and foremost that husbands and wives would give you their hearts, that they would obey all that you command in your word and that they would love you with all of their hearts. We pray that if any of them are addicted or struggling with pornography, that they would choose to stop today. Holy Spirit, please remind us daily of your desire for us to live holy and pure lives. We pray we would not live in hiding, but rather may we be transparent with others, confessing our sin and repenting of it so that it will not have a stronghold in our lives. Give us stamina to pray for protection against the enemy and against our flesh. Remind us everyday to pray for ourselves, pray for our spouses, pray for our children, and pray for our children's future spouses. May we be men and women who choose to walk faithfully with you. In Jesus' name. Amen. [Aaron] Amen. Thanks for joining us this week and we look forward to having you next week. See you next time. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| How To Walk In Freedom From Pornography as A Husband | 16 Jan 2019 | 00:55:41 | |
NOTE: We don't share any graphic detials in this episode but this is not an episode to listen to around children. To support this podcast please pick up one of our marriage books at https://shop.marriageaftergod.com In this episode, I share my history with an addiction to pornography and how it affected Jennifer. Jennifer And I both discuss how it made her feel and how it affected every aspect of our marriage but ultimately how the Lord freed me from this sin. Our prayer is that by being open and vulnerable about this sensitive and taboo subject that a light would be shown and that many other men and women would find freedom and healing. READ: [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna share our personal journey with pornography in our marriage. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith everyday. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. Love. And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Thank you all for joining us this week on our podcast and we just wanted to invite you to leave us a review. This is just one way to help us get the word out about the Marriage After God podcast and let's other people find us and we really appreciate it, it just encourages our hearts. We love 'em. [Jennifer] So if you could just scroll to the bottom of the podcast app and leave us a review. [Aaron] Yeah a star rating is the easiest way to do it. All you have to do is hit a star, but if you have extra time we'd love a text review as well. [Jennifer] Thank you guys. [Aaron] Hey we wanna thank you for joining us and we also want to invite you if you've been enjoying the podcast to consider supporting our podcast. And the way that you do that is go to shop.marriageaftergod.com and pick up one of our books that we've written. The ones we wanna talk about today is our 31 Prayers for My Husband and 31 Prayers for My Wife bundle. We call it our prayer challenge and we encourage couples to do it. Thousands of couples have already gone through the challenge and they've loved it. They go through it multiple times actually a year so go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, pick up a copy of our 31 Marriage Prayers Challenge and that would support our podcast, thank you. [Jennifer] Okay moving right along, we are gonna jump into our icebreaker question, which is which one of you said I love you first? [Aaron] That's an easy one. [Jennifer] Give them a second to guess. You guys guess. Jennifer. Who is me. I couldn't wait any longer. [Aaron] Did I actually say I love you back? [Jennifer] So what happened was we were, I don't know if we were on a date or just hanging out but I remember I was getting out of your car-- [Aaron] I'm up in front of your house by your red mailbox. [Jennifer] No, actually Aaron has a terrible memory. [Aaron]Oh, it's not right there? -We were-- Where was this at? [Jennifer] It's okay honey. I'm not mad. We were in the church parking lot. Oh, oh. I was getting out of your black Honda, and I was getting into my car. And I got out, and I stood up-- I remember now. [Jennifer] And then I leaned back in, and I said, "Oh, by the way, I love you." 'Cause I was waiting, waiting-- Did I skid away, and the door slammed shut, or? [Jennifer] No, that didn't happen. But you did let a very long pause happen before you said anything, and it made me feel super awkward, and I said, I might have even said, "Okay, I'm gonna go now," or something like that, and then you were like, "I'm just kidding." You start laughing and you're like, "I love you too." Almost as if I had already known, but you never said it. [Aaron] Well, you did already know. [Jennifer] Yeah, I did. But it was-- That's really funny I made you wait. It felt good to have said it, and I'm glad I said it. I don't remember-- Yeah and we say it a lot now. Yeah, I do love you. And I won't make you wait. I'll tell you all day every day. [Jennifer] All day every day? [Aaron]Yeah. Oh good. So Jennifer said I love you first, and then I made her wait a few seconds-- [Jennifer] Super awkward. Super long seconds. And then you laughed, and then you said I love you back. [Aaron] Yeah. All right. So why don't we do a quick quote from a book. Okay. And this book is your book. [Jennifer] Yeah, we chose one from The Unveiled Wife, so it's not a typical quote that we've kind of been sharing with you guys. It's a little bit more personal. Okay this is found in The Unveiled Wife on page 153, and it says, "We were devoted to making ourselves "known to God and known to each other. "I finally felt free from the bondage "that was holding me captive. "I could breathe deeply without fear "of someone finding out who I was "because I had chosen to make myself known." [Aaron] And this was a part of our story where we were divulging to each other our deep dark secrets. Where we were sharing our sins, things we were struggling with. Actually, divulged everything. Talked about everything in our hearts. That was a pretty pivotal moment in our marriage. And that goes into what we're gonna be talking about, that's why we picked the quote because we're gonna be talking about that season of our marriage, we're gonna be talking about a pretty large season actually, of my life, and it has to do with pornography. [Jennifer] Yeah, which I actually, well we both didn't wanna do this episode. [Aaron] We've been putting it off for months. [Jennifer] Because I don't know why, it's just, I think it's one of those topics that's hard to dive into and expose, but like that quote said, I chose to make myself known, in our marriage, you've chose to make yourself known, and I've, I believe that that created a safe place for trust to be built, and I think it's really important for husbands and wives to hear our story and to hear, just to hear how we've exposed our hearts to each other, and hopefully they could do that too. [Aaron] And not only have we exposed it to each other, but we've exposed it to others. We've exposed the things that we've gone through, our dark secrets to other believers and through our platforms, there are ministries of the world. And one of the things that I love about how we are, you use the word expose, I love that word. The Bible tells us to drag that which is in the darkness into the light because that which is in the light becomes light. And that was our sin. The more it was hidden, the easier it was to keep doin' it. And so we've been draggin' it out ever since and keeping it out in public, keeping it out in the light so that it doesn't live in us. So I wanna start off by reading a scripture. And it's in Ephesians five verse three. It says, "But sexual immorality and all impurity "or covetousness must not even be named among you, "as is proper among saints." Paul's telling the Ephesians, you're saints, you're saints of the most high, and sexual morality and impurity and covetousness, they should not even be named among you. Meaning not even a little bit. In other translations it says there shouldn't be a hint of sexual morality. That's insane. Because in our current culture, in our current world, in my own life experience, I had not just a hint of sexual morality in my life, I was drenched in sexual morality. And Ephesians five verse three is very clear and it's, this isn't the only scripture that talks about this, that there shouldn't even be a hint of it among Christians. [Jennifer] Which is so weird because I mean, through our online platforms, we've shared about the topic of pornography before, and people even Christians, have shared their acceptance of it. And I think we're living in a culture, in an age where it's widely accepted even if people aren't talking about it. [Aaron] Yeah, we're desensitized to the grotesqueness of our sin. [Jennifer] Which is another reason why we knew we had to do this episode. We need to be willing to talk about it. [Aaron] Yeah, pretty much every time we've ever posted about pornography and how it's wrong, and shouldn't even be in a marriage, and how, and not that we're coming from perfection, we're coming from, well actually no, we've experienced this, it's wrong, and the Bible says we shouldn't do it, and God hates it. Christians, people claiming to be Christians in our comments will say, "Well, you're wrong actually, it's fine as long as." And then fill in the blank. And I'm like blown away. But we shouldn't be surprised by that 'cause the world's being, the world's gonna be deceived. So our heart today is to expose our story, and I hope my, our prayer we just prayed before this is that you listening, if this is your story, would begin to walk in freedom today. So that it, that sexual morality and impurity and covetousness might not even be named in your marriage. That there would be no hint of it. And so let's start, we're gonna start with my experience, and there's a bunch of questions I'm gonna answer and, but before we go to some of the questions I'm gonna answer about my experience with pornography and where it came from and how I walked in it and my story behind that, I just wanna read a letter I wrote to pornography in 2014. And it's on my blog, and it says this. "Dear pornography, "We have known each other since I was a child "and I feel as though I can tell you things "that I can never tell anyone else. "You know all my secrets and all my fantasies, "and you have been by my side "in the good times and in the bad. "You spent time with me when I was lonely or bored, "and you comforted me when I was angry or hurt. "It feels like you have always been there for me, "but I need to get a few things off my chest. "You promised me that after I got married, "I wouldn't need you anymore. "You made me believe that what we had was just a fling. "I realize now that you never loved me. "I am finally seeing your endgame. "You have stolen a piece of me like a master thief. "You wanted everything from me, not just my eyes, "but also my mind, heart, soul and strength. "You have promised a world to me that doesn't exist. "You have threatened my marriage and my children. "You have hurt my friends and family, "you have destroyed the lives of girls, boys, men and women "all over the world and used me to help. "All the while assuring me that no one would get hurt. "Our relationship has been nothing but lies. "You are not, nor have you ever been my friend. "You are the reason I have lived "with so much shame and embarrassment. "You are the reason my wife has been so hurt. "You have warped my perception of women in the world. "I needed to write you this letter "to let you know that it's over. "I would tell you in person, "but that would give you too much satisfaction. "I have found a true friend, his name is Jesus." I wrote this letter a long time ago and posted it. It resonated with a ton of people. It got 4,000 shares. And it was just me verbalizing out loud the relationship I had with pornography, so that I made it real. I was like oh, I don't wanna pretend like, oh, I'm just struggling and this that, like I actually verbalized what it was that I, how I related to it. [Jennifer] It actually makes me really sad just hearing you read it out loud, 'cause it makes it even more so feel like such an intimate thing, such an intimate relationship that you had with this thing, and I just, I, makes me heartbroken over the many people who are doing it, who are addicted to it, who have this kind of relationship with it. [Aaron] And it's true it's a lie. And it, in reality, it destroys us, it leads to death, and it destroys the people that, were, are being consumed by it, in the images. And it, do we care about those people? Do we care about ourselves, do we care about our families? And we need to consider those things. So I'm gonna be getting into some information about kind of where it started with me, and if you have questions as we go, Jennifer, you can ask me. How old was I when I was exposed first to pornography? I actually don't know. I feel like maybe seven, eight years old. I can't, I don't have a very good memory of my younger years. But I do remember one of the first experiences I had with it was I was walking home from school and I found a, it was like a playing card on the ground with a nude woman on it, and I remember keeping it. And I remember that being my first experience with it. I don't remember how I got connected on the internet with it, I don't remember how I've seen it on TV, but I've been exposed to pornography for many, many, many years. And not just exposed to it, but I've exposed myself to it and craved it, and sought after it since a very young age. And it went with me, I literally thought when I was younger that all I need to do is get married and it would fix my lustful cravings. 'Cause it, what they did was they, being exposed so young and right at that, puberty, when I'm already gonna be naturally more hormonal, and more testosterone, and all those things that come with puberty, I, it was heightened, extremely from a young age. And it just continued on until even, into marriage. [Jennifer] I actually remember before we got married, we did talk about that aspect of feeling like, 'cause you admitted to me that you struggled, pornography, and I also wrote it off as like well doesn't every guy do that? That was my perspective of it. And we both believed that it would be like a non-issue when we got married, that it would just go away. [Aaron] Right, so while we were dating, you had no red flags about it. [Jennifer] I mean, I hated it then and it hurt me then, but I figured marriage would be the solution. [Aaron] Well what you said was that you thought, well, I guess every guy struggles with that, and we'll just, when we get married we'll walk together and we'll figure it out, and it'll be fixed. And I actually believed that too, but I was so entrenched in it that I couldn't imagine men not struggling with it, and I think there was two reasons I did that. One, pretty much everything I heard from other believers, and pastors, and mentors was like, well yeah, everyone struggles with that and there's that book, Every Man's Battle, like we, that's the thing we've heard about this, so I just believed literally every man struggled with it and it was normal. Yeah, it was wrong, and we shouldn't do it, and I felt shameful, and I should be better at it, but I wasn't actually ever told by anyone that I didn't have to do it, that I wasn't slave to it, that as a believer I could walk in freedom from it, and that it was gonna destroy me. I don't remember hearing that ever. I remember how it made me feel. [Jennifer] How did it make you feel? [Aaron] Well,it made me feel gross. I hated that I couldn't stop it, probably like any addict. Like why do I keep doing this? Why can't I stop? I feel like I have no control. But then at the same time, I wanted it, I enjoyed it, I loved it, I couldn't say that out loud. When I would talk about it, it was always like, "I hate this, I don't wanna do this anymore." But internally, I really did love it, even though I didn't recognize that back then. And I can't remember ever having a real conversation about sexual purity. I remember being told I shouldn't have sex before marriage, I remember being talked about it a little bit, but I don't remember purity discussion. I remember being caught a few times with pornography and having a short discussion of how it's not good and we shouldn't do that, but I couldn't, I don't remember having these serious discussions of this can't happen. It is going to destroy you. You need to stop. I don't remember that. And it maybe did happen, but I don't remember it being, it wasn't memorable for me. It wasn't something that changed my direction from anyone, my parents, from pastors-- Youth pastors, yeah. [Aaron] Friends. In reality, even when I would try and, ways I would try and deal with it was just abstinence. Like, well I'm just gonna try and go, oh, I went a month. And I didn't mess up, was my term. I would have accountability partners. That's what we all do. But all my accountability partners also struggled with pornography and weren't changing. So all we would do was come together and commiserate and say, "Well, God's good, grace of God." Those kinds of things, but no one ever changed, no one ever had authority in my life to say like, "Hey, I'm walking in purity, you should too." I didn't, I actually didn't know anyone. I've never met someone back then that walked in purity, that didn't struggle with pornography, which gave me a very small world view actually. 'Cause I thought, I literally thought everyone struggled with it. And I'm sure there's people listening right now thinking like, "Well doesn't everyone?" No, everyone doesn't struggle with it. Many do, but it's a lie from Satan to believe that it's just the thing that everyone's gonna struggle with. [Jennifer] Well if we believe that everybody struggles with it, it just makes it more normal and then, like it's just-- Yeah, why change? [Jennifer] It's another justification for it, yeah. [Aaron] I would confess to God all the time, and just remember that God loves me, and remind myself. I would read scripture that would make me actually feel more shameful because I'd be like, "Wait a minute, why don't, why doesn't my life "line up with what the Bible says?" Like shouldn't it? Shouldn't, when I read this, oh, that's what a believer is. I would have to in round about ways work around what the Bible says to be who I was, as a quote unquote, Christian. Which is wrong, 'cause we're supposed to align our lives with what the Bible says not with how we feel, and then try and make the Bible fit into that, which is what I had to do because it, my life didn't line up with it at all. [Jennifer] So then we got married, and it didn't stop. [Aaron] No, it actually, I feel like at times, it got worse. [Jennifer] Well just to catch people up on our story, the first four years of our marriage, actually it's kind of humorous now that I think about it with your addiction, our biggest struggle was-- Sex. Sex. And-- Yeah, I remember telling God like, "God, just give me a wife, "I just wanna be able to have sex with my wife, "and I'll stop doing this." And then,gettin' married, and it's literally-- [Jennifer] The hardest thing possible. [Aaron] The thing that we can't do. [Jennifer] So I experienced excruciating pain every time we tried, and so for four years, our marriage just got tougher and tougher as far as our relationship because of this issue. And because we weren't coming together and being, experiencing that part of our relationship, you dove even further into-- I-- Pornography. [Aaron] Definitely used it as a excuse and a justification. 'Cause I thought to myself, like well I can't even have the one person I should be able to have, so, I got this over here. And it was wrong, completely wrong. But looking back, God absolutely used our struggle with sex to show the depravity in my own heart, and yours-- I was gonna say both of us. About lust, pornography, and these things-- [Jennifer] I'm like a lot of that is sin. Sexual, yeah lots of things. But He's, He was definitely saying like, "I don't want any of this." And He was willing to discipline us, and I believe that's what it was. I believe that that season of our life was discipline because He's like, "You're My children." And He says, "I discipline those who I love, "and I love you." And I, He was done with us walking our own way, and walking in that sort of sin, and, now I can't say like, we walked free from it, and then boom, we were healed. It was much more complex than that. But looking back, I know that's what God was doing in us. [Jennifer] So are you saying that we struggled with sexual intimacy because you struggled with pornography? [Aaron] I believe so, I believe that God was disciplining us, He was disciplining me. I told Him, the one thing I wanted was a wife I can have sex with, and He's like, "That's not gonna fix it." And it, and He, and I should be able to walk in freedom with Him, regardless if my marriage is perfect. I, it's not a justification, having a broken marriage, having a broken sex life, having these things that I think give me permission to break His heart, and His laws, and walk opposite of how He's called me to walk, when my greatest relationship should be with Him, which is what I've always said I have, like no, everything is about God, and I love God. And He's like, "Well," as Jesus says, "if you love Me, you'll keep My commands. "If you love Me," In 1 John, He says, "Those who practice righteousness "are righteous." And I wasn't practicing righteousness, I was, I had no integrity. When I was alone, I knew what I was gonna do, and you knew too. [Jennifer] I didn't trust you. [Aaron] No, I didn't trust myself. [Jennifer] I'd just go back to that point though, I wanna talk about trust, but I wanna go back to you saying that our, let's call it a drought, 'cause that's what it was, it was a sexual drought, and our marriage was correlated with this addiction to pornography, 'cause as much as I see that, I also know that it was layered because He used that time for so many other things, to reveal a lot to us. And I don't want that, I don't want them listening just to go, oh, that's kinda strange, but a cool little revelation, there was a lot more that-- [Aaron] Well of course, like God is infinite, and He orchestrated a lot of things in our life, for many purposes, to put us on this journey with this ministry, to make us, our unity and our oneness stronger, to use us in the lives of others, like lots of things to teach us things. [Jennifer] To teach us things, yeah. [Aaron] But it tells us that the, in the Bible that that our Father in Heaven disciplines His children. And if He didn't discipline us, we'd be illegitimate children. But because we're His children, He disciplines us. I just wanted to highlight that to show that we, in going through those things, that what our heart should be is to recognize what God's doing and that He loves us, and that He cares for us. It's that quota, He loves us the way we are, but loves us too much to leave us there, and so He changes us. And He draws us to Himself, and He makes us more like His son, Jesus. [Jennifer] He definitely used that time to do that in our life. [Aaron] Yeah. What for you, Jennifer, 'cause I brought this into my marriage, and I didn't know if you struggled with anything at the time, early in the marriage, but what did my addiction to pornography, how did it make you feel? How did you deal with it? What were some of the highlights, or lowlights, I should say-- [Jennifer] Yeah, I'm like, there were no highlights. [Aaron] From our, from that's part of our story? [Jennifer] Knowing that you struggled with this was painful, and I felt betrayed, as your wife. And there was a lot of deep hurt, a lot of pain, but what's interesting is also wrapped up in a lot of insecurity, and I felt like it was pointed back at me, as if I wasn't good enough for you. And so on top of the pain of betrayal and mistrust, there was also this layer of, "I'm not good enough for you and it's my fault." [Aaron] Right, like you're causing me to like, well, if I was prettier, or if could give him this-- [Jennifer] Or if my-- Part of my body. Yeah, if my body actually worked-- Yeah. [Jennifer] And we were experiencing an awesome sex life, maybe he wouldn't, maybe marriage would have fixed it. So then I felt at fault for it, and that was really painful. And so anytime that you confessed to me, or that the truth was exposed, I felt just as at fault for it. [Aaron] Yeah, and I remember you would say those sorts of things and I would try and like comfort you, and be like, "No, no, no, not at all, not at all." But what's unfortunate is I was only comforting you back then and trying to help you back then for the sake of my own shame. Like I didn't like that I made you feel that way, I didn't like that you responded that way, but instead of changing, I just tried to help you cope with it. Which is wrong of me, I wasn't a very good spiritual leader back then. [Jennifer] Well we didn't know back then, where I feel like spiritually, we were so immature that we didn't know how to navigate this right. [Aaron] We didn't have much close fellowship back then. We've talked about that in past episodes. Which would have helped us see it sooner probably, if we had people closer to us, knowing us. Not just people but spiritually mature people. People who would challenge this area of our life. But again, we have to expose it and we have to tell people how we're struggling if we want that kind of correction. Yeah, and we kind of-- Which most people don't. [Aaron] Kept it to ourselves. [Jennifer] So I also remember anytime that you would say, "Hey we have to talk," my heart would drop, 'cause I'd be waiting for the bomb, the truth bomb of like, "I have to confess again." And I hated that feeling, and my heart also ached with anxiety every time I left you at home alone because I just knew. [Aaron] You knew it was gonna come when you got back, yeah. [Jennifer] And when I did come home, and you told me you messed up, like you said you would say, it just affirmed my distrust in you. [Aaron] Were you ever surprised? No. Yeah, 'cause you knew I was gonna, which is such an unfortunate thing to make my wife only know that about me. That I'm not a trustworthy person, that I have no integrity, and she's gonna feel small, and insignificant because of something I'm choosing to do. And I think the reason, no I don't think, the reason we are getting real with this stuff, is because these are the things that aren't said to us. And so we can easily minimize what we're doing. I minimized it a lot with you. I would just be like, "Well it was only for a little bit here, "I, it was, like, it was nothing, it was not a big deal." And like, all I ever tried to do when I was apologizing to you was minimize the shame and the guilt that I saw in your face. And I deeply regret that part of our marriage, and the things that I walked in, that I didn't believe the truth that I've seen and read in the Bible that I thought that was for other people, not myself. I believed I was still trapped by it, even though I was a believer. I believed that I was still trapped in my sin. I believed that it had power over me that it didn't actually have. And I let it into our marriage. And in the Bible it tells us to keep the marriage very pure, and I didn't. And so I thank God that He showed me these things and He was patient with me because half the time, you feel like, "Man I'm surprised God just didn't strike me down." 'Cause like He's sovereign, He's a good God, but He's a just God, and man I justly deserved not what I've been given. The patience, and the reconciliation, and a wife who remained with me when you probably had a good reason and a good right to leave me, for breaking our vows so many times. Because the next truth we wanna make everyone listening realize is that pornography's not just, like oh, this little sin that I did over here, and like it's not a big deal, it's not attached to anything. The Bible tells us clear that sexual sin is special. It does something different to us because it's against our own bodies, and especially in marriage when you and your wife are one. [Jennifer] I was gonna say, it's against your oneness. [Aaron] It's against your body. It's against my wife, and this is the truth bomb, pornography is adultery. It's adultery. I was a cheater on my wife. I broke her trust time and time again. I broke faithfulness with her, and that's the reality, and if anyone's, that's listening right now is walking in this and is telling themselves, "Well, it's only every once in awhile. "It's not that big of a deal. "I can stop anytime." Whatever we, words we use, we are committing adultery on our spouse, and we are not practicing righteousness, and we are not walking in light as He is in the light. And those are truths that we need to say out loud, and we need to recognize them for what they are. [Jennifer] I just wanna be honest, this episode has been so hard for me, and I just feel like I, there's things that I wanna share, and then I get this lump in my throat, and my eyes start watering. We've had to stop three times just to pause so I can breathe. But pornography hurts. Pornography kills, and it kills oneness, and unity in marriage, it kills trust, it kills love, it kills-- [Aaron] Faith. [Jennifer] Faith, and-- [Aaron] It severs our relationship with the Father. [Jennifer] Yeah, it severs our relationship between husband and wife. Like our relationship was crumbling because of this. And I just, I feel so emotional I think, even sitting here listening again to our story because I know we're not the only ones who have been hurt by the pain of pornography. There are so many husbands and wives, maybe them listening right now, have walked this, or experiencing it, or maybe just last night, they had that hard conversation where they're in tears over it because they want it gone so badly, and it just keeps coming, and keeps coming, and keeps coming and it's gonna keep coming-- Or if they're about to have the conversation-- The enemy-- Today. The enemy hates marriage. The enemy hates what we're doing, and it's going to keep coming because he knows that it will destroy what we have. [Aaron] And I wanna, your words are powerful, but I wanna remind us that our words are powerful. And you keep saying "Pornography, it's coming, it's coming," as if it's something coming at us, and this is one of the lies I believed, that pornography was something happening to me. And when something happens to us, it's out of our control. Pornography was not happening to me. Yes, the same issue kept coming up and we had to keep dealing with it, but, and I'm not correcting you, Jennifer, but I want the people listening to not take anything we say and say, "See? "There it is, it's coming at me." [Jennifer] No, and when I said it's coming, I mean the enemy is dangling that temptation in front of us because he knows our flesh is weak. And we have to be willing to stand strong against it. [Aaron] And so if we think it's something happening to us, we'll never walk strong. It's something I believed. I believed it was a outward force that I had no control over. But it is not. 'Cause if that was the case, then no one's free. And the things that the Bible tells us are lies. Our encouragement to those listening is to believe the truth. Proclaim the truth, so confession, which is saying what's going on. Saying what you're doing. What you are choosing to do, which is the key. Not coming like, "Oh, it happened again. "Oh, I messed up again. "Oh, "I slipped and fell into this thing again now." Confessing that you chose again to cheat on your spouse, that you chose again to walk in unfaithfulness with your God. That's true confession. And then repentance is to turn the other way. I am no longer gonna choose to walk in that. Because if it's something that we accidentally fall into, if it's something that happens to us, then there is no need to repent because you don't know if you're gonna slip. You're walking on this journey, and you're just gonna fall into the pit by accident, and that's just your destiny. But that's actually not true because that goes against everything Jesus came to do on the cross. He came to set us free from the bonds of sin and death. And the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that will bring life to our mortal bodies. That's what the Bible tells us. And in a little bit, we're gonna get through more scripture just so you listening can hear the truth about this. And I wanna bring up something, you said, Jennifer, that pornography hurts us, and it destroys us, and I wanna highlight one more truth, it was something that I never realized until I started walking in purity. And God was revealing to me who I was, and the things I was doing, is that pornography doesn't just hurt us, the ones consuming the pornography. We are literally condoning and cheering on, and paying for things that we would never condone, or cheer on, or pay for a Christian to do. And a lot of these men, women, whoever's in these videos or photos, many of them are forced into it. And even the ones that choose it, were literally saying, "Yeah, keep doin' that. "Keep doin' that." We're choosing to hold hands with someone to Hell, by the thing we are consuming. And if Christians would realize that, if I would have realized that earlier, would I have stopped? Maybe. If I woulda realized like, man, I'm actually like, partaking, participating in someone's journey, to a journey away from God. And it's easy for us to think like, well they're just things, it's just a video. Well no, those are people in those videos. Real people that are made in God's image. And I just hope that this is hitting home with those listening, I hope that people are hearing our hearts of concern and love, and are also being, having their eyes opened, and their hearts opened, and that true Godly repentance would come from this. [Jennifer] So I remember there was two pivotal moments in our marriage, that stand out to me. I think you'll know what I'm talking about, but they are pivotal because they helped you change in this area. And so I wanna share 'em so that those listening can be inspired by it and hopefully it, this, hopefully this moment right here becomes a pivotal moment for them. [Aaron] Amen, yeah. [Jennifer] So I remember it was just after we had Elliot, he was just a little baby, and I was sitting in a rocking chair midday, trying to rock him. And you were sitting at the desk in our bedroom, and you started telling me and confessing how you had-- -Again. [Jennifer] Messed up again. And normally, I mean, list an emotion, and I've expressed it. Tears, uncontrollably, like just all of it. Sadness-- All rightfully so, 'cause of what I've done to you. [Jennifer] But this time, I just sat pretty much gripping Elliot's little body, and patting his back, and my heart was just so burdened for you. And I remember-- It was actually your first time thinking about me in that way, because of what I was going through. [Jennifer] Yeah, yeah, like if tables were turned, yeah, putting myself in your shoes, but I just, I questioned you on your faithfulness to me. Because on the outside, we were Christians moving forward in our marriage and at this point, we actually had already been reconciled and determined to stay together. And you messed up again, and I questioned you on your faithfulness and I reminded you what scripture says about it being adultery, and I know you have already mentioned that today, but I remember just reminding you in this, in that moment that you were committing adultery against me. And I questioned how you would want our future to go, I questioned how you would want our son's future to go. [Aaron] I remember all this. You asked me if I actually feared God. You asked me if I actually loved God. You were challenging me at the core of what I was doing. Not just this one event, oh, I forgive you for the event, you told me like, you need to realize what you are doing Aaron. And I remember it was like, shocking. It was like oh my gosh. This is different first of all, 'cause usually I'm like looking forward to you, not looking forward to it, but I'm expecting an outburst, a reprimand-- A reprimand, yeah. [Aaron] "What, you did it again? "Don't you know how this makes me feel?" But you went from, you actually loved me, selflessly, 'cause even though you were totally hurt, you instead told me the truth in love. You said, "Aaron, you are committing adultery." And I think that was actually the first time I, we recognized that's what I was doing. I'm laughing 'cause I'm embarrassed. That was a pivotal moment, and that began actually, over the next few years, me walking in-- [Jennifer] The start of the true change. [Aaron] Like it, I did still have-- [Jennifer] A weakness. [Aaron] I still fell back into it, I don't wanna say fell back in it, I still chose it, but it was, it became much less, and much less, and then what the next event that happened was the straw that broke the camel's back. Like the, the like it was the thing like, so you opened my eyes to like, "Man, I have to change. "This is not okay what I'm doing." And then this next moment, I'm sitting in my car with our pastor and mentor, and he's, and we just had dinner and we were hangin' out, and he said, "Aaron, are you walkin' in purity?" And I said, "Well, no, recently I did this." 'Cause I wanna be honest, that I'm tryin' to walk in repentance and openness and light. And he says, "Well Aaron," he's like, "nothing's gonna change "until you believe the truth." He's like, "You need to believe the truth." And I said, "Well, what do you mean?" Because the way I talked was, oh, it happened to me again, I fell into, I stumbled into, oh, woe is me, like as if something was happening to me, so, 'cause I was still not thinking clearly about this even though you challenged me correctly. I still wasn't thinking clearly. And he said, "You are not a slave "to your addiction to pornography. "Pornography is not something that has control over you." Which I didn't believe when he was saying it, 'cause I believed it controlled me. And then he said, "And also, Aaron, "you need to admit and confess that you love your sin." He said, "You need to say it because you do." And I said, "I don't love it." And he's like, "Well, your actions are proving different. "You say with your mouth that you don't, "and then you say with your actions that you do." And it went right into my heart. And it was the first time in my life that I was able to say with my mouth out loud, that I actually loved pornography. And what that meant was is I actually was able to fully confess, 'cause before I was confessing about the fruit of my sin, not confessing the sin that I loved my lust. [Jennifer] Which if people are wondering, my response is I hate hearing it, I hate knowing it, I hate, I hate all of that, but I think it's necessary in order to overcome-- [Aaron] Well, a true confession is necessary, I had to be able to admit the truth, 'cause I was walking in lies. And the lies were keeping me in the darkness, and the lies were keeping me trapped, when the trap was my lies, it was, there was no trap. There was no chains, 'cause God broke those chains on the cross. And he's like, "You need to recognize that, "that that is the truth. "You have not stopped sinning because you love your sin." And so I, once he said it out loud and once I said it out loud, I realized, wait a minute, I don't want to love my sin. And so I confessed, "Lord, forgive me for my love of my sin, "and change me." And that was the last time. I think there was one other little time after that, that was, and I'm not trying to minimize, significantly different kind of sinning, but in the same area. And I confessed that out loud to Matt, and to you, and that was it. And it's been how many years now? [Jennifer] Five. [Aaron] Five. But those are the pivotal conversations, was you telling me the truth in love, and then another brother telling me the truth in love. Not, "Aw, sorry, yeah we all, we're all gonna struggle. "Let's just get back up, "and let's just try harder next time." But that's not, that is not what God's asking us to do. He's not asking us to try harder, He's asking us to walk in the truth. And the truth is, let's read some of these verses. The truth is, Galatians 5:1, "For freedom Christ has set us free; "stand firm therefore, "and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." And that's what I was doing, I kept submitting to a yoke of slavery that didn't exist. I was allowing a yoke to be put on me that didn't need to be there. So I'm free. That's what Christ came for, freedom. Would you read Romans 6:6? [Jennifer] "We know that our old self "was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin "might be brought to nothing, "so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin." [Aaron] Oh, so it's not that I have to try harder, I am not enslaved to sin. So I need to walk in the actual truth-- [Jennifer] Which is 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. "The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." [Aaron] So am I walking in this old self while pretending to be a new self? [Jennifer] Talk about a marriage fixing things. [Aaron] Yeah, and the marriage doesn't fix it, Christ has already fixed it. [Jennifer] No, the marriage of Christ, the being one. Oh, yeah, we're being one with the body of Christ, we're His bride, and it says that He's gonna come back to a pure white, and without blemish bride. That's who, that's what I'm a part of, that's who I am. That's who you are listening. [Jennifer] Yeah, how dare Him come back to a bride that's been-- [Aaron]Dancing in the mud, with her dress. [Jennifer] Sad. [Aaron] So those listening, your old self has been crucified. It's been crucified. Christ set us free on the cross. Ephesians 4:17 through 24, "Now this I say and testify in the Lord, "that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, "in the futility of their minds. "They are darkened in their understanding, "and alienated from the life of God "because of the ignorance that is in them," that was my life, I was walking as, He's telling Christians to not walk as Gentiles were, I was walking that way in my ignorance. "Alienated from the life of God "because of the ignorance that is in them, "due to their hardness of hearts. "They have become callous "and have given themselves up to sensuality, "greedy to practice every kind of impurity. "But this is not the way you learned Christ, "assuming that you have heard about him "and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, "to put off your old self," Aaron, put off your old self. "Which belongs to your former manner of life "and is corrupt through deceitful desires," I, that's crazy that it uses the word deceitful desires. They trick us, they're desires that are deceitful. "And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, "and to put on the new self, "created after the likeness of God "in true righteousness and holiness." So my trying harder is actually just putting on the new self. Christ's likeness. 1 John 2:1, "My little children, "I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. "But if anyone does sin, "we have an advocate with the Father, "Jesus Christ the righteous." What's awesome about that is when we're walking in righteousness, and we stumble because we've chosen to, or we haven't, we weren't walking in the, we weren't walking in the Spirit, but we were walking in the flesh, we have an advocate. But the things that we're reading right now have been written so that we won't sin. So that we will actually walk in the truth. 1 John 2:28 and 29, "And now, little children, "abide in him, so that when he appears "we may have confidence and not shrink from him "in shame at his coming. "If you know that he is righteous, "you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness "has been born of him." I love that it says practice first of all, 'cause that that means is that we are not yet righteous, but we are becoming righteous. And as we practice it, we get better at it. So am I practicing my sinful desires and getting better at those things, or am I practicing righteousness and getting worse at my sinful desires? And that was, that's my life now, is I'm getting worse at my sinful desires and I'm actually getting better at avoiding temptation, and knowing what temptation is, and being strong under the temptation, and fleeing from the temptation, and talking about the temptation. And now encouraging others to do the same. [Jennifer] So actually I was gonna mention that, how you walk in authority now and challenge other believers, and I can be confident that you're gonna walk our children through these things, that you can teach them, and I don't know, I just, I love that you have this authority that you can say, "I've overcome this, you can too." [Aaron] Which is amazing, because when we see other people overcome something, it makes it that much more believable that we can. And so you're listening to this, and if you're thinking, "Man, I can't do that." Stop believing the lies, you have been set free by Christ. You have the power of the Holy Spirit in you. You've been given everything that pertains to life and Godliness, just like I have. I'm not special, I haven't been giving, given something that you haven't been given, Jennifer hasn't been given something that you haven't been given. We have Christ in us. We have, we could put on the new self, created after the likeness of God. [Jennifer] Something that we mention in our book coming out, Marriage After God, is that Jesus didn't come back to kind of save you, He came back to save you. [Aaron] He came back to fully save us, today, when Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, He says, "Thy will be done on Earth, "as it is in Heaven." Which is cool because we can actually have His will on Earth, in our life. Now we haven't, our bodies are still gonna decay and we're gonna still see death, and these bodies are gonna fall apart because they're not yet redeemed. But you know what is fully redeemed? Our spirit. And He's renewing us day by day, and He's giving us a new mind, and new spirit, and He's, and through His word, and through walking in community, and through being, walking in light and truth, we can actually walk the way God has enabled us to walk. It tells us in Malachi, that He will write His laws on our hearts, on tablets of flesh. They're no longer on stones that can be broken, they're on hearts of flesh. His laws are written on our hearts, and not only has He showed us in our hearts how we can, how we should walk, but He's empowered us to do so through the power of His son and His spirit. I don't know, I hope that was vulnerable enough, and again, our prayer is that those listening, you, would not be freed from this addiction, and this struggle with sin, and pornography, but that you would recognize that you are free, and that you do not have to choose to be submitted to it. You don't have to choose it. You can choose actually to walk away, you could choose actually to turn the computer off, you can choose actually to put your phone down, you can choose to run away as fast as you can. We can choose that, and we are empowered to do so through the Holy Spirit. [Jennifer] So if this episode encourages them to go have a conversation, and there's confession and reconciliation, do you wanna share some things that we've learned over time that could help them? [Aaron] Yeah, I will say on my part, or for those that are going to do the confessing, and we talked about confession in one of our episodes, and they should go back and listen to that actually, don't minimize, meaning, well, it was just this, it wasn't as big as deal you think, it was only for a moment. Just say I did this. And then the second thing I would always try and do that I shouldn't do, was I tried to control your reaction. Please don't be mad, I know that I was wrong, please don't be sad, please don't be frustrated-- Or why are you crying. [Aaron] Or why are you crying. And so I, when I started walking in purity, I purposed that if I was gonna confess to you, I was just going to tell you what I did, when I did it, and then I was gonna be quiet. [Jennifer] And so on my part, I mean, as the person receiving the confession, something that I've learned is, well the first thing is, God created us with a lot of different range of emotions, but He created us with emotions. And so the first thing is acknowledging that you feel, and the second one is you're still called to have self-control in those feelings. And-- And you're allowed to have the feelings. And you're allowed to have those feelings, so you may cry, you may get angry, you may get all of the things, but you still are required to have self-control in them, and that doesn't mean that you just shut it off and you don't express those emotions, it just means that you don't sin in your emotions. And so I just wanted to share that as the counterpart to what you-- [Aaron] And on the person receiving the confession, the other spouse, your job is to not just love your spouse, but to speak truth in love. Like you did that day. You very calmly and lovingly said, "You are walking a very dangerous line. "You are committing adultery, "and you are harming our marriage, "and what you're doing will destroy us. "And you must change." [Jennifer] And then the biggest thing after all of that, is reconciliation. It should always be for the purpose of reconciliation and we hope that it's for reconciliation in your guy's marriages. [Aaron] And reconciliation can happen even though trust is still broken. Because the reconciliation is knowing that hey, we are still one, but we are going to work on this trust thing. Because you have hurt me and we're gonna walk it out together, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna avoid being healed, but it's going to take time and that's gotta be okay. Because it's not like a switch that gets flipped. There's been unfaithfulness, there's been brokenness, there's been sin, and there's consequences to that sin. But as a team, you walk towards healing and restoration, on both parties, and you do that by prayer, you do that by fasting, you do that by walking faithfully-- [Jennifer] And abiding in the word of God. [Aaron] And abiding in the word of God, and you also do that in community. You don't do it alone. If you're a brother dealing with this, you find other brothers that are gonna say, "Dude, stop it." That have authority in your life because they walk in purity also. If you're the wife, you find girls that are gonna be like, "You can't do this. "You need to walk in purity." And the goal is oneness, unity, healing, righteousness, holiness for the purpose that we always go back to is that God has a job for our marriages. He's got a ministry for us to do, and we will not be able to do it if we're stuck in sin. [Jennifer] Yeah, we need to be pure, and we need to present His bride, pure. [Aaron] And that's what we get to do, we get to purify ourselves, we get to practice righteousness, and we get to chase after God every day, and I just pray that this brings freedom today. I pray that hundreds, thousands of couples today would find not just healing, but realize the freedom that they have. And that they would be the ones that people look at and say, "I didn't know you could walk in freedom like that." And then they'll say, "Actually, this is what the Bible says." And they'll be able to help other Christians walk that way as well. [Jennifer] What an incredible ripple effect for the body of Christ. Oh yeah. [Jennifer] Well thank you guys so much for joining us on this episode. It was, it was vulnerable, and I appreciate you sharing, Aaron. And I can see that there's probably gonna be a lot of questions, probably come up from this. Probably. [Jennifer] And we might have to do another episode, but that's okay. But we do wanna invite you guys to pray with us, and close out the episode with this prayer from Aaron. [Aaron] Dear Lord, thank You for Your loving patience and kindness towards us. Thank You for Your mercy and forgiveness. Lord, I pray as Christian men and women we would practice walking in righteousness. I pray we would pursue purity, as You are pure. I pray that as Christian men and women who proclaim You to be Lord in our life, that we would not walk in this sin anymore. Change us, transform us, and cut out any dead flesh and wicked way that is in us. Help us to fear You and love You. Help us to see the truth about pornography, that it is destructive, sinful, immoral, and that it is adultery. Your word tells us that there should not even be a hint of sexual morality named among us as Christians. Help us to live with integrity, help us to be transparent and honest in marriage, help us to choose reconciliation over isolation in marriage. We are Your saints, and I pray we would walk in a manner worthy of Your call in our lives. In Jesus name, Amen. Thanks for joining us this week, and we look forward to what the Lord's gonna do in your life. And the testimonies that are gonna come from the truth that people heard today. [Jennifer] We'll see ya next week. [Aaron] Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| Answering Your Questions About Finances | 09 Jan 2019 | 00:48:01 | |
Support the Marriage After God podcast by checking out our online store and resources. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.” 1 Corinthians 10:24-27 How do you view debt that one person brought into the marriage as “ours” especially when the two of you are on different pages about spending before the debt is paid off? What do you recommend in terms of building multiple streams of income?
How do you both feel about taking risks financially? Such as investing in something that might cost a lot but also make money in the future. Luke 14:28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? James 4:13-17 Do you make a college fund for your children? If so how much do you add to it each month? How do you feel about mortgages? We are debt-free but live in NYC and seems you can’t own a home without a mortgage. Is that still debt-free? How do we not touch savings? How to tithe when financially struggling? What is your take on separate bank accounts in marriage? When budgeting do you allow for a savings amount for birthday gifts food ect or does it all come out of general? What percentage of the budget should be allowed for food? Assuming all food or going out? How much is a realistic amount to save each week? My husband and I are in so much debt. We don’t know how to budget. Any advice? We want to be debt-free and not living paycheck to paycheck. We have 3 boys. How should we decide what they can and can’t do because of the budget? they love sports must ect. What do you do for health ins we are self-employed would love to hear what you do. How do you navigate financial stress as a team? What do you guys use for a budget? How do you budget with kids, one income, and a stay at home mom? I want to be a stay at home mom but we are not sure we can afford it. What should we do? Do you have any advice on seeing if you are ready to go to a one income household? How do you prepare to go to one income with a second baby? Dear Lord, Thank You for everything You give to us. Thank You for our finances and thank You for our jobs so that we can provide for our families so that we can give back to You, and be generous with others. We pray we would be good stewards of all that You give to us, especially money. We pray we would be faithful to use our money the way You want us to. Help us to be united in our marriage in the way we spend, save, and give. Help us to make financial decisions with wisdom and with wise counsel. Please help us to live debt-free and may our lives be a testimony to others of Your faithfulness. May we be people who seek to use our finances to build your Kingdom! In Jesus’ name, amen! READ: [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna answer your questions about finances. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years, through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage and encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life, [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] First and foremost, we always want to invite you to leave a star rating on the podcast. It helps other people find the podcast, it helps people learn about the podcast, it gets us in the rankings so other people can find it, it's awesome. We'd appreciate if you could just scroll down to the bottom of the podcast app and hit a five-star rating, or actually whatever star rating you want to. And if you have time, you can leave us a text review. That'd be awesome. We read those, they encourage us, and we'd really appreciate that. [Jennifer] We also want you guys to know that this Marriage After God podcast is sponsored by our store, shop.marriageaftergod.com, and just to highlight one book bundle that we carry that we wrote for you guys is 31 Prayers for my Son and 31 Prayers for my Daughter, and we wrote these for you to help encourage your prayer life over your children, and we're really excited about these books and we wanted you to know about them. [Aaron] For the icebreaker question, Jennifer, what is one thing you would do today to get out of debt if we had debt? Because we're debt-free, but if we had debt today, what's thing you'd do right now to help us get out of debt? [Jennifer] Okay. I think the first thing that comes to my mind is I see a small piece of paper and I just write a number on it, let's say $100, and then I would take that day to go around the house and figure out what can I sell today, whether it's through Facebook Marketplace or through my friends, text messages, or whatever. What can I get rid of today to make that $100 and then send it straight to the debt? [Aaron] Okay, I like that. I'll one up you. I was thinking selling everything in the house. [Jennifer] You would. [Aaron] Well, because we have a lot of things and we don't realize how much money is just sitting in the house with your furniture, and through, I wouldn't be able to sell everything like our bed, but-- [Jennifer] No, you said everything. [Aaron] Well, okay. We could sleep on the floor, people sleep on the floor. [Jennifer] Aaron would sell everything. I on the other hand would just get rid of stuff we don't use. [Aaron] Well that's how we were when we were in debt, babe. [Jennifer] We had little. [Aaron] We had very little, but we did sell almost everything we had. I think that's what I would do. I would actually go through the house and I'd say "Okay, what can we get rid of?" And I'd probably, Dave Ramsey says it funny, he says, he says "Sell everything," and so that your kids wonder if they're next. [Jennifer] Oh my gosh, that's terrible. [Aaron] That drastic. Go through everything and get rid of everything. [Jennifer] Speaking of Dave Ramsey, we have a quote of the day by him. [Aaron] Yeah, it's if you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else. [Jennifer] So you're living like no one else. That sounds like a Marriage After God right there. [Aaron] Yeah, it's true. It also reminds me of another quote that says if you want something you've never had, you gotta do something you've never done. I believe it's by Thomas Jefferson, but other people say they don't know who it's by. But the idea is that if you make choices today that no one else is making, everyone chooses to be in debt, everyone chooses to spend money unwisely and just buy things and to use credit cards. Those are normal, everyone chooses that. But if we choose to live differently, [Jennifer] Radically. [Aaron] If we make choices like, well, this hurts and it's painful, but no one's doing this, what it does is it affords you a life that later on you can live like no one else is living. You make choices today that allow you to live a certain way later. [Jennifer] And I feel like that later comes so fast, just in the scheme of life. [Aaron] Life does fly by fast. [Jennifer] It might seem hard now, right, but this season is so short in comparison to the rest of later. [Aaron] Yeah, we have, I remember our season getting out of debt. In the middle of it, it was so daunting. [Jennifer] It seemed like a long, drawn-out thing. [Aaron] And it was like, this is never gonna get done. [Jennifer] But it wasn't. [Aaron] But now it's been behind us, what? [Jennifer] Eight, nine, ten years. [Aaron] Ten years. That was a long time ago. We've been debt-free for ten years now. [Jennifer] And we're living in the later. [Aaron] We're living in the later, so yeah, we get to live like no one else now because we made choices that no one else was making back then. And I remember people thinking we were weird. We didn't have much. We had actually nothing. But I wouldn't trade it. [Jennifer] Yeah, I don't regret being debt-free. [Aaron] We encourage other people all the time. We're gonna do it a lot in this episode actually. [Jennifer] Yeah, so speaking of this episode, we thought it would be fun to answer your guys' questions on finance. We pulled on Instagram Live and just asked you what kind of questions you guys had about money and budgeting and all kinds of things, so today's episode we are going to focus on your questions and trying to answer them. [Aaron] Yeah, so each one of these questions is from someone who follows us. And we're gonna, we don't have all the answers. [Jennifer] Nope. [Aaron] We will answer the best as we can, we'll answer with scripture if we can, we will answer from experience, and we might say we don't know on some of them. Because I'd rather say I don't know than make up an answer that is false. [Jennifer] Yeah, and just right off the bat if we want to give some resources that you guys can look up for more information about finances, we do really like Dave Ramsey and just his whole ministry on helping people get out of debt, [Aaron] He's helped a lot of people get out of debt. [Jennifer] Lead faithful lives in finances, so check him out, Financial Peace University is his thing. Also, Money Saving Mom is a great resource. She has a lot of good stuff, go check her out. [Aaron] Let's start this episode. I want to read some scripture to give us a foundation of why we should even care about our finances, our money, getting out of debt, all of those things. And it's found in 1 Corinthians 10, verses 24 through 27. "Do you not know that in a race, "all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? "So run that you may obtain it. "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. "They do it to receive a perishable wreath. "But we, an imperishable. "So I do not run aimlessly. "I do not box as one beating the air, "but I discipline my body and keep it under control "lest after preaching to others "I myself should be disqualified." And what I love about this is Paul's saying, he's saying the race we're running is this race of faith, it's the race that we're running toward heaven and with God and with the Holy Spirit, and our prize is imperishable. We're not running to get a trophy, we're running for an imperishable prize which is eternity with God. And Paul says here, he says "I don't run aimlessly," meaning he's got a specific goal, he trains a certain way, he's thoughtful about it and he knows what he's doing. And then he says "I discipline my body "and keep it under control," and again, the purpose of this is so that in our preaching, we're not disqualified. The reason we talked about finances and getting out of debt and why these are important for the Christian to be aware of and to walk not aimlessly in is because we have a job to do in this world, and it's to preach the Gospel. And part of preaching the Gospel and not being disqualified is are we an example? Do we have self-control in all things? [Jennifer] Yeah, including finances. [Aaron] Including finances. Or are we taken under by our own debt and our own cravings and desires and "Oh, I want that new car or I want that, "or I want to eat out all the time," or whatever it is that sucks the money out of us and makes us incapacitated financially. Paul wants us to know that we shouldn't be running aimlessly so we should have a plan, we should have a goal, we should have purpose in mind, and he wants to remind us that the Gospel that we're preaching, we ourselves don't want to be disqualified after we've preached it, so we need to be disciplined and self-disciplined and self-controlled. I just that'd be a good place to start. [Jennifer] Yeah, I love it, it's really good, yeah. [Aaron] With this. It's actually why we got out of debt. It's part of our story. We left doing missions work. We're doing the Lord's work, we felt the Lord calling us home and saying "I want you debt-free so you can be free," and we went home. [Jennifer] But we had a goal. [Aaron] Yeah, we went home specifically to get out of debt, so everything we did was focused around getting out of debt. [Jennifer] And I felt like that word aimlessly really stands out to me, because I feel like, because I feel like it's really easy when you look at finances to almost avoid the hardship of finances or the things that weight us down, the stress that's involved, [Aaron] Yeah, pretend it's not there. [Jennifer] To pretend it's not there or to ignore it, which leads to being aimless. If you're not willing to face it and confront it, then the other option is to be aimless. [Aaron] Yeah, well there's no goal, you're floating, you're like "Well, I'm gonna," [Jennifer] Because if you have a goal, then you're gonna be forced to look at what you have and say "Okay, this is how I get from point A to point B." [Aaron] Yep, and we have to write those goals down too. We've just been talking about lists lately. And if you write it down, it becomes real. Just a quick tip, write down your goals, how much you want to pay off, when, when do you plan on getting out of debt, and then start hitting those goals and doing everything you can to hit them. [Jennifer] And even if you have a specific strategy and you guys figure out how you're gonna do it, write that down too. [Aaron] Yep. Okay, let's go right into question number one. [Jennifer] Okay, is there any rhyme or reason with any of these? [Aaron] No, it looks like you just put them in order from what you received them. [Jennifer] Okay, let's do it. [Aaron] How do you view debt that one person brought into the marriage as ours, especially when the two of you are on different pages about spending before the debt is paid off? [Jennifer] Oh man, I feel like we answered this really good in our book, Marriage After God, because we share our different perspectives of money and the value it had in our lives, how we spent it, and this idea of debt. [Aaron] This was us. Whose debt did we have when we got married? [Jennifer] Well, I believed it was yours. It had your name written on it. But God had to teach me the lesson of what it meant to be ours. [Aaron] Yeah, and you married me, debt and all. You married me, sin and all. And we don't get to marry someone but only choose the parts of them that we're going to walk with and be one with. Now, when we have sin, those are things that need to be changed and repented of. Even the debt needs to be dealt with. There's things that need to be dealt with, but we deal with it together. [Jennifer] Yeah, so to answer this question how do you view debt that one person brought in? View it as ours, so assume that responsibility as now ours, both of you working to do it, because I'll tell you what, it wasn't until God changed my heart and I received Him changing my heart on it being our debt that we actually were able to make change in knocking it off. [Aaron] Think about it, if you would have expected me just to deal with it, while you're spending how you want. It was our money, right? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But then if you spend it how you want, it would have made it that much harder for me to deal with it. [Jennifer] Yeah, you probably wouldn't have been able to get out of debt. [Aaron] I would say yeah, ours, and then it says if we're on different pages of spending, [Jennifer] Get on the same page. [Aaron] The reason you're in debt and having a hard time paying debt off is because you're on different pages about finances. [Jennifer] Yeah, get on the same page. That means that both of you are gonna have to make sacrifices to stay on that same page when it comes to spending, saving, paying off debt, all of it. [Aaron] Yeah, and a quick tip, make a rule. We made a rule, if there was anything over $25, we had to immediately bring it to, but when we were getting out of debt, we actually talked about everything that we spent. [Jennifer] Yeah, everything went to that. [Aaron] But now, we have rules about if it's gonna cost so much, we actually ask permission. What happens though is it keeps us both accountable to what we're spending, that it's not just like "Oh, I accidentally spent $600, sorry," that doesn't happen. [Jennifer] Okay, I think we answered that one pretty good. Number two, what do you recommend in terms of building multiple streams of income? [Aaron] This is a cool question. [Jennifer] I also feel like in this day and age I feel like there is a lot of opportunity. [Aaron] Oh, we have infinite opportunities. People make money just on social media by not even selling anything, they just they post for other people and they make money. [Jennifer] Why do you think it's a cool question? [Aaron] Well because we did this. The way we got out of debt was we started a photography business. [Jennifer] Yeah, we used our resources of what we had, which was a camera. [Aaron] We used our passion for photography and we had resources in relationships. We knew someone getting married and we were like "Hey, can we shoot your wedding?" And they said "Sure," they needed a photographer, they didn't have much money. Actually, we did that for free, they bought us a flash or something. [Jennifer] Yeah, I think the very first wedding we shot, we shot together for a flash, which she had to buy for us before the wedding. [Aaron] Yeah, and then I think we charged like $400, and I think it was like $600, and then it was like 850. [Jennifer] Each job that we got, we just, yeah, increased. [Aaron] Well we made a rule. We're like "Every job, we're gonna increase a little bit." Until eventually we were making $1,200, $1,500 a wedding, and we were working Saturdays and Sundays, shooting families and weddings while working full-time jobs during the week. [Jennifer] It was crazy town. [Aaron] Now I want to say we had no kids back then. [Jennifer] Yeah, so we were able to. [Aaron] It would definitely look different today with having kids. But it is still possible. A couple of ideas we've had. [Jennifer] Well for starters just like you said about the seasons thing, I think it's really important for couples to know that if you're gonna go into a season of hard work, meaning either both of you or one of you is heavily working, there just needs to be an end date where you're saying "Okay, we're gonna sprint this season," [Aaron] Yeah, this next six months we're gonna work this hard. [Jennifer] We're gonna work this hard and that way expectations are set and nobody can get mad at each other, and then there's a season of rest. Don't forget to give yourself that season of rest. [Aaron] Yeah, because you'll, if you just get it working nights and weekends, [Jennifer] You'll burn out. [Aaron] And all day, you'll want-- [Jennifer] Your family will burn out. [Aaron] You don't want to do that. It's a good reminder, and that's how we've always looked at it, we did the photography thing for a season, it was a year and a half that we did it and we crushed hard at that, we were doing so much. By the end of it we hated weddings. [Jennifer] But it was fun. [Aaron] It was super fun, and really hard. We got out of debt though. The idea is, we have a few ideas. The first one that we have is publish a book. We make a living now off of books that we've published. And we learned how to do it on our own, but one of the little things we started a while ago is called bookworthy.com, it's a course Jennifer and I made, teaching people how to self-publish, so if you're interested and if you're a writer, if you have children the book idea, if you do art or photography, publish a book, you might be able to make a little bit of money on Amazon. It's actually free to do as long as you have all the time and energy and the talent to do it. Another one is start a small business based off skills or resources you and your husband have. Like our photography business. [Jennifer] Yeah, another one would be painting. If you like to paint, you can sell canvases of different things that you like to paint. [Aaron] Yeah, or if you have some tools for painting. I've known people to paint houses and make really good money on the weekends. Doing handyman work, there's so many things that we have skill-wise that we don't realize is actually valuable. There's someone who needs what we have. Maybe as a couple write down the resources, the talents, the skills that you have and see how those can make money. [Jennifer] And you can utilize places like Etsy.com as a venue to sell your stuff. [Aaron] Yeah, we know someone that they just were really good at sewing little bows and start an Etsy store and sell a bunch of bows! [Jennifer] We also have people who've made a lot of money off, there's a lot of companies out there that have great models. Things like Young Living. [Aaron] Yeah, they've made it really easy to sell anything. Those are just some ideas. There's so many, so many ways to do it. But having a small business or doing some sort of side jobs it's how we paid off all of our debt. And it does add levels of complexity to your life, but it's totally doable, and it's sometimes the only way to get out of debt. If your normal job doesn't afford your enough financial liquidity to pay off debt, doing a side business for a while or a side job can definitely do that. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to number three. How do you both feel about taking risks financially? Such as investing in something that might cost a lot up front, but also make money in the future. Which there's no guarantee. Let's just be straightforward. [Aaron] We always get told that, like this is a no-brainer, you just gotta start it. We always tell ourselves the best-case scenario and we don't think practically through it, so I just wanted to read Luke 14:28 says "For which of you, desiring to build a tower, "does not first sit down and count the cost, "whether he has enough to complete it?" And I just wanted to remind us that wisdom should tell us "Okay, that sounds like a great idea, yes," because it could totally be profitable to spend a little bit of money now, if you could figure out that it's going to double or triple or whatever. But we gotta count the cost. What's the time investment it's gonna take? What's the financial investment it's gonna take? How long will it take to return that? How much time is it gonna take to maintain and build and grow? Those are all things that we have to think about when trying to take a financial risk. And then the, we've done this before. We've been really frugal in the past and avoided any sort of risk and we've also made mistakes in risk. And what would you say is the better side of it? [Jennifer] Well like you said, counting the cost. I think it's always really important that we sit down and figure out how this will benefit our family or how this will hurt our family, and I think the times that we've made mistakes or the times that we don't really count the cost, [Aaron] Yeah, and we rush into things. That's been my fault, many a times. [Jennifer] Well, I wasn't going to point the finger. [Aaron] Yeah it's all right. [Jennifer] I was gonna say out of the two of us or how, because the question is how do you both feel about it, how do you feel about taking risks financially? What's your process? [Aaron] I'm usually pretty safe, but I have made mistakes and it always comes back to I don't fully think through it, I tell myself the best-case scenario, and often it's a rush. And so now we have these rules of it's a rush, it's a no. For the most part. There's been times, but usually if it's a rush, it's a no. [Jennifer] Yeah, when I think about this question, I think "Well, if it's a risk for some sort of investment "or stocks or something like money-wise that way," I always get really nervous and I'm like "Nope, I won't do it," but when it comes to a risk of taking a risk on someone or somebody's talent, one of ours, something that we have a dream to do, that's easier for me to say yes to, even if we waste a lot of money doing it. I don't know why, but there's something in my heart that just says "Let's go for that." [Aaron] Yeah, and if it could be a slow and minimal risk, that's always, what we try and do is like how can we make this as little of risk as possible? Like if we're gonna work with a new company that's gonna print our books or advertise for us, or whatever it is. It's all risk, technically, because they can mess up. You could buy the wrong thing, you could spend the wrong money, it just-- [Jennifer] Would you say that it would be wise to also seek counsel on certain decisions, like maybe those close friends that you have, or-- [Aaron] Oh 100%. Getting many wise counselors around you is the way we do battle and we win battles. I just wanted to read one more scripture on this. James 4:13-17 says: "Come now, you who say, "today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town "and spend a year there and trade and make a profit "yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. "What is your life? "For you are a mist that appears "for a little time and then vanishes. "Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. "As it is, you boast in your arrogance. "All such boasting is evil. "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, "for him it is sin." I just wanted to bring this up because the other side of this is to remember that we have no control over tomorrow. We don't know. I could invest today and the Lord can come tomorrow. We can, doesn't mean not to, but James is telling us less have a heart of like "Well if the Lord wills it." We're gonna work, we're gonna plan, we're going to count the costs, we're gonna get counsel, we're gonna figure things out, but to be honest, if the Lord wants it to happen or not. [Jennifer] The other thing I want to add to this section about taking financial risks is you guys gotta be in unity when taking financial risks and don't, not at the cost of your marriage. I don't want people to jump into making decisions that, one spouse is for it, one spouse isn't. I really think that there needs to be unity whenever you advance in making decisions like this. [Aaron] That's a good point. Be in complete unity, have peace about it and I would say lastly, you should not taking a financial risk unless you have some extra money to play with. [Jennifer] To risk. [Aaron] If you're literally not being able to buy groceries to risk this, that's not a good strategy. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] It may mean sell some more things and say "Okay, we have this extra $1,000, "we can put it towards debt or we can start this thing, "but that $1,000, if it's gone or not gone, "isn't gonna hinder your family from being taken care of." [Jennifer] That's good, I'm glad you mentioned that. Okay, number four. Do you make a college fund for your children? If so, how much do you add to it each month? [Aaron] Do we have a college fund? [Jennifer] No. Short answer, no. Do we have a little bit of savings if they needed it? Sure, but we also want to encourage our kids, just in their future we talk about college. We want to encourage them to be hard workers, that if they needed to pay for their own college they could. [Aaron] Yeah, and teaching them the abilities that they have and how they can make money. We have an IRA that we put money into that could be used for school, but we don't necessarily have a direct college fund. [Jennifer] And do we put money in it every month? [Aaron] We don't put money in every month, we put it, for a while we were but we adjust that based off of how our income is. The next question is how do you feel about mortgages? Well I hate mortgages. [Jennifer] Everybody does. [Aaron] Who likes mortgages? [Jennifer] This is specifically, this couple was asking because they say "We are debt-free but live in NYC and it seems like "you can't own a home without a mortgage. "Is that still being debt-free?" Having a mortgage? [Aaron] Well technically no, because you're in debt. But some people would say "Well it's good debt, "because it appreciates." Well sure, as long the market is appreciating. There's again, you don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring. [Jennifer] I feel like for the majority most people would say it doesn't fall under the debt-free title. [Aaron] Yeah again, so we bought a house. We got a mortgage and we did the normal thing, but we had been debt-free for seven years before buying a house. There's a season actually leading up to like six years into our debt-free-ness I didn't even want to buy a house because I didn't want to get in debt again. But you know, things change and we made a different decision and our goal was to treat that debt the same way we treated the other debt. Again, you have to count the costs and you have to make the decision that way and get wise counsel. Can you afford it? And then, because the way I looked at it is I was paying X amount of dollars for rent anyway, so if I could pay that to something I'm gonna own, that's why we decided to buy a house finally. [Jennifer] We actually put a stipulation on it. You said we're not gonna, we're not gonna even look for a home to buy if the mortgage isn't less than what we're paying for rent. [Aaron] Yeah, that was a, man, because when we were looking it gets so easy to start looking outside your range. [Jennifer] Yeah and you keep going up and up. [Aaron] Like "Well it's only another 10,000, "well, this is nicer." I don't know. [Jennifer] Are you repeating me? [Aaron] No! That's my inside voice, I don't know. But I did, I made us a hard stipulation. I said "I don't want to buy a house "that mortgage's gonna be more than our current rent." And we did, we actually hit that. It took us a long time and it was really frustrating at times. [Jennifer] And we had to be patient, but I would just like the other questions I would say you guys have to be in unity if you are gonna go into that mortgage. [Aaron] Yeah and count the costs, it's gonna be an investment that you have to put your own blood, sweat, and tears into. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] All right, cool, let's move on. How do we not touch savings? It's a pretty short question. [Jennifer] Bury it really deep in the backyard. [Aaron] If this is a self-control thing, then you need to learn self-control. Like if you're just dipping in because you wanted to go out to eat or if you want to buy that thing-- [Jennifer] Have that coffee. [Aaron] That's, you're never gonna be able to save if that's how you are. If it's a problem with you can't pay your rent, dip into savings. [Jennifer] That's what it's there for. [Aaron] Yeah, that's what it's there for. I would say just practice. Give yourself goals. Say "We're gonna save to this dollar amount, "and if we do, we'll celebrate by spending a little bit, "1% of it." [Jennifer] That's a good idea. [Aaron] And that way you're helping yourself, training yourself to go longer without dipping into your savings, and you have a goal you're gonna hit. [Jennifer] Yeah, cool. Okay, number seven. How do you tithe when you're financially struggling? [Aaron] How did we do it? [Jennifer] Sowe lived pretty radically, we still tithed even though we were struggling financially. We believed that everything that we got was God's and we gave it back to him. [Aaron] All of it. Nobut we had this, I believed that generosity and giving and tithing were spiritual disciplines and I believed that I wanted to trust God. And I remember telling us, I said "Hey, the only place in the Bible that God tells His people "to test Him is in the Old Testament," and He tells His people, He goes "Bring all the tithe "to the storehouse," when He's talking about the temple. [Jennifer] In Micah? [Aaron] Yeah, and He says "See that I will not open the floodgates of heaven," [Jennifer] Or was it Malachi? [Aaron] Oh, it's Malachi I think you're right. It's the last book of the Old Testament. And He just challenges them to challenge Him. Like "Hey, you do what you have been supposed to be doing "for all of these generations that you haven't been doing it "and I will pour out my blessing on my people." Now that was talking to the Jews, but God hasn't changed. And so I looked at God and I said "I want to give. "I want to be a giver, I want to be generous, "I want to be a tither." And what was awesome is a couple things happened. We were able to give and be generous, and it also changed our perspectives on money. [Jennifer] Yeah, we didn't hold it so tightly. [Aaron] Which is the whole point of giving anyway, of knowing it's all God's. We actually, while we were trying to get out of debt, we made it a challenge to ourselves to see how much we could give. What is funny is it kept us from giving ourselves pretty much anything. We just had enough to live on and not only were we able to pay our debt off, but we were also able to give more than we ever were able to give. Not that that made us any more righteous or anything, it was our own personal challenge and it was pretty awesome to see that God still provided, God grew what we were able to give, and decreased our debt as we were faithful. [Jennifer] Yeah, I think one of the things we wanted to avoid too was, well once we were out of debt and we have money, is it gonna be harder for us to give then? You know what I mean? We wanted to build that habit-- [Aaron] Well because the mentality's always like "Oh I'll give when I have more," and I have a scripture to reference for this, but once I have more, that's when I'll give. And we're not giving this as a command to anyone. You have to choose in your heart and decide in your heart what you're gonna give and how you're gonna give as a family, and that you are, at any level of giving, are you gonna trust God? Are you gonna seek Him and are you gonna be wise with your money? Because that's what He wants from us. He wants us to be wise, not just frivolous and like "I'm just gonna throw it away, here's that, "and oh, I can't pay rent now," no, be wise. If you want to give, pray and ask how you guys can give and ask God to change your hearts on what money means to you and where it goes and when it goes. And the verse I wanted to bring up about this is in Mark 12 and it's about this Jesus recognizing how two different kinds of people are giving and he says "And he sat down opposite the treasury "and watched the people putting money into the offering box. "Many rich people put in large sums. "And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, "which make a penny. "And He called His disciples to Him and said to them "Truly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more "than all these who are contributing to the offering box, "for they all contributed out of their abundance, "but she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, "all she had to live on." And so just that mentality of once we have more then we'll give, Jesus is showing us in this picture, he's saying "Actually, she gave more out of her poverty "because she didn't have much to give but she still gave." Knowing that, if we have the mentality of one day we'll give when we have more isn't the right mentality to have. The right mentality to have is like "God is yours, teach me. "Teach me how to use it. "Where do you want it?" [Jennifer] Okay, number eight. What is your take on separate bank accounts and marriage? [Aaron] Well I think there's a scripture that speaks clearly to this, and it's in Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:8, Ephesians 5:31. [Jennifer] Hold on, those are a lot of verses. [Aaron] Oh, well they all say the same thing. It says the two shall become one. Our take is that it should just be, there's one place that money goes, it's our money, and we use it for God's Kingdom. [Jennifer] And having the one bank account, it helps you in building that oneness and that unity and practicing and walking it out on a daily basis. [Aaron] Yeah so our perspective is you share a bank account. Now we have a savings account, we have a few accounts, but there's not her money, my money. [Jennifer] No, we all have access and we all put into it and we all take out of it and we talk about it a lot. [Aaron] Yeah. Number nine, when budgeting, do you allow for a savings amount for birthday gifts, food, et cetera, or does it all come out of general? [Jennifer] Okay, so how we would do this is we would have in our budgeting we would account for food and even going out to eat, but then we'd just have a general fund where those kinds of things came out of. Birthday gifts and random things. [Aaron] Yeah, we called it our personal allowance, which was after we broke down all of our budget, whatever was left, which was usually nothing. Sometimes it was a little bit. But yeah, we've never been that specific, but you can totally get that specific. I know people that have broke their budget as specific as you can imagine. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I know having the app on our phone, the bank app has helped, because you'll check right there as we're checking out in line, making sure that we can afford that birthday gift or whatever it is extra that we were paying. [Aaron] If I have to transfer from savings or something like that. What's number 10? [Jennifer] Number 10 is what percentage of the budget should be allowed for food, assuming that they're talking about all food or just going out, I'm not really sure, but, [Aaron] If you're in debt and you're trying to get out of debt and you're trying to save money, you just probably should not eat out. It's way more expensive and if you're going somewhere that's cheaper than a restaurant, it's probably not healthy. Eat at home, it's cheaper, you can buy in bulk, you can organize it so your budget for food, our budget was always just food. And if we ate out, it came out of that budget, which hurt us because you have this eating out bill and then it took away from your groceries for that week. [Jennifer] Yeah, recently I was following someone on Instagram who posted a screenshot of a breakdown of what percentage of your budget should be for food, depending on your family size, and I thought it was really interesting. I don't remember exactly where she got it from but if you just Googled it, it would show up. [Aaron] Yeah, and the way you can do this is go grocery shopping, and figure out what your normal grocery shopping list is and that's your budget. If you need to break down your grocery shopping budget more and you can find, like, well we don't need to get cereals this time, or pick the things that are less necessary or figure out how to buy things in bulk, but definitely if you're trying to save money and get out of debt, grocery shopping, buying in bulk, freezing stuff is gonna be the best way to go and eating out should probably be put on the back burner for a while. [Jennifer] That's funny, back burner, because we're talking about making food at home. Don't forget about it, don't let it burn! Just kidding. Okay, number eleven. How much is a realistic amount to save each week? [Aaron] This is gonna be unique before we've seen a person's budget. To be honest, we didn't save a penny. [Jennifer] Until we were out of debt and beyond that. [Aaron] Yeah, my perspective on it is why are we saving money when we could be putting that money towards debt? Once we were out of debt, we started thinking about savings differently, but again, that's gonna be dependent on your income, where you're at, how much debt you have, and figuring out whatever percentage of your income can be saved, yeah. Number 12, my husband and I are in so much debt. We don't know how to budget. Any advice, we want to be debt-free and not living paycheck to paycheck. My advice to this couple is get on the same page, start talking about it, get real. We have to recognize that we can't just play with these things. If you need to stop eating out, there's areas that you're spending money that you shouldn't. If it means finding a better job, start looking. Maybe your second job you have is looking for a better job. If you're only making ends meet on this current job, you're not getting enough hours, look for a better one. Right now we're in the best economy if you're looking for a job. And I know that's easier said than done, but sometimes you just need to pull the Band-Aid off and realize, "Okay, this sore's not getting healed. "We need to sit down, we need to write down everything. "Every penny, where it goes. "We need to start selling everything we have. "We need to start just," boil your life down to what you need and scramble to get out of debt. [Jennifer] Also we shouldn't neglect the power of prayer. I feel like there have been so many testimonies from our friend's life and just our life of praying for our specific needs. What kind of job do you have and do you need that God could be fulfilling for you given the opportunity to open your eyes and show you and give you exactly what you need? [Aaron] And then start looking actively. Send resumes. Now don't tell your current job that you're doing that, because they might fire you, but that's what I would do. I would start looking today. Number 13, we have three boys. How should we decide what they can and can't do because of the budget? They love sports, music, et cetera. [Jennifer] Okay, so again, going back to the unity I feel like you and your husband, you and your spouse need to be on the same page about what the budget can allot for, where is there room to do stuff, and if the budget for that season doesn't, doesn't have room for those extra things, it's gonna be hard, but you have to be able to say no and you just have to explain to your family what that means. [Aaron] Yeah, and our kids are not gonna fall apart, become less of citizens in this country and immoral because they don't do sports. We sometimes have those draws of like "Well if they don't do these things, "they're gonna miss out on," but we have to remember, there's so many other ways that our kids will learn. Whatever skills they can learn in those sports or those activities. [Jennifer] And don't forget that they're also learning the discipline of being a good start with finances, and this is part of learning and they'll have to know that in life, there's seasons when you can't do as much, and that has to be okay. [Aaron] Think about this, that sports is like a team sport thing, right? Getting out of debt's a team sport. Your children are in your family, they're on your team, and they need to be a part of that. And you can bring them in and you can say "Well, guys, we're gonna go through a season "that's gonna be hard, but we're gonna do it together." [Jennifer] Yeah, here's the downside if you're not doing it together. Let's say, let's say mom is pushing for the team sports and dad's saying "Well, we can't afford it this time," what are the children gonna see? They're gonna see division in the marriage, they're gonna see-- [Aaron] Yeah, and they'll react to that. [Jennifer] And they'll react to it and then they also may start to favor the parent who's for them and for what the things that they want to do. [Aaron] Or worse become bitter towards the other parent. [Jennifer] Or become bitter towards the other parent. And we want to avoid that. At Marriage After God, understands the power of unity and doesn't lose sight of that. [Aaron] Yeah, and so being on the same page again, as a couple, so that our children see our unity and strength and they will learn more from that than they'll learn probably from any sport in my opinion. [Jennifer] Okay, number 14. What do you do for health insurance? We are self-employed and we'd love to hear what you do. [Aaron] For a long time, we were on, what was that company called? It was not, Samaritan's Purse is one of them, yeah, it was called MediShare. It's a Christian healthcare, it's a shared thing where you put money in and that money helps other people in their bills and vice versa. We did that for a while, actually. There's MediShare and then there's Samaritan's Purse and I know there's a couple others, but just look for Christian shared health plans. [Jennifer] Number 15 is how do you navigate financial stress as a team? What are some ways, practical ways, that we can help each other when there's financial stress? [Aaron] Lots of conversations about what's going on. Planning together, writing things down, prayer, and just constantly reminding each other that we're gonna get through it together, that we're gonna do it together, that we're gonna make choices together, and not getting off, out of hand and sneaking around and spending money over here or making choices over here behind each other's backs, but actually-- [Jennifer] Or arguing about it, right, in front of everyone. [Aaron] Or arguing about it, yeah, which has happened. But yeah, just that team, doing it together. Having the conversations at night, putting the strategies in place. [Jennifer] I think too, a huge win would be reminding each other of the future. We started out the episode, that later, living life later, what does that look like? [Aaron] We did this a lot. [Jennifer] Yeah, so envision for each other what that future looks like and enjoy that moment right then and there. [Aaron] Well and recognize like "Hey, what we're doing right now is gonna give us "something else, it's gonna give us something better, "the fruit it's gonna bear is gonna be good," and so that's such a good reminder, because we did that. Because it was so hard at times, right in the middle of it, you're like "Gosh, this is just too hard," to be like "Hey, but just know in a few years, "this is gonna be so far behind us, "and we're gonna be able to make choices "that we weren't able to make before, "and it's gonna feel so good and freeing," so yeah, as a team, just reminding each other of what it's gonna do, working hard at these things. We got a few more. Why don't you let us know what the next? Okay, so we got a few more questions. Why don't you hit the next question for us. [Jennifer] Okay, number 16 is what do you guys use for a budget? Which if they don't know, Aaron does most of the budgeting, which I like, because I don't really have the mental space right now to do it. [Aaron] There's two parts to our budget. I'm gonna be honest, we don't focus on our budget as much as we used to, as micro as we used to. But we still use a lot of the general disciplines, but when we were getting out of debt, man, I was looking at that thing every single day. [Jennifer] Yeah, heightenly aware. [Aaron] Yeah, so what I did is I just created a Google Sheet, a spreadsheet, or you can use Microsoft, what's it called? Excel. And I literally wrote down on the sheet every single thing that we spend money on. I looked at our grocery bills to see how much we spent on groceries, I looked at our gas bills to see what our average was each month, and then I rounded them all up a little bit, because if it was like one month this high, one month it was low, I rounded them all up a little bit, and then I took the total and then I broke down by actual things that we owed, like bills, and then right there we found out what our budget was. It was like every month, to live, we needed $1,800 or $1,250 or whatever it was. And that was phone bill, that was gas, that was literally every single penny we had to spend to live. And then anything that was left over, I broke up in percentages. 10% to tithe, or 12%, whatever our number was, and then how much of it was gonna go to debt, actually no, so then whatever was left over I broke up into allowance and to tithe and savings. But for a while, allowance and savings was zero and tithe was the only thing that we had extra. That's how we did it, and the second part of it was we opened up several different bank accounts. One was our bills bank accounts, so every penny that was owed to bills for the month went into that account and all our bills were paid from it. And then we had our savings account, our tithe account, and our allowance account. And based off the spreadsheet, we just put the money, it's like the envelope system that Dave Ramsey does but we did it digitally. That's how we budgeted. [Jennifer] Okay, these next few which we're gonna wrap up with are all the same, so I'm gonna read them all and then we'll try and answer them. 17 is how do you budget with kids with one income and a stay at home mom? Number 18 is I want to be a stay at home mom, but we are not sure we can afford it. What should we do? And number 19. Do you have any advice on seeing if you're ready to go to a one-income household? How do you prepare to go to one income with a second baby? All surrounding that, one income, stay at home mom, one kid or more, how do you budget? How do you do it? [Aaron] Well, strict. Get real strict. Frugality. Learning, finding all the tricks of the trade of how to save money, how to couponing, and where's the best place to grocery shop and getting hand-me-downs, clothes-wise and shopping at thrift stores if you need to. That's, to be honest I always think like "Why are we buying brand new clothes? "These kids grow out of them so fast." [Jennifer] Well we've saved a lot of ours. [Aaron] Yeah, we save our, oh, that's frugality. We buy something and then we save it, and all of our kids get the same clothes. [Jennifer] We needed new ones when Olive came along, because she's a girl. [Aaron] Just, there's so many resources out there. There's bloggers and YouTubers and Instagrammers that talk about this. And creating a strategy and praying through it, getting wisdom and advice, and then figuring out the process. [Jennifer] I think a really huge encouragement here would be if you're preparing to go to that one-income household and mom's gonna be staying at home or maybe mom's already home and there's another baby on the way and money just feels tight, in those seasons I would just encourage you to be reminded, both of you be reminded of your why. Why is mom staying at home? Because the ministry-- [Aaron] What's important for ya? [Jennifer] The ministry of raising children and managing a home and having attention there is so valuable. More valuable than having that extra income or having multiple streams of revenue just for the sake of building your guys' financial security, and I just want to encourage those moms who are at home who are just working so hard to be home with their kids and to have that type of lifestyle, even if it means forsaking an extra income. Find a way to make it work and be motivated because of that value. [Aaron] Yeah, and then going back to the living paycheck to paycheck, be praying and actively looking for a better paying job. Maybe it's gonna take some night school to learn a new skill, but work hard and let the family know that it's gonna be a hard season until this date when things will change, because I'm gonna be in school or looking for a new job or working a new job or a second job. And figure those things out. And I do want to say, our current world has made it exceedingly difficult to do family the way it's always been done. I just wanted to commiserate with that and I wanted to let everyone know to be praying through that and asking God to show them, and to reveal how they can make that happen in their home, if that's the desire they have. That's the end of our questions. [Jennifer] That wraps up the questions that you guys asked, and we just want to say thank you for sharing those questions with us. Hopefully we did them some justice and encouraged, send them some encouragement with how we answered them. [Aaron] Yeah. Before we pray for you guys, I just wanted to remind you that at Marriage After God, the whole reason we're doing this is that we want to please God. We want to chase after His will for our lives. We want to be used by Him. We want our marriages to be used to grow His Kingdom. And a Marriage After God doesn't neglect and doesn't aimlessly go through life financially. We do these things with purpose and I know it can seem hard, and it is hard, but that's what we're doing, we're doing hard things. And we're doing it by the power of the Holy Spirit, and so we just want to encourage you to press on, to begin to learn self-control and learn to beat your bodies so that you're not disqualified in this race. And know that we're doing it with you. [Jennifer] Okay, we just want to ask that you join us in prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for everything you give to us. Thank you for our finances and thank you for our jobs so that we can provide for our families, so that we can give back to you and be generous with others. We pray we would be good stewards of all that you give to us especially money. We pray we would be faithful to use our money the way you want us to. Help us to be united in our marriage in the way that we spend, save, and give. Help us to make financial decisions with wisdom and with wise counsel. Please help us to live debt-free, and may our lives be a testimony to others of your faithfulness. May we be people who seek to use our finances to build your Kingdom, in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you guys so much for joining us this week and we'll see you next time. [Narrator] Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| The connection between the Jewish temple and the Church | 14 May 2024 | 00:47:43 | |
In today's episode, we will discover the profound connections between the Jewish Temples and the Christian Church, exploring their significance both scripturally and in our lives. Join us as we unravel the historical context of these sacred spaces and discuss how they relate to the broader narrative of God's plan for humanity. We start with a look at the Old Testament and the pivotal role of the Jewish Temple, from its inception as the Tabernacle in the wilderness to the grand temples built under Solomon and Herod. looking into the symbolism tied to these structures, we illustrate how they echo the Garden of Eden and represent God's presence among His people. Transitioning to the New Testament, we explore how the concept of the Temple evolves to include the Church—encompassing all believers, Jew and Gentile alike, as a holy temple in the Lord. We examine scriptural prophecies that highlight the inclusive nature of God's covenant and the ultimate role of the Church as a unifying force among nations. Throughout this journey, we incorporate insights from the Bible Project and touch on pivotal scriptures from Chronicles, Genesis, Isaiah, and the teachings of the New Testament that affirm the foundational roles of the Temple and the Church. Please support our mission by subscribing to our channel on YouTube, iTunes, or Spotify. Your ratings and reviews help us reach new audiences and continue our work. Let's cultivate marriages that boldly chase after God’s will, together. Topics Discussed in the Episode:
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| 7 Ways To Encourage Your Married Friends | 02 Jan 2019 | 00:47:05 | |
If you would like to support this podcast please consider picking up one of our marriage books. DESCRIPTION That is why we are giving you 7 ways to encourage your married friends in this week's Marriage After God Podcast episode. We share a handful of ways you can be reminding your married friends that their marriage is worth fighting for, that they should be drawing close to God, and that they are being prayed for by you! As Christian husbands and wives, we should be encouraging other Christian husbands and wives, our dear friends, and the very people who are part of the same body, one body, Christ's body! Let's be the kind of friends that are loving, sacrificial, and willing to serve. Let's be light in people's lives. We hope this episode inspires you to reach out to your friends today, let them know they are not alone and that their marriage is valuable. The Lifegiving Table: Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time - by Sally Clarkson -> https://amzn.to/2Vn2xpS READ: [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna share seven ways to encourage your married friends. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life, [Aaron] love, [Jennifer] and power [Aaron] that can only be found by chasing after God [Jennifer] together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us for the first episode of 2019. [Jennifer] Woo hoo! [Aaron] Yeah. And we just wanna invite you to leave a review. If you've been enjoying this podcast since last year and are just loving the content, if you wanna help get the word out, one of the best ways to do that is to leave a star rating, which is super easy, you just scroll to the bottom of the iTunes app, if you're listening on iTunes, and you hit a star rating, that's enough. And if you want to do more, you can actually leave a text review, and we read through those all. They're really encouraging and yeah. We'd just love to invite you to do that. [Jennifer] We'd also like you to know that one of the ways that this podcast is supported is through people like you shopping through our store. So if you would like to check out just the resources that we've created for you for your marriage to encourage you guys, go to shop.marriageaftergod.com. [Aaron] Okay, so let's start off with our icebreaker question. Jennifer, what is one thing you are passionate about? [Jennifer] Well, something I don't know if they know about me is I'm very passionate about art. I love all things art, but specifically painting and restoring furniture. So like, I just got an old desk for Olive and it was multicolored and had designs on it and-- [Aaron] It was unique, yeah. [Jennifer] It was very unique, very bold dark blue and green. But I just, I covered it all with some chalk paint and did this kind of antique finish on it. It turned out really great, went to Hobby Lobby, got some knobs for it, so just doing kind of creative things like that, I love jumping into projects like that. [Aaron] Yeah, and you're good at it, too. [Jennifer] Aw, thanks. [Aaron] You should actually post some pictures from old art projects you've done in the past, like the blue lady-- [Jennifer] Maybe I'll do that. [Aaron] And I'm thinking of the Jesus painting you did a while ago. You're actually really good at it. [Jennifer] Thanks. What about you? [Aaron] Yeah, something I'm passionate about, I'm actually passionate about, and this wasn't planned, but I'm passionate about helping people with their businesses. Maybe people don't know this about me, but I do a little bit of consulting here and there. I don't do it publicly necessarily, but like, lots of our friends I've helped with their businesses, with their websites, with the creative, the marketing, I actually really love it. [Jennifer] Yeah, you're good at that, too. I feel like you have just something unique about you where you could just seriously look at any kind of business project, any goal that someone has and go, oh yeah, this is what you should do to make it awesome. [Aaron] And sometimes it works. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, but that's what I'm passionate about. I like the one on one consulting-- [Jennifer] The going back and forth. [Aaron] The going back and forth, the brainstorming, the ideation. [Jennifer] Ideation, that's what you're good at. That's awesome. [Aaron] So that's what we're passionate about. There's a lot of things we're passionate about, but those are some specific ones that people might not know about us. Okay, so we have, before we get into the main topic, we have a quote from the book, The Lifegiving Table, by Sally Clarkson. [Jennifer] This is a really great book if you guys wanna jump into for, well the subtitle is Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time, and she talks a lot about just creating your family culture around the table and she gives ideas on how to do that. She even gives recipes in the book, but on page 219 she says this: "Having deep, meaningful relationships "is not just a pleasant addition to our lives, "but an element essential to our identities." [Aaron] That's good. And it's about what we're talking about today. [Jennifer] Yeah, so we're gonna be talking about friendships and specifically your friends who are married and engaging in community with them. [Aaron] And specifically on how your marriage can be an encouragement to those other marriages. Because a part of being a marriage after God is not that it's just about us and what we're doing in the world and God's using us for, but that we are walking with other Christians as the body of Christ, for his purposes, for what he's doing, and one of those things, man, the New Testament, I feel like almost everything that's said in the New Testament is about our relationship with one another. You know, especially the Book of Ephesians, which is the relationship book, it's about our relationship with God, our relationship with each other as husband and wife, with our children. And so God loves relationships. [Jennifer] Yeah, he does. [Aaron] He came because of relationships. He died for relationship. [Jennifer] And Sally actually mentions just before that quote that I just read, she mentions how God created us in His image, and if He's a relational being then we are as well. [Aaron] Yeah, and that's exactly what we are, and I feel like one of the things the enemy does is makes us wanna be alone, wants to get us away from community with other believers, makes us feel like we're the only ones who think the way we think, or every time I get close to people, I get hurt. Which is funny, 'cause that's exactly how relationships work, they're sticky. [Jennifer] They're messy, yeah. [Aaron] They're messy. And you're probably not close enough to someone if you're not feeling hurt sometimes. Doesn't mean that we should be hurting each other, but it's just, it's natural for that to happen. But the enemy doesn't like it. He doesn't like us being connected with one another, closely tied together, 'cause we're stronger together. It's true in every aspect of life. You see it in the animal kingdom, you see it in the human kingdom, and when we're together, when we're unified, when we're one, when we're walking together, we strengthen each other, we're less prone to being attacked, we're less prone to falling, and when we do, we have someone to pick us up. Right? And so we're gonna talk a little bit about how your marriage, you listening right now, can encourage other marriages. [Jennifer] And it's so important 'cause I mean, when I think about some of the kingdom work, the things that God has us purposed to do, I think about evangelism and I think about telling, sharing the gospel with people who don't know Him. [Aaron] Yeah, the lost, yeah. [Jennifer] Right, the lost. But it's also so important to remember that even as Christians, we need to be reminded of these things, we need to be reminded of who God is in our life and how He's working and how He's moving in our life, and I think that's such a great thing about friendship is we can do that for each other. And that's why I'm really excited about this episode, 'cause we're gonna give you some kind of practical things and just encourage you to be those type of people in your relationships with your other married couple friends. [Aaron] Yeah, and if it wasn't for other marriages encouraging us, we would not be here today. [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] As in, we'd probably be divorced, but we had couples who loved us enough to dive into our messiness, to peer in, to say hard things to us, to encourage us, to be there late into the night. You know, we've talked about this in past episodes, you talk about it in your book, but just all the tears, all the laughter, all the late nights, all the food. There's all these things that were incorporated into our relationships and people loving on us and walking with us. [Jennifer] And we all need that. Like, even those listening, they're probably going well I need that. I just wanna encourage all of us to be the people that we need in our lives. [Aaron] That's a good one. We need to be the people. Yeah, we need to be the example, we need to. And you know what? Sometimes we don't feel like we can be that person, but we still should be. Because it's the times that you feel like you can't be it that you probably need to be it. [Jennifer] So this is really funny, it reminds me of growing up, my grandma used to say 'cause we'd all eat a bunch of food when we got to her house and then we'd all just wanna like, lay around on the couch and she'd go, 'kay it's time for a walk, 'cause that's the best time to take a walk, is when you feel like you don't-- [Aaron] You wanna go to bed. [Jennifer] Yeah, when you feel like you wanna go to bed or when you feel like you can't. [Aaron] And hasn't science like, proven that now? It's like, it helps with digestion to go for a walk after you eat? [Jennifer] I don't know, I just remember my grandma always saying it. [Aaron] Grandma knew things. Yeah, so-- [Jennifer] So here's our encouragement to you, to go take a walk. No. [Aaron] Yeah, go get some food, take a walk. No but, I feel like this is important to, 'cause we all have friends, but how many of us have friends that we know intimately, that they're more like family to us? And I think it needs to be happening more in the Church. If we realize that being a part of the body of Christ literally means that we are unified with other Christians, not just well yeah, I go to church with so-and-so and oh yeah, they're nice but they don't know anything about you and they're never in your life. And we can't do this with every single Christian, but we can do it with some. [Jennifer] Yeah, and those who are already closest to us. [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, so why don't we just get into the seven ways? [Jennifer] Let's do it. Okay, you wanna start with number one? [Aaron] Yeah. You mentioned a minute ago about the gospel and how in evangelism, preaching the gospel to the lost, but when I read the Bible, when I read the New Testament, it's all about reminding the believer of what the gospel says. It's pretty incredible if you think about it. Doesn't mean we shouldn't preach the gospel to the lost, that's what we preach the gospel for, is for salvation, that Jesus would be preached and that people would turn their hearts to him and that they would join the body of Christ. But those that are in the body of Christ, I believe we need to be preaching the gospel to each other more often, not just assuming like, oh everyone, yeah, we're saved, we got the gospel. The gospel is the power of God. It's the thing that changes us, and many of the hard things that we walk through in life and like, our sins and things that we might have a hard time escaping, is because we haven't, either we've forgotten the gospel or we haven't truly understood it. Because the gospel is the thing that saves us, it's the thing that transforms us, it's the thing that makes us be like Christ. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Yeah, so I wanna read this scripture, it's Romans 1:16. Paul says this, he says, "For I am not "ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God, "for salvation to everyone who believes, "to the Jew first and also to the Greek." And so in encouraging our friends, I think one of the most powerful things we can do is constantly be reminding them of the gospel, that we were once sinners lost in our sin, deserving the wrath of God because he's a just God, but because God loved us so much, John 3:16, he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish under the wrath that we deserve. Jesus took the wrath we deserved, and if we believe in him and we follow him, we actually receive salvation and grace. And our relationship with God is made new and that's the gospel. [Jennifer] Preach it. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] It's so good. So here's the thing that I know that this episode is for us to get our minds on our friends and how we can be a vessel of God's love and grace toward them, but when we say what you just said, when we have a heart directed towards our friends in reminding them of the gospel, what does that actually do for us? Like what's, there's benefit there. [Aaron] I think it's like, practice first of all. Practice preaching the gospel. You know, sadly I believe many Christians don't even know what the actual gospel is. And so saying it over and over again, it not only reminds us, but it gives us practice on how to preach the gospel. And you're preaching it in a safe environment 'cause you're preaching it to someone who already believes it. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] And you're reminding them, so you're loving them and you're saying hey, brother, sister, all these things that you're walking in right now, filter them through the gospel. Remember that we actually, what we deserve is eternal punishment. And but because God loved us so much and he sent his son to die for us, we don't get eternal punishment, we get all of the benefits of being a son of God and a daughter of God, which is what the Bible teach us, that is the gospel. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I just feel like if we're sharing the gospel with our friends, if we're reminding them of who we are in light of God's love story, then we're gonna be reminded of that constantly. It's gonna be on the forefront of our minds. [Aaron] Exactly, it will. And I think about when you have a brother and sister walking in sin. Like let's say you have a married couple, friends of yours, and the husband's not necessarily loving his wife as Christ loves the Church, which is what Ephesians five teaches us. Or you have a wife not walking in reverence or submission to her husband and you say hey, I just wanna encourage you guys, do you remember what the gospel says? Like, if you recognize what we should've gotten but what we do receive, it actually brings us back to a place of healthy reverence and fear for the Lord and it reminds us of his goodness. And then you know what? It often brings us to repentance. Lord, you know what? I'm so sorry. Change me and make me like you want me to be because I love you and you've given me everything that I don't deserve. It reminds us of how we can be and who we should be and who God's made us to be and who He sees us as already, which is awesome. So the gospel I think is the most powerful thing we can continually be doing in our friends' lives, and like you said, it reminds us, too. [Jennifer] Yeah. Okay, so moving on to number two, and when we were going through the notes, I actually asked Aaron, isn't that the same as number one? And so I'm gonna let Aaron explain it, but it's share with them the truth of God's word. [Aaron] Yeah, so it definitely is. The gospel is a part of that, but there's often just practically, think about how many times for you, you've been going through something and I remind you of certain scriptures-- [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] That are truth and promises, and instead of you walking in the feeling, you're like, oh I can actually look at that and start thinking on that and dwelling on that. [Jennifer] Okay that's good, and I've had other friends reach out to me through a text message and you know, share a verse with me and just let me know that they're thinking about me and praying for me, and that is really powerful. So sharing God's word-- [Aaron] Yeah, there's nothing more powerful than the word of God. [Jennifer] Yeah, so sharing God's word with them, and practically, it could look like a phone call, a text message, a card, you know, all those things. Word of mouth, when you're sitting in front of them with coffee. [Aaron] Yeah, a little note on this, we've gotta be in the word of God. [Jennifer] In order to share it. [Aaron] To be prepared to share it, 'cause our friends might come to us and just mention something that they're going through or the way they're talking you just think like, oh man, I think they need to hear this. They're not thinking about this correctly. And then finding that scripture and saying, hey can I just read something to you? What's awesome about the word of God is instead of it just being my opinion, I think you should do this. Even if my opinion is founded in the word of God, it's still just me. But I can say hey, I just want you to know that like, lemme read this to you. Now what has to happen is they have to argue with the Bible. [Jennifer] Yeah, the authority of God. [Aaron] Yeah, as long as we're coming in a heart of love and encouragement, and our heart is to help them grow and we're gonna treat them the way we wanna be treated. Man, scripture is powerful. The Bible tells us that the word of God does not come, it goes out and does not return void. Meaning it's going to accomplish what it's going to accomplish. [Jennifer] Yeah. That's really good and I was just thinking, if your friends are married, chances are you, even if you don't know the specifics of what they might be going through in that week, you know that marriage can be difficult, and so you can just find a verse that's gonna encourage that. Like, does that make sense? [Aaron] Yeah, and you could be sending them like, large portions of scripture. Be like, hey can I encourage you today to read this chapter? And just say, look out for this word or look out for this. You know, I feel like God's heart for you is He wants you to know this about Himself. He wants you to know this about yourself. And on top of that, encouraging your friends to be in the word of God. Saying hey, are you guys reading? [Jennifer] Yeah that's huge. Challenge them, yeah. [Aaron] Jennifer we talk about this often, the times that we feel ourselves slipping into this routine of a little bit of bickering, which is totally sinful, we've talked about this in the past. [Jennifer] Just poor attitudes. [Aaron] Poor attitudes or just bad perspectives, discontentment. We realize man, we haven't been very consistent in the word of God. We've gotten out of sync, because the word of God puts our minds on the spirit rather than the flesh, and when we're not in the word of God, our natural tendency is just to walk in the flesh. So just continually reminding them. [Jennifer] A couple weeks ago I had, we were over at some friend's house and I was sitting on the couch with the wife and I asked her, I said so you know, have you been reading lately? Are you getting into a routine of being in God's word? And she shared with me that she had but it was kind of a struggle, and so I got to encourage her. And then she goes, what about you? And I was like, oh man, this is so good that I asked that question because I needed it myself. And I had just-- [Aaron] And you're like no. [Jennifer] No I was honest with her, I go you know, it's been really hard for me to get up in the morning and I wasn't doing that and so it challenged me to then change. And so I just think you know, being willing to even go to those hard places and ask those hard questions knowing they're probably gonna ask you back, it's good, it's all good. [Aaron] And you bring up a really good point. I think this is why a lot of people avoid saying things, because we know internally that-- [Jennifer] It's gonna come back to us. [Aaron] Well, the moment we say it, either we're lying or we're a hypocrite or we're doing it. [Jennifer] But this is also why we need that. Like, we need this. [Aaron] Yeah, walking in light as he is in light, as Jesus prays for us in John 17 and in first John, chapter one, he says if we have fellowship with God, then we have fellowship with one another. And if we walk in the light, then we, we'll have fellowship with one another. So the light that we walk in is doing and saying the things that God wants us to do, even if it means that we're going to also be told the same things. And that's the point of it, is that we're growing together and being built up together. And so man, you're right, saying something means you're gonna be vulnerable and have to be told the same thing or at least hear the same thing because you're saying it out of your own mouth. [Jennifer] Yeah. And just a practical note for this portion of this episode, what are some hard questions that they can ask their friends besides are you in the word? 'Cause I know another one is hey, have you been submissive to your husband? How are you guys doing in that department? [Aaron] That's a hard one to ask, right? [Jennifer] Well I know you and the guys usually ask, what do you guys usually ask? [Aaron] We ask each other does your wife feel cherished? And often the question is, and we wrote this in our book, my pastor always brings it up, could your wife say today that she is the most cherished woman she knows? And so for the husbands listening right now, I have a question for you. Is your wife the most cherished woman she knows? Could she say that? And if you can think to yourself I don't know if she would say that, you need to ask yourself that question. You need to figure out how to walk the way Ephesians 5:25 tells you to walk. [Jennifer] And then when you're catching up with your friends who are also married, who are also husbands and wives, be willing to ask each other hard questions like this, because this is what's gonna encourage us but also change us. [Aaron] And if someone who says they're your friend says it's none of your business, then you should ask yourself if that person really sees you as a friend. [Jennifer] Or be praying for them even more. [Aaron] Because it should be our business. I think of Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother Abel, this is in the beginning of the Bible, and God comes to Cain and says where's your brother? And he says what, am I my brother's keeper? And the point was is God asked him where his brother was at, which means God was asking him where his brother was at. So do we know where our brothers are at? Or we can just say like, I'm not my brother's keeper. And in reality, that's not loving our brothers at all. [Jennifer] Right, if we love them we'll know where they're at. [Aaron] And we're actually supposed to be keepers of each other's hearts and relationships with God, and we walk with each other and it's safe, and so yes, we are keepers of our brothers and we just have to realize that. And so, that means I'm accountable to other Christians. If they ask me hey, is your wife cherished? I'm responsible as a believer to say truthfully yes or no, not get out of my business. Because if I don't want another Christian in my business, then am I a Christian? Because we're all a part of the same body. [Jennifer] Right, it's all one body. That's really good. So for those listening, if they have been resistant to let people into those intimate parts of their lives, this is a challenge for them to hear, to give maybe not everyone, maybe just a handful of people that permission. [Aaron] Yeah, and for those that are feeling that, like oh maybe we're not letting people in, go read Proverbs 18:1. It's a good scripture to talk about that kind of person who does that. [Jennifer] Yeah. Okay, so let's move on to number three, and it's be friendly. Proverbs 18:24 says, "A man who has friends "must himself be friendly, but there is a friend "who sticks closer than a brother." [Aaron] That's powerful. Like, it seems totally simple, right? But if you wanna have friends, we gotta be friendly. Like, so are we just being friendly, are we reaching out? Are we opening up our hearts? Are we laughing with, or are we just like sticks in the mud, which is how I can be sometimes. [Jennifer] Are we being vulnerable? [Aaron] Yeah, are we being vulnerable? [Jennifer] Are we being truthful? Because sometimes you can be in a room with people and you can kind of just tell, you know, they're not-- [Aaron] Yeah, we're surface level. [Jennifer] They're being surface level or they're not being open with me. [Aaron] Yeah, and friendly is like not, like we just kind of were talking about it before, not being afraid to let people in, not being afraid to be seen and known. [Jennifer] Yeah. I feel like being friendly also comes with thoughtfulness. Like, you have to be thoughtful of each other and maybe even what each other likes. Like, I have a handful of girlfriends who I know what kind of coffee they like and I can randomly drop it off for them when I know they're having a hard day, or you know, just little things like that. I think thoughtfulness is such a big part of friendship. That can be an encouragement. [Aaron] And I think of friendly, there's a word I also think of, of light. Like, are we light around our friends? Do they feel like it's always this work to be in our presence? Or is it light to be in our presence? And that's kind of what I think about friendly. We've had relationships in the past, Jennifer, that they always felt heavy. Not that they were necessarily going through heavy things, it just felt like work to be around those people. And we made it a point to like, not be those people. So there's times that we'll ask hey, how are we being as friends? Are we easy to be around or are we hard to be around? [Jennifer] I also wanna make a note that we never let those relationships go just because they felt heavy. We felt it was our responsibility to be accountable to them still and to love them still and to be-- [Aaron] Took more work. [Jennifer] It did take more work, but I just wanna encourage those listening, if you have relationships, be praying for those couples and maybe talk about this, you know, with them, but don't give up on them. [Aaron] Or even say the hard thing and have them over for dinner, have no kids around and say, can we just share with you something? We love you, but you're hard. That's the truth of it. Hey we love you, but it's hard. Like, there's these things that have happened, and can we work on this together? How can we help you? How can, is there something you haven't recognized? But having those conversations means that you're being friendly. Like hey, we want to be in this relationship with you. We don't wanna just, 'cause the easy thing to do is you just write it off. And some people say let's dust our sandals off. That's the easy thing to do, but that's not what we do to the others in the body of Christ. We don't just dust people off. [Jennifer] Yeah, I would say a marriage after God is loyal and faithful and loves deeply and cares about the hearts of those people. So we don't just walk away from them. [Aaron] Now there are, we're not gonna get into this, but there are biblical reasons to cut off relationships. [Jennifer] Well, if you and your husband have set boundaries and those boundaries are being broken, absolutely I feel like that's necessary. [Aaron] Or if there's unrepentant sin and it's been called out but is not being, and those people aren't being willing to change, then the Bible tells us to avoid those people. But we're talking about normal Christian relationships, friends, not someone who's walking in unrepentant sin. [Jennifer] Okay, so be friendly. Aaron, do you wanna hit number four? [Aaron] Number four is be hospitable. This one could be hard, especially if you want your house to be a certain way all the time. [Jennifer] Like you have expectations. [Aaron] Yeah, or the people that you might, the friends you might invite over have more kids than you do or older kids or younger kids or, there's lots of scenarios that could be-- [Jennifer] Different dynamics. [Aaron] Difficult to say let's open up our home and have people over. But man, the Bible, God, the word of God tells us that we should be hospitable people. First Peter four, eight through nine says, "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, "since love covers a multitude of sins. "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." So there's, I mean those are two verses that are super powerful in themselves, like love covers a multitude of sins? Which means if we can love with a Christ kind of love with our Christian brothers and sisters, there's a lot of things that that covers. It's pretty incredible. Now again, if someone's in unrepentant sin, that's different than someone who's come to you and repented of their sin. But our love can cover it, but the showing hospitality to one another. [Jennifer] What does that look like practically? [Aaron] Practically it means, hospitality means to open up what's ours. It is available. What I have is available to you. [Jennifer] And I wanna encourage people on this because sometimes we can look at a situation and think well, we don't have enough, and then therefore you're not gonna be hospitable in that moment, but how many times have a friend texted us and said they're in town, can they stop by for dinner? And I kind of like, I look at everything and it's halfway made and I'm thinking that very same thing, I don't think that there's enough, and then they get there and I spread everything out and it was a perfect amount. It was like exactly what we needed. [Aaron] Well and also just on that side of things, like of not having enough, the reason for having them over isn't because we have enough, it's to-- [Jennifer] It's because we wanna share it with them. [Aaron] It's because we're gonna share what we do have. [Jennifer] What we do have, yeah. That's good. [Aaron] And so we can, this is practically for us in the way we think and for those listening, hospitality is not sharing what you don't have, it's sharing what you do have. And so being willing to share, it's as simple as hey, you absolutely can come over, we would love to have dinner for you guys. We may not have enough to make you super full, so if you have anything you wanna bring, do it. But otherwise, just come and we will share with you what we have. [Jennifer] Now, there's other hospitality, too, where you kind of plan and prepare for it, knowing that you wanna bless this family or that family or that couple. [Aaron] So you save up for it. [Jennifer] And you save up for it or maybe they have a bigger family and you don't have enough utensils, go and get some plastic and just have a nice dinner on paper plates and plastic utensils. [Aaron] And there's something beautiful about having a little bit, too. And there's nothing wrong with having a little bit. You mentioned the bigger family thing. That's actually a good thought, 'cause sometimes we can feel, we can evaluate relationships and say well, me and you, we only have one kid, so we don't need to invite the family over that has four because they should do the opposite, like it's gonna be harder for us to accommodate a family of six because we're not used to that, so therefore, someone else should do it. But in reality, there's something beautiful about inviting that big family over because how often does that big family get invited to places? [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] We've actually had a situation in our own fellowship of big families saying we'd love to be invited over, we'd love to be thought of that way. [Jennifer] Yeah. So I have another example, when we were first married and we were in Christian community, we actually expected people to be hospitable to us because it was just us, and we could easily just come over and spend time with families. [Aaron] Yeah, we did have a one-way expectation. [Jennifer] We had a one-way expectation because we didn't have any kids and it was just easier, that we never invited really people over. I mean maybe a handful of times, but not-- [Aaron] Yeah, you're right. [Jennifer] Not very often. And I just thought about that just now, and so I just wanna encourage those listening who maybe they don't have kids, all the more be willing to open up what you do have and share that and build those relationships with people in a different life stage because there's good in all of it. God has created us to be able to encourage one another no matter where we are in our different life stages. [Aaron] Yeah and I think on the other side of that, we also didn't have much, we had not a lot of money, we didn't have a lot to give, we didn't have like, 20 plates and all these things, right? So we had this mentality of like, well since we have less, people that have more should take care of us. But Jesus points out the woman who gave her last mite, and he says she gave more, 'cause she gave out of her poverty, than that rich man who gave out of his wealth. And so there's something spiritually powerful about having the heart of hospitality even when you have little. [Jennifer] Yeah, and not letting expectations trip you up or stop you. [Aaron] No, but just out of a heart of like, God, I don't know how we're gonna bless these people but we'll share what we have. And invite someone, they may say no, but open up your home and open up what you have to other believers. And you never know, you might, we've seen this before. There was a time that me and you, I'm not trying to just toot our own horn, but we blessed a friend of ours who was in a much different financial situation than us, and it blew their mind. Because they're like, why would you give to us? We could've totally taken care of this and we're financially stable, when we were not in that place. And it actually totally ministered to them and showed them a level of generosity that's never been shown before to them. Just because we were obedient, we didn't think like, well they have enough, we don't need to help them. That's not how we were thinking. [Jennifer] No, we felt like God was telling us to do this and we were just trying to be obedient. [Aaron] Yeah, we were like hey let's bless so-and-so with this. And so the hospitality part of this is just a, it could be a powerful ministry tool to grow the Church, to build each other up. So why don't you do number five? [Jennifer] Okay, number five is be sacrificial. [Aaron] Which kinda ties in. [Jennifer] Yeah, I mean, I was telling Aaron, being sacrificial is kind of required with all of these. Whether it's time, energy, resources, whatever it is, but we just wanted to point out that a marriage after God, when it comes to their friendships and their married friends, they're sacrificial. They're available to other couples. They can be inconvenienced by them. [Aaron] Which is a sacrifice of our comfort. [Jennifer] And our time. [Aaron] Like getting a call in the middle of the night to help someone. Being up late with a couple to cry with them, to pray with them, to read to them, to support them. There's many ways, sacrificially, financially. Like oh, this person, so-and-so needs rent or groceries or whatever, or a date night. So yeah, just sacrificing our time for them, our talents, our energy, and just realizing that what God's given us isn't just for us, it's to be used for the body. [Jennifer] Yeah, John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this, "than to lay down one's life for his friends." Are we doing that? [Aaron] Yeah, do we lay ourselves down or do we think like, well I would've done that but that was too inconvenient. [Jennifer] So I want those listening to do something real quick. Just the first couple that pops into your mind, your friends, your close friends-- [Aaron] Ooh, I like this. [Jennifer] Who are married, when was the last time you were sacrificial for them? That you expressed love in a sacrificial way? [Aaron] So just think about it, and then I would take it even a step further and say call them, text them. And as a couple, do something for them. [Jennifer] Find a way to love them. [Aaron] Yeah. Just go out of your way for that couple. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to number six is pray for them and with them. [Aaron] Ooh. Praying for them's easy. [Jennifer] Sometimes not. [Aaron] I guess you're right, yeah. [Jennifer] Sometimes people struggle with prayer. But Aaron and I, a large portion of our ministry is to encourage you guys with prayer to pray, to be warriors of prayer, and this is important. [Aaron] I think of the scripture that says, it's the greatest commandment. The Pharisees came to Jesus and they said Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? And he tells them, he's like you tell me. And the Pharisee says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. And in that situation, the Pharisee challenged him and said well, who's my neighbor? Well, we know who our closest neighbors are, it's our spouse. And then our other neighbors are brothers and sisters in Christ. And then there's our physical neighbors that live nextdoor to us. So we know who our neighbors are. But loving your neighbor as yourself, how many listening wouldn't love someone to pray for them? We get messages all the time of saying could you pray for me? Can you pray for my marriage? So if you want to be prayed for and prayed over and prayed with and thought of in that way and taken care of in that way, then love your neighbor as yourself. [Jennifer] Yeah, be those people. [Aaron] Pray without ceasing for your brothers and sisters in Christ so that they won't stumble, so that they will be encouraged, so that they will be strong and walk in purity. And be encouraging in the word of God and strengthened to do ministry and be healed and blessed and like, all the things that you would wanna be prayed for, pray for them. [Jennifer] Yeah. And sometimes you can go out of your way to ask them hey, what do you need prayer for? Hey, I'm praying for you right now, what can I pray for you? Text them, ask them. You know? It's powerful. [Aaron] A pet peeve of mine is, and we all have done this, I'm gonna pray for you and then don't pray. So make it a point. I've made it a point any time I tell someone I'm gonna pray for them, if I text it, if I, I stop in that moment and I pray. [Jennifer] Yeah, me too. [Aaron] I've just made it a habit because I didn't wanna be that yeah, I'll pray for you and just, now it's now a phrase that we say. Of like, I'm thinking of you. No, let's be in prayer for each other, because this world is wicked and the enemy wants to destroy us and to steal from us, and we just need to be battling for each other. [Jennifer] I was just thinking like, there's a whole spiritual battle going on and obviously the enemy hates marriage because God created it and God loves it and God uses it-- [Aaron] He hates everything God made. [Jennifer] Yeah, which means that all of our marriages, not one of us is outside of this truth, and that is that our marriages are under attack constantly. [Aaron] Yeah, and our faith and this, and Christ's Church just as a whole. So we need to praying for each other. You know, you pray for us, we'd love that. Pray for our marriage. [Jennifer]Thanks. [Aaron] Pray for our children. Pray for our families. So prayer is one of the ways you can encourage your, oh and then praying for them, like with them. Be in the presence of your friends and say we're gonna pray for you right now. [Jennifer] Yeah, maybe when you have them over that week for dinner, just set some time aside to say hey, we'd love to pray for you. [Aaron] Speaking of prayer, I was just at a friend's house today and he was telling me how his wife's just dealing with headaches, and I said let's go pray for her. And so before I left, me and him went down and we prayed for her. [Jennifer] That's awesome. I didn't know that, that's cool. [Aaron] And why don't we do that more? Like, why don't I do that more? And I'm talking to myself right now. We need to get in a spiritual habit of just praying for each other. I think a lot of things would change in our marriages. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to the last one, number seven. [Aaron] Serve your friends. Serve 'em. I think if the scenario that Jesus did when he was in the upper room before he went to go die on the cross and he geared up his garb, wrapped it around his waist, got a bucket of water and a towel and he walked around and he scrubbed all of his disciples' feet. And he says do this, what you see me doing, do for one another. So, do we serve each other? Now, speaking allegorically about the feet, are we willing to touch our friends' dirty feet? What I mean is like, are we willing to get dirty with our friends and get into the muck and the mire of life and the painful things and serve them? [Jennifer] I know you said this in the beginning, but had our friends not done that with us, the people who became our friends by serving us, if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be here today. [Aaron] And Jesus wants us to do that. He wants us to be willing to touch our brothers and sisters. Like spiritually, physically, emotionally, that we are part of their lives so close that, and for the purpose of cleaning and washing and purifying. [Jennifer] As you're saying that, cleaning and washing, I'm thinking like, we are all part of one body, okay, and if, let's take my body. My hands don't say I'm not gonna touch your hair, I'm not gonna wash your hair, and so I just go without washing my hair for a year, that would be really nasty. [Aaron] Yeah, if you had off-balance hygiene, you would not be approachable as a woman. [Jennifer] Well so take it in light of the body of Christ and his bride, who he's coming back for who should be spotless and blameless-- [Aaron] Is going to be. [Jennifer] And beautiful, then we should be willing to serve different parts of the body for this reason. [Aaron] And this doesn't mean that we serve the ones that can serve us back and serve the ones that we click well with and serve the ones who are easy to be around. We serve all of them. [Jennifer] So I keep going back to this picture of a body, I know it's funny, but-- [Aaron] That's what the Bible uses! [Jennifer] As you're talking I'm like you're right, so like, my hand can reach back and scratch my back but my back can't really do much for, [Aaron] Your back can't do much for-- [Jennifer] For anything. [Aaron] Yeah, your hands do that. [Jennifer] But it is holding me up, so. [Aaron] There you go. [Jennifer] This is just really interesting. [Aaron] But that's what we do, so are we servants? Are we servants? Christ, he says he didn't claim the royalty and the fame that he could've. Instead, he came as a servant, humble, as a child. [Jennifer] And the Bible tells us to walk as he walked. [Aaron] Yeah, so do we have that heart? Is our heart to lay ourselves down for our friends? [Jennifer] So hopefully those listening are just right along with us going yes, we're gonna serve our friends today. What are some practical ways? What does this look like, what are some ways that they can serve? 'Cause maybe they want to serve but now they're just wondering okay, how do we do that? What should they know? [Aaron] Well, I think of just some simple practical things, helping them. Do they need help with anything? [Jennifer] Well you have to know their needs. [Aaron] You have to know their needs. So shooting a text. Last year I tried getting in the habit of randomly texting friends from our community, just saying hey is there anything you need? Often they say no, but then there's time where they're like actually yeah, like we could use this or we really need a date. We've just been in the thick of having new children and we have not had a date in weeks. [Jennifer] So babysit your friends' kids so they can go have a date. [Aaron] Yeah. Maybe they're just, maybe there's some sickness. Hey, can we come over and just clean your house? Just wanna, we're gonna clean your house. You relax, we're gonna bring you food and I'm gonna scrub your toilets and I'm gonna clean your floorboards, and I'm gonna do your dishes, and just relax and you don't have to worry about it. Those are physical needs, those are just things that all of us would love. Like, if someone just came over and cleaned our house sometimes, I would be so-- [Jennifer] Or yard work. [Aaron] Or just came over and I'm like hey, so-and-so's in the backyard mowing the lawn. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] That would be so cool. [Jennifer] The other day, we've been trying to consider what we can do for our neighbors and how our neighbors are just right there-- [Aaron] Yeah, our actual neighbors that live nextdoor to us. [Jennifer] Every day, that we see. And we were leaving our house and there was a little bit of snow that piled up on the driveway, and one of our nextdoor neighbors was push brooming the snow out of another neighbor's driveway, she's an elderly woman, and I just thought how cool, he's amazing. Like, way to go. And that inspired Aaron to then go to her nextdoor neighbor and do the same thing for her. [Aaron] Well, you did actually encourage me to do it, which is good 'cause we're a team. And I went over there and it took me 20 minutes to go sweep her, the snow off of her driveway, and it's another elderly lady, and she was actually walking out to go to her mail and it was, her driveway was so slippery. [Jennifer] Oh, really? [Aaron] Yeah, and so I was like hey, can I just take this to the mailbox for you? It was like, right across the street and she was like yeah, absolutely. It was awesome. It was just a little thing. [Jennifer] So when we serve people like this, it brings blessing for those who are on the receiving end, but it also sets an example. It inspires people, it makes others want to do nice things and be thoughtful and serve and be the hands and feet of Christ. So I think that all around, it's so important to be servants. [Aaron] So I just wanna end with one more scripture to close out this topic before we pray for them, and it's the reason why we would want to do any of this stuff for brothers and sisters in Christ. For our married couples that we're friends with, for those that love God and are part of the body. In John 13:35 it says, "By this, all people will know "that you are my disciples "if you have love for one another." And in first John, John says, "Do not love "in words only, but in deed and in truth." So we show our love by the things we do for each other. And that kinda love should be so supernatural that when the world sees how we love each other, they will know that we're disciples of Christ. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] And in John 17, Jesus says, "The world will know "that God sent me by the love you have for each other." So not only will they know we're disciples of Christ, they'll also know that God sent Jesus. [Jennifer] So we have to be doing this. [Aaron] It's the ministry that we have in the world. [Jennifer] It's the ministry. [Aaron] It's what our whole book's about, actually. [Jennifer] Yes, yeah. Which, a great-- [Aaron] Not to plug it, but I'm plugging it. [Jennifer] No, but since you went there I'm just gonna say, it comes out in June, you guys, and a great way to encourage your married friends is go through this book with them. [Aaron] Ooh, that's a cool idea. [Jennifer] I know they can't do it now, we're gonna be going through a series leading up to the book launch, but I just feel like if couples can be going through this book together and asking each other questions about it and saying what ministry are we doing for God's kingdom? Oh my gosh, I just, my mind is blown by just-- [Aaron] The movement that would start. [Jennifer] Yeah! Yeah, it's incredible. [Aaron] We're excited about it. We thank you for joining us today. I pray that these seven ways to encourage your married friends blessed you, and I pray that it charges you or excites you or it gets you moving in the direction of unity in the body. More and more marriages and Christians in general would just be unified in loving each other in this way. [Jennifer] And don't wait. It's not next week or the week after-- [Aaron] Today. [Jennifer] Start today! Just do it. [Aaron] Alright, so before we close out, we've been committed to praying for you at the end of each episode, and so we're gonna pray for you. [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the friends in our lives. Lord, give us a heart of encouragement for them. Give us words that will affirm them and give strength to their marriage relationship. Show us how we can love our friends better and help them know You more. May we be witnesses in this world by how we love one another and walk with each other in truth and in light. Help us be more vulnerable and open with our friends. Help us to create an environment where our friends feel safe being vulnerable and open with us. May we use what You have given to us to bless them. Inspire our hearts with creative ways we can serve them and confidence that our purpose as friends builds Your kingdom. Please keep the enemy and his evil schemes away from our friends. Do not let his plans of destruction prevail. Protect our friends' marriage and fortify them, O Lord. Give us hearts to see our married friends walk strong and faithful. In Jesus' name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. Alright, so we thank you for joining us this week, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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| The Strength That Joy Brings To Our Homes | 19 Dec 2018 | 00:39:39 | |
Some stories of joy in our home with practical tips to cultivate a habit of joy in our homes. Support This podcast by purchasing one of our marriage books today: READ: [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] Today we're gonna talk about the strength that joy brings to our home. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] So far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With a desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. Love. And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. Together. Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Thank you so much for joining us this week on the Marriage After God Podcast. If you've been enjoying this podcast and enjoying the content, would you just scroll to the bottom of the app and leave a star rating review? This just helps other people find the Marriage After God Podcast, and we'd really appreciate that. [Aaron] Also, if you wanna support our podcast, we don't really do ads. We may in the future, but our goal is to not do ads. One of our ways of not using ads to support the podcast is we have written books, and we sell those books. If you're interested in checking out our marriage resources, our prayer books, our devotionals, you can go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, and picking up a book from our store supports us in the production of this podcast. Also, our Marriage After God book, that comes out next year, is available for pre-order, and so if you go to shop.marriageaftergod.com you'll see, in the very top-left corner of the site, a way to pre-order our book. That would just be really awesome. We'd really appreciate that. Let's get into the icebreaker question, which is what is one funny memory from when we were dating? [Jennifer] Hmm. I can't think of a specific one at the moment, but what does come to mind is we spent a lot of time serving in youth ministry. Oh yeah. A lot of time. We were youth leaders. Yeah, and we... [Aaron] At good old Church on the Hill, Norco, California. [Jennifer]We played a lot of games. We laughed a lot. We ate weird things. We'd have contests and challenges, and there were just things that we did for the kids' sake, but we had a lot of fun doing together. That was-- Remember the lock-ins? We would just have overnights. Yup, over-nighters. [Aaron] We would stay up all night, do milk-chugging contests, and... [Jennifer] Gosh, that does not sound fun now. [Aaron] No it doesn't How did we do that? Back then, it was the highlight of our week. I feel like we just came alive in those times. We looked forward to it all year, to do those events. Yeah. Every Wednesday we just came alive during that time, and I fell in love with you, knowing that you had fun participating in that way, being silly... Little junior high kids and high school kids. Yeah, being silly or playing, it wasn't dodge-ball, what was it called? [Aaron] Oh, what... [Jennifer] Murder-ball? [Aaron]Yeah, we called it murder-ball. [Jennifer] We called it murder-ball because it was-- It was just dodge-ball, but we changed the name. ...dodge-ball on steroids, and we had a lot of balls-- There was no line. You just ran around the room, throwing balls at each other. [Jennifer] You guys would throw them so hard. These poor-- I know [Jennifer] ...13-year-old girls would get nailed [Aaron] But they kept playing it. None of them cried. They were crazy. I forgot about that. Murder-ball I loved that. I loved dating you because you were fun, and you're still fun. Yeah. I got a little not fun over the years, but I've learned to change in that area. I'm still learning, but that's kinda what our episode's about, is not just fun, but joy, but how fun cultivates joy and how we can actually cultivate environments of joy in our home. Let's get to the quote from today, and it's from the book For Better or for Kids by Patrick and Ruth Schwenk. Ruth Schwenk's from The Better Mom, and you said you loved this book. Mm-hmm It's about family and the power that God's given us in our homes. [Jennifer] Yeah, and the quote is on page 37, and it says, "While married life with children "can be challenging, we have reason to hope "and to be encouraged. "There is a way forward, a way through, "and a way beyond all of the craziness. "God's Word has not changed. "The promises of his Word still stand. "Is being married with kids messy? "Yes. "Does God have a purpose and plan in the midst of it all? "Of course he does. "And do we enjoy taking part in this crazy, "life-changing, impossible mission of parenting? "Absolutely." That's great 'cause that sums it up pretty good. Parenting's hard. It is crazy. Marriage and parenting is hard. [Jennifer] It is messy. It's all of the above, and yet, God's Word-- But joy. ...still stands. Yeah. And we can enjoy it. And we can enjoy it, which is something that we're learning day-by-day how to do. Mm-hmm We've talked about kids a lot on our show and just the hard things and the fun things, but today we wanna talk about joy, cultivating joy in our home, having fun in our home, and how that joy brings strength to our home and our walk and our mission in life. [Jennifer] Yeah, I think that sometimes we can be so caught up in making sure that everything that we're trying to order or manage is happening, and we become kind of like the officers in the home of making sure everyone's doing what they're supposed to be doing. Even when it comes to our work, we have this rigid schedule of things that we need to get done, and it's kind of on our timeline, and yet we have kids pulling on our elbows, saying, "Dad, come check out this LEGO thing I built," or Olive wanting to dance with you. Where life becomes more mechanical and clunky rather than organic. It's life. It's something that we're experiencing, not controlling. That's kinda what I'm hearing. That's what I'm feeling, is we could get into this mode that life's just one check list after another, one check box after another, the right next step, which is not-- It comes from a good place. [Aaron] Yeah, it's not terrible to think that way at times and to try and walk correctly, 'cause that's the goal, is we're trying to walk well. We're trying to walk as disciples of Christ, living out what the Bible tells us. Then, where's joy? Where's joy fall in all that? Yeah. We actually, I was really encouraged this last week in the woman's Bible study that I got to go to. The whole topic was about soul-filling joy and the things that we can do as moms to fill our hearts up during the week and, like you said, not just have a list that we're checking off, even though that comes from a good place and we want to make sure that we're managing our homes well, but are we doing things that also fill us up and bring a smile to our face? Because that's gonna overflow into our relationship with our kids. It's gonna overflow into our marriages and give that liveliness that God intends for us to have. [Aaron] What you're saying reminds me of the verse in Isaiah 40:31. It says, "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." [Jennifer] Yeah. I've experienced this in my own life, where I do something that brings a lot of joy to my life, and it does renew my strength. There is something physical that happens to you when you experience the joy of the Lord and you experience his strength fill you up and renew you, and I think that's why it's so important to be talking about joy. Have you experienced this? [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause we can get, if we look at our life as just a series of actions taken, a series of checks to be checked off, steps to take, and it's just this mechanical thing that we're moving forward and yeah, maybe we're doing good things, but if we forget why we're doing it and who we're doing it for, it gets very tiresome because essentially, we're doing it in our own strength. We run on fumes. We're told to fill our jars up to overflowing, and we fill that up with the living water, which is Christ, with the Word of God, with prayer, with getting away, quietness. When the Bible talks of prayer, when Jesus says pray, he says go into your closet. He says get away. When I think about getting away, Jesus often got away. It says that he went up by himself into desolate placesand he, early in the morning and late into the evening, so I just-- But he was intentional with his time. Yeah. It wasn't just, "I'm gonna go and be quiet somewhere," which actually, for some people is probably really filling for them, just being quiet somewhere, sitting at a park, people watching or something. Not me. This isn't just about doing something that's fun necessarily. It's a wholistic view of waiting on God because we know that we need him. We need a rest in him, and that gives us strength, and it gives us joy and the power to go on another day, not just go on but to cheerfully and joyfully go on. [Jennifer] I feel like we all need to be reminded that there's gonna, in life, we will all experience hard times. We will all experience those-- [Aaron] Yeah, James makes that very clear Yeah, those times of wrestling, where God's revealed sin in your life that you're repenting of, and you probably feel down for, but you know you're being transformed in-- [Aaron] Or when he's calling out character issues in us, really hard things. Character issues, maybe financial stresses, or maybe the loss of a loved one, there are so many different types of trials that people walk through, and yet I feel like just because we experience hard times doesn't mean we can also experience joy. I think that's the difference between happiness and joy because happiness is a feeling, and it's an emotion that we have the... Capacity to experience. Right, thank you That's a byproduct of joy, I would imagine. Right, joy's deeper. Joy comes from within, but it's also because God is in our hearts, and he's the one that makes it possible to both enjoy, he's the one that makes it possible to experience joy while in the midst of hardship, at the exact same time. Maybe there isn't any hardship in your life right now, and you, like you said earlier, are just kind of going through the motions and being kind of mechanical-- I actually feel like sometimes when we're going through good seasons, or easy seasons I should say, often, we find ourselves being more discontent. It's easier to forget to walk in joy or something. I've experienced that with us. That's interesting. I realize, I'm like, "Well, there's nothing really hard "going on in our life. "Why are we feeling like this right now?" [Jennifer] In today's episode, we really just wanna inspire you guys to consider joy. Maybe it's something that you haven't thought of, or maybe it's something that you've already been thinking of, and we can just come in as part of that support to say, "Yes, this is the right way. "This is what we should be thinking about. "This is what we should be doing" because a marriage after God has joy. [Aaron] When you walk in the Spirit, what's one of the fruits of the Spirit? Joy. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and so, when we walk in the Spirit, fruit of that will be joy in our life. I was just thinking about the difference between happiness and joy. I feel like happiness is an earthly experience that comes out of the eternal understanding of joy. Joy is an eternal concept. It comes from hope, hopes of things that are things that are unseen. It's something that goes beyond the current experience because you can have joy even in really hard things because it's based on something eternal, where happiness is based on something temporary. That's good. Something that we experience just right now for this moment. Our goal should never be just seeking happiness. That's called hedonism, just looking for happiness. Our goal should be enjoying the fruit of the Spirit, which one of them is joy. [Jennifer] What I was gonna say was that it benefits our children so much. I was just thinking about how you could just, I feel like kids are so expressive. Their little bodies can reveal so much about what they're feeling, that joy is just one of those things that you can see in kids. It's so evident. Yeah, I wonder how many of our listeners grew up in joyless homes, grew up in homes that were full of strife, anxiety, fear, and how much joy would've benefited the home. They're probably thinking right now, "Man, "I wish my family was joyful. "I wish when I grew up I experienced joy." [Jennifer] If that's you listening right now, I just wanna tell you that you don't have to live according to the past and feel like you're stuck. You can change. [Aaron] Today, we talked about this last episode, you can change today [Jennifer] What a benefit it would be, what a testimony it would be to the power of God in your life. [Aaron] In our home, like I said, over the years, I kind of, there was a season of my life that, and it was probably because of sin I was walking. It was probably 'cause of discontentment issues that we had, character flaws, things that God was growing in us, but I feel like I had a hard time having fun. I had a hard time being joyful. I loved God, and there was times I was joyful, but it wasn't a default state for me. I was pretty Scrooge-y. Is that the word? Not just because Christmas is coming, but just I think people called me Scrooge-y just 'cause I was not very joyful. I don't want that for my family. What are some ways that we over the years have been cultivating joy in our home and that our listeners can take home and try? [Jennifer] We should just tag-team this and kind of go down the list of things, but-- This isn't the definitive list. I actually tried coming up with as many as I could, but I'm sure there's other things that we might think of as we talk about these. [Jennifer] Probably. We do have, we're in a season of young kids, and so a lot of what you probably will hear probably sounds, I don't know... Silly? Silly, 'cause it is. They are silly [Jennifer] They are silly, but I think the important thing to note here is that these are just ways that we have tried to be intentional in cultivating a space in our home, in our lifestyle, that cultivates joy. One of those things is fort building. I actually did that this morning with the kids. [Aaron] The kids love it. We have a couch that's perfect for fort building. The pillows are huge. They're sturdy, so they make really good roofs and walls. I only believe in building big forts. I don't know why people build small forts. It's not worth it to me. I came home the other day-- Go big or go home [Aaron] I came home the other day, and the entire living room was a fort. [Jennifer]You have to use every chair, every blanket-- All the chairs ...every pillow... The couches were on their sides, the pillows-- Maximize the-- [Aaron] ...were stacked up high, and you guys were watching a movie inside We were watching a movie inside, yeah. You're like, "We're in our movie theater. "You wanna come in?" I'm like, "Uh, I don't know if I'll fit," but it was pretty huge, so I probably would've. It was pretty amazing. I think I actually storied it on Instagram 'cause it was-- Probably. [Aaron] I was really impressed with that fort building. Thanks. That's one thing that we do. The kids love it, and it's fun because they're still pretty young. They could build one themselves, but they never make them as good as we make them. [Jennifer] A little tip for fort building, if you get a colorful quilt or one of those knitted blankets that are made-- Have holes in them. [Jennifer] Yeah, they're just really fun for the light to come through, and-- [Aaron] It looks like stained glass windows. It does. I always say, "Look at the stained glass windows." [Jennifer] You need to share the one minute of crazy 'cause this is more new. This is a newer thing. But it works. It's our one minute of crazy, and we've been doing it, we don't do it every night, of course, but when I feel like my kids just got extra jitters in them-- Or extra screams. [Aaron] ...what I'll do is I'll say, "Okay guys, I want everyone to," I'll be a little stern about it, "I want everyone to stand right here in a line." They stand there, they're like, "Okay, what's gonna happen?" Then I'll turn the music on our jam box really loud, and I'll say, "All right, I want you guys "to get as crazy as possible for one minute." Then the whole time, I'm telling them to get louder and louder and louder, and they're screaming, and they get actually tired. When they're done, they're like, "Why'd you have us do that?" I'm was like, "Wasn't that fun?" The first time you had them do it, it took them about 15 seconds to, is Dad joking, or-- Yeah, they didn't know. [Jennifer] They're looking at each other, like, "Should we be screaming?" [Aaron] That's probably because of my history of not being very fun. It was awesome. Yeah, but it did take them a few seconds to actually, they're like, 'Wait a minute, are we gonna get in trouble?" [Jennifer] It's a great thing to do, not right before bed, but leading up to bedtime. [Aaron] I liked it right before bed because I feel like they weren't quite ready for bed, and this pushed them over the edge 'cause they were tired, and they also felt like they got all of it out of them. Sometimes it's hard to calm them down afterwards, but that's okay [Jennifer] I wanna share another one. This comes from my childhood. My mom and stepdad would always do this. They still do it. It's so funny. If someone comes home and walks through the door, or even out from the bathroom or bedroom-- Is this where it came from? Yeah. Oh. [Jennifer] Whoever notices it goes, "Quick, pretend you're asleep" Wherever they're sitting. Wherever you're at, just kinda drop your head, close your eyes, and try as hard as you can not to smile. [Aaron] Wyatt is so bad at it. Wyatt's our two-year-old. He just turned two. But he still tries, and it's so cute. He'll be in his little white chair, and I'll walk in, and everyone's got their heads tilted to the side with their eyes shut-- [Jennifer] Sometimes we'll be at the kitchen table, and we'll be eating breakfast when Aaron comes home, and I'm like, "Quick, pretend you're asleep," and everyone just kind of limps their head to the side. But then, I look over, and Wyatt, he has his head back-- He's just looking at you. He has his head back, and his eyes half shut, and he's smiling 'cause he doesn't get it, but he's trying. I'm like, "Are you guys sleeping?" And Wyatt's smiling at me the whole time. [Jennifer] This is one of those things, I love it 'cause it's from my childhood, so I love that my kids have kind of owned it. Olive is usually the first one now to say it. Oh yeah. "Pretend you're sleeping." [Aaron] "Quick, we're sleeping," and then everyone, she'll put her head down even if no one notices. She gets mad if you don't, no she gets mad if you don't do it. [Aaron] She does it so fast, no one notices, and she is the only one pretending to sleep. It's really funny 'cause then, let's say Dad walks through the door, "Oh no, everyone fell asleep," or we get up really fast and go, "Boo!" It's just fun. Yeah, on the same note of the spontaneous sleeping, the narcolepsy game, we'll often do, I'll get home early after the gym or something, and it'll be super quite in the house, and I think everyone's asleep. I'm tippy-toeing, and I get in the bedroom, and every-- There's just a mountain under the bed. Yeah, and every single person in my family is under the covers in my bed. They're all hiding from me and What's funny, even once the blanket goes over our heads-- I almost jumped on Elliot the other day 'cause I didn't know he was in the bed. Even Truett will be laying there, and the moment the blanket goes over his head, he kinda gets all wide-eyed and smiley-- Like, "What's happening?" Yeah, what's happening. Those are just fun ways to bring instantaneous giggles. And they're short things, they're easy things, and it's something that, they become part of our family, these little things. Our kids look forward to it. They're the ones that instigate all of these things now. Another little tip to help cultivate joy in the home is to not worry about messes so much. That doesn't mean that we don't clean up and have organization and self control, which is something Jennifer and I are trying to get better at, being organized and clean in our house, but if we're always trying to be tidy, it really doesn't leave any room for fun. [Jennifer] We're gonna miss those opportunities where, maybe one of the kids is playing with LEGOs and would love some help, or wants to just get creative with you-- [Aaron] Or throwing pillows around the house for a little bit, or having blankets on, like forts. You can't have it both ways. [Jennifer] We built a fort this morning, like I said, and it's middle of the day right now, it's nap time, and-- And it's still messy out there It's all messed up. It's all messed up. It's one of those things where it's like, "Well, maybe they'll build another one later," and that has to be okay. [Aaron] Something I've realized is that if I'm always telling the kids to clean up, they're actually not gonna like doing some of those fun things. Now, there's a time for everything, so let our kids know that there's a time to clean up. After we've had a full amount of fun or something, they understand that, "Okay, now let's straighten up "'cause we're gonna go on to the next thing," but just kind of not having the anxieties and the overwhelmedness of those little messes, that it's gotta be okay. It's just a good little tip to have a little bit more freedom and lightheartedness in the home. [Jennifer] Good word. Another one is dance parties. We like to turn the music up really loud and just go for it. You guys don't know this about me, but-- Our kids are the best dancers I was gonna say I'm actually probably one of the most terrible dancers, but it doesn't hold me back. I just go for it, and somehow, my kids have picked up on this, and they intend to dance crazy, silly, awkward, and that just makes us laugh even more. If you'd like to see Jennifer dance, leave us a review and tell us that you'd like to see her dance, and I'll post a video of her on our Instagram. Oh my goodness, don't even. Yeah, I'm gonna put some music to it, and you're gonna be dancing 'cause they gotta see. They gotta see the gloriousness that is your dance skills. [Jennifer] Oh, man. I gotta think about that. A lot of these other ones are very physical things, like tickling, spontaneous wrestling matches with Dad. [Aaron] Usually spurred on by my son, who hides, crouching, ready to attack, and the moment I come home, he just jumps out of nowhere onto me with a sword in his hand, but letting those things happen, I think it does huge things for our children, to know that they have the freedom to, of course, not hurt us, which happens sometimes, but just, that they have the freedom to jump on us and to climb on us and to crawl on us. This morning, Olive was, I was talking to you, and she was grabbing my legs and going in and out of my legs, and I didn't notice she was doing it for a while. Like a cat [Aaron] Then I finally was like, "Olive, what are you doing?" 'Cause I felt like I was falling over, and she's like, "I'm just playing with your legs," and she's going in and out and sitting on them and pushing me over, and I for a moment wanted to be bothered by it. Then I thought to myself, "Why do I care "that she's doing that to me right now? "It's really cute." It's something that I still have to consistently work on and recognize in me 'cause I wanna sometimes get bothered by those kinds of things, but letting it happen because I want my kids to know that they can touch me. They can crawl on me. They can hang on me. They can love me. I was actually just really inspired by someone I follow on Instagram. Her name is Joy, and she posted a picture of her two oldest kids. They're in their teens, and her little story caption was just to encourage other moms with little ones to listen to your kids when they come to tell you about what they created with LEGOs or what they're drawing or imaginary world or whatever it is-- Taking joy in their creations, their things. She said because it goes by so fast, and we know we all hear this, but she goes, "You're gonna want to hear from them "and their hard things that they're walking through "when they're older, and if you keep pushing them away "or keep saying, 'No, I don't have time for that' now, "you're gonna miss that opportunity." You wouldn't have built that trust and open lines of communication, even at a very, very young age. Hopefully that encourages someone else. [Aaron] It encourages me, that I need to be listening more and paying attention to my kids more. Again, there's always a balance. Our kids can't absorb every-- Everything. [Aaron] ...everything from us. When we are intentional with it, it'll make the times that we can't okay 'cause they'll know that our hearts are with them. [Jennifer] Right. I'd really love to talk a little bit about just experiencing joy in marriage between a husband and a wife, but before we get there, there's one more thing that, when I was thinking about this list, that really stood out to me, and it's ways that we can kind of team up together to bring joy to our kids 'cause all the things that we've kinda listed we could do without the other. Right. But this next one's pretty interesting. This is your idea, or mine, I can't remember, but we were standing in the kitchen talking, and the kids were in the school room, and I told you, I said, "Aaron, call them out." I had handfuls of marshmallows in my hand, and I-- We both did, yeah. I was one one side-- I gave you the bag, ...of the hallway-- and you took the bag from me, took a handful out, and we hid on either side of the walls, so that when we came through the hallway, we were gonna just launch all these marshmallows at them. I was like, "Elliot, "Olive, Wyatt, come here." Plus, it's also a good lesson in obedience, are they coming the first time they're being called? You're killing two birds with one stone. [Aaron] Then they pitter-patter down the hallway, and we're hiding on the floor so they don't see us, and they walk right past us. Then we just bombard them with marshmallows. It actually scared them, and they looked at us like-- They just stood there. They looked at us like, "How could you do that?" [Jennifer] They just stood there, and Olive had this furrowed brow, and she was ready to just reprimand us, and then-- Then they looked on the ground, they're like, "Are those marshmallows?" "Can we have those?" "Can we have those?" Then they just start squirming. [Aaron] Luckily, marshmallows don't hurt. If you're gonna do that game, throw things that don't hurt at your kids. Otherwise, that would not be very fun. [Jennifer] We have other friends that intentionally do Nerf wars together. Oh yeah. We actually thought about one time buying a bunch of a Nerf stuff, and then-- Getting that family that does that Yeah, not letting them know, and then when we go over for dinner, just attack them We should still do that. We should still do, well, they might listen to this episode now. Now, I have to do it before we launch this episode. [Jennifer] That's just one way that you can team up together to cultivate joy in the home. We wanna hear your guys' ideas too, so please share them. [Aaron] Yeah, and all of these things that you can do, like little things just compounding on top of each other, it shows your family, especially for the husbands out there who might struggle the way I do to be joyful or have this fun-loving spirit or a lighthearted spirit, it shows your children, it shows your wife that you enjoy them, that you like being around them, that they're not just in the way of you, that you enjoy having crazy time with them, having fun time with them. [Jennifer] Yeah, that you wanna hear them laugh, that you wanna participate in their life. We touched on how to cultivate joy in the family, especially with small kids, but Aaron, how would you say we cultivate joy within the marriage and why that's important? [Aaron] Again, walking with the right perspective, first of all, that we have a mission in this world, that God loves us, that we're saved, these big things that God's done for us, easily just allows us to have joy even in the midst of hard things, even when maybe you're not joyful, I can still walk in that stuff, so when we're walking in that together, that knowledge and that truth, there's naturally a joy that exists. On the practical side, I think there's probably a ton of things that we do that cultivate joy, probably things that we could add to our lives. One of them is we have our own set of inside jokes that no one knows about. When you're with-- I'm not gonna describe what they are because they're ours but we have our own little inside jokes, and that's something that we do together, and it's funny for us. It's fun for us. Those build over time, so if you're only one or two years married, just know that those come over time. Maybe you already have some, but those are a really fun way to just, when you're out and about or at church, or-- At any time, really At any time, you can make these jokes, and only they get it. It's pretty fun. Yeah, it's something unique to us. Yeah, something you said about having joy, one of the importance of that is even amidst walking through hard stuff, and I feel like when I look at our marriage, experiencing joy with you was possible even in those first few years, which were our hardest years of marriage, and that was one of the things that carried us through those hard years, was finding ways to cultivate joy in our relationship, exploring new places together, trying to get each other to laugh. [Aaron] Yeah, I realize when we weren't lovers, in those early years, we were friends still, not all the time, but we had a friendship. We had things that we can connect with still and cultivate. God wanted more from us, but in those times, I remember when we were in Malawi, Africa, and it's been hard, and we walked off and we sat on a pier over the lake. Remember that? Mm-hmm, there's a gazebo at the end. [Aaron] Yeah, and we were just sitting there, talking, looking at the fish, talking about being married, talking about if we'd ever come back. [Jennifer] Yeah, we talked about our future. [Aaron] Yeah we talked about our future. Those little things on our list up there, we didn't talk about it, but adventures, that's another way we cultivate joy in our family and in our marriage, is we take adventures, even when we're not with the kids. Me and you like to just go for a drive around neighborhoods we've never been in before, going up the mountain just to drive up the mountain. There's things that we do that give us opportunities to just talk. I think those are situations that cultivate joy in us because it's just us together. It's just us spending time with each other, talking, hearing each other. [Jennifer] Yeah, I think another practical way to do this is, again, physical touch, just like when we were talking about with the kids, but tickling each other, hugging each other. Massages. Massages. Dancing. That's joyful for me. [Jennifer] I'm giving Aaron the eyes 'cause that sounded creepy, but just being physical, being willing to tickle each other and-- And play with each other, yeah. And play, yeah. I like the-- We're a lot more playful with each other these days than we used to be. [Jennifer] Yeah, I like the keep away game, where you snag something, like their phone works really well for this, and then you have to try and get it. Yeah, if you wanna know how addicted someone is to their phone, just snag it out of their hands and see how they respond. Wait, that's joyful? I just think about the lightness. We've had seasons where it just feels like we're walking on eggshells with each other, and that's not fun, where you're tippy-toeing around your spouse, and you're just wondering if the next thing you do is gonna trigger them. That's the opposite of joy. Yeah. [Aaron] That is not joyful. That is tedious and cumbersome. If your spouse can feel light around you and free around you. And feel loved. [Aaron] And cherished around you and loved around you, how much strength there is in that, and power there is in that, and that's what I want because again, we're always talking about being a marriage after God. There's a reason we're together. It's for the ministry God has for us, and if you're constantly feeling like you have to be so aware of every move you make around me because you're just wondering if you're gonna trigger me, there's no way you can minister for Christ in that kind of situation. There's no way we as a family can show the world the love we have for each other, which is what we're called to do, right? Mm-hmm [Aaron] Now, that's not just talking about in marriage. That's talking about in the church as a whole, but joy remedies that. It cultivates an environment that allows for true and powerful and authoritative ministry to happen. [Jennifer] Joy is one of those testimonies of the power of God in your life, and I know I said that earlier, but it's so true, that when the world looks at you, when the world looks at a marriage after God and they see joy, they're probably thinking, "Well, I want "what they have." Yeah, "How do I get "some of that?" [Jennifer] "What is that?" Then you get to tell them, "It's because of Jesus in my life. "It's because God has transformed us. "It's because God gives us hope." [Aaron] Yup. I hope those listening get encouraged by this, that, of course, we're still learning, but if they put their hearts in the right place, they put it in the hands of Christ and allow him to transform them and say, "Lord, I want more joy. "I want more of your joy, "and I want my family to experience joy," it all goes back to walking in the Spirit and saying, "Lord, help me walk in the Spirit today. "I want my kids to feel the overflow of joy in my life. "I want my wife, I want my husband, "to feel that, to experience that joy, "to eat the good fruit coming out of me, "and then in our marriage, I want people, our children, "outsiders to eat the good fruit of our marriage," and at the end of the day, that joy becomes our strength. I just wanna read that scripture in Nehemiah chapter 8. Nehemiah had just finished building the wall, the walls around the city, and Ezra the priest got up on a platform, and he read the entire book of the law out loud, from day till night, to all of the congregation of the people. Nehemiah says this to the people after all of this, it says, "Then he said to them," in chapter 8, verse 10: "'Go your way. "'Eat the fat and drink the sweet wine "'and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, "'for this day is holy to our Lord. "'And do not be grieved, for the joy "'of the Lord is your strength.'" This people, they were scattered, they were dispersed, the city was destroyed. Nehemiah came, rebuilt the city and was about to, and he had all the people coming back to the city to rebuild their own homes, to rebuild this city with a people that God promised it would be their city, it would be their home, and he just reminds them, he says, "The joy of the Lord is your strength." The strength in our home, the strength in our lives is the Lord. The strength in our marriage. The strength in our marriage, the strength in our ministry, and that strength comes from the joy that God gives us, from the hope we have in Christ, from the power and the authority of the Word of God, and that joy is the thing that just allows us to keep going, keeping walking. Instead of it being mechanical, instead of it being a checklist, it's now a life-giving thing we do. I think that's awesome. Yeah, I love that. My grandma Betty, she is 91 and just right there at the end of her life, and my dad posted a quote, something that she always said, which was, "Make someone laugh every day, "and life will be full." When I think about her life, I think about it being really full. Yeah, every time we're around her, she's big ol' smile, laughing, making jokes. Huge smile. Just for a little description, she's probably only five foot, maybe five-foot-one with heels on, and she wore colorful dresses. She had bright red hair and always wore blue eyeshadow, and when I think of her, I think of fun. I remember being a little girl, maybe four years old, I would go over to her house when my dad brought us over there to visit, and about 10 minutes before we would leave, she would say, "Jenn, come with me." She'd take me to her vanity and put perfume on me and eyeshadow and blush and did the whole thing-- Make you feel so pretty. ...make me feel like a princess, and the whole time just talking to me, and encouraging me, and loving on me, and I can't imagine what I looked like to everyone walking out as a little four-year-old with this makeup on, if she even really put make up on me. Remember, she liked to have fun I know. When I think about that little girl, when I think about myself, if I stood in front of her today, I would think there was no question about the joy that I had in my heart from just that experience with her, those five minutes, or 10 minutes, or however long it was, of sitting in her chair and listening to her voice and being there with me. I just love that, and I want, at the end of my life, to look back and think, "That was a full life." [Aaron] Yeah, and I want people to look back on my life, or our life, and say, "Wow, they were joyful," right? Mm-hmm [Aaron] I don't want them to think, "Man, they were bitter and frustrated all the time "and annoyed." I want them to say, "They were joyful." Joy's a powerful thing. What's funny is all of the fruit of the Spirit is powerful. It's why-- We need it [Aaron] We need the Spirit, is because it produces such good things in us. I just pray that this encourages the listeners today that they would pursue joy, that they would walk in the Spirit, and that they would cultivate an environment in their home that their kids just know what joy is. It doesn't mean we're not gonna have hard times, but it does mean that we can have pure, eternal joy, something that's founded in something in eternity, not in something that is temporary. [Jennifer] I love that. Speaking of prayer, I think that now is a perfect time to go into our prayer for today's episode. We'd love to invite you guys to pray along with us. [Aaron] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of joy. We pray that we would be intentional to cultivate joy in our marriages and in our families. Holy Spirit, please inspire us with creative ways to create space in our lives to laugh, to play, to enjoy precious moments with those we love most. Remind use every day of the power of joy and how we can be vessels of your joy, so that it is dispersed throughout the world. May our joy be a testimony to others of your goodness and your strength in our lives. May it be the reason people ask us why we are so different from the rest of the world. May our joy draw our spouse, our children, and others close to you as we experience the gift of joy. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. [Aaron] We just thank you for joining us this week. We pray that you have joy this week. We pray that you would walk in the Spirit, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? 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| Being Faithful In The Little Things Will Prepare Us For The Big Things | 12 Dec 2018 | 00:36:58 | |
Let's be faithful with the small things so that we will be faithful in the big things. Consider supporting this podcast by visiting our online store today. READ: [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna talk about how being faithful in the little things will prepare us for the big things. [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Thank you guys so much for joining us on today's episode. We just wanna take a minute to just encourage you to leave a star rating review, this just helps other listeners find our podcast. And we're just eager to get this message out. So please take a minute just to leave that star rating, and also if you have time and some extra love, you can leave a written review. That also just really encourages our hearts, lets people know what this podcast is about, and again just spreads that love out into the internet. [Aaron] Also if you've been really loving the podcast and the content, one way you can support this podcast is by purchasing one of our books. You know my wife and I, we've written 11 books now, going on 12. Our twelfth one comes out next year in June. And you can just head over to shop.marriageaftergod.com, and pick up our prayer books, our 30 day marriage devotionals. You can look at all the products we have. And we even have prayer books for children, too. You pray for your son, pray for your daughter. They've been a really popular book. So if you wanna support our podcast please consider going over to shop.marriageaftergod.com when you're done with this podcast. [Jennifer] Okay, so we are going to start off with an icebreaker, we did this last week, it was fun. So Aaron, I'm gonna ask you the first question, and then I guess we'll just tag team it, and then I can answer after you. So it is, what is one habit that you would like to create in your life right now? [Aaron] I would like to get better at reading the Bible more consistently. I'm just gonna be honest. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] I used to be, have it at a specific time every day and I've just kind of gotten out of sync with that. So I'd like to get into a better habit of digging into the word of God. [Jennifer] Okay. And I would answer that by just saying working out. I feel like after I had Truett, you know you wait that kind of post-partum period, six weeks or so out. And then I started feeling really good and I added in one day a week. And now I'm looking for more. So just finding a consistent schedule for that would be really awesome. [Aaron] That's a good habit, yeah. [Jennifer] Well you encourage me. [Aaron] Thank you. [Jennifer] We're gonna share a little more about that later, but you've been in a good habit of that. [Aaron] Okay, so before I move onto the main topic I just wanna read a quote from a book I'm reading right now called the Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Habits are powerful but delicate, they can emerge outside our consciousness or can be deliberately designed. They often occur without our permission but can be reshaped by fiddling with their parts. They shape our lives far more than we realize. They are so strong in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Yeah, really powerful quote. The whole book just being about habits and how we form them and how we can change them. It's a really good book. [Jennifer] Yeah I wonder if anyone else listening as you read that quote can already just think about a handful of habits in their own lives that do this very thing. [Aaron] Yeah, it's amazing. Most of our habits we form without even thinking about them. It's not like we try to form the habit we just, they form out of our everyday rituals and routines, Choices. [Aaron] And choices, yeah. So it's kind of, it leads into what we're gonna be talking about today a little bit. We're not gonna be talking about just habits. [Jennifer] A little bit bigger of a concept. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Of being faithful in the little things, and why. [Aaron] So, why don't we start off with the conversation that we had in the car the other day which lead us to wanting to talk about this [Jennifer] So, yeah we were driving in the car and you brought up that morning's workout, and you just wanted to share about it with me and how excited you were about something specific that you accomplished. [Aaron] Yeah, I was really proud of myself actually because I learned that I had a skill I didn't know I had. The workout involved rope climbing which we don't do very often. We do them maybe once every other month. And this workout had two rope climbs every so many movements, and before the workout started we were just getting ready, warming up and I thought, "Hey, I'm just gonna try a rope climb real quick, "see how it feels, "'cause I haven't done it in awhile." And I did a rope climb without my legs. So they call it a legless rope climb [Jennifer] Sounds torturous. [Aaron] Yeah, but I was really surprised at myself 'cause I've never been able to do a legless rope climb. And so I was sharing, I was like, "Babe, I did all these legless rope climbs today, "I didn't use my legs at all, "I just used my arms to go up and down." [Jennifer] And I just mentioned how I feel like that, like there's so much of it that's mental. [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause I didn't even know I could do it. And I was telling her, I was like, "Yeah, it's amazing how much "all of the stuff we do is mental "because I may be able to do it physically, "but I may not be able to do it mentally." There's many times I have to force myself to keep going. With this workout specifically, I told myself, I was able to do a legless rope climb, I'm just gonna do the whole workout doing only legless rope climbs. Which meant I had to slow down. I couldn't do as many rounds as everyone else did. But I was able to accomplish my little goal. And I was super proud of myself. It was a really good feeling. [Jennifer] You should be, that's awesome. [Aaron] I didn't realize I could do it. And we started talking about how not only is it a balance of mental and physical, but it's something that all these things that people learn, when you see people you're like, oh I can't believe they can do that. They didn't just start doing it. At the crossfit gym that we do, that I go to, there's a progression to things. Like I didn't just start doing legless rope climbs. I could not even do it, I wasn't strong enough, nor did I know how to. So we, there's this term called scaling. So we scale down the workout to what we can do. So even though, you know, I can't do what the main workout is I can still do the workout at a different level. [Jennifer] It seems like that's the key is scaling. [Aaron] Well it is the only way to do it, 'cause you can't just come in and expect someone to do this part of the workout if they've never done it before. You know, some people might be strong like that but usually you just can't. And so we were just discussing how you know, it starts off really small. You know, like, for the rope climb specifically. One of the ways that you can scale that down is instead of climbing the rope you just lay on the floor. And you pull yourself up. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] The rope to where you're standing. [Jennifer] Which when I do crossfit, I had to do that and it was not easy. Even for me. [Aaron] That's even still really hard, yeah. So you're just laying on the floor. [Jennifer] You have to start somewhere. [Aaron] And you walk your arms up the rope and you just pull yourself until you're standing up. And that's one of the first steps of learning how to climb a rope. There's other ways to do it where they bring the rope real low so it's not a very tall one, and you just try and do like a few feet, you know, instead of trying to do 15 feet up in the air, or 25 feet up in the air, you're just, you know, you're going up a couple inches or a couple feet. But that's what spurned this conversation with us about wanting to talk about not just habits, but-- [Jennifer] Spiritual growth, maturity. Just all kinds of hard things in life that you have to be able to start somewhere and experience that progression and balance of growing. And yeah, so when we were talking about scaling we were looking at life and saying that's still required. [Aaron] Well, and what happens is if we do this all in our own hearts, we look at something, or we look where someone's at, and we say, "Oh, well I could never do that, "therefore I'm not gonna try." Like I could never do a legless rope climb so I'm not gonna try. I could never run a marathon so I'm not gonna try. And that's, like no one just goes and runs a marathon. [Jennifer] But we don't see the work that they put into practicing and trying and even failing at times and feeling defeated. [Aaron] And where they started. [Jennifer] Where they started, yeah. [Aaron] Actually, today our coach at the gym was just mentioning how when he first started it took him like two years to do double unders, which is jump rope, you know where you spin it really fast. I can barely do 'em. But when I look at him I'm like, "Wow, it took you that long?" That's how my progression is going, it's been, I can't do 'em yet. I've been going for about two years and I've almost got 'em. But when you hear that you're like, "Oh, well, okay that's normal. "I guess I didn't realize that everyone "starts in the same place." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Like everyone starts somewhere. We all start as babies. And then we get stronger and we grow. And so that's kind of what we wanted to discuss today. We're discussing it in our own lives. What are things that we can start today that we're gonna get stronger in and stronger in and better in later? You know, is it health? Spiritually, being in the Word. [Jennifer] Leading our children. [Aaron] Prayer. Leading our children. And how the incremental growth comes from the beginning of starting somewhere and moving forward and getting better at it. [Jennifer] Taking those steps. When we were kind of walking through the notes for today's episode, you mentioned, you know, everybody wants to be at the 1,000 mile mark without ever having to start with the first step. [Aaron] Yeah, what's that quote? A journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step. [Jennifer] But yeah, everybody wants the reward, and everybody wants to experience the high of maturity or spiritual growth. [Aaron] And the blessings that come with it. [Jennifer] The blessings of leading your children and all these things, whatever the things may be. But there's a lot of work that's required of it. And sometimes we look at that work load and we say, "I can't do that." We don't believe that we're capable. But we wanna remind people that it's a matter of growing incrementally. It's making those daily choices, those individual steps toward those things. [Aaron] Yeah, being faithful. [Jennifer] Being faithful with them. [Aaron] In the very little things on a regular basis. You said something a second ago about not realizing, or not thinking we can handle stuff, or what we're capable of. I think the number one thing I've learned from my fitness journey, and we're not gonna keep talking about fitness by the way, this has been our template for why we were talking about this 'cause of what we've been seeing in me. Is that I'm surprised at what I am capable of. And every single time I go to the gym I'm like, "I can't believe I was able to do that." And I'm not tooting my own horn, it's just the nature of not telling myself I can't. And not giving up on myself and not giving into when it's difficult, and realizing what I'm capable of. There's, I was just thinking about this, what was the movie where the guy's escaped from the prison and they go across the Sahara Desert or whatever? And like it's just thousands and thousands of miles and they just survive. No one would think they could have gotten across the desert but they did. But that's how it is in life. We don't think we can accomplish things or make things happen in our lives, or learn something in the Bible that we see other people know or understand. And we're like, "Oh, we're not capable of that." I can't do that, you know, I can't go speak on stage, I can't go witness to someone, I can't, you know, spiritually lead my family. These are legitimate things that people see other people do, but then inside are like, "Oh, I don't have "it in me to do that." [Jennifer] Yeah, and I don't feel like people are walking around saying I can't do that, I can't do that, I think that it's kind of just something that we accept without even giving it a second thought sometimes. [Aaron] Well I know in my life that's happened a lot. There's things I've just said I couldn't do. But why? Who told me I couldn't do it? You know, doesn't mean I do everything. We wanna talk about the spiritual things in our lives that we can be implementing, walking in, that we can be building on. Becoming faithful in the little things because when we are faithful in these little things over time they compile into bigger things. You know I think spiritually when I think about being faithful in little being faithful in the big, and I think of that scripture where Jesus says, "If you deny me before man, "I will deny you before my Father in Heaven." And I think, you know, we don't as Christians just say, "Oh, one day if I'm persecuted "and put in this situation where "people are gonna threaten my life, "I'm just gonna stand for God." And then, in a very simple situation where someone asks me about my faith and I ignore the question or I avoid the answer. Like can I say that if I can't be faithful in that very little, safe, non life threatening situation. [Jennifer] How would you ever do it? [Aaron] Yeah, how could I possibly imagine that when my life's on the line, or someone else's life on the line, I'm gonna stand for my faith? And I think that's what we're getting at today is practicing walking in these little things. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I think that what I see beneficial about being faithful in the little stuff is in your relationship with God, and our relationship with God, we're actually building trust with Him. He's able to trust us. [Aaron] With more. Yeah so, I wanna read a couple scriptures here. In Luke chapter 16, Jesus is giving a parable. It's about a dishonest manager, and how he was taking advantage of his master's finances and bills and things that he was in charge of. And at the end of it Jesus says, he says this, it's in Luke 16:10. "One who is faithful in very little "is also faithful in much. "And one who is dishonest in very little "is also dishonest in much. "If then you have not been faithful "in the unrighteous wealth, "who will entrust to you the true riches? "And if you have not been faithful in that "which is another's, "who will give you that which is your own? "No servant can serve two masters "for either he will hate the one "and love the other, "or he will be devoted to the one "and despise the other. "You cannot serve God and money." So the direct context of this of course is finances, is money, is the things that we have, and it says unrighteous wealth. And what it's talking about is earthly gain, earthly money, earthly finances, earthly wealth. 'Cause He says if you can't be faithful on Earth with the money that you have that's not Heavenly, not eternal, how can you be entrusted with true riches? Which are Heavenly things. Which are eternal things. And so, the question out of this parable, even though this is specifically talking about money, is what earthly things do we have that we're being faithful with now? You know, I remember thinking when we first started our ministries, you know we launched our social media pages, and we were thinking like, "Man, that'd be so awesome. "What if we can get to a million followers?" [Jennifer] Oh yeah, I remember that. [Aaron] It was like our first year. And we had just started this thing. [Jennifer] We didn't know what we were doing. I mean we were just trying to, we knew our hearts were to encourage people and to utilize the tool of social media. But it was so new back then, too. It was all just, it was all new to us. [Aaron] Yeah, we hadn't even had it long enough to even be called faithful with it. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] You know. And we would've totally mismanaged a platform like that if it grew that fast without us being faithful with the little thing that we had. [Jennifer] So yeah, even though we wanted a large following and people that were part of our audience that we could speak into their lives and encourage, I wouldn't say that we were ready for that, especially when we first started. [Aaron] Of course not. That would be ridiculous. You know, in Timothy we learn about eldership and deaconship and that position it says they must not be a new convert. And the point is that they're not ready. They haven't been proven yet. And so there's lots of things in our life that we should be proven in, and we should walk in consistently to show that we're faithful in those areas. So I just wanna read one more scripture about the same subject. It's in Matthew 25:23. And it's in the same kind of parable. It's a parable of the Talents, you know, the master goes away, leaves three of his servants with a certain amount of Talents, and he expects return from them. And then he says this to one of them. His master said to him, "Well done good and faithful servant. "You have been faithful over little. "I will set you over much. "Enter into the joy of your master." That's what I want God to say to me. [Jennifer] Me too. [Aaron] That God's given me certain things. He's given me my marriage, my children, my job, our relationships, our home, our money, our car, all of these things. And there's much more, right. And I want Him to say that I was faithful with the things that He's given me. That I was faithful in investing them for the kingdom. You know, I wanna ask us, not just me and you Jennifer, but our listeners, what areas of our life, whatever areas of the things God's given us are we being faithful in? And what areas can we be more faithful in? Whether we thing they're big things or small things. We just have to recognize that the things that we currently have, the life that He's given us, He wants us to be faithful with. So, we're talking about, you know, being faithful to the things that God's given us. But I think on top of that, it's really good, we need to be good stewards, we need to be faithful with the things God's given us. But what about our spirit? What are some things that we can be faithful in in the little ways on the spiritual side of things in our life? [Jennifer] Well I definitely, like everyone would agree with me that reading His word and prayer are probably the top two things, right off the bat that we could look at our lives and evaluate whether we're doing that or not. Do we have a good, healthy habit? A daily routine of that? [Aaron] Yeah, being regular in the word and growing in that area. [Jennifer] I think some things that stop people from doing that is feeling like they don't know how to pray. Feeling like they don't understand God's word. And I think I would just encourage them that even if you don't understand it just keep reading it. Eventually God will help your heart to understand it, or maybe you'll have questions, and then you can go seek out answers to those questions. But it's a process. And I think that if we could just start with the simple, you know, just be active in reading, be active in sharing your heart with God, I think those are simple habits to start. [Aaron] Yeah, we're never gonna get better knowing the word of God without reading it. [Jennifer] It's true. [Aaron] And it is daunting, it's like whoa where do I start? And there's so much stuff, what's prophecy? How do I understand it? And there's just so much in the Bible, it's so rich, right? But, what we're getting at with all of this is we just start. You aren't going to get to the finish line without starting the race. And so this is kind of like our, you know, our call to action for the community, for those listening is if there's areas in your life that you know that you haven't been faithful in the little? Like you haven't been in the word of God regularly, haven't been praying, that today you start. [Jennifer] And it's not necessarily a chore either, like I just wanna encourage those listening that sometimes we can see the mountain ahead of us, and just like I said, be daunted by it, and think that's too hard. Or not enjoyable. Or see it as a chore to get to the top. But if you think of a mountain, and having a trail leading up to the top, you're gonna have, you're gonna go through probably tall trees or meadows or flowers or rocks and things to look at. And I think that it can be an enjoyable thing to pursue. It is an enjoyable thing to pursue. But we have to have the right perspective in order to see it that way. [Aaron] And it may not feel enjoyable at first because we're stretching muscles we've never used before. We're practicing something we haven't practiced before, so it is hard. It can be painful. Like, you know, going to bed later, so you can get in the word. Waking up earlier. Those aren't easy things in the beginning, but what happens is you build a craving for it and you start seeing the fruit from it. [Jennifer] And you enjoy that. [Aaron] And that's what you start enjoying. You're like, "Man, I enjoy the spiritual growth I'm seeing. "I enjoy the perspective I'm gaining. "I'm enjoying seeing my life change and transformed "by these new habits I'm forming. "By the word of God, by prayer, "by fellowship." You know, the things that the Bible's called us to. Walking in those things aren't always easy right in the beginning. But there's a quote that just says nothing worth doing's ever easy. You know. And these little things are worth doing. And we have a little note here, it just says incremental growth. The point is are we growing or are we stalled? Are we just staying in one place? Are we stagnant? The Bible uses that term lukewarm. We're neither hot nor cold, we're not going backwards or forwards. We're just remaining. And we don't wanna, a Marriage After God doesn't just remain. [Jennifer] Yeah, we wanna inspire you guys to take those steps forward. [Aaron] Yeah, we chase, we boldly chase after God's will for our lives. And there's only one way to know God's will. It's to dig into His word. And it's to dig into prayer. And it's to participate in the communion of the fellowship of being around believers and walking with one another, and accountability, and iron sharpening iron. But it starts somewhere. [Jennifer] And practically speaking how do you start building these habits or these routines, these things that we know we should be doing when we're not doing 'em. How do we start? [Aaron] Yeah, and it's not going straight to the end. Like okay, I'm gonna read three chapters a night, I'm gonna read through the whole Bible in a month and I'm gonna, it starts with I'm going to set a time every day that I'm gonna open the Bible. [Jennifer] You know when we first got married I remember your mom mentioned to me, she was just giving me tips and tricks on how to manage a home and all of that. And without saying that it was coupling she was actually teaching me the art of coupling. She would say things like, "You know, I read my Bible every morning "with a cup of coffee." So she goes and pours herself a cup of coffee, sits at the kitchen table, and she leaves her Bible on the kitchen table so she knows that those two things go together. And it's a way of building in that habit each and every day. Building a routine each and every day. And I never really put into practice the skill of coupling. Actually I forgot about it until a friend of ours brought it up to us a couple years ago, and kind of inspired you in the art of coupling. And do you wanna talk about that a little bit? [Aaron] Yeah, so, this is just a tip for anyone who wants to implement new habits and routines in their life, especially in these spiritual areas of like reading the word of God or praying, or going and being with other believers. We can couple, which is taking something you already do on a regular basis, taking a habit you already have, and adding the new habit or routine to it. So a good example would be like, if you took a shower every morning, having a note on the mirror in the bathroom to remind you to pray. Or putting your prayer notes on the mirror or somehow in the bath, in the shower when you're in there. So what you're doing is your coupling your daily routine of showering with a daily routine of prayer. [Jennifer] Yeah, so currently right now, by the way I just have to note. If they hear baby noises, coos and burps, it's, the baby's on my lap. But right now we're-- [Aaron] Real life. We're coupling podcasting with parenting. [Jennifer] Yeah. We are trying to find cues within our rhythm of just managing the kids, and so after Bible time I help Elliot with piano, and so for me a signal of ending Bible time means piano time helps me remember that we have to do piano every day. [Aaron] Which we've been talking about piano, we love that our son's learning piano, but it's been hard to have a routine of daily practice. And so we're like okay, what can we couple it with? What can be our cue during the day for you to just go straight to piano practice? And so we're making it right after Bible time he'll do piano practice. Bible time is a good example of something that we've been working on in our home. Forming new habits and better routines and something that's going to spiritually benefit our home and family and children. [Jennifer] Which we've seen. [Aaron] Yeah, and this actually was a hard thing. I remember thinking man I wanna be leading my family spiritually, I wanna be a spiritual leader, I wanna implement things that are gonna benefit my children and myself. And I remember thinking how hard that was. I was like I don't even know what to do, where do I start? What do I, what am I supposed to do? And I just told myself one day. I was like I'm just gonna start. So I was like okay kids, come sit down on the couch, we're doing Bible time. And they're like what? What is Bible time? And didn't it start off, I think we've talked about it before, it started off at like a verse. [Jennifer] Yeah it was short. [Aaron] Like we just did one verse. And I would talk about it for a minute. I didn't have like a set Bible study, I was just like, "Okay, what do you think "that verse meant? "What was your favorite word out of the verse? "What does it mean when he says this?" [Jennifer] Now the whole family looks forward to it. [Aaron] Yeah and it's not just a verse anymore. We read up to two chapters and it will probably get more and more eventually. And that's just an example of starting somewhere. And since we started it's been, we started in January I think. Or February. And it's pretty much been a whole year now. And we do it, I feel like we do it four to five times a week on average. There's some days that we miss. I have coffees on Wednesday mornings so I don't think I do it then. I think you've been doing it. So, that's a routine we have in our home. That our children are hearing the word of God, they're learning the word of God, I'm getting better at leading and having this routine. And what's awesome is when you take these small steps of faithfulness, so me just sitting down for a few minutes a day, reading the Bible with the kids turns into other things. It makes it easier to now have a routine for piano practice. To have a routine for breakfast and a routine for what comes next in the day. And a routine for prayer in the car. We've been practicing, just, we're driving and like hey, who could we be praying for right now, kids? It makes those muscles, those spiritual muscles easier to use. Stronger. [Jennifer] I just keep thinking how much stronger our kids are gonna be. [Aaron] Yeah, because we're practicing habits and spiritual skills now. They're gonna benefit from them. And that's the whole point is we want them to benefit from them. And we're benefiting from 'em. I find myself wanting to read more, which I've always told myself I'm not a reader. And then the other day I was like I'm just gonna read books. So I have like three open books right now in my nightstand. I haven't read through all of them yet, but I'm reading through all of them currently. And I have this audiobook I'm listening to so I'm just trying to walk in new things. I just don't wanna be the same person all the time. I wanna be moving forward. I wanna be growing in life. And I know you feel the same way. It's things that we've been seeing and know that God wants from us is just maturity and growth. So what areas in our life are you seeing that we may need a break? Like habits we may need to break or replace with other habits? [Jennifer] Well I know for myself, we were just talking about this the other day, but when I feel overwhelmed, or even if I feel like I just accomplished something really hard, I treat myself. And it's like that's my cue for a bad habit. Or like I said when I feel overwhelmed. [Aaron] Like you've earned it. Like oh I've earned to go splurge. [Jennifer] Yeah, or if I feel overwhelmed and I just wanna feel better, those are just some simple cues that give me a very bad habit of you know, filling that with sugar or whatever the treat is. [Aaron] Yeah, fill in the blank. [Jennifer] Fill in the blank. So I think that's one thing that I am looking forward to breaking. [Aaron] So replacing that supposed reward you wanna give yourself with something more healthy. [Jennifer] Another one would be going to bed late because I wanna build a habit of getting up early and getting in the word before I get going with the kids. But I know in order to do that I need to go to bed earlier. [Aaron] Yeah, and these are again, these are little things. So just trying to be on the same page, and say hey, what will it take to get to bed 30 minutes earlier tonight? It's setting for ourselves some goals maybe. Little goals like hey, if we're gonna be praying with each other at night let's make sure that we have the kids in bed on time, let's make sure that we're efficient, let's crawl into bed and let's spend time in prayer together. [Jennifer] And I do feel like we are getting stronger and better, more obedient, more faithful in these small things. And sometimes it can feel defeating when we think about we've already come so far, or we've already stretched that muscle so much. We've already changed. [Aaron] Yeah, do I need to do more? Gosh. [Jennifer] Yeah, we've already changed so much and then it hurts when God, or you, or someone reveals that there's more to go. Or even just like, there's another step to take. It can feel really defeating. But that's what faithfulness is all about is just being willing to take that next step forward. Yeah, and I wanna encourage those listening. We've mentioned quite a few things in our life that God might be wanting to change in us and grow in us, and give us more diligence and more faithfulness in, because He's just building and building on us. And again like we said in the beginning, they could be listening to all of this and be like well that's so much, where am I supposed to start with all of that? And my encouragement is just start. God's probably revealing right now to you one area that He would love to see you grow in and change in. Is it just spending some time while you're driving to work praying instead of listening to the radio? And not thinking like oh, I have these 50 things I need to do today, 'cause you will fail. We've experienced that in our lives. We have this grandeur idea like oh I wanna be this person, this is what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna implement these 12 things and I'm gonna be that person tomorrow. And then it's like that's too hard, I can't do it. But what we found is it's real easy to do something small. But then when you do 1,000 small things, right? It becomes a very big thing. I wouldn't have imagined that we would have written 12 books eight years ago. We didn't write 'em all in the same day. [Jennifer] That would have been really hard. I'm glad God didn't ask us to. [Aaron] Thank God, yeah. [Jennifer] He knows us better than we know ourselves. [Aaron] But now looking back it's like oh, we did one book. And then we did a second book. We had 1,000 followers, and then 10,000 followers, and again, not just to talk about us. I'm just, the point is, we started somewhere. And unless we start we're not gonna ever get anywhere. [Jennifer] And I think a marriage after God is willing to start, and they're willing to embrace hard things, and they're willing to persevere. And they're willing to look at the future with vision and understanding and hope that they will, they will mature, and they will grow, and they will exercise those muscles for the purposes of what God has for them to glorify His name. [Aaron] Yeah I was gonna ask why does all this matter? [Jennifer] Yeah, it's for Him. [Aaron] Like why are we even? It's for Him. He's got something for us to do. Just think of that scripture that tells us that God's prepared beforehand, before we were even formed in the womb, He had good works for us to accomplish in this world for Him. So all of these things, they're not so that we can feel more holy or look what we've done. The only goal, the only drive, the only passion that should be pushing any of these decisions forward, and giving us motivation to do these things, and grow in these areas, is to see what He's doing in our life, and to see what He's. [Jennifer] Truett agrees. [Aaron] Yeah, Truett agrees. So I hope this encourages those that are listening to ask God what areas they can build new habits in, and to be revealed, areas they can just start today. [Jennifer] I'm willing to bid they already know what that next step is. [Aaron] Yeah they're thinking right now like oh, I've been wanting to do this. [Jennifer] Okay, you just need to do it. [Aaron] You just need to do it. So I said last night Jennifer, you were mentioning how you wanted to start something, and I was like, "Start? "Start today?" I didn't say it harshly, but I was just like the reality is that it's not going to start for you, like start it. [Jennifer] And sometimes I feel like we always wanna say like we'll start Monday. And that never works because then Monday comes, then Tuesday comes, then Wednesday comes, and you forgot that you were supposed to start Monday. So then you have to start Monday again. [Aaron] That's one of the tactics our flesh uses to keep us from moving forward, to keep us from growing up. Is as long as it's tomorrow it's not today. So let's just make it today. Today's the day of salvation. Today is the day that we make those changes. Today is the day we say yes to God. Today is the day we believe what the scriptures say about the power that's in us, the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. And that we walk in it. We walk in the spirit, not the flesh. I just hope everyone that's listening is encouraged, I mean it's something that Jennifer and I are walking through and growing in and learning how to be. So a new thing that we've been doing is ending in prayer. And so Jennifer's got a prayer for you all today. So would you please join us in prayer? [Jennifer] Dear Lord, we pray that we would be men and women who submit our lives to you. Examine our lives and show us the areas that need transformation and change. We pray we wouldn't complain or grumble when you revealed to us bad habits that we need to break, or what the next step of growth is that we need to take. Help us not to be prideful or resistant when you use our spouse to speak a word of truth about the habits in our lives. May we receive what they have to share with a humble heart, knowing that what they share is motivated by love. We pray we would walk in righteousness. Holy Spirit help us to break the stronghold of habits that need to go, rhythms and routines that have become natural to us but don't benefit us or our families. When you convict our hearts toward change may we boldly choose to walk out what you desire for us. May we be faithful in the little things each and every day, knowing that our faithfulness is building trust in a relationship with you. Please help us to prepare our hearts and our bodies for the work that you have for us. May we take time to encourage our spouse in building better habits, and keep each other accountable to the changes we aim to make. Lord help us to be faithful in the small things so that we are prepared for the bigger things. In Jesus' name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen. So thanks for joining us for today's episode. We pray that you would hear the heart of the Lord today. And that you would seek out what He has for you, and how He wants you to grow. And we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With Us
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