[00:00:15] Speaker A: Catch us, the little foxes.
They're feasting on our own.
They're cruel.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Hello, my name is Michael. My wife Shannon's over here fighting with the computer, getting our sound up at this time. Hey, there she is.
[00:00:36] Speaker C: Here we are.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Here we are. It's been a little bit. It's been a little bit. Been a few minutes since we made a podcast.
[00:00:41] Speaker C: Not even gonna. Not even gonna make excuses, but we're here. We're back. So it's been crazy busy. Resurrection Sunday.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yes. Everybody, Happy Easter. Jesus Christ most definitely is reason.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: And he's alive.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: And he is alive. He is coming back. He is waiting, coming back for us.
[00:01:02] Speaker C: I'm so excited to be able to, you know, celebrate his life and his resurrection.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Today. And get to spend time with our family and watch our little kids do fun things today. And.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yeah, we had a good time today. Sorry.
[00:01:16] Speaker C: Go to church and celebrate his life. And, you know, I feel like every year, holidays like this mean more to me than they used to.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah. We're getting older.
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Yeah. But it's not just that. It's like. It's. It's like the maturity that you start to get with your walk with Christ and the revelations you get about who he is. And the Feast of Israel and understanding, like, Passover and understanding first fruit and understanding. Pentecost, or what they called it, was Shavuot. I probably said that wrong.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Shabbat.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: No, maybe Shabbat. Maybe that's how they say it.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And then we're talking about the Jewish people.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Yeah. Their festivals. And how Jesus was.
You know, he was actually.
Those festivals were about him.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: And so we're one festival. People filled those festivals. So. So anyway, those festivals we, like, last year, we were. We were able to partake. We had a Passover Seder at our house, and it was so wonderful.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Yes, it was.
[00:02:26] Speaker C: To experience that. And so anyway, sidebar. We just love celebrating that kind of stuff. It just gives our faith more meaning and celebrating as a family.
And we felt so weird and awkward because I know for you, you were like. Because you're the head of our house, and you had to read all that scripture. You had to read all those weird things, and we did all these things that we had never done before, and it was so kind of strange.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It was strange at first, but then once you start realizing the importance of it, it's. It's kind of like your whole body just says, finally you're doing something right.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: And, well, your body and your. I think your spirit starts to.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Spirit starts Definitely coming into the room starts waking up your spirit, and you
[00:03:07] Speaker C: start to realize that that kind of stuff is necessary and it matters in your spiritual walk.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: It was definitely a moment that I will never forget, and we plan on doing more.
You know, guys, since we're grafted into the vine of Israel, then we are actually. I guess we're supposed to be doing.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: I don't think that.
[00:03:25] Speaker B: I mean, it's not a lot.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: I don't think people have to do them, but I think it just kind of enriches your walk and your experience.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Absolutely, it does.
[00:03:35] Speaker C: So should you choose to do them, I think you'll be grateful that you did.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I enjoyed it. And I think everybody at the table that day, I don't think anybody at the table had done it. It was your mom and dad and Allie and Dre, and I don't think anybody had done it before. Maybe Allie and Dre.
[00:03:51] Speaker C: No, they hadn't, because Allie was almost in tears. She was like, wow, beautiful.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: It was church without church. It was just such an intimate moment with Jesus. It was just so intimate.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
We just want to encourage you to look into these feasts, these festivals that are really Old Testament celebratory for Israel, but honestly, they're part of our heritage now, too, and they all point to Jesus.
Some of them are prophetic still. Like, they still haven't been fulfilled.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Like I said a second ago, we were grafted into the vine, and there's a lot of people. My dad, when he was alive, always thought the Old Testament didn't matter anymore.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: A lot of people think that because
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Jesus came and he said, I'll leave this one commandment, love one another. And we've all sucked at that. And that kind of ties into the message we got today.
But, yeah, it was just such a special moment, and I felt kind of sad about that. We had completely forgot about it, about doing it this time.
But maybe it's wasn't the time for sure. I think the next feast we're going to have is the Feast of Tabernacles.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: No. So actually, what. What's next gonna be what we call Pentecost, what they call Shavuot.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Didn't we have that with Lisa and Greg, Caroline?
[00:05:12] Speaker C: Yeah, we have some friends that came over, and we had a Pentecost service or whatever you want to call here. And. And that, you know, what that symbolized? We're totally getting off track. What that symbolized for the Israelites was when the law was given. But what it symbolized for, for us in the New Testament was the Holy Spirit came and the law was written on their hearts.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: So that was the correlation.
Yeah. The law became the Holy Spirit written on heart. The Holy Spirit fell. We received that and all the other gifts that come along. The Holy Spirit living inside of you. So anyway, today on topic. Yeah. Let's get back on track.
Hopefully we didn't lose you guys, but we get really excited about that stuff. So we're talking about if we love each other, this shouldn't be this hard.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: A lot of young people enter in just relationships.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: I wouldn't say they have to be
[00:06:08] Speaker B: young, they don't have to be young.
A lot of people out there think that love conquers all.
Jesus says love each other. He doesn't say it's going to be hard. He doesn't say it's going to easy. He just says love one another.
Well, I want to tell you right now, love is hard.
Love is not easy.
It is a non ending stream of work and compromise and unselfishness and putting yourself last and loving your spouse or your girlfriend or boyfriend and making them a priority in your life. Love, just because you love each other doesn't mean that your marriage is going to be great. Because once you're together, the world is going to try to tear you apart.
It's just a matter of that.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: And I think that the misconception and the problem that we run into is that.
And we don't always say it out loud, but we start wondering because when it does get hard, we think, did we miss it? Did we marry the wrong person?
Or why does this feel harder than we thought it would? Like we think something's wrong because it is hard.
We think something must be wrong.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: And that is not always true.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Right. Why are we having money problems? We're married, we both work. Why are we fighting?
Well, trying on a different shirt, you got to get used to the clothes, you got to get used to the way each other fits with each other.
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean there's so many things that work into that equation. But. And we're going to jump into some of those. But we're going to talk about one of the biggest. Because what we want to do, because we're starting a series and it's going to be about the biggest lies we believe about marriage. So this time we're going to be talking about, you know, the lie is
[00:08:00] Speaker B: that love should make it easy.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: Yeah. That it should never be hard.
If we love each other, it's never going to be hard.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: Love should make it Easy, Right, right. So.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: And you know, in the. And the references that people have these days are movies, you know, it's an effortless love and you know, it kind of makes me nauseous. Whenever you're watching a movie and all of a sudden the ending of it is where they're kissing and you just imagine this glorious life happening ever after.
You know, it's not, it's not Snow White, it's not Cinderella.
[00:08:34] Speaker C: Seriously, like ever after you. That's a little cute movie. That was like one of my favorite movies that came out in the early 2000s, I think, and it had Drew Barrymore and I would just what it was pg. I loved that movie because that was like my favorite idea of what it would be like to be rescued, to be loved perfectly, to just have all of your needs met and some French charming to just swoop up, swoop up and you up and just like make your life perfect and then you're rescued out of this dumpy crap hole that you lived in and then for the rest of your life it's perfect.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Right?
[00:09:09] Speaker C: And I think, and I know it doesn't exist, I know it doesn't exist, but even all of us, we want to believe that that exists. And I think the reason we do that is because we were created to live in perfection. We were not created to live in a broken, busted world.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: But that's what we're in because it is.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: We crave it.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: It's all ease fault.
[00:09:35] Speaker C: We crave living in perfection with a beautiful storyline that doesn't have brokenness into it. So we're always gonna write stories that are perfect that end up somehow being, you know, the thing we want the fairy tale ending. So.
And I mean, I can't fault Hollywood for doing that or story writers and books. And I mean, we can't fault them because they just want the same thing we want. But we have to recognize that that is not going to exist in this world.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Well, we're in an epidemic of divorce. Yeah, it's easier to get a divorce than it is to fight for a marriage and struggle through those first few years. It's just easy. You'll pay a lawyer $5,000, you're divorced, you get half.
But you know, one of the way, another one of the ways that we see the perfect marriage is through highlight reels on social media. And I watch a lot of highlight reels.
I'm sick of it. Because, okay, you gotta. Guys gotta remember about those things on social media. They're skits, they're. They're acting probably when that camera turns off, they're sleeping in separate room. Who knows?
[00:10:42] Speaker C: They're yelling at each other.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: They're yelling at each other and throwing pots and pans and stuff like that. So it's just. It's not real, you know, And I think that some people these days are having a hard time distinguishing reality from movie.
And it's really important that you stay grounded in the real.
[00:11:00] Speaker C: I wish that. Yeah, that's the thing. So what people are putting on social media is the cleaned up, perfected version of what they want everyone to see.
They're not showing people what really is there. Again, it's that fairy tale version. Because that's what sells.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Right. Well, I got a question for you. Did you expect our marriage to feel easier than it actually has?
[00:11:25] Speaker C: Yes, I did, because I wanted the fairy tale. I did, too, because I had come out of the hellish nightmare marriage that. And it wasn't always terrible, but it was so hard there at the end that I just longed for something beautiful and I thought that I deserved it.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:45] Speaker C: You know, and so I thought it was going to be easy. I didn't think it was going to go the way that it went for sure.
And I definitely thought.
I definitely thought that God would not lead me down that path or let me go through that.
I wasn't expecting that. I thought he would protect me right. From that, too. So that there was a little bit of anger towards God. I'm like, why didn't you prevent this?
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Like, you know, I agree with you completely.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: So. No, I did not think it was going to be. I mean, yeah, I thought it was going to be easier than what it was. Did you? You said you did, too.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Well, I don't. Yeah. I don't think anyone says this belief, but they carry it. Everyone carries the belief that. Okay, it makes me feel good. We fit perfectly together. We have all the same interests. We all like to do the same things. And then when you get married, reality sets in and you realize you guys have very few things in common.
So you have to stay grounded, find the things that you guys are good in.
[00:12:50] Speaker C: That's not really what made ours difficult.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: My actions made things difficult because I
[00:12:55] Speaker C: don't feel like with us, it's not a compatibility issue. No, it never was. I don't feel like we're not. I feel like we're compatible.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:07] Speaker C: And I felt that way pretty early on.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. Very early on.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: For the most part. I mean, yeah, you're. You're kind of nerdy sciencey weird. I'm kind of nerdy literature weird.
And we crossed over, overlap into each other's world. You know, you can kind of get caught up in watching weird.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: In my useless history facts.
I have a billion of them. Yeah.
[00:13:32] Speaker C: And. And you like. You like to be outdoors more than I do. I appreciate it, but I have, like, fears of certain things, you know, but ours was more of. Yeah, some of the addiction stuff that you had. That.
That was what made our marriage hard, you know?
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Right. Well, we don't say marriage should be easy, but we feel. Everyone feels like it should be easier than what is going on right now. Because here's what some people believe. This is what I believe. Okay? God got us together.
He's going to give us everything we want, all the groceries we want. We'll have nice cars. Every year. I can get that boat or that motorcycle, which I am getting a motorcycle in a few weeks.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: A few weeks.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Well, I'll be done with that.
[00:14:14] Speaker C: That's news to me.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Oh, no, we talked about this.
But a few weeks.
[00:14:19] Speaker C: I thought you said by the end of the.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Okay, I'm trying to push it forward a little bit. I'm pushing it forward a little bit.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: Let's talk about that.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But.
But yeah, we. Just because God gets you together doesn't mean that he's going to make things.
You're not going to be on a paved road all the time. The road's gonna have potholes. The road's gonna be washed out.
There's gonna be times when you have to lean on each other to get through it. And there's some points that we're gonna talk about on this episode of Things that People Believe and the ways that you encounter those.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, let's talk about those. So what is actually happening when two people get married?
Because marriage doesn't remove issues. It's going to reveal what they are.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Well, there's two different backgrounds colliding.
[00:15:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: You know, two different things that are going on.
[00:15:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, you had a totally different way of being raised and different belief system than I did.
You know, your dad wasn't home a lot. Your mom did everything.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Mentally ill. It was crazy.
[00:15:24] Speaker C: You know, communication differences.
You were made to just from the way you're raised, but also military. You're made to suppress your feelings, your emotions.
And also, I think that with you, you don't tell me how you feel or what you need as you feel like that's wrong. As. I mean, you're not supposed to triggers. You didn't know you Had. We both have those. Everybody has.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Well, I don't. Well, I knew I had triggers, but I know that they happened as often as they did until we got married.
You know, things started happening. Well, just loud noises and then. And then the negativity at work, you know, you know, just the different adrenaline things.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: You didn't know you had an adrenaline issue?
[00:16:12] Speaker B: It never crossed my mind. It never did.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: How did you figure that out after
[00:16:16] Speaker B: we got what happened?
[00:16:20] Speaker C: No, you knew that when. That day that it happened, you told me.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it was just the high of doing something risky, you know, you can't take a man.
[00:16:28] Speaker C: I don't know. How did you know? Because you told me that that's what it was.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Because it was high.
[00:16:32] Speaker C: Got high up that you said that. I mean, did you have, like, a revelation that day to God, Tell me.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Well, I had had a revelation before that, but that day it really manifested. And I realized that day that, you know what? This is a problem, and I've got to get it under control.
[00:16:49] Speaker C: There was no getting under control.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: There was nine. It was done.
[00:16:52] Speaker C: That's the thing with an addiction. You can't get it under control.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:16:57] Speaker C: And then there's the. I think there's the.
The idea that expectations versus reality. Because this is where a lot of people.
Because anytime you're dealing with marriage or anything, like any kind of dream that you might have, there's the expectation and then there's the reality. And this is where a lot of people get trapped because of the disillusionment they face with it or the disappointment that they may have, because what they end up with, the reality, is nowhere near what they had expected in the beginning.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Well, one of the expectations that I'm thinking about is that we're always going to be able to talk about things face to face, and we're always going to agree on everything that is not a reality. There's always a difference. No two people are exactly alike.
And then triggers.
Triggers can happen at the most random times. Like if I'm talking to you about one thing or the other and you say something that triggers a past memory.
That's it. That's an argument.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: It could be if it's not right,
[00:18:01] Speaker B: if it's not handled correctly.
So that's where the communication comes.
So, yeah.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: And I like this because I think this is so true. Marriage is the mirror you didn't know you needed.
Marriage is so powerful because it is a mirror to who you really are and all your issues.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:18:27] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. Do you need some Caffeine.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: I need a shot of caffeine or something.
[00:18:31] Speaker C: You almost said adrenaline.
No, you don't need a shot of adrenaline.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: No, I don't. I need.
[00:18:38] Speaker C: I would actually. I think an even more powerful, powerful statement about marriage is it is death to self.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: It is. You've got to. Well, you've got to learn how, you know, when you're single and you're living the high life, you're doing this. You put yourself first.
Because, you know, I can do what I want. I can go here, I can go there. I mean, you had a ministry that you were doing. You didn't have to worry about anybody, you know, and when you were single, you're making more money single than you were when you got married.
So things are easier when you're single.
I know people are saying that's not true, but I'm telling you it is. Because when you get married, then you don't have to worry about just yourself. You got to worry about your spouse as well. And instead of having one bank account or two bank accounts, you've got one. And there's nothing worse to argue about in a marriage than money.
[00:19:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And you gotta also, it's not just worried about the other person, but it's a lot of sacrifice. It is a lot of giving up for the other person and putting them first.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Absolutely.
And I don't mind doing that, you know, because I get happy seeing you. Yeah, I don't mind. I don't mind putting myself.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: And you're very unselfish. Because I'll be like, I'm gonna go spend this money on myself. And you're like, okay, yeah, you have, like, two pairs of shoes and I have like, 30. And you're like, yeah, it's fine. Just get another pair.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Well, I mean, if it makes you happy to get it, then I want you to be happy, you know, that's just the way I am, you know, why argue about a pair of shoes? You need them, then you need them.
[00:20:04] Speaker C: I don't need them. Well, I know, but actually I did because my little toes had blisters on them.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Her poor little feet. She started exercising again and her feet felt a little blister. Little wimp.
[00:20:16] Speaker C: No, because my toes are wide.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Yeah, she has wide toes. Well, the front of her, anyway.
So what happens when people believe the lie that it's easy, you know, and it's that way. What happens when people start believing if it's hard, something is wrong in conflict is incompatibility.
And then when you go through frustration you think we're not good together. Well, that's what the enemy wants you to believe.
And there are some things that you should say whenever you have these people.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: Well, let's go back through that. So this is what's happening in your mind when something is hard, you start saying, oh, my gosh, this is hard. So something must be wrong with one of us, both of us, or just in our marriage. Yeah, oh, my gosh, we're not going to make it. Or if there's conflict, then, oh, my gosh, we must be incompatible. I knew it. I freaking knew it.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Right?
[00:21:23] Speaker C: I've said that before.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: My friends did not lie. Friends are horrible.
[00:21:27] Speaker C: Marriage. And that kind of spirals in this whole narrative into, oh, my God, I knew it, we're never gonna make it. And. And if you're anything like me, that. That can really turn into a big, you know, huge narrative.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't listen to your best friend. Don't go crying to your mother because, well, your mom's cool. Your mother's cool.
[00:21:45] Speaker C: Right? Right.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: But there are some mothers out there live off of. Off of drama.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Honey, I wanted to tell you he wasn't good for you. I wanted to tell you that I saw evil in it.
[00:21:56] Speaker C: Yeah. If you're gonna talk to somebody, make sure they're godly, and make sure they
[00:21:59] Speaker B: are, because if you got somebody who's not godly, they're gonna give you all kind of bad advice.
[00:22:02] Speaker C: Right.
Well, when you believe marriage should be easy, then every hard moment starts to feel like evidence that something is broken.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: Everything turns it. I mean, the whole thing that we're trying to say here is you need to set your expectation up from the beginning that marriage is not going to be easy. If anyone has ever, ever told you that their marriage was easy, they're lying to you. They're not in a real marriage.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: They're not.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: They're. They're in something else. And then it's not a marriage.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: I always said my parents had the perfect marriage because dad was never.
[00:22:34] Speaker C: That's it. He was never home.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So they never. They weren't really married. I mean, they had the marriage license, but they didn't live together. When dad would come home from work, they would argue and throw pots and pants.
[00:22:44] Speaker C: They had separate lives.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: Yes, they did.
And then when dad finally had to quit working, he developed Alzheimer's. So it's not funny, but what I'm saying is that they never did have the type of relationship where they could be around each other 24 7. They didn't have that.
[00:23:07] Speaker C: No, you're good.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: So there are some examples and I'm going to go just mix a couple here.
Arguments.
Yeah, arguments feel bigger than they are.
Say your spouse comes in with a new pair of shoes and you realize that you have just a limited amount of money in the bank.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: What are we talking about?
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Well, because she realized that she had a limited amount of money in the bank and this person went out and I'm sorry, we heard a weird noise in the house and we're both kind of freaked out because our house doesn't make noise.
So the argument is bigger because you see your spouse come in with a pair of shoes and you guys didn't talk about it first. You just went out and just bought them. Then it's just kind of like, well, you don't respect me because she didn't come to me and talk to me about that issue.
[00:24:09] Speaker C: That feels like something.
There's evidence that something's broken or something is hidden or something is not. Right.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: Right. And then the distance that's caused by the argument feels permanent as well.
It's kind of hard to come back from a disagreement when you feel betrayed.
We have lived it, and only through hard prayer, fasting, praying and praying and praying, going to church together.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: I'm going to tell you it was the work of the Lord because it was.
It was until. It wasn't until recently that God finally took it out of my heart.
I don't know if. I don't know if you've noticed there's been a difference. In the last, I would say month, I was being tormented with thoughts and me just constantly, I was way. You know, I would tell you I keep getting woke. I would. Getting woken up with that.
[00:25:08] Speaker B: Right? Yeah.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: Woken up with thoughts, tormenting thoughts, memories, just random things, you know, like remembering text message threads or whatever.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:22] Speaker C: It would be. And this. This went on for like a year.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:25:27] Speaker C: And I don't know, I just. I went to a couple of counseling appointments with this lady online and some of the things that she said to me, I don't even really honestly remember what all she said, but there was just something about it. And I just made up my mind that I.
I wasn't going to live that way anymore.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:48] Speaker C: That I wanted to go back to myself, who I was, who I am.
And I had to completely just let God handle you.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Right. And he does. On a daily basis.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: I had to hand you off to him and just say, you know what?
I can't live like that.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:12] Speaker C: And also it was just like letting him really work fully work forgiveness.
And also it was like truly seeing you the way that he saw you and letting the empathy that I needed to really know why you did it.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:30] Speaker C: That helped me.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: Well.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: And this is where we shift from problem.
Right.
This is where we shift from always seeing the problem to coming to where the truth is situation.
And the core message here is hard. Just because things are hard at the moment doesn't mean they're the wrong. That they're wrong.
Hard doesn't mean wrong. And what that means is everything worth having, you're going to have to work for. You're going to have to put effort into it. Sometimes you got to put your sweat and tears. Yes, you're going to fight, you're going to argue about things. But as long as you guys stay together and work through the hard situations together, then things will lighten up and up.
And also, hard doesn't mean that often. I'm sorry. Hard often means that growth is happening.
And that's a very true statement sitting there and you're arguing about this stuff because you guys have never encountered it together before.
Like, I used the reference of buying shoes and not telling your spouse.
That's a growing moment because maybe the spouse didn't realize they should have discussed that with you. Maybe you guys are newlyweds. Maybe you guys are just now living together and you realize that, oh, my God, I can't do this without discussing that anymore. Money has to be discussed as a joint venture.
You there?
[00:28:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Right.
And the spiritual layer to it. And this is your layer marriage as Rafa. Anyway. Can you explain that?
[00:28:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the ways, the biggest way that God
[00:28:24] Speaker B: really like Silver.
[00:28:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I think one of the biggest ways God really refines us and changes us the most is by marriage. And I think that's why he created.
Created the institution of marriage.
Because it honestly is the only way that I think we become the most like him because we have to die to ourselves.
And I also think parenting is one of the other ways. Those are the two most selfless things that we can do.
So when you do both of them, chances are if you do them right, you're going to learn how to love well.
You're going to learn how to humble yourself.
You're going to learn how to be an amazing, selfless person.
And I think that's what. What it's supposed to be about. It's. It's about refinement, but it's also about learning how to walk in some Level of unity. If you look at the Trinity, it's perfect unity.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:30] Speaker C: And something one of my counselors taught me years ago about the Trinity that I had never seen before was he said, when you look at the Trinity, they all celebrate each other.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:29:41] Speaker C: They are in. There's such love between the Trinity, between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There's such reverence and there is absolutely no competition between them. They are in perfect harmony.
That's the way a marriage partnership should be. There should absolutely be no striving between the two people. There should be perfect harmony between you, me and the Father, the Holy Spirit in our marriage. And we should be celebrating each other. We should be so happy for each other. We should be cheering each other on. It should be a beautiful relationship where we build each other up, we encourage each other. I'm telling you, in your business, you can do this. I believe in you, you can do anything. I absolutely am standing here encouraging you,
[00:30:33] Speaker B: praying for you, writing and dialogue and even in your work. That's where teamwork comes in. That's when it starts hitting a cohesive unit, cohesiveness that you haven't had before. Because then you become a well oiled machine. I encourage you, you encourage me and the engine starts running perfectly together.
[00:30:52] Speaker C: Yeah. And you know, I mean, the thing is what people. If you can get past this yucky heart stuff in the beginning of the two becoming one, because that's really what we're talking about.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:03] Speaker C: Two becoming one hurts like heck it does. And it's going to take you a while because it's abrasive and rough. I mean, iron sharpens iron.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:31:14] Speaker C: And it doesn't feel good in the beginning.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: I'm sorry, but.
[00:31:18] Speaker C: Well, if you can get past that, then it becomes something beautiful. Because what God is doing is he's making something beautiful out of you together.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well. And if anyone. Have you ever seen how iron is made, how it blended together and everything? You got a blacksmith, he's got this huge anvil in front of him. He's got this big table where he does all of his work.
And what he'll do is he'll take two pieces of cold iron and he'll put them in his burner and he'll heat them up several hundred.
Just get them hot enough to where they're glowing red, but they're still not together. They're on fire, they're hot, they're moldable, but they're not together. What he'll do is he'll take those two pieces of Iron. And he would put them together, and then he will use his hammer, and he will hammer them into one unit.
It's not easy.
It's a difficult process.
God is the black God is the blacksmith controlling the furnace temperature. He's controlling the iron. And if you look at it like this, it puts things into a really good perspective, is that the iron doesn't want to go together. The iron is going to resist it. But through God being the hammer, and he's working you and he's molding you together, he'll wrap you around each other to where suddenly you don't have the option but to become that heat.
[00:32:43] Speaker C: He uses that heat, man.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Right. He uses that heat. And the heat is your stressful situations. The fire is the things that you're going through. But lean on God, say God, be the hammer. Be the black myth, and bring us together on situation.
[00:32:56] Speaker C: He'll choose not to turn on each other.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:32:59] Speaker C: Because that's what the enemy wants. And that's what I found is he'll try to hit you against each other, but your spouse is not your enemy, Right?
[00:33:08] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:33:08] Speaker C: They're not your enemy. If you'll lean into God.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:11] Speaker C: And into each other and pray with each other, man, that's. That's one of their biggest weapons, is when you want to, like, pounce on your spouse and punch them.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:20] Speaker C: Like. Like actually say, you know what? Right now in this moment, let's stop and pray together. It's going to be hard, right. To be violent towards your spouse. If you stop and pray together, it's actually gonna. It's gonna stop him in his tracks right then and there.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: And then what if I do that? Absolutely. It's hard to do that. And what are the hard parts? Your marriage aren't signs that you chose wrong, but signs that God is actually working on both of you.
[00:33:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Right.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: That's the furnace. That's the heat. That's the hammer. That's molding you two together. And just keep that image in your mind where you guys aren't agreeing on something. You're butting head because you're not supposed to together. You're two separate units. But God is forcing you to come together. He's bonding them atoms. He's bonding all of that elements together.
And once it's together and it's cooled off and it's polished, nothing can break it.
[00:34:13] Speaker C: Unbreakable.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: It is unbreakable.
[00:34:15] Speaker C: Hard to break iron apart.
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:34:19] Speaker C: So, yeah. So I think the question that you need to ask yourself instead of why is this so Hard. You need to ask why. What is this revealing?
Because I find after counseling people for years and even in my own self, is stop looking at your spouse and trying to pick them apart and see what their issue is.
You have your own issues, and God is probably wanting to work on you just as much as he wants to work on your spouse. I'm not saying your spouse doesn't have issues. They probably do.
But you just need to worry about you and God, what does he want to work on with you?
And then you just pray. You just pray for your spouse. And not in a way that it's like, oh, my gosh, I can't stand them, Lord, would you just fix them? Would you just fix them, Lord, just
[00:35:09] Speaker B: keep me from killing this woman, this man.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: It's not like that. It's so crazy. Like, if you'll just lean into the Holy Spirit, he will tell you how to pray. If you just ask him to pray through you, he will actually take your mouth and begin to pray through you for your spouse. And he'll take over. And before you know it, you're praying in a totally different way that you would have never prayed. And he's praying, and if you let him pray, he'll answer his prayers because they're his words.
When you pray his words, he jumps on that because it's his will.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:35:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: And one thing is you normalize friction.
Two people becoming one was never meant to be friction.
It was always meant. It's always going to be hard. It always is. You know, like I said, a newlywed, they're learning a whole lot of things about this spouse they didn't know about when they were dating.
It's not the fun part. It's the hard part.
[00:36:08] Speaker C: You know, and here's the thought that I just had is that in the garden, it wasn't art.
When God pulled that rib out of Adam and made Eve, it was frictionless. It was easy. What brought this into it being a difficult friction situation?
Iron situation was the fall before that. There was no contention between man and woman.
[00:36:39] Speaker B: Nope.
[00:36:40] Speaker C: So this. This is part of the ball. This is why we have this situation.
So it wasn't meant to be like this.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: Right. So they in it instead of labeling it. This is a problem marriage, but this is a growing marriage. Don't say this a problem marriage. That we're never going to fix it. We're never going to get through this. We're just going to have to agree to disagree. Wrong. Wrong answer. But say this is a growing moment of our marriage and Stay in it until you resolve it. But both parties have to lose that individual, individual, individual, the individualism. And you have to become one cohesive unit that is moldable.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: Well, see, that's. That's the problem with, with culture.
Outside of Christian belief system, there is no cohesiveness in marriage. There's a division. People aren't one.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:41] Speaker C: So this is a hard.
Something for culture to grasp, is that there is, you know, the two becoming one.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:37:51] Speaker C: If you're not a Christian and you're listening to this, you'll probably think we're crazy. But if you are a Christian and you've been swept up by culture, then I'm just. We're just trying to pull you back into, you know, this is what the Bible teaches. Like, these are the truths of the Bible.
This is the way we're made, or we're made to be one.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:11] Speaker C: With our spouse.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: Absolutely. We're going to give you some quick, practical tools before we wrap this up. And it's called the pause. The pause plus process.
Baby, you want to go.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: So you want to pause your reaction and ask, what am I feeling?
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Right?
And then what do I need?
And then you're going to communicate.
Sit down. So say we wake up and, okay, I'm a morning person.
Sometimes you are not a morning person.
You can walk in the den and I'm in there. I already have my coffee or. Or whatever. You already have your coffee. I walk in there, I pour mine. And I always go to the same routine every morning. Hey, how are you? How'd you sleep? And I kiss you. Same routine every day.
There are some days when you're receptive of it. Some days you're like, don't talk to me until I have my coffee.
Right.
So what she actually needs at that time is me to leave her alone.
And it's communicated. So I'll sit down with my coffee even though I'm all up in my feelings, because I'm ready to tell her about that crazy dream that I had.
[00:39:23] Speaker C: You were all up in your feelings.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: I'm ready to tell her about that crazy dream I had to. Where I was a taco.
[00:39:29] Speaker C: Yes. I was just thinking about being a taco. One night he dreamed he was a taco, and he woke up saying, I don't want lettuce or tomatoes on me. And I was like, talking about, and
[00:39:40] Speaker B: I take some meds that just make me do crazy things tonight.
And then you communicate it. Then you get together and you communicate, okay, you said this. And I almost had this reaction. Because this, this triggered this talk about it calmly. There's no real reason to argue. I mean, we've done our share of, we've done our share of it, but. But there's really no reason to argue about anything. Grown ups should be able to be grown ups and talk about things.
[00:40:07] Speaker C: I think it's the pause reaction that really needs to happen.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: Breathe, baby, breathe.
[00:40:12] Speaker C: Pause that reaction before you just blurt it out. That, that is so hard. But especially for women.
But I mean, I'm telling you if you will do that because you need to think about it before you say it, you know?
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Right.
So bring it back to heart, not just teaching. And remember, if your marriage feels hard right now, so that doesn't automatically mean that something is wrong.
Take that stress.
It just means that you're in a place where something is being worked out and not worked against you.
Right. So if you're having a hard time with bills, you're having a hard time, money come together as a unit and say, okay guys, look, we've got to save here because we're going to be here. If we save here, you don't have to go to the store four times a day, which I have been guilty of that I do not mind going to town five or six times a day. I do not mind.
But you got to slow down your travel. You got to work together on things to where it becomes automatic.
[00:41:17] Speaker C: Yep.
Okay, so, all right, so if you're in that place, you're like, okay, we're in it, but we don't know how to navigate it.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:41:26] Speaker C: That's exactly why we do what we do at the marriage offer. So we do a little bit of coaching and we do some.
We can take people or take you through horses as well too. You can find all about
[email protected] and there is a page on there called the Marriage Author. You can go check that out.
We're going to be doing this series.
I think there's going to be like four episodes where we talk about the lies people believe about marriage. So we'll continue this series.
And so you just keep listening and we would love to hear back from you. So definitely message us. You can email
[email protected] with any questions or any, I don't know, feedback you might have for us.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Are we gonna do a teaser into episode two?
[00:42:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I can't remember what episode.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: Okay, so next week or whenever we get to it. I'm sorry, guys that the episodes have really been stretched out.
I'M working out of town Monday through Friday and the weekends we're both dead. But next week, his plan. We're talking about another lie. That sounds small because a lot of damage in your marriage. And that lie is if they love me, they should just know what I. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Anyway, we love you guys. We are so thankful that you're listening to us. We love all three of y'. All.
Refer us to your friends. If you have any episode ideas if you have any episodes ideas that you think that we should cover, then please, we're welcome to.
We're welcome to. Any suggestions?
Anyway, have a blessed day. I hope you guys are safe throughout the week. And remember, Jesus died not for just one person. He died for everyone, even the sinners.
God bless you guys. All right, bye.
[00:43:20] Speaker C: See you next time.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: Stronger than time?
To bind up the heart that's broken?
And speak the words that he
[00:43:52] Speaker C: Will
[00:43:52] Speaker A: you break my chains and set my.
Oh, my love?
Don't let it grow cold in the night?
