We want to encourage you in your identity in Christ. 

We want to remind you that you are not lesser no matter what part of the body you are.

And If you are struggling with doubt at all we want to encourage you to trust and know that God has given to you just like he has given to every other believer His spirit.

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[Jennifer] Welcome to the marriage after God podcast.

[Aaron] We're your hosts, I'm Aaron.

[Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer.

[Aaron] We've been married for 14 years.

[Jennifer] And we have five young children.

[Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story and hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other.

[Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together, including our newest book "Marriage After God", the book that inspired us to start this podcast.

[Aaron] "Marriage After God" is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.

[Jennifer] To reflect his love.

[Aaron] To be a light in this world.

[Jennifer] To work together as a team.

[Aaron] Using what he has given us.

[Jennifer] To build his kingdom.

[Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey.

[Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together.

[Aaron] This is, Marriage After God.

[Aaron] Welcome back. We're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God podcast. How are you doing Jennifer?

[Jennifer] I'm good.

[Aaron] Yeah, what are you drinking?

[Jennifer] I'm drinking hot chocolate.

[Aaron] I got a cup of coffee. This is like our second time now doing like having drinks while we're-

[Jennifer] Yeah, last time we both had tea, which was?

[Aaron] Interesting.

[Jennifer] Fun.

[Aaron] I like tea. But I love coffee way more. So I'm having some coffee right now.

[Jennifer] Speaking of drinks, me and the kids were learning about water this week, which is just fascinating. I think that if you haven't had a chance to study water, I just want to encourage you that you should, cause it's cool. But did you know that it takes like 45 to 50 gallons of water just to make one cup of orange juice?

[Aaron] Are you talking about like from the ground, like the tree?

[Jennifer] Yeah, like what's required to produce a cup of orange juice.

[Aaron] Oh, the amount of oranges.

[Jennifer] Yeah, not 50 gallons of water to mix with frozen orange juice concentrate.

[Aaron] So, for the tree to grow the amount of oranges necessary, it takes about 45 to 50 gallons of water. That's actually incredible.

[Jennifer] Cause it's over time, that the orange grows.

[Aaron] So when I have a couple of oranges, it's like drinking 50 gallons of water. That's my water for the month.

[Jennifer] I don't know, I thought it was interesting.

[Aaron] That's awesome.

[Jennifer] Little tidbit that I memorized this week. But also I gotta say one more thing about water, because as we were reading this book, this orange juice fact was one of them in there, but it also said that, and I didn't know this, Aaron did you know this?

[Aaron] Nope.

[Jennifer] Let me say it first. That a snowflake, how it's made, and you can look this up, like if you Google the definition of a snowflake. Although be careful, look up the scientific like.

[Aaron] Of snow.

[Jennifer] Of snow, a snowflake.

[Aaron] Yeah, that's funny.

[Jennifer] How it's composed is actually ice crystals forming around a piece of dust.

[Aaron] Okay.

[Jennifer] Okay, and I sat there and I, my jaw dropped and the kids were like, what mom? And I'm like, wow, the Bible talks about how, well, that hymn popped up into my mind, he washes us white as snow. And I thought, you know, the Bible talks about how as people we're made from the dust, Adam was made from the dust. And here's this picture of a dust molecule flying through the air, surrounded by snow, ice crystals, and that's what makes a snowflake. I just thought it was such a beautiful picture. So I had to look it up and Isaiah 1:18 says, "Come now let us reason together says the Lord, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they are red, like crimson, they shall become like wool." And so there's this contrast of what we've done and that color of Crimson, that red, and they shall be as white as snow, pure white, no shadows.

[Aaron] It's almost like God designed it that way. He had a cool, these pictures of the gospel.

[Jennifer] I know but it's like hidden because no one goes around looking up, what is a snowflake? We all just assume it's snow.

[Aaron] I've known about snowflakes for a long time but didn't know that they were formed around dust. I just thought they're formed in the air.

[Jennifer] I think it's so phenomenal, I think it's so pretty, I love it.

[Aaron] And it is, when the Bible tells us that, he is a hidden attributes, his divine nature is seen clearly in nature. I think that's awesome. And we're seeing little bits of this like these truths that God has in the Bible, but it's also shown in nature, which is amazing.

[Jennifer] Yeah, I saw another verse, Hebrews 10:22, not quite about snow or snowflakes, but talking about water. And it says, "Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." I thought that was another really just great verse that happened to pop up when I was researching about snow.

[Aaron] And these are good verses to remember as Christians because that's who we are. Because there's times that we don't feel that way. Cleansed, washed white as snow. You know, the enemy comes in and reminds us of our filth, reminds us of our sin, those things the wrong thoughts, the attitudes, and then the Holy Spirit says, well, no I'm cleansing you of that. And I'm growing you, and I'm maturing you. So let's move forward.

[Jennifer] Let's be something beautiful, like the uniqueness of a snowflake. Which I love because it's covering the dust. The ice, it covers it. And I love that picture. And a bonus when I was looking up pictures of a snowflake online, and there was these pictures like super zoomed in, on a snowflake, and when light hits it, it reflects a prism, a rainbow, because the composition is still water, and I love that. I love that this whole picture within one of the smallest things that we see with our eyes is a snowflake. And you get the dust molecule, the snow surrounding it, God's promise of a rainbow right there.

[Aaron] That's awesome.

[Jennifer] I don't know, it was just mind blowing to me.

[Aaron] So next time you see a snowflake, think about yourself, think about God making you white as snow.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] And that's awesome, it's a gospel.

[Jennifer] Cool little intro there.

[Aaron] That was a really good intro, yeah.

[Jennifer] You're welcome.

[Aaron] We just wanna invite you if you have not done so, but many of you have, so we just wanna thank you. Many of you have left reviews and ratings for this podcast, and you've done them in various places wherever you listen to this podcast, you've left reviews and we love that. But if you haven't yet, if you haven't given us a star rating or review and you've been blessed by this podcast, would you do that today? Would you bless us by leaving a review that helps people find the podcast? It helps all the algorithms know how to rank our podcast. And it helps people that, when they find our podcast to know what it's about and what peoples testimonies are.

[Jennifer] It's also kinda like a virtual high five. So if you wanna high five Aaron and I for what we do for you here on Marriage After God, give us a high five.

[Aaron] I like that, a virtual high five. This is a review that someone left, and it says this, I can't say their name. I don't know how to say that. Anyways it says me and my husband are literally all for this podcast. We love how real they are and how they use personal experiences to teach us from their perspective. I love you guys, excited for the next channel. Love that. I think they're probably talking about next episode maybe .

[Jennifer] Or next season.

[Aaron] Next season. Anyways, we just, we love getting these. We love reading them. And so if you wanna leave one of those today, that'd be awesome. And like Jennifer said, it'd be like giving us a high five virtually. So thank you.

[Jennifer] We'd also like to encourage you guys to sign up for the marriage prayer challenge. You just go to marriageprayerchallenge.com and sign up and you'll get 31 prayers over the next 31 days, encouraging you to pray for your spouse. So if you're listening alongside your spouse make sure that both of you guys sign up.

[Aaron] marriageprayerchallenge.com, it's completely free.

[Jennifer] All right Aaron, you've been excited about this topic. This was kind of your desire, right?

[Aaron] Yeah, probably because it's one of the biggest things I need to work on.

[Jennifer] You didn't have to admit that.

[Aaron] Well, I'm just tryna be honest.

[Jennifer] All right.

[Aaron] Yeah as I was rereading through the notes I'm like, yep, this is something that I need. So, I'm not coming from expertise in this, other than coming from what the word says. And it's something that me and you care about, and want to be better in, and want to walk in.

[Jennifer] Always.

[Aaron] Love, walking in love. It should be so easy, right?

[Jennifer] It's easy to say.

[Aaron] It's easy to say. That's kinda what we're gonna talk about today. It's so easy to say actually.

[Jennifer] Should we tell them who said I love you first? This has nothing to do with our notes or what we're gonna talk about today but, let them guess, wait, ready?

[Aaron] Let them have a few seconds. So if you're listening, who do you think told the other that they love them first? And we're talking about us.

[Jennifer] Aaron or Jen?

[Aaron] Aaron or Jen? Okay.

[Jennifer] Okay, ready? I did. It was me.

[Aaron] Everyone is rather like, yeah.

[Jennifer] I was patient, I waited for you but that's okay.

[Aaron] You wanted to say you loved me when you knew of me in high school, didn't you? Like and I didn't even know.

[Jennifer] That's okay.

[Aaron] That's right. I mean you loved. Yes you did, you said you love me first. Wait, did I actually, did I tell you I loved you back?

[Jennifer] Of course, after some silence and making me nervous, and me wanting to like jump out of the car cause I was so embarrassed. You made me...

[Aaron] Well it's a big word.

[Jennifer] I was already like, what is it called? Blushed, blushed?

[Aaron] Yeah, blushing.

[Jennifer] Blushed you. Just kidding. I had already pink cheeks from being embarrassed from saying it because I just wanted to get it out there, and then you made my cheeks red.

[Aaron] Red faced.

[Jennifer] Red faced.

[Aaron] Anyways we did pronounce our love for each other in my car. So that's a fun little tidbit for everyone listening about us, that Jennifer said she loved me first.

[Jennifer] I'll say this, I think we both knew way before anyone ever said it.

[Aaron] Yeah, so it wasn't that we had no idea.

[Jennifer] And you weren't surprised by me saying it.

[Aaron] I wasn't, it was more of a...

[Jennifer] There it's out.

[Aaron] Yeah, we were being slow.

[Jennifer] Patient.

[Aaron] To say the word. Because it meant something. Which is what we're talking about today, what it means. And this idea of love. And saying it, and other things around love.

[Jennifer] All right, let's jump in.

[Aaron] Love's a big word. Like I just mentioned a second ago.

[Jennifer] I mean it's four letters, yeah I get your point.

[Aaron] It's not a big word in length, but it's a big word in meaning, right? But here's the problem, and this is why I wanted to start this way, is that the problem with love being a big word is we use it in a lot of ways, right?

[Jennifer] Yeah like I love my plants. I love my house. I love our cereal, ice cream, right?

[Aaron] Yeah, music.

[Jennifer] What do you love Aaron?

[Aaron] Pizza, I love pizza.

[Jennifer] You think being a pizza delivery guy would deter you from pizza loving.

[Aaron] No in fact it increased my love for pizza. If you didn't know anything, at one of my earlier jobs as a pizza delivery driver, I loved it. It was actually, while we knew each other.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Early on in our relationship. But I do love pizza. I love trying new things, like a little adventurous things. I really love board games. I think you do too. We're like game people.

[Jennifer] Why? I'm competitive, so it actually doesn't matter what we're playing or what we're doing, as long as I win.

[Aaron] You like competition, you like winning.

[Jennifer] I love winning. I love winning. Don't you guys love winning?

[Aaron] Yeah. I love movies. So it's kind of unfortunate and actually nice because I watch less movies, but with all the movie theaters being shut and all that stuff, but I do love movies. Watch them way less than I used to but, we love lots of things. So, but there's other kinds of things that we love, right? With a different kind of love.

[Jennifer] I'd say a deeper kind of love.

[Aaron] Yeah. Like I love our kids. I love you.

[Aaron] That's good. Do you love me like you like cereal?

[Jennifer] Different.

[Aaron] Those are different levels of love.

[Jennifer] I like you both. No, but we love each other. We love our friends. We love God. We love Jesus.

[Aaron] But that's definitely not the same kind of love. They're different. Like my love of pizza, or my love of my children, they're not even in the same planetary alignment. They're not in the same category.

[Jennifer] That was a weird thing to say but I get you.

[Aaron] But they're the same word. And I feel like in our modern day culture the word love is not as defined as it used to be. Like we use love for a lot of things.

[Jennifer] It's used like on a broader sense.

[Aaron] Yeah, it's diluted, it's used to have so much more meaning especially in the Bible. But now like we just, I love that, I love this. Like everything's, we love everything. But they cannot be the same kind of love. And it's obvious that there are different kinds of love, but it's hard when we use the same word for all different kinds of love. Would you agree?

[Jennifer] Yeah, like when I say that I love you, it's not the same kind of love that I am saying that I love those other things.

[Aaron] In essence when we use love it's more like I really enjoy these things. I really like these things, I desire these kinds of things, I want these things.

[Jennifer] Well you know me, I love talking about definition. So, who gets to define love? Is it culture, modern history, poems, magazines?

[Aaron] I would say currently those are the things that define current cultures word for love. The news, the magazines, movie stars or pop stars. How they are saying this is what love is.

[Jennifer] How they use it we kind of all just follow along. But, I mean we do know as believers that, the creator himself has defined love.

[Aaron] That's true. He's the one who gets to say what it is, and what it means. Not the world, not even ourselves, because we can even at times define what love is, which is kind of what I wanna discuss, we wanna discuss in this episode, is we do this ourselves, when we say, well, I love you. But it doesn't always add up. So with society using the word love in so many different ways, many things defining it, it's been watered down so much and used so many ways, it's become easy even in our most important things like our relationships to use the word flippantly. Where we just, we throw it out. I love you. But do we really mean it?

[Jennifer] Yeah, it's like we have one word that encompasses so many other different words really.

[Aaron] Right. And what's interesting is in that...

[Jennifer] Not all words, sorry I meant all versions, like, we have the word love, that means a lot of different things.

[Aaron] But it's one word.

[Jennifer] But one word.

[Aaron] Which can be very confusing

[Jennifer] Which is why people use it in so many different ways. Is what I'm trying to say.

[Aaron] Well, and it's important to realize that because you know when we talk about all the things that we love, and then we just also love our wife, also love our spouse, or you know, our kids, but there's something that's gonna make these mean something different. In the Bible, in the Greek, in the Hebrew, there are several different words for love. You can look those up. It's a great study to do, a word study on the word love in the Bible. And each one has a different meaning, each one's used for a different purpose, and they're much more defined, they make much more sense. And they're almost always in the situation of relationship. But in this episode, we're gonna not focus on the words necessarily for love, but rather the proof of love.

[Jennifer] I love that.

[Aaron] So to better illustrate this, I may say, I love my wife. Like I love you. But how do you know that to be true? How do you know that what I'm saying isn't just words but truth.

[Jennifer] Because you show me. And your actions back up what you're saying.

[Aaron] Exactly. So, but we do this. We say it all the time like, Oh, I love you. Like, I know this happened, but I love you. But what's hard is in our hearts and our minds. There's a disconnect. We can feel it, we may not able to verbalize it.

[Jennifer] Real quick before moving on. I think that's important to note that when your words and actions are backing each other up, that's when trust is built. And you just use the word disconnect so when you say one thing, you say I love you but your actions don't back that up, that disconnect contributes to distrust.

[Aaron] Right.

[Jennifer] Right? I think that's important to note for marriage, marriage is listening.

[Aaron] And that's what we wanna talk about. Because we all would say we love our spouse. And if you're listening and you're not in a place where you can say you love your spouse, then I pray that this encourages you in this episode, I pray that you'd go before the Lord and ask him to help you love your spouse. But it's important, because our words matter, and our actions matter. And someone brought up ones at our church about the actions of Jesus and how important they were because they lined up with his words. He did what he said. He said what he did. He fulfilled his own word. He fulfilled what God's word was.

[Jennifer] Which is why we can trust him.

[Aaron] Which is why we can trust him.

[Jennifer] So real quick. We titled this episode, "Are you really loving?" But I think the real question what we're gonna look at today is, are we acting in truth when we say I love you.

[Aaron] Right. And that's what we need to ask ourselves. And that's why we're going to walk through some things, just to kind of challenge us in keeping us from just throwing out the word and making that like a default, like, yeah I'm acting this way and this way and this way and, but you know, I love you, right?

[Jennifer] Well that's actually a good question. Can we say that we love and are not necessarily required to act? Act on that, you know, act like we do.

[Aaron] I don't know, how do you feel when I say that I love you but I don't act like it?

[Jennifer] Yeah, like use the word proof earlier and I just love that because I think that it's proof.

[Aaron] Right.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] So if I don't act like it? It doesn't matter what I said because I love you, but my actions aren't even close to showing it. Then you're thinking, do you really though, do you really love me?

[Jennifer] And that's not good to place doubt in our spouses hearts and minds

[Aaron] But we do love, and the Bible shows us. Jesus makes it very clear how we will know if we love him or not. With Jesus, it's not a, as long as you just say you love me I'm like, you can do whatever you want and we're good. Just say you love me. Now Jesus makes it very clear how we will know if we love him or not. And this is what Jesus says in John 14, verse 15, "If you love me," it is very clear, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." So he makes it very clear. He's not looking for as his term is, lip service. He's not looking for people to just say they love him, he wants people to show they love him.

[Jennifer] So in deeds, like in your actions, obedience to his word.

[Aaron] 1st John three, verse 18. He says, "Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth." Again, this clarifies this idea of what it looks like to love. We can use our words and let it be that only, which we do. I do this. I say it but I don't do it. But he says, "Let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth."

[Jennifer] Before you go on and explain how really important this is, can I interrupt with one little story about Truet?

[Aaron] Yes.

[Jennifer] Okay. So our number four, he's two and a half and he's been slow to talker. Slower to talk.

[Aaron] Yeah, slower to talk.

[Jennifer] Out of the other kids. And I think partly is because he just gets away with it. Everybody like interprets what he's trying to say and just doesn't make him say much. So I've been trying to work with him on how, you know, how he talks.

[Aaron] Speaking to us.

[Jennifer] Speaking to us. And he runs up to my lap the other day and he says, "Love you mom." And it's like his first like big sentence where he's pronounced everything correctly, and his eyes were just so lit up and I just thought, oh my word, I love you so much. And then he kept doing it for like a whole minute. It was so sweet, over and over and over again.

[Aaron] Cause he knew he got it.

[Jennifer] Yeah. But you know, you're talking about this verse, it says, "Little children let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth." And in as much as that moment impacted me for Truet, and what he was sharing with me that he loves me, it was unprompted and out of nowhere and I know that to be true. I think that kids do less talking and more actions all the time if we're paying attention. They show us in what they give us and they don't have much, but they'll, you know, rewrap one of their gifts for us, they'll write or draw a picture for us.

[Aaron] They crop and relapse and like when Truet runs up and just wants to hold my leg.

[Jennifer] Yeah. They'll grab our hands randomly. And I think that all those little ways of them expressing what we mean to them is exactly that. So I love that this verse is saying little children because it's almost like he's talking to all of us as children of God, but really it's like a draw to, hey, look at the children.

[Aaron] That's really good. Cause they do, they are less about just words. I think that's something that they grow into as they get older, but yeah, they're deeds. And I like that it puts deeds with truth. Cause you were talking about that. It's like lying. Like you say it but you don't do it, you're not telling the truth. But when you say it and do it, that's the truth. And this is the same for how we love our neighbors and fellow believers. Not in words alone, but in deed and in truth

[Jennifer] It's in the action, it's in commitment, it's in obedience, it's in that heart posture toward the thing that you're saying it's the proof.

[Aaron] Yeah. It's the doing, it's how we act. And as we always say, like in our book, our closest neighbors or spouse, so it gets to start in the home, where we get to practice, acting out our love for our spouse, for our children, and then our church, and then our neighbors, and then, you know, strangers. But it starts there and trickles out from there. So how often do you think we say we love each other?

[Jennifer] Multiple times a day. I'd say definitely at the end of every phone call, and before we close our eyes at night, before we go to bed.

[Aaron] Yeah a lot. We don't have a number. That was a rhetorical question. We say it a lot.

[Jennifer] Oh, sorry.

[Aaron] Yeah, it's good, cause it is multiple times a day. I would put a number if I knew exactly, but there's no way to know. It's a lot.

[Jennifer] Here would be my question if I was to ask a question. How many of our disagreements, disappointments or contention between us, how often is that a result of feeling unloved in some way?

[Aaron] Probably most of them, right?

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Like if it's me.

[Jennifer] That was rhetorical too.

[Aaron] Yes. But what's interesting about this is we just answered how we say we love each other a lot, but then we have contentions and disappointments and disagreements as a result of feeling unloved. So the amount of times we say it, and how often we act it out, is not the same. That equation doesn't work. But this is true, everyone that's listening is probably thinking like, oh yeah, because this is marriage. This is life we have to navigate this. But, if we have our minds on, Oh man, I'm not even acting in love right now, like I should even say I love you if I'm not acting like it. I need to make an adjustment in my behavior, to show you I love you. And that could come into just example. Humbling myself in an argument and saying, I don't wanna fight, I'm really sorry, how can I help this?

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Like slowing it down instead of ramping it up. Which is something that I can tend to do.

[Jennifer] We both do it when we walk in the flesh. You said we all get to navigate this in marriage. And I think that it's so important to acknowledge that love is a massively important part of the infrastructure or foundation of the marriage relationship. And if there's no love, then there's no trust, there's no hope, there's no purpose. Those things begin to crumble if the infrastructure, if the foundation isn't solid. And so as much as we say we love each other and we think that our marriage is going okay. I think it's really important to constantly reevaluate that foundation and say, are there any cracks, are there any places where I need to reinforce, affirm and better that structure. So does that make sense?

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Aaron] So why don't we look at how the Bible defines it?

[Jennifer] Wait, are you going to thee, section.

[Aaron] It's an important section. It's the love section. It's 1st Corinthians 13. Everyone calls it the love chapter in the Bible.

[Jennifer] We gonna give you a piece now, and then the big chunk later.

[Aaron] Yeah. And there's a reason it's quoted so much. It's because we need it to get this right. It says this in verse one, "If I speak in tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing."

[Jennifer] So without love, we're nothing, without love we gain nothing. So we must learn what love is. And we must understand what love does and how it motivates us to action.

[Aaron] Yeah. I wanna make one note. This is a little side note. But I noticed in this. So in 1st Corinthians chapter 12, and I even think 11, it's talking about all the gifts of the spirit. And like tongues and prophecy and all these things. And this is mentioning these ideas of gifts, which means that we can operate in giftings, but not be walking in love. So it's not the same thing as showing love to one another. And at the end of chapter 12, he talks about how he would show them in even greater way. And then he goes into talking about love.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] So the greater way it's like yeah, you can walk in these giftings, you can walk in these things that God's given you and not have love. And it's like a resounding symbol, a noisy gong. It's not the complete picture. God wants us to walk in love. And yeah, so we gain nothing, we are nothing if we don't have love. So I got a question for you listeners, and for you Jennifer. Do you know what the first mention of love in the Bible is?

[Jennifer] No. I'm just gonna be straightforward, I don't.

[Aaron] You didn't know before the, I mean you're probably looking at the notes, right?

[Jennifer] I'm just being honest, I didn't know. Yes I see your notes, but I didn't know.

[Aaron] Well, there's something for those that like like to study the Bible, and I hope you all do. There's something interesting about words and when you find the first mentions of them cause they have value of why they were mentioned there in the first place. That the first mention in the Bible of love is when God tests Abraham's faith. Abraham the father of faith. But at the same time in this story gives a foreshadow of how he plans to show the world his own love and faithfulness. It's in Genesis chapter 22, which by the way is really crazy that it takes 22 chapters in the Bible before you hear the word love.

[Jennifer] That's what I was thinking. That's why I just, the first thing I thought it was God in the garden. I'm like duh, but I was surprised by this.

[Aaron] It says this. He said, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." So this is a pretty familiar story. Abraham's to go sacrifice his son, you know, and we hear it. We know how that goes. God stops him, but it was to test his faith. He says now I know you will not withhold anything from me, even your own son. But he says, the son whom you love, right? This was the son of promise. And it sounds really familiar. Read that verse right there in Matthew 3:17.

[Jennifer] "And behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased." Nice little tie in there.

[Aaron] Jesus is God's beloved son with whom he is well-pleased, right? Like Isaac was Abraham's beloved son. And then read this one, John 3:16. I'm pretty sure everyone knows this one.

[Jennifer] Everybody knows this one okay. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

[Aaron] And that is the gospel. God sent his son that he loved to be a sacrifice that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. And there's a great correlation here, that God loves his son Jesus, and Jesus was motivated by love for us and for the father. And that same love compels us to live for him and not ourselves. And so we have this picture of Abraham and his son, and this is the first mention of love in the Bible, and it's a foreshadow of the gospel of Jesus coming in. That's the first time we hear love. Is when it's foreshadowing in the gospel. It's more specifically about Jesus coming to die on a cross, which is incredible I think.

[Jennifer] That's amazing, I never tied those two together like that. When you see him, you know back to back it's just really powerful. So let's look at some more scripture in John 15 verses nine and 10 it says, "As the father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love." So again we see this picture of love in action. Abide is an action word, it's not a passive word. So he says abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. So he says how to do it. So Jesus has commandments to love your neighbor as yourself. To love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. He says those are the greatest two commandments. And all the law of God hangs on those two commands. And so if you love God, you'll abide in those things and that's how you abide in God's love, and Christ's love. It's an action. It's not just I said it, I love Jesus. Great. How do you know you love Jesus? How does Jesus know you love Jesus? How does the world know you love Jesus? Here's another verse, it says, "See what great love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God." And that is what we are. Even God, it says, "See what great love the father has lavished on us." See. So here's the proof of God's love of what he lavished on us.

[Jennifer] And then all you have to do is start in Genesis and read to revelation.

[Aaron] Yeah exactly. That we should be called children of God. So him making us children of God, when we used to be children of wrath, right? Is him showing his love. He doesn't just say, I love you, figure it out. He says, I love you and I'm gonna lavish it on you by making you my children and my son Jesus. He shows it.

[Jennifer] What I love is this verse right here. 1st John 4:19. "We love because he first loved us."

[Aaron] There's an order to that action.

[Jennifer] There's an order to that action because his love is what motivates us, it's what compels us, it's what draws us near to him and near to others. It's what we choose to walk out in. Not because we just understood one day what love was or read the dictionary definition of love, is because he loved us first.

[Aaron] And I think there's a lesson there that I think in marriage, not I think, I know, we can get into the cycle of when you treat me right, I'll treat you right.

[Jennifer] Conditions.

[Aaron] When you love me well, I'll love you well. But we see this. We love because he first loved us. So we can actually initiate and love. We can walk in it, we can be quicker to forgive, we can get be quicker to give grace and understanding and patience, and we can go out of our way to do something for our spouse regardless if we think they deserve it or not. But the fact that they are your spouse means that they deserve your love. So they do deserve it. But we can initiate it. And I would imagine most spouses would recognize that, would see it, would be drawn into it, and would desire to reciprocate it. So rather than waiting for the other person to do it, and having a bad attitude about it like we do tend to have.

[Jennifer] Or fall into the trap of hearing those lies of, well, I'm not gonna do it if dah, dah, dah, dah.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] If there are not. I'm not gonna, cause they don't.

[Jennifer] Or because they did this, you know, xyz.

[Aaron] Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." So we see this picture of the way a husband should love his wife, is the way Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

[Jennifer] This reveals that proof of love that Christ gave him self up for his bride.

[Aaron] So how do we know Christ loved his bride?

[Jennifer] He sacrificed himself.

[Aaron] He gave himself up for her.

[Jennifer] He gave everything.

[Aaron] Yeah, he went to the cross. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. That's 1st John 3:16. All of these verses were showing that love is not a word, it's a way of being, it's a thing we do. All of these Christ showed it, God showed it, Abraham showed it. We have these pictures of what love looks like in the Bible.

[Jennifer] So I know that Jesus is our Lord. He's our savior. He's a lot of things to us, but this next verse shows us he's also our friend. John 15, 13, "Greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends."

[Aaron] So Jesus did it.

[Jennifer] He did it for us. And, again going back to that motivation of why we can love others, why we can do this and obey his word and live this way is because he did it first.

[Aaron] Action. Luke 6:27, "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you."

[Jennifer] So I put this one in here and then I bolded, do good, because it just shows that again it's something that you are doing. You're intentional, you're choosing.

[Aaron] There's proof in your love. Colossians 3:14, "Put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony." So we have this action, put on love. It's something that you're going to act in, something you're gonna walk in, something you're gonna perform.

[Jennifer] So, you know, I used the word compel earlier and some people might remember this verse, but it's in different versions, we hear it different ways. And so I'll read the ESV, but I'm also gonna show you where the word compel is. 2nd Corinthians 5:14 through 15 says, "For the love of Christ controls us, or for the love of Christ compels us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised again." So Aaron just thinking about what you just said about we don't have to, or you're talking about initiation and you were saying, what we do is not contingent upon the other person. We can actually initiate love and we can choose to walk that out. It's because of this, what this verse is saying that we live for Christ and Christ has called us to love one another. So if a husband has a wife that maybe is distant, isn't quite in love as she used to be, or there's something, this turmoil he can be controlled by Christ's love for her, right? So he knows Christ loves him, he knows Christ loves her. And so he can be as compelled or controlled by Christ's love because Christ died for him and he knows it. And so he can pursue her in that way.

[Jennifer] To be that initiator.

[Aaron] Which is incredibly difficult, which is an example of dying to yourself

[Jennifer] And wives we can do this same thing.

[Aaron] And that's what we wanna do. We wanna let the love of Christ control us so that he flows through us, not our flesh. Cause like we talked about earlier when our flesh gets in the way, it don't work so well. So if love is foundational in our relationships with God and with others. If we say we love, the proof will show in our actions.

[Jennifer] Amen.

[Aaron] It will show in our obedience to the word of God. And it will show on how we conduct ourselves toward others.

[Jennifer] Namely our spouse.

[Aaron] First and foremost.

[Jennifer] I mean first and foremost. So going back real quick to when we were talking about what you know, what or who defines love, and I said, the creator himself. Do you wanna read this next verse?

[Aaron] 1st John 4:7 through 16, "Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God, and whoever loves, has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love." In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him, in this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him, and he in us because he has given us of his spirit. And we have seen and testified that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love, abides in God and God abides in him. So not just that God defines love, God is love. So what he says love is, is what he is. So we do not get to make up our own definitions of love because then we're making up our own definition of God. Because he is love. So we should be careful to look at what the word says love is because it's showing us a picture of who God is.

[Jennifer] Let's look at that. Let's finish reading 1st Corinthians 13.

[Aaron] That's perfect.

[Jennifer] Starting in verse four. "Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never ends."

[Aaron] Yeah, can we get rid of the irritable or resentful?

[Jennifer] Only on Monday and Tuesday, sometimes Friday.

[Aaron] And also the bears all things and believes all things.

[Jennifer] What does that even mean.

[Aaron] Well, this is showing us who God is. So it tells us that he is patient cause he's not willing that any should perish. That's bearing all things. He's waiting. But that's what we should be. When we're rude, we're not walking in love. When we're not being patient. This is the question we're always asking ourselves. Cause we'll say I love you but, and we have to ask ourselves, well like, was I really loving? Cause I actually was very impatient which means I'm not walking in love, because God is patient. So we can look at this, and this is God's definition. He's defining himself actually. But this is how he desires us to walk in his spirit. So it becomes really easy to find out if we are walking in the proof, or if we're just using words and the words don't line up with the actions.

[Jennifer] Aaron, you've joked about the heart chart or the love chart. Do you wanna?

[Aaron] Yeah, I'm gonna just, I tried making one, and it did not work the way I wanted it to work.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Aaron] But essentially it's just, whenever you feel like you, when you say you love and you're looking at a situation, you get to ask yourself, what was I being patient. If it's no, then you're not loving. And so you get to go back and repent. I want to love, I need to be patient. And then you're like, am I being kind? No. Oh, then I'm not loving, so I need to go back. Okay am I being patient? So it's this idea that you just, you look at what it says. So instead of defining, cause this man, we do this. I love you. I was just really frustrated, but I love you. And then you realize like how I totally acted just now was not loving. So why are we saying we love when we're not acting like we love. I do this, when I'm being impatient with the kids, I'm not walking in love with my kids. So I can all day long say I love my kids but if I'm not patient with them, how do they know I love them? They don't.

[Jennifer] And that's just the first word then there's kind, does not envy or boast, it's not arrogant, rude, and it's on its own way, it's not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice at wrongdoing. It rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

[Aaron] Yeah. When I'm being irritable, like the idea of irritable means easily frustrated. I can be triggered easily. I'm just sensitive. If I'm being that way, then I'm loving myself and no one else. Because I don't want anyone to bother me, don't touch me, like oh, you did it again, like making people walk on eggshells, it's not loving people. That's this idea that of irritability, like I'm easily offended. That's another word that the other translations use is easily offended.

[Jennifer] So I love play on words and we have this section of scripture that is talking about love. And then at the very end, it says, love never ends. Which draws you back up to the beginning, and it reminds you that you keep, yeah, that God's infinite for sure. But that also that we're supposed to keep persevering, enduring, and living out this way of love. And I think so often, maybe I shouldn't use the word often, but in marriage I think just overall because I think we're fleshly people.

[Aaron] What?

[Jennifer] No. And I'm not just saying just specific to us, I'm trying to get this picture out that marriage can be difficult.

[Aaron] In general we have a flesh.

[Jennifer] We have a flesh, and I think we can be tempted very easily to put a quick end to those ways of being. Does that make sense?

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Aaron] Rather than just continuing on to doing the next right thing.

[Jennifer] Yeah, to be to persevere in patience, to persevere in kindness, to keep extending these ways of love and proof that you actually do love. And here's an encouragement cause I think someone could take this and say, well I've been impatient lately it doesn't mean I don't love my kids or my spouse. No, the point is that because God loves us, the idea of abiding in his love and being given of his spirit, all these verses we just read that talk about these things is when we get convicted. When I recognize, man, I wasn't walking in patience. What happens is because I love my kids, I'm willing to repent and grow, and next time be more patient. Because if I genuinely didn't love, I would not care. I'd be like, yeah I'm not going to be more patient with you, I don't want to be more patient with you. No I want to be more patient with my kids. Something that we pray about often, like God give us more patience. God give us, help us be more kind, more gentle, help us to be more playful. So just because we make a mistake and we didn't walk in love in the moment, doesn't mean we don't love, it means that we didn't prove it in that moment. And so that's what's awesome about God is, he is patient with us because he loves us. And he's given us his Holy spirit to convict us of sin and righteousness. And so he's working on us. So praise God that he calls it out on us.

[Jennifer] Amen. And as we abide in him, that understanding, and those reminders that we should be loving and how to love will be reinforced in our minds and in our hearts. But how do we abide in him?

[Aaron] In his word.

[Jennifer] Well in his word. So if you listening to this right now, if this is an opportunity for you to take a heart check and say, am I really loving? Am I loving my spouse? Am I loving my children? Am I loving God? And using the scripture that we've shared throughout this entire episode to consider if you're truly loving or not. But also, are you abiding? Are you in God's word? Because when we step outside of that and we are going week to week without being fed and consuming his word, we're gonna forget. And we're gonna let the flesh rule in our ways of being.

[Aaron] Right, which is why we're told to abide. Which is a continual process that we... Cause in 1st John it says, "If you're gonna walk in the spirit, then keep in step with the spirit." The spirit of God's moving, we don't control it, he's moving. And so we need to be following, keeping in saved. And like you said, so getting in the word, again this isn't to tell you whether or not you are saved, this is because you're saved. Go look in the word and see how your actions line up with what it says, how your way of thinking lines up with what it says and let the word of God transform you by the renewing of your mind. Because that's what we need.

[Jennifer] And this question of are you really loving? It's not really fair because it's not really a yes or no question, because every single one of us know that regardless of how we acted today, or even all the ways that we have proven our love, we know that we can be greater at it, deeper at it, wider at it, right?

[Aaron] Yeah. With the holy spirit for sure.

[Jennifer] So I think it's a good time to just dig in with ourselves and follow up with, what can I do to prove my love? Whether I'm proving it to God, proving it to you, proving it to my kids, my friends, my family, others.

[Aaron] Yeah, so there were people that I love.

[Jennifer] I think we should ask it every day.

[Aaron] We do what we say. And you have a note here that says don't. You have a note here that says don't let your love grow cold.

[Jennifer] Okay so I put that there because I was just recently reading Matthew 24. And you know, it's talking about the end times.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] And, yeah, it's just an encouragement. Don't let your love grow cold.

[Aaron] It says in those days, the love of many will grow cold. And so we're seeing that, we're seeing people that they don't care. They're easily angered, they are frustrated, they're certain groups that they just don't like and that's the hearts of many, but it doesn't need to be hearts.

[Jennifer] Yeah, let's not be them.

[Aaron] We can have warm soft hearts. And the Holy spirit does that for us.

[Jennifer] Okay Aaron, so since I like to be practical, you know this, everyone listening knows this. I always bring it up. But for those listening, we've talked about love and how to prove your love and the spiritual side of all of this, which is great. Let's do a lightning round of three practical ways a husband can show love and a wife can show love, or prove their love on a daily basis so that those listening can go home and activate.

[Aaron] This is good for the husbands. Cause like me, they're probably thinking like, okay so what's the three-step program. How do I do this? What's the formula? I wanna do this. Like, what do I do tomorrow?

[Jennifer] All right, gets and write these down. Ready?

[Aaron] All right.

[Jennifer] Hold on. Do you go first or do I go first?

[Aaron] I'll read these ones cause they're for me to you.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Aaron] And they're convicting.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Aaron] Number one, sit with her, look in her eyes, maybe with your arm around her and just smile. Be close. So this is like a closeness, like intentional close proximity.

[Jennifer] It's like the world's spinning around you but the two of you are not.

[Aaron] Yeah, I'm here, look at me.

[Jennifer] Things are still between us.

[Aaron] Your eyes are beautiful.

[Jennifer] It's calm. You're my everything.

[Aaron] Yeah. Number two it says stick around after dinner and help clean up or encourage her to take a moment to herself. This is something that I've done.

[Jennifer] You do this very well. You let me go like take a bath and you clean up or be with the kids.

[Aaron] Yeah. Leave a note for her, number three, on her pillow or maybe before she wakes up, or on the kitchen counter, or I post it on the mirror.

[Jennifer] You've written in the mirror before.

[Aaron] Yeah, hopefully the steam stays and hanging it up. But these are just some real, these were really great practical, like ways I'm sure all the wives that are listening are like, oh I'd really appreciate that.

[Jennifer] Look, we know these aren't the super deep, super wide, super, you know, great, greater ways of showing love, but I'll tell you what being in marriage, what, 14 years now? It's those small ways that add up over time that really do build that trust.

[Aaron] Yeah. Then asking the Lord to help you be more creative.

[Jennifer] Totally. He's the God of creativity.

[Aaron] So how can a wife proof, show, act?

[Jennifer] Okay. Affirm him with your words. Acknowledge something that he is doing right or something that he's growing in, something that you see in him, and encourage him.

[Aaron] That's a good one. I love affirmation.

[Jennifer] I know you do. Number two, encourage a conversation you know he's interested in and just sit back and listen. Be engaging, but you know, let him teach you something new or share something that's been on his heart or mind.

[Aaron] That's a good one.

[Jennifer] You like to do that with me.

[Aaron] Number three.

[Jennifer] I've learned a lot of things from you actually doing that.

[Aaron] Your number three by the way you can practice tonight if you'd like. I'm just trying to help there.

[Jennifer] Give them a back massage or a foot massage just because.

[Aaron] Totally, I'll take it.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Aaron] That's a good one.

[Jennifer] All right you guys, I hope that you were encouraged by this episode. Obviously there are millions of more unique ways to love your spouse, especially when you take the time to study them or know them well. So take the time to do that for your spouse. Our challenge for you this week is just to be thoughtful of how you show, improve your spouse, and affirm your love for them.

[Aaron] That's great.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Aaron] Speaking of great, what are you grateful for?

[Jennifer] That was amazing.

[Aaron] Continuing our challenge for the month or for the season I should say.

[Jennifer] Yes. We kicked season five off with this section of the podcast where we thought it would be fun to share the things that we're grateful for, as encouragement for you to think about things that you're grateful for. And that we're just gonna share a bunch of gratefulness this whole year, right?

[Aaron] Be grateful people.

[Jennifer] Let's be grateful.

[Aaron] So I'll start.

[Jennifer] Perspective is key.

[Aaron] Yeah. I'm grateful for health. I was just thinking about it when I was trying to write down like what am I grateful for? Well, it's interesting cause when we're sick, all we wanna be as healthy.

[Jennifer] That's true.

[Aaron] And then when we're healthy we forget about what it's like to be sick. And I was just really thinking like, I'm really happy that right now we're healthy.

[Jennifer] Yeah. Mostly healthy. Do you wanna share with them what happened to your elbow?

[Aaron] Oh Gosh. Yeah I was walking, it's been snowing and it's freezing outside, and I was walking with my stroller to take it into the garage from the van and I slipped on the ice and fell right on my elbow.

[Jennifer] It's pretty swollen.

[Aaron] It hurts really bad.

[Jennifer] Sorry.

[Aaron] I don't know what's wrong with it but it don't feel good. I'm healthy though.

[Jennifer] You are super healthy.

[ Aaron] I wrote this before I did this to my elbow by the way. No, but even with my elbow hurting, I am grateful for our health. It's been nice. Especially with five going through any sickness.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] It's a while.

[Jennifer] Okay, and I'm grateful for testimony. Just the good deeds, the works, the things that happen and those who give God the glory for it. I know my faith has always been encouraged and increased when I hear of, you know, people's testimonies or things that are going on in people's lives because God is working and he is moving, and I love hearing about it.

[Aaron] Yeah. And for those of you don't know. A testimony is simply what God has done in your life for you through you. Maybe you can be challenged to share that this week. Share your testimony with someone.

[Jennifer] That's a good idea.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] Cool. All right, and then as always, we'd like to end in prayer. Dear Lord, thank you for sending us your son whom you love and who took what we deserve so that we can have a relationship with you, eternity with you. Thank you for your great love. Thank you for loving us and caring for us. We pray we would receive your love and share your love with others. We pray we would show our deep love through action and in truth. Please give us the courage and the boldness to love extravagantly and to love deeply. We prayer our insecurities and selfishness would knock it in the way of truly loving others. We pray the love we experience in our marriages would be extraordinary. We hope others would see how we love each other and know it is because of you. May you be glorified in Jesus name. Amen.

[Aaron] Amen. Thanks for joining us on this episode. We love you. Again you guys are our share warriors and our prayer warriors. If you feel obliged, we'd love for you to spread the word about this podcast, share it in an email, or text message. Invite someone to listen to it with you, and get the word out. So we love you all, and we look forward to having you on our next episode.

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READ TRANSCRIPT

[Jennifer] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.

[Aaron] We're your hosts. I'm Aaron.

[Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer.

[Aaron] We've been married for 14 years.

[Jennifer] And we have five young children.

[Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other.

[Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together, including our newest book, "Marriage After God," the book that inspired us to start this podcast.

[Aaron] "Marriage After God" is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.

[Jennifer] To reflect His love.

[Aaron] To be a light in this world.

[Jennifer] To work together as a team.

[Aaron] Using what He has given us.

[Jennifer] To build His kingdom.

[Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey.

[Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together.

[Aaron] This is Marriage After God.

[Aaron] Welcome back, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your hosts of the Marriage After God podcast. We have a fun topic for you today. A light one and we think you're gonna enjoy it. We're excited to share it with you all. And hopefully it inspires you in your relationship with God and your spouse.

[Jennifer] Yeah, before we jump into it, which we'll do shortly, Some of my closest girlfriends were praying recently for the men in our life, husbands, fathers-

Thank you.

[Jennifer] You're welcome. Just really wanting to lift up our men who are leading our families. Also, bearing the weight of care for everything that's been going on in our nation, in our world, because just by nature they're protectors, providers, it's on their mind, and we care about them. And so as they consider everything that's going on and how it will impact the family, and how they navigate it with us, we just felt concern to bring them before the Lord and pray for them. And I just love that we had the opportunity to do that. But with that, I wanted to also say Aaron and I want to recognize that there's just a lot going on right now. And I mean, we're only a few weeks into 2021 and it's already been historical and I'm not talking about just the memes. That's not funny.

I thought it was funny. The memes are pretty historical.

[Jennifer] Aaron was just sharing some with me.

[Aaron] And hysterical.

[Jennifer] No, anyways, this is serious. Just this first part's kinda serious. Because Aaron and I, just like you guys, we get to navigate what's going on in the world around us and respond to it. But because we also have an online presence and this platform of a podcast, we wrestle with questions like, hey, are we gonna address that thing that happened? Do people wanna hear our opinions? Does God want us to speak to that issue? And it's just, I know for me personally it's a lot, but we do wrestle.

[Aaron] Yeah. It's not something that we just pretend isn't going on. But I think what we've landed on is that the most important message is that of Jesus Christ and drawing people back to the Word of God. Would you agree?

[Jennifer] Absolutely. Yeah, and the reason that I wanted to share this is just so you guys know our hearts is that we are navigating and wrestling those things and you don't see all of those things happening. And so I thought it'd be nice just to address it and let you know that we are watching, we are praying, we know that there's husbands and wives out there who are impacted by some of the current events that are happening, whether it be political, or a natural disaster, or any sort of crisis. We know that those things are happening. However, like Aaron just mentioned, we're gonna stick to the things that God has purposed in front of us and the stories and the experiences and the things that we can speak to in His truth to encourage you, because that's what we created this podcast for is to encourage you guys.

[Aaron] Well, and I would reiterate that we firmly believe that the Word of God, that walking with the Lord, is the response to whatever is going on. We talk about it in the platform of marriage and that aspect of life, but it's not like your job and politics and your marriage and your parenting and your friends and your church are all separate things in boxes that get dealt with differently. We deal with it all the exact same way. Now, that doesn't mean that we have all the answers, but what it does mean is we know who does, and we know who to run to, and we know what the Word of God says. The Bible is the eternal Word of God. It's living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting through to the bone and marrow. It discerns the hearts of men. So that's what our mission is, like you said last episode, Jennifer, is our ministry is to the church. Now we have ministries outside of that as well, but our main one pretty much for our whole marriage and life has been ministering to believers. And so in these times, we're not the ones equipped to bring up political commentary. We're trying to be equipped to bring up what the Word of God says and encourage you in that.

[Jennifer] Now, being a marriage podcast and knowing that Aaron and I, we struggle and navigate some of these things, we can speak to really quickly and encourage those who are watching the news or experiencing these things happening and unfolding. So can we quickly just dive in for maybe a minute or two, how can a husband and wife-

[Aaron] Process.

[Jennifer] Process and navigate these things as a couple?

[Aaron] Well, what we could do, what our flesh probably wants to do, is get anxious, break down, feel overwhelmed. These are the natural responses to things that are out of our control.

[Jennifer] Or confusion.

[Aaron] Yeah, confusion or anger even. But you know what? The Bible addresses all of those things. And I think, well, we can do one thing is we can share the things that we're coming across and that are giving us anxieties.

[Jennifer] Like if I'm reading the news and something just strikes a chord in my heart and I can't let it go, like it's just sitting with me, I can bring that to you and say, "Hey, I've really been thinking about this. It's kind of consuming my mind, can you-

[Aaron] Pray for me.

[Jennifer] Pray for me or help explain it to me or whatever I need in that moment.

[Aaron] And that's what we're supposed to do is bear each other's burdens. So communicating about it, not just holding it in, not just saying, "If I bring that up, it's gonna cause something," or, "I can't talk about that," but like going to your spouse, going to your church, and just saying, "Hey, I'm dealing with something about this thing that I saw, or this thing that I heard, or what's going on in the world."

[Jennifer] Another thing that you can do that we do is commit to praying for the things that you see and hear. Don't just scroll past it, don't let your heart become desensitized to it.

[Aaron] Which is a good encouragement for me because, I mean, I haven't had social media on my phone for a little bit, but when I did, I would see something going on in the world and I'd be like, "Oh, that's horrible," and then I'd scroll right past it.

Bummer it, yeah.

[Aaron] But stopping and saying, "I can't be there, I can't like physically help, but I can pray. And I know that I know a God that can help and has a plan for this," that's good. Something that would be really helpful probably for the entire world is to take breaks away from consuming the news. Right?

[Jennifer] Yeah. I would say even in today's era of the way the internet works is even taking a break from actively engaging. If you're one of those people that leaves comments and dives in right away, hit the pause button, be slow to speak, be slow to dive into those things until you've wrestled and processed with God, with your husband, with your family, and get your heart right.

[Aaron] Yeah, just speaking about this idea of taking a break, I was speaking to someone from Compassionate International, which by the way, you should check them out if you haven't, and he was just sharing how every year him and his wife take turns going for a couple of days, three days I think, to be off all technology.

[Jennifer] That's cool.

[Aaron] Little hiatus. Not everyone can go away, but we could do that at home. Let's say, "Let's put this stuff away for a few days."

[Jennifer] I think the goal is balance.

[Aaron] It's balance, yeah.

[Jennifer] And speaking of balance, it's even, in regard to God's Word, are you consuming outside resources and information more than you're consuming the Word of God?

[Aaron] That's convicting to me 'cause the answer is yes.

[Jennifer] Well, we need to bring some balance, then.

[Aaron] We need to switch that around, yeah.

[Jennifer] Another one is don't let current events polarize you in your marriage. So when it does come time to talk about it, don't allow that thing to be the source of contention between you and your spouse. You've got to remain unified. Yeah, don't let it cause division, as the Lord says. A house cannot stand that is divided.

[Jennifer] Right, but if the foundation is the Word of God, then

Run to it, yeah.

[Jennifer] you'll be able to move forward from there.

[Aaron] And there's a word that believers should remember is were we're to endure, as Paul tells Timothy, as a good soldier.

[Jennifer] Well, things are going to happen. There's gonna be more news, there's going to be more historical events unfolding before us.

[Aaron] Yeah, especially if you know anything about the Bible and what it tells about coming-

[Jennifer] The end.

[Aaron] Yeah, the end. The Lord's return. And I wanna end on some Scripture. This is, I read this today and I thought it was incredibly powerful.

[Jennifer] And when you say end, you mean end this section so we can jump into today's fun topic.

End the session, yeah. We haven't gotten into the good part yet. But this is really good. This is Isaiah chapter 35. "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, 'Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With the recompense of God, He will come and save you.' Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sands shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water. In the haunt of jackals where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way. Even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there nor shall any ravenous beast come upon it. They shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." This was written thousands of years before Jesus came, and Jesus was the answer of this. He is the way that we walk on. He's the highway that shall be there called the Way of Holiness. The early church, before they were called Christians, were called the Way because they followed Jesus. So be encouraged by that.

[Jennifer] Man, that was really good Aaron. Thank you for sharing that. And I just feel like I have to meditate on that this week and really just let my heart absorb it. Okay, we're gonna move on. Aaron and I would love to encourage you guys to leave a star rating review for this podcast if it has impacted you. If you have time, you can even leave a written review. These are so impactful. Not only do they help people find the Marriage After God podcast because of algorithms and the way that social media and all these platforms work, but it also really encourages us. And today we wanted to share some of those encouragements that you've left for others to find.

[Aaron] Yeah, this one is by user, I think it's Agibb90. "You all are one of my favorites. Love Aaron and Jennifer and all the materials they put out, whether they're daily emails, Instagram posts, one of their amazing books, or an awesome podcast. They are an excellent source of God's knowledge for your marriage or for life. So glad you're all back. Keep doing what you're doing." Thank you, that was encouraging. There was another one, and these are recent ones, so I just wanna thank you for everyone that's taking our call to action and going and leaving a review.

[Jennifer] So this one was a five-star by jones_k10. "This podcast is beneficial, encouraging, and practical. Aaron and Jennifer honestly share their story and wisdom with men and women. I love how the couple speaks to each other and their listeners. They don't hide behind the messiness of life. They tell it how it is and give practical advice to apply to your life. This podcast is a wonderful way to start each morning on a positive, encouraging note."

[Aaron] Nice, thank you so much.

[Jennifer] That was so encouraging.

[Aaron] Yeah, our messiness is encouraging to people. I love it. So we just wanna thank everyone for keep sharing these episodes. It really blesses us and I think it gets a lot more people to hear about the show. And one last note before we move on to the topic is we want you to be one of the 114,000 people that have joined our free prayer challenge. It's 31 days and we send you an email every day with a topic for you to pray over your spouse. You can choose either the husband route or the wife route, whoever you're praying for, and it's completely free. Just go to marriageprayerchallenge.com, marriageprayerchallenge.com, and would you just join this massive, growing movement of marriages that are praying for their spouses?

[Jennifer] All right you guys, did any of you see the Christmas star?

[Aaron] The movie?

[Jennifer] No. It was in the headlines for a while in December, but I heard about it. It's the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, and it was-

[Aaron] Oh, you're talking about the awesome space event.

[Jennifer] Yes, and it was one that I asked Aaron to go chase after. So we jumped in the car and we drove south and we were driving and Aaron goes, "I think that might be it." And we saw something bright in the sky for like 30 seconds and then cloud coverage.

[Aaron] Well, we were chasing the clouds 'cause we're driving down, I'm like, it said it was supposed to be in the lower horizon,

Southwest region.

[Aaron] and I'm thinking, "You mean the lower horizon where all the clouds are at?"

[Jennifer] I know, it was crazy.

[Aaron] Right, we're in the one place in the world that's not gonna be able to see this today. And we literally had to pull over because we saw it and were like, "There it is!" And it was like 30 seconds.

[Jennifer] And then it disappeared.

[Aaron] Yeah. And then it was gone.

If that was even it.

I think it was but we must've missed it 'cause they were like right next to each other, they weren't like one thing.

[Jennifer] I don't know.

[Aaron] It was pretty cool. Probably with the telescope would've been more amazing. I saw pictures online that were way more incredible. You know, it's funny when you bring this up I feel like we've chased a lot of like celestial things.

We have, we have. We've spent a lot of time look up, I think, Aaron. But that's why I brought it up because I love that time with you when we're just standing side by side looking up. I don't know why, it's so fun.

[Aaron] Usually quiet, yeah.

[Jennifer] Well, yeah. There was this other time where we drove to another place very close to our house, I think it was like 10 minutes away, and we-

[Aaron] Yeah, this was a couple years ago, right?

[Jennifer] We were trying to watch the super blood moon rise, and there was gonna be a certain time where it was gonna be the biggest, and so we were just sitting there waiting for it.

[Aaron] That was a cool one.

That was cool.

Because that one looked massive, it was huge, and we watched it rise over the hills.

[Jennifer] It was so cool.

Yeah, that was a fun one.

And then there was another time where my brother texted me and said, "Hey, at this time," I think it was like 9:38 PM, "Starlink is gonna fly over the house. You gotta run outside and look at it."

[Aaron] If you don't know what Starlink is, it's like hundreds of satellites all in a line. They look like a belt.

[Jennifer] I think it was 400.

[Aaron] By I think Tesla?

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] And we were literally standing there and we were like, how do we know we're gonna see it?

Yeah, we ran out there.

How, we don't see anything? And then all of a sudden we just-

[Jennifer] It's cold, it's dark, we're in our pajamas. I don't even know if we had shoes on, but it worked.

[Aaron] Well, and then all of a sudden, we saw one little light moving. We're like, oh, looks like a satellite, okay. And then another one, and then another one, and it went for like 20 minutes. It just kept going.

[Jennifer] We had kinks in our neck from staring up and just sitting out there, and then-

[Aaron] That was actually pretty incredible also with how in sync they were. They were perfectly aligned and just moving at the same speed.

[Jennifer] But they looked like stars.

[Aaron] But they looked like stars moving through the sky. Big ole belt of stars, but they were satellites. That was a fun one.

[Jennifer] It was super cool. So anyways, we just wanted to open up this topic-

[Aaron] There was another one that you didn't right down.

Which one, which one?

[Aaron] The super eclipse that we saw.

[Jennifer] Oh yeah, that was really awesome. Was that 2017?

[Aaron] That was, I don't know when that was.

[Jennifer] I think that was 2017. The Great American Eclipse.

[Aaron] That's what it was.

We saw that tonight.

It literally landed, like our region was the most visible. It was right above Madris but whatever. It was close and it looked awesome.

[Jennifer] That was pretty remarkable.

[Aaron] Yeah, 'cause I got video of it and you can see the burning ring around the moon.

Not just that,

And the sun, that was amazing.

but the eeriness of the whole town just going gray, like dark.

[Aaron] And then the birds stopped chirping all at the same time, like they thought it was nighttime.

It was kinda creepy.

It was amazing. We've seen lots of sky things.

[Jennifer] Yeah. But my point in sharing all of this is that I love standing side by side doing something with you and getting to interact with you in that way, just being present. And that's kind of what we're gonna talk about today, but even more specific, this idea of delighting in one another. And when I think of the word delight and enjoying something, I think these times with you, among a lot of other times in our marriage, but.

[Aaron] I just wanna read this Scripture that reminds me about these ideas of us looking up and just looking at God's creation. In Romans 1:20 it says, "For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse." When we look up you can't deny the Creator. I was just telling Elliot the other day-

[Jennifer] Our son.

[Aaron] Yeah, our son.

[Jennifer] I know you know that, I was just letting them know who are listening.

[Aaron] It was snowing and we were driving through it and we were talking about how it looked and everything. Looks like you're going through a portal with the snow flying by you. So I said, "You know Elliot, there's more galaxies in the universe than there is snow falling right now." And just saying that statement blew my mind 'cause I was thinking-

I think his jaw dropped too.

[Aaron] Yeah, and I said, "And God knows all of the names of the stars within those galaxies." He named them all. It's just incredible that His infinite nature is perceived easily, His invisible attributes. The things that you can't see of God, you can see clearly in nature.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and when we talk about this idea of delighting in each other and in the Lord today, I think I love doing these things with you, Aaron, and we're gonna get into some examples later, too, of how to delight in your children. And sometimes it's doing something, and being out in nature is such a big part of it because it's like doing all three at once with our family, 'cause I'm delighting in you, I'm delighting in our children, and I'm delighting in the Lord by recognizing the things that He has created.

[Aaron] Enjoying His creation.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and talking about it and being fascinated by it and having wonders surrounding us. Now it makes me wanna just go look up at the sky with you.

[Aaron] Yeah, the first thing I think about when I hear the word delight is actually the opposite of it, which I believe would be not necessarily like being against something, but I feel like it's more like just existing with something. Like gray. Like I think of the r gray. There's no r, it's not beautiful. So I would imagine just existing with you and we're doing our thing and there's no joy, I'm not excited or happy.

[Jennifer] No r.

[Aaron] No r. But I feel like delight is having my eyes open and seeing you, seeing my kids. So like you were talking about last episode, being grateful for Edith playing with your hair and just stopping in.

[Jennifer] Oh, I said daughter but I meant Olive.

[Aaron] Oh, Olive. I thought you were talking about Edith 'cause Edith does that, too.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] And so delight is an intentional focusing on, right? I'm looking. I'm like, "Oh, look at you, look at this," instead of just existing next to and just kind of moving forward and there's no connection, there's no depth, there's no r.

[Jennifer] It's like an appreciation, a recognition and acknowledgement.

[Aaron] And a longing for a desire. Like I want it, I like this. Things that I delight in, I want.

[Jennifer] Yeah. So I always love to look up definitions. Even if you kinda know what a word means, I like the definition. So, what does it mean to delight? To please someone greatly, to take great pleasure in, to give someone great pleasure or satisfaction. Delight is a verb, so it's an action word, which I like.

[Aaron] Of doing something.

[Jennifer] Doing something, yeah. And I also went to the source, which some of the other words gave it a little bit more r, which I like, indulgently.

[Aaron] So I want more.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

Give me lots of my family.

Give me all of it.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] Attractive, agreeable, and jovial, like friendly, enjoyable. I just like those words. I like being able to understand the scope of what it means to delight in.

[Aaron] Well, and all those words also give more ways of looking at this.

[Jennifer] Oh, and serendipitous was one of them, which is more like a happening by chance. This is just happening right now.

[Aaron] Right, like let's go get in the car and look for the Christmas star.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] That was serendipitous.

[Jennifer] That was very serendipitous, it was.

[Aaron] And it could've been a tedious thing. It could've been like, no, we have other things to do. I could've been irritated or frustrated which I've done in the past 'cause I'm sometimes a grinch. But we didn't, it was a fun thing.

[Jennifer] Okay, so we're gonna kinda break this down into three sections, delighting in the Lord first, delighting in your spouse, and then a brief section on delighting in your kids. So Aaron, why don't you kick us off with the first one?

[Aaron] So I'm gonna read Psalm 37 verse four and it says this, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."

[Jennifer] Okay, so do you wanna explain that?

[Aaron] Well, on face value it sounds like, I know many people have taken this, and it could mean this also, that if I delight myself in the Lord, then the desires I have in my heart, He's gonna give me.

[Jennifer] But here's the thing. When you delight yourself in the Lord, what's actually happening?

[Aaron] Right. What do your desires become?

[Jennifer] Right.

[Aaron] Right, because if you're delighting yourself in the Lord, if you're attracted to Him-

[Jennifer] If you're agreeable.

[Aaron] If you're agreeable to Him,

With Him.

if you're friendly with Him, if you're following Him, wanting more of Him-

[Jennifer] I think our desires will start to align a lot more with His than just what our flesh wants.

[Aaron] The way I read this is He will give you the desires of your heart. So when we delight ourselves in the Lord, the desires we have will be given to us by Him. So He'll give us a desire for His Son. He'll give us a desire for loving each other. He'll give us a desire to serve. He'll give us a desire to be generous, a desire to long for more of Him, to long for more of His Word. So rather than I just have these desires existing in me and then boom, He gives me those desires.

[Jennifer] I'm sitting here smiling because,

[Aaron] What?

[Jennifer] Well, I've never heard it that way before and it's not in our notes. And so I'm wondering where you came up with that, and when you first-

[Aaron] This is how I've always looked at it.

I know, but also when you re-read it, you said, "I hear it this way." It sounded exactly the same as how you read it the first time, so I was really confused until you started explaining it. But that's really beautiful.

[Aaron] He will give you the desires

As in it's almost like

of your heart.

you've got this empty bowl and you bring it before the Lord and you're just delighting in Him, looking up at Him like a child, and He fills your hands and your heart.

[Aaron] Right, and of course there's desires in me, that He can fulfill, right? But the Bible tells us that if we pray in His will, we have what we pray for, right? So it's not that I desire a Lamborghini. That's an easy one to just blow out of the picture. And God's gonna be like, "Oh, you desire it? Here you go." No, I believe that when we delight in Him, when we love Him, when we serve Him, when we follow Him, chase Him, want more of Him, not just that our desires become His desires, He gives us our desires. The ones that we have now are from Him, for Him, to Him.

[Jennifer] I kinda wish that this verse just had a period at the end of "delight yourself in the Lord," because that in itself is so beautiful and enough. I mean, God's Word is perfect and we don't need to add or subtract to it. So we take the full verse for what it is. But remember we talked about delighting being a verb and it's an action. And so this is a call for us to delight ourselves in the Lord. Like that's that's a good thing for the Christian to do.

[Aaron] The other thing I think about is, like I said, God doesn't just want us to believe Him and exist with Him. Like, "Okay, great. You believe my son, you got my Word. You wanna be a Christian and you wanna follow me? Cool." No joy.

[Jennifer] End of story.

[Aaron] End of story, no. He wants us to delight.

[Jennifer] Okay, I have to admit this. I love all the little, I call them treasures, that I find in God's Word or when I'm trying to research something that's in His Word and I'm using other resources. I call them treasures because I feel like it opens up my understanding of who God is and what He's doing. And I find it so fascinating. It makes me think of an archeologist,

Archeologist.

how they, and I tell Elliot, I tell all my kids this analogy because I think it's so wonderful, but someone who's digging out in the desert and they come across an old community or village and they are finding all these pieces that are proof, like a vase or a coin whatever that proves life existed in that area from a certain time period. And to them, they've got this little toothbrush in their hand and they're trying not to break whatever's underneath. And they're uncovering this artifact. Like that's how I feel about delighting in the Lord, especially when it comes to His Word. I don't, I just don't-

[Aaron] No, I think that's a good point, 'cause it makes me think of the showbread in the temple. It was 12 fresh loaves of bread and they would stay fresh until they were consumed, even if it was a week. It was like a miracle they would stay fresh. But there was 12 loaves of them, right? And the priests had to eat all of it, they couldn't leave any of it behind, they had to eat every single bit of it. And it's like this picture of-

[Jennifer] I feel like I would be really good at that job.

[Aaron] 'Cause Jesus says, "I'm the bread of life."

[Jennifer] I like bread.

[Aaron] And then Jesus says to the devil, He says, "Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." We live on that bread. We wanna consume all of it. And that's another thing we're delighting in the Lord. Oh and also if you think about it, that bread probably was delicious.

Yeah that's what I'm saying.

Like warm, gooey bread, delicious bread and tastes delicious. And that's what the Lord's Word is. So on that idea in Psalm 1 starting in verse one it says, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law, he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. In all that He does, He prospers."

[Jennifer] I love that verse.

[Aaron] Yeah, God's law, God's Word, the law of Spirit, the law of truth, we delight in it.

[Jennifer] And it benefits us because I love this picture being a tree planted by streams of water. You have everything that you would need to be fruitful, to prosper, to do what you were supposed to do, to do what you were created to do, and so yeah.

[Aaron] So I have a question for you, and this may be rhetorical. Maybe everyone knows the answer. But maybe someone listening doesn't. Can you delight in the Lord and not delight in His Word?

[Jennifer] Do you want me to answer that?

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] I was waiting for everyone else to chime in, jeez. I think you can delight in the Lord. I mean, just based off of the one Scripture that we read earlier from Romans 1:20, when we talked about being out in nature and seeing His creation, I think that there's times that you can delight in the Lord.

[Aaron] Apart from His Word.

[Jennifer] Apart from His Word.

[Aaron] But can you delight in Him and not delight in His Word?

[Jennifer] Well, I would add to that by saying that-

Like "I don't like His word, I don't love His word."

No, you would have to delight in His Word because it says that Jesus is the Word. And you brought up the showbread and how Jesus is the bread of life.

You nailed it.

[Aaron] I don't think we can separate our love of the Lord, our delight in Him, from loving and delighting in His Word. So if we wanna delight in the Lord, we must also delight in His words, what He says, what He speaks, what He's written down for us. And that's how we get to know Him.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

That's it.

I just put some practical things here for delighting in the Lord and that's the first one is just getting in His Word, reading it, being...

Nailed it.

[Jennifer] Well, that's how we're encouraged as Christians in our faith. And I also put the word explore it. And I mentioned earlier about getting into a word study or looking up the Hebrew or the Greek or the root word or whatever's gonna help you define and understand and uncover the meaning of the word. Not that we need anything extra because God's Word is perfect, but all of those extra resources do help in my opinion to bring clarity and just treasure.

[Aaron] Yeah, use those cross references in your Bible. Those have been a huge blessing to us. When you find out how a verse is connected to another verse, you're like, whoa, that's really awesome. Another way practically to delight in the Lord is through praise and worship.

[Jennifer] Yep.

[Aaron] Just singing songs of joy in Scripture and doing it with other people also. How often do we just have worship music playing in the background?

[Jennifer] Yeah, if you guys need to know some good go-to, Shane & Shane is so good.

[Aaron] I love Shane & Shane, yeah.

[Jennifer] Are there other ones that you wanna share?

[Aaron] I've been really enjoying Red Rocks Worship.

[Jennifer] Okay.

[Aaron] Yeah. But yeah, just singing to the Lord.

[Jennifer] Talking and discussing the Scriptures with others, whether it be your spouse or another family member or friend, sometimes just sharing the things that you're learning about can be a huge encouragement to our faith. But it's also delighting in the Lord because you're sharing something you're learning about with someone you love.

[Aaron] Sharing about what God's doing in your life, how He's blessed you, how He's taught you, how He's led you, protected you. Those kinds of things, those bring glory to God. They bolster your heart. They actually bolster the person listening. Those testimonies is adoration.

[Jennifer] Another thing is being impacted by His great design of creation. And we kind of talked about that when we were talking about stargazing, but this is another reason why I just love gardening, the gardening season, because you're out there and you've got the warm sunshine on your back and you're pulling those weeds. And then you look down and see a huge red strawberry. And you're just like amazed that this thing looks so perfect. And then your kid comes up and snatches it and takes a big bite and they've got juice running down their face. And then they offer you the other half and you taste it and it's just so tasty. We get to delight in the things that God has created.

[Aaron] And I'd say your gardening. You've had some really awesome revelations through it with your own relationship with God.

[Jennifer] Yeah. Especially about pruning.

[Aaron] Yeah, pruning and weeds and growth. Awesome things to be able to put our hands in the soil and think of God.

[Jennifer] Another really random one is I know Aaron, you already brought up worship, but something that I love to do is I've been rocking babies for a while, rocking babies to sleep.

[Aaron] A little while.

[Jennifer] Like eight years.

[Aaron] Straight.

[Jennifer] And on nights that it just seems a little bit harder and it's dark and I'm holding this upset baby, and they're starting to calm down, I'll start singing spontaneous prayers or saying spontaneous things for my adoration for God. And I love those times. They're so memorable to me as a mother to be able to hold a child and relate your heart as the child to God, your Father. It makes my whole heart just melt and surrender before Him.

[Aaron] So there's infinitely more to say, I would imagine, about delighting in the Lord. So I would just encourage our listeners to dig in and just figure out what it means in their life to delight in the Lord, delight in His salvation, in His works, in where He's led them, what He's done for them. But what are some thoughts on delighting in our spouse? 'Cause they're probably similar but different, right?

[Jennifer] Yeah. Well, we just spent a couple of days at the coast for a few days and I love it because we live inland now, so we don't get to the coast very often. When we lived in California, it was a much shorter drive.

[Aaron] And we can get there in like 50 minutes with the traffic and 30 minutes with no traffic.

[Jennifer] So now it's like once or twice a year we get to the coast and it always makes a huge impact on my heart. Standing before the ocean, it reminds you how small you are. But it becomes a really great backdrop for those moments of just being together, delighting in you, Aaron, and participating in life together. I don't know, I just thought about that.

[Aaron] We always love little adventures.

[Jennifer] Yeah, no agenda.

[Aaron] You probably have heard an endless, if you've listened to our podcast for any length of time, we do a lot of adventures. We just like being with the family, going for walks, going to the coast. And so being together, doing those different things. We work from home, so we're in the home a lot. So being out of the home is fun. It's different.

Yeah, one of the other examples I put down here is just, we do this little hike at Sawyer Park where it's along the river bed and our kids love to throw rocks in it. And just spending that time, I don't know if I talked over you when you were talking, but I used the word no agenda, and I love those moments because it gives me time to see you and see our children in God's light, and-

[Aaron] And watch me kick my foot through the ice into the icy water

Yeah, that was funny.

[Aaron] and have a soaking wet foot.

[Jennifer] Which just happened recently. I posted on my Instagram a few weeks ago, a picture of, I think it was from Christmas day, actually. You were climbing on the rocks with the kids.

[Aaron] Yeah, that was the day I kicked that ice.

It was a really cool picture. And I remember just standing, the reason I took the picture was 'cause I was just standing there and looking at you guys and just being so grateful for you. And even though you weren't right there next to me, I just, I was delighting in you.

[Aaron] You were...

[Jennifer] I was enjoying it.

[Aaron] Enjoying from a distance.

[Jennifer] Yes. I remember another time where before we had kids, we ran up to the back hill on my mom's house, 'cause it kind of overlooked our town, and I remember the sky was just blown up with r. Orange, pink, purple, blue. Bright on one side, super dark on another because there was a storm rolling in. And we just sat there and kinda did a 360 slowly, just looking at all of it, just amazed by it. Do you remember that?

[Aaron] Mm-hm.

[Jennifer] That was cool.

[Aaron] Other times of us just delighting in each other is we have these hammock swings, you sit in them. It's not a lay down hammock, it's a sitting hammock.

[Jennifer] Been a big hit.

[Aaron] We love them. They're better than regular hammocks I think. But we can just sit and we're swinging back and forth, sometimes in tandem, sometimes opposites, just talking with each other, watching our kids play in the backyard. More so in the summer. Right now it's a little cold and I have the hammock swings put away. Sitting and just being present with each other, talking about whatever, whatever's going on in life, good things, bad things, the children, ideas. Oh, thinking of ideas one of the things that we probably talk about the most is just whimsical dream ideas that we have.

[Jennifer] Like starting a donut shop.

[Aaron] Or inventing a silent podcast chair. You're like, "We should do that, we should invent a silent, we'll make it so it doesn't..." We have these little dream talks about things that will most likely never happen but they're fun to talk about.

[Jennifer] So another way that we delight in each other which every couple listening should be delighting in each other in this way is...

[Aaron] Tickle fights.

[Jennifer] No, that's not what I was gonna say. Is being intimate with each other.

[Aaron] That is the next note! Tickle fights! It's physical.

[Jennifer] Yeah, being physical-

[Aaron] It might start with a tickle fight.

[Jennifer] Yeah, being physical with each other and here's the warning is when you're not delighting in each other physically-

[Aaron] It affects everything.

[Jennifer] It affects everything, it really does.

[Aaron] So we challenge you to physically delight in each other.

[Jennifer] I know we use the word-

[Aaron] This is the PG version.

[Jennifer] Yeah. I know we use the word being spontaneous or doing spontaneous things together, but even if it's scheduled, like date night, our date nights are scheduled, that's delighting in each other. I love, especially now that-

[Aaron] We look forward to them.

[Jennifer] We look forward to it because we have a house full of kids who are very young and needy, and so for us date night is our time to delight in one another.

[Aaron] And the way we've dealt with it when we can't go out is we tell our kids, "Kids, you have to go to bed and you have to stay in bed 'cause me and mommy have a date night tonight."

Yeah, in our room.

In our bedroom.

[Jennifer] That's cute. Oh, speaking of serendipitous, serendipity.

[Aaron] I like that word.

[Jennifer] Do you remember we went-

To Serendipity in New York.

Yeah, in New York.

[Jennifer] There's this little-

[Aaron] It's probably closed down now.

[Jennifer] I don't know, there's this little restaurant, and this is probably our fourth or fifth year of marriage, but there's-

There was a movie about it.

[Jennifer] Yeah, but I think the restaurant existed before then.

[Aaron] Yeah, I think they made a movie

Based on it?

called "Serendipity." I think it was about the restaurant. I could be wrong.

[Jennifer] Anyways, we went to that little place.

[Aaron] It was a cute place.

[Jennifer] It was so cute.

It was fun.

It was super fun.

[Aaron] We got frozen hot chocolate.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

Right?

Yep.

[Aaron] That was years ago. Oh my goodness.

[Jennifer] Okay, so we've been talking about a lot of good, fun memories about how we've spent our time delighting in one another. So follow me on this. I'm gonna list, not in full detail, but just some moments we've shared together that I feel like we really delighted in each other, but those moments came really-

[Aaron] They were tightly knit with hardship.

Tightly knit with hardship. So, okay, so unpacking for our honeymoon. So we get to our honeymoon spot and we're super excited, up in the hills in Julian, California, but then not being able to consummate our marriage. So all this energy, excitement, hope, love, just togetherness.

And it didn't work.

[Jennifer] We jumped in bed together. I think we might've even watched something on TV, I don't remember, but that night just being so brokenhearted and disappointed and frustrated over the fact that we experienced pain in that coming together and it didn't work. Okay, so that's one memory. Another one was sitting at the end of the dock in Malawi on that lake. There was like a gazebo thing over us.

[Aaron] What was that lake called?

[Jennifer] It was Lake Malawi.

[Aaron] Lake Malawi, yeah, it's long. 365 miles along, yeah?

The water was super clear, and there was rful fish swimming all underneath us. And I remember just sitting there, it was a warm day, and we talked a lot, but we also just sat quietly a lot.

[Aaron] And we'd been out for a couple months, three months now.

[Jennifer] Doing missionary work.

[Aaron] And so we were tired and emotionally drained.

Super tired. But it was still good just to be there. I remember that being such a pivotal point in our marriage for some of the things that we're talking about. And then shortly after that, like hours later-

[Aaron] I rolled our truck.

[Jennifer] Oh yeah.

Like flipped it upside-down.

That was crazy and life-changing and hard.

[Aaron] Everyone lived.

[Jennifer] Okay, do remember the time that we were visiting my aunt in Connecticut and we were in her backyard and she had a hammock off in the distance and we went and sat on it together 'cause it was just a spin day and we wanted to have fun?

[Aaron] And we were childless, it was just me and you. And we sat in the hammock.

It was our first year of marriage.

Yeah.

And it broke?

[Aaron] We fell straight to the ground.

[Jennifer] That's not as dramatic or hard, but it's just funny that we're experiencing this nice, delightful time together and then... Okay, one more. Okay, I remember we-

[Aaron] In our apartment.

[Jennifer] a few years married, no kids, in our apartment, and we had this fireplace. And I love the ambiance of a fire.

[Aaron] And this wasn't a gas fireplace.

No, it was like

I was like a real wood burning

you build a fire.

[Aaron] fireplace, yeah.

[Jennifer] And we had been putting it off for a while, but it was a gloomy day and I think I begged you, "Go get some wood, let's make a fire." So you come back and you

Fair enough.

set it all up and it's so perfect and we had a leather couch that my dad had given us, and so we kinda were spooning on it, watching the fire, trying to relax. It's all dark and moody. And then after a few minutes, we're like coughing.

Billowing. The house is just filled a smoke.

[Jennifer] Filled with smoke because something with the chimney flue.

[Aaron] The flue was either clogged or it wasn't open. I didn't know how to do it. Or maybe it wasn't a fireplace anyway.

[Both] I don't know. Okay, so all this to say I think it's important to recognize the value and significance of delighting in each other all throughout marriage because when trials and challenges and hardships come, and they're inevitable, it does require a lot more energy and effort to delight in those moments, which you're not even thinking about 'cause you're thinking about the hardship. But when you're going through hardships, at least for me when I'm going through something hard, I do reminisce about the times that we have shared together, that we have delighted in each other. And the times that I'm not remembering, you remind me. You bring it up.

[Aaron] So practicing delighting in the good times makes it more possible to delight in the hard times.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Good advice.

Right?

Yeah.

[Jennifer] I just thought it'd be fun to bring some of those other ones up, 'cause they were really good memories we had.

[Aaron] So what about delighting in our children? We're almost to the end here and this is a good one because as parents, it should come naturally to just delight in your children, but they're children.

[Jennifer] I think it's a good thing for us to share about because for any of you who are parents, you know the role and responsibility that you have in your child's life to teach them character and just what's right, what's not right. And things get exhausting pretty quickly, but it's constant because they live with you and they're not grown up tomorrow.

[Aaron] And they have 100,000 questions all at once.

[Jennifer] And I think amidst all of the being on guard to teach them and to raise them up to be good men and women, godly men and women, we need to remember to delight in our children, to jump down on the floor and get in their face and smile and-

[Aaron] Enjoy them.

[Jennifer] Enjoy them and experience happiness and appreciation for who they are, our children, not just what they do or don't do or what they understand or don't understand. Because it's not about performance, it's about presence, it's about I'm your mom, I'm your dad.

[Aaron] You're ours.

[Jennifer] You're ours. And we can't do that if our nose is stuck in our phone, or if we're constantly working late hours, or if we are too tired. Parenting requires sacrifice. So even though you're tired, you still need to find a way to delight in them, to sit close with them on your bed or cuddled up on the couch. Staying up late answering their questions.

[Aaron] Yeah, enjoying their stories or their creativity or whatever it is that comes out of them.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Right.

[Jennifer] There's been a couple other times I know in my parenting that I just absolutely love the way that we've chosen to delight in our kids and be present with them. One of them, and I think it's something the kids will remember because we do it every year, but sitting on the back porch during a thunderstorm and we're like scared but we're not, and we're kind of amped up.

[Aaron] On the couches out there, yeah.

[Jennifer] Yeah, in the back. And the storm's just kind of going crazy and it never lasts very long.

[Aaron] The wind in the trees, I love all that stuff.

[Jennifer] It's super fun.

[Aaron] And the kids go,

[Jennifer] Yeah, but we're bundled up and we're holding each other close and we're looking at each other in wonder and amazement and we're just there. I just love it.

[Aaron] Something that I've recently adopted from some friends of ours is dance parties. I'm not doing them as often, but like the other night I just put on some on Spotify kids' dance music. There was no words or anything, it just was like this pop music. And we just started dancing. And Wyatt does this jiggle butt thing when he's dancing, with his legs. It's so funny the way he dances. But Wyatt, Elliot, Truett, Olive, they were all dancing with me. And that was a lot of fun.

[Jennifer] I'll say this about Olive, especially when it's just you and her, like when you'll randomly sway her around like a ballerina, she's delighting in you. It's written all over her face. She's in a happy place.

[Aaron] She just grips my fingers really tightly while I'm spinning her. But that's a lot of fun. She's beautiful when she's dancing like that. I mean, she's always beautiful.

[Jennifer] Another time that we delight in our children is when we're baking together, or making forts, or just being sneaky and giggly and silly at each other, with each other

[Aaron] Another one that's a good... All of these are things that we have to like learn and practice and desire, but this one in particular is getting good at asking questions.. Asking them like, "How's your heart? What's going on? What are some ideas you have? What do you wanna be when you grow up? Why do you wanna be that? That's interesting.

[Jennifer] Leaning in, like if they're at the kitchen table or something, just leaning in and meeting them eye-to-eye and letting them share their hearts with you. Yeah, it's so good.

[Aaron] But guys, just, we wanted to make this episode about just the idea of delight, delighting in the Lord, delighting in your spouse, delighting in your children. And it's an action, it's a verb. Finding the things to delight in, drawing them out, pursuing them, finding them, and delighting in them. And there's plenty if you just have your eyes open for it.

[Jennifer] It's good.

[Aaron] I wanna end on something. It's a fourth point and it's a surprise.

Bonus.

[Aaron] It's a bonus point, yeah. Lastly, the Lord delights in you. Like we're talking who we delight in, delighting in God, but God delights in us. Psalm 35:27 says, "Let those who delight in my righteousness," so this is talking about us delighting in Him, "shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, 'Great is the Lord who delights in the welfare of His servant,'" right? We're servants of God. We're servants of Christ. He delights in that. Proverbs 3:12, "For the Lord reproves him who He loves as a father the son in whom he delights." The Bible calls us children of God if we're in Christ. We're heirs with Christ, right? And so He delights. If He reproves us, that proves that we're His children and that He delights in us because that's what a good father does. Another one, ssians 3:12, "Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved." Think about that. So this isn't quite the word delight, but, "holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." Something interesting about this verse is the fact that we clothe ourselves with those things because of who we are. We don't clothe ourselves with those things to become holy and beloved. So it says, "Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves."

[Jennifer] Like we are holy and beloved.

[Aaron] He loves us. We're beloved by the Father and holy because of Jesus.

[Jennifer] Yeah. So good. One of the verses that I wanted to share was Psalm 149:4. It says, "For the Lord takes pleasure in His people, He adorns the humble with salvation." So again, not that specific word of delight, but pleasure.

Yeah. Which is one of the synonyms.

For the Lord takes pleasure in His, yeah.

[Aaron] Take pleasure in. He delights in us. And the only way that can be possible is because two things. We're made in His image, right? 'Cause He can delight in Himself. He's the Creator. And also because of Christ, His Son with whom He delights, right? So we're in Christ, therefore He delights in us. We're made heirs, we're holy and beloved, we are a holy nation, a priesthood. We're His children that He delights in. And so I just wanted to encourage you with that, that God delights in you. Especially when we're humbled and we're walking in Christ and we have received His Son, He delights in us.

[Jennifer] So our challenge for you this week is to delight in your spouse, delight in the Lord, delight in your children, find those moments where you can get face-to-face, eye-to-eye, and let them know, those people that you love, that you just love them. There's no agenda. It's not because of performance. It's just because of who they are and who created them. And we hope that this episode inspired you in those ways.

[Aaron] Amen.

[Jennifer] So at the end of every episode this season, Aaron let me get away with, no, I had this idea just to encourage everyone to think about things that they're grateful for. And we thought by sharing different things each week that we're grateful for, we'll kick off the conversation. So I'll go first this time. Or, sorry.

[Aaron] I think you went first last time.

[Jennifer] Okay, go ahead.

[Aaron] Yeah, I'll go first. I'm grateful for our friends and our community, the husbands and wives, the men and women that we fellowship with. God has really blessed us and just, we love them, they love us, they are real with us, we know them, they walk with us, they cry with us, they laugh with us. Just I'm incredibly blessed, we're incredibly blessed by the people that we walk with.

[Jennifer] That's awesome and I could just say ditto. No?

[Aaron] No, you have a better one.

[Jennifer] Okay, I'm grateful for the time that you give me. I feel like our whole marriage you've been so attentive to my needs in this way. So early in our marriage, it was doing art projects and just getting time away to be creative. Then when we moved, when we got married and moved, it was time with family. So getting plane tickets back to California or finding a way to meet up with them somewhere, or them coming to us and just giving us that space to have family time. Then there was a season of writing.

[Aaron] Yeah, like last eight years.

[Jennifer] Yeah. Writing books or working on Unveiled Wife stuff. Now it's like a weekly thing where every Friday you give me time to work or make appointments or whatever I need to do on that day.

Meet with women, yeah.

[Jennifer] Meet with friends, yeah. So I really appreciate that, Aaron, and I think it's a really beautiful thing that you've given me over our marriage.

[Aaron] Thank you. I love you.

So thank you. I love you.

[Aaron] So we wanna encourage you out there listening to say what you're grateful for, to share it with someone, share with your spouse as you delight in them, share it with the Lord. And let's just be grateful this year. So as usual, we're gonna end in prayer and I hope you all join me. Dear Lord, we praise you and we thank you, for you are good and your love endures forever. Thank you for our marriages. We pray we would delight in you and delight in each other every day. We pray we would find creative ways to express our love and creative ways to spend our time together. We give you our anxious thoughts, our worries, our stresses, and ask that you would fill us with your peace. Lead us beside still waters. Lord, help us to be content. We pray we would delight in you more, individually and as a couple. We pray our souls would be satisfied just to sit in your presence and worship you. Please continue to strengthen our marriages. Give us eyes to see one another's needs and how to help meet those needs. Draw our hearts close together and closer to you. In Jesus' name, amen. We love you all. If you have time, please leave a review, a star rating. And also you guys are our share warriors. Would you share this episode in a Facebook post, in a Twitter post, in an Instagram post, in an email, a text message? However you're going to do that, would you just please share this episode? We love you all and we'll see you next week.m

Read Transcript

Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.

We're your hosts. I'm Aaron.

And I'm Jennifer.

We've been married for 14 years.

And we have five young children.

We started blogging over 10 years ago. Sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other.

We have authored over 10 books together including our newest book, "Marriage After God". The book that inspired us to start this podcast.

"Marriage After God" has a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.

To reflect His love.

To be a light in this world.

To work together as a team.

Using what He has given us...

To build His kingdom.

Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey...

As you boldly chase after God together.

This is Marriage After God.

Welcome back to the Marriage After God podcast. We're your hosts, Aaron and Jennifer Smith.

Hey guys

What are you drinking there?

What? Oh.

What are you drinking?

I made chai tea.

Tea. I'm drinking a rooiboss. And it's really good.

Copy catter.

I did actually-

You saw me sneak in here with tea.

I...

No, I actually saw you with tea and I was like, "I'm going to go get some tea."

It's cold, 'cause I was taking care of the baby and then I didn't get to drink it when it was warm. That's okay. Curious, how many people have the whistling stuck in their head from last week? Did you, Aaron?

I've actually.. I've actually been whistling it.

No, you haven't. Really?

Yes I have. I don't know if that's exactly right but...

I don't know if that's going to sound good to everyone else.

High key... And it was like high-pitch. Yeah, no, I really liked the whistling and the song. I hope they do too.

All right. I have to apologize because I re-listened to our kickoff episode from last week and I say 'um' a lot.

Are you sure 'um'?

We both said it a lot. I guess I'm just really rusty or I forgot how to podcast with you. Maybe I'm nervous. I have no idea what the problem was but I don't ever remember saying 'um' so many times. It was so many times we couldn't even edit them out because...

I know you asked me like, "Can't we just like cut all of these um's out?" I'm like, no. I mean we could, but then it'd be like really choppy.

Choppy, yeah. So for those of you who suffered through it, I am sorry and I promise to get better. Bear with me, bear with us.

Mmm. There's probably some, like speech coaches out there they're are thinking, "Oh, we can help these people." Yeah, right.

We can help them.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's one.

Oh, oh.

We are going to try and not say a bunch of uh's and um's.

Well, you know, when you take a handful of months off, you just...

You lose all ability to speak.

We're working on it.

Apologizing is kind of a part of this episode. So that's a..

That's a good one.

That's a good way to start.

Don't give away the key. Okay.

Yeah.

What else were you...

Well, last week we mentioned routines. Just as a little update. And being the first...

Week of the year. Second week of the year.

Yeah, a couple weeks of the year, I would say that we're on the right track. I'm not going to say perfect. We're on the right track. I've been trying to get up in the morning to work out again. Which also helps me get up earlier and be ready for the day and so that's been nice.

It actually helps me too because I feel like when you get up early and you're very enthusiastic about how the day feels. It really impacts my heart and it actually motivates me to also be ready.

Well, and we both have goals to do that. So when-

Yeah.

one of us sticks to it the other one feels more obligated to. So it's like-

That's true.

helping each other out. Speaking of others helping, I actually convinced one of my friends to start working out with me at 5:00 AM in the morning. I don't know how I did it but he's been enjoying it. But having him do it with me has made me a ton more consistent. Which is pretty awesome because if I know he's coming, it's that much harder for me to stay in bed. The alarm goes off and I think to myself, "Okay, I can't text him right now 'cause he's probably all ready on his way." So I have to get up.

You don't want him standing out in the cold.

Exactly. And I also enjoy working out with people. I'm a people person. So having-

You.. You're...

Yes.

I don't know if anyone knows this.

You're a people person?

It's a surprise.

What?

I get it. But it..

Aaron, you're not a people person, you need people like you...

Yes.

You can't live without people.

Everyone does. Don't you?

I think I can get by with little, less. Yeah, you got... That's that introvert in you.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's actually helped. There's something incredibly powerful about having someone who has a similar goal as you, like we were just talking about with each other. A friend of mine that wants to do this with me and how incredibly powerful it is in helping you meet your goals, helping you grow and mature and move forward, be consistent.

Yeah.

And so that's been a huge help. It's something I actually noticed. 'Cause I was trying to evaluate why I lost my routine that I was in for like three years. Well, why also it was easier for you to get to the gym, but when it's the home gym, it's a little bit...

Yeah. Yeah, it's weird, 'cause my home gym is like right here.

More of a challenge.

Right, you gotta get in the car and drive but there was something... There was things missing that just disappeared, that helped me. Things like the cheers from the other people at the gym. People that have become friends. Anytime I had a new PR or accomplished something new. They recognized when I wasn't around.

And so they would reach out, "Hey, how's everything going? Missed you at the gym." Tracking my progress. The gym has a way of tracking, you know, your weights that you've been lifting and...

It's like that accountability.

Yeah, well, it's not just accountability. It's the rewards. The way our brains work, we have a reward system that tells our... When our brain gets a reward, it knows, "Oh we should do that again." And all of those things that were so important for sustaining my pattern disappeared pretty much overnight. And with it, my pattern, my routine. So once they disappeared sort of the growth and the consistency, but there's something interesting about that concept especially when it comes to our spiritual walk. We need people, we need the Spirit of God. We need relationships with fellow believers. And that helps us continue on. We actually can't do it alone. And that's a deception that a lot of believers have. Is that, "Oh, I can do this by myself. I don't need anyone. I'm just gonna do my thing and..." But having partners, having fellowship, having other brothers and sisters to walk with and especially the Holy Spirit is how we grow. Yeah.

Is how we move forward, Its how we stay consistent. It's how we have our mind in the right place. So I thought that was a cool..

It's a good little analogy.

Yeah, correlation, yeah.

Yeah. Very cool. Well, as we move into today's episode we wanted to encourage you guys. If you haven't had a chance yet to please leave us a review. This just helps the rating of the Marriage After God podcast. So that through the algorithms and all that people can find the Marriage After God podcast. The more people that know about it the more marriages are impacted. The more we're over here cheering. So we also just wanted to ask if you have time to leave a written review. Not only does this also encourage people to take a listen but it encourages us and it's an incredible blessing so...

To have written those.

just wanted to ask you to do that.

Yeah, and I actually want to make a little note on the first episode of the year of season five I'm incredibly blessed because out of the last like seven episodes it all ready is one of the most downloaded episodes.

What?

Yeah, so..

You guys.

Yeah, our listeners just-

I guess there's people out there really hungry.

missed us. Yeah. Hungry for A and Jen.

So I just want to thank everyone. And I also want to thank everyone that, we did a call to action at the end of last episode. Just encouraging people to share the episode on social media.

Thank you guys.

Email it to a friend. Send it in a text message. Tell someone in person. And I think you guys are doing it. And I just, I really thank you. So would you just keep doing it if this episode blesses you today. Tell someone about it.

Speaking of sharing something with someone. I really wanted to insert just a little food for thought. You like that?

Thought for food.

Thought for food. I was making dinner tonight and I was thinking about you guys and what I did... This is super random. I wanted to encourage those of you who cook in the kitchen because it's been a huge learning curve for me to know how to cook and how to meal plan and so hopefully this benefits someone listening I don't know. My goal was to make spaghetti and I had zucchini and bell pepper and onion. And so I chopped it up really small not like pureed style, but just small enough and added it to the meat and the sauce and everybody ate it and it was so delicious. So if you're a family, you know, if you're looking for healthy ways to add in those veggies and your family loves spaghetti it worked really, really well.

And our kids had no idea.

Well, they didn't like complain or anything. They didn't say one thing-

No.

about it.

I actually didn't know they were in there until you...

Yeah, you couldn't really tell.

So just a little tip when you're cooking for your family.

That was a good little tip.

Right?

Everyone's gonna have spaghetti tonight.

Or tomorrow.

Yeah, or tomorrow.

Or this week.

So as always, we want to offer something to our listeners. We like to create free resources that will benefit you, encourage you, inspire you and we talked about it last week. And it's the marriage prayer challenge. It's completely free. You can go to marriageprayerchallenge.com. It's all one word. And it is a 31 day challenge where every day we'll send you an email, either for the husband or for the wife, with a prompt for something to pray for that day for your spouse. And over 100,000 marriages have all ready taken this challenge and we just want to invite you to do it. If you haven't signed up all ready go to marriageprayerchallenge.com. You can do it at the end of this episode, if you'd like or whenever you want. It's completely free. And our thought is like, why not start the year off in prayer with our free prayer challenge? And also these prayers, all of our prayer emails that we send daily, are helped to be brought to you in part by our faithful prayer team patrons. And so we want to thank you if you're on the patron team

All right, we're going to jump into today's topic which is, what we titled, God's Not Donne With Us. He's not done with us. He's not done

He's not done with you.

with you. You took my line.

I was going to say the same thing.

That's funny. I didn't know you knew I was going to say that but it makes sense that I would have done that.

Yeah.

He's not done with us.

This is a good reminder for all of us that, you know, the idea that God's not done with us because there's times that we make mistakes, we mess up, we did it again, those sorts of things and it just makes us feel like, you know, how could God continue? How could He, you know, forgive me again? How could He deal with me? Like I would like... 'Cause we look at our own lives and we say like, how many times we want to be done with something or someone because of, you know, it oh, there..

Hardship. Yeah.

Yeah. But he's not. He doesn't he's patient with us. And that's kind of what we're gonna talk about this episode.

Yeah. So something happened the other day that I thought would make a good story, a good segue, into today's topic. So it's just one of those kind of everyday situations that happens in marriage. It's something simple. I kind of don't want to share it, but it's a good example of what we're going to talk about today. We recently got a new rug. Aaron came home from Costco with it.

It's one of the really, really soft shag rugs.

Yeah, it's super-

I love it.

comfortable.

He plays a lot with the kids on the floor and so he likes the thicker... And the last rug we had was so thin. It would like hurt when I'm on the ground

Yeah. So anyways, changing a rug out in the living room is kind of an ordeal 'cause you have to move all the couches. You have to roll up the old rug, clean underneath it. Which is gross. And then put the new one down. And so during this whole process, Aaron, you suggested let's take our old couches out and put them in the garage and bring the ones that are in the garage, which are nicer, into the house and...

Yeah, they've been in the garage for a while 'cause we were just been waiting for the kids to get a little older. Yeah. We didn't want them to get destroyed. But one of them is like a smaller leather couch. And then we have this blue one. Longer, more modern looking. Anyways, I have actually really enjoyed the way the whole setup looks 'cause it looks so much different than what we had going on. But-

It's Fresh. It's a new year.

Yeah.

New living room.

So morning time is happening and we all sit down for family Bible time, which we've shared on social media before. We talked to you guys about it. It's a Holy time, not really a time to let your sin show. Right?

Or the perfect time.

Yeah. Aaron, you sat down, like you usually do, with a cup of coffee in your hand. Wyatt's sitting next to you and Truth's on his way toward you. And I just remember thinking it's going to spill. Like this is disaster waiting to happen. But instead of just, well, I'll just tell you what I said. I kind of looked at him cross-eyed and said, "Strange you would sit there on the leather couch with coffee like that."

Yeah, it was a little more animated. It was like a..

Yeah, I had a little attitude behind it.

A little attitudey. Yeah.

Sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm embarrassed to share this. It's just, it came from a place of not wanting the coffee to be spilled, but...

But you were bothered that I didn't think about it or...

I don't know what I was bothered by

But yeah. but it wasn't nice or effective. It wasn't an effective way to share it with you. And you were really calm and actually really nice in your response but you looked up at me and was wondering, you know, next time just simply asked me to move the coffee. Like just put it on the counter.

Yeah, I think I said, "Was it necessary to like question me like that? Like with like an attitude??

Or say it like that, yeah. It wasn't..

Like can you just ask me to go sit it down on the table?

Yeah, It just wasn't nice and I recognized that and I apologized but, you know, I didn't even realize that I had said what I said and said it that way. It was just something that kind of happened and came out. And the problem in that moment for me was I saw that it was an unbecoming way for me to act toward you. But I also recognized in that moment how regular, not often, but other times that I... It wasn't a one-off it, it's-

It's a way of communicating.

It's a way of communicating when I'm bothered or frustrated that I do and so I got to repent for that also.

But today this is the, here's the segue, all right. Sometimes there's stuff in us that comes out. Things that we're not aware of or not expecting, you know. It just kind of is like it's in us and it comes up. Ways of being, choices we make, ways of communicating. Stuff that's been there for awhile, right.

Mm-hmm, walking in the flesh.

Walking in the flesh.

The sinful nature flourishing. Yeah. So we just really wanted this topic today to encourage you because we know this kind of stuff happens marriage. Well, it happens in ours.

Mm-hmm. But you know, God desires us to change. And he's so patient with us and He uses our spouse, He uses friends, family, people, children to show us our ways of being. So that we can repent, so that we can change.

And it's called sanctification.

Yeah.

Just like I was talking about at the beginning of this episode. How valuable and powerful it is to have someone walking with you to keep you moving forward. That's what our relationships do. That's how God uses other believers. He uses non-believers. He uses our circumstances to draw out of us sin. To draw out of us, the old man, the old nature. The way we walk in the flesh when we're not in the Spirit. And it's a process, it's sanctification. That's why the title of this episode is God's Not Done With Us because this is the life of a believer.

Yeah.

Is sanctification.

So he's not done with us. He's not done with you.

Great.

Yeah, and so this episode is an encouragement of sanctification is going to happen. God hasn't given up on you. If you're being sanctified, if God's drawing things out of you, pointing things out in you, convicting you in the Holy spirit, that means God loves you.

Yeah, so I guess..

And that means He's working on you.

So today's episode also kind of highlights how should you respond when he does that. Are our eyes open? Are our hearts humble?

Yeah.

To do that.

An example of this, something that happened early on in our marriage before we had kids, that was one of the early on things that showed me some sin in my life. Some sin, a way of me and Jennifer can cave.

It challenged us.

Yeah, it challenged us. One of those things that God loved us and so He allowed someone to challenge us and encourage us.

I think I might say He always uses people

Yeah.

to do things like this, it's cool.

And so we're driving I think we're leaving the mall. We're with a couple... Another married couple friends of ours, good friends. Went to church with them. And I'm sitting in the backseat with my friend and Jennifer's sitting in the front seat with his wife driving. And Jennifer and I are talking across the car and we think we're talking normal and as usual...

it was normal for us back then to talk this way.

It was very normal for us. And my friend looks over and very strongly says, "You need to stop talking to your wife like that." And I'm like, it just stopped me. I'm like "What?" I like looked at him. And this is like the nicest guy.

Yeah.

He's so loving, so gentle.

Super mellow, yeah.

Super mellow. This was like the most stern I've ever seen him be. But he was utterly offended by the way we were talking to each other and the way I was talking to you.

Being disrespectful.

We were bickering and being rude

Yeah.

and disrespectful and just snapping back at each other and just snippy and the whole... I can imagine

Cold.

these two super gentle, calm people sitting between us. And, but he looked at me, he's like, " The way you're talking is-

It's not okay.

not okay.

Yeah.

He's like, that is not how you talk to your wife or anyone. And that was like a pivotal moment. Now I didn't, from that moment on, start perfectly talking to you but man, that stuck with us.

Yeah, and our friend said it, not just because he was uncomfortable in the car in that moment-

No.

He did it because he genuinely loved us and wanted to see that area of our marriage grow and be better.

And he didn't like what he saw.

Yeah.

And it was wrong. We realized from that point on because our eyes were opened by our friend, through the Holy Spirit, to that sin in our life of wrongful, rude, arrogant, snippy communication.

And because of that, over the years we've been able to actually really grow in it. Recognize it. Ask friends of ours, " Hey, if you see us talking this way would you just let us know?" Yeah.

Because whether we learned it from the way our parents raised us, whether we learned it from just the kind of people we are,

Yeah.

It was a part of us. It was something that God wanted out of us and he used a good friend of ours to point it out on us,

Help us see. to help us see. And that was a huge thing for us. And now, this is just another example of just one of those things that we may not necessarily recognize as sin or sinful but it's walking in the flesh. It's not having self-control-

Yeah.

over our language. It's not having self control over our communication. It's not communicating with love and patience and gentleness.

And God wanted that change in us.

And He's been doing it ever since, like I said, we didn't just snap our fingers and boom we were like different people, but that was actually-

It was a huge impact.

That was a huge impact. We made strides in that area. Although we still-

It's like something we focused on for..

Absolutely. We would notice it.

Yeah, that time. We would hear like, "Oh we're not talking very nice."

Doing that thing again.

So those kinds of stories are in all of our lives

Ways of being, things that we do, that God looks at and He's like, "I want you to be more like my son."

I've given you my spirit to help you walk like my Son.

So follow the spirit not your flesh 'cause when we follow our flesh that's when-

Yeah.

we ask rude questions rather than just encouraging our husbands to get up off the couch and go put the coffee down. We talk to our spouses rudely, arrogantly. We get angry when we shouldn't. We lose patience when we shouldn't.

And so this is what it looks like to be a Christian. Not that we just, you know, 'cause we can have one perspective of, Well, I'm just a sinner. I'm going to sin all the time and, you know, thank God I'm saved. And I don't think that's the biblical perspective. The Bible says that we've been set free from the bonds of sin and death. Which means we're no longer slaves to it. Which means when we do it, it's because we're either choosing or we're being willfully ignorant. We're walking in a way that's contrary to the way that God's created us, and as the new creature, to walk. Just the thought for us, you know.

It's good. Two things that I wanted to share about confrontation of our sin is that sometimes in cases like the story you just shared

God uses someone to clearly spell out the reproof, you know, that this is the problem.

Yeah.

This is what I see going on.

This is how you should change.

And other times it's more of a response. A deeply felt and acknowledged response by someone who's been affected by our sin.

Maybe it's sadness, anger, frustration.

Those are all cues for us to stop and go, okay, something's going on-

Right.

that I need to address." And like you said, being a Christian means we're going to look at it. We're going to address it. Not just put it on the back burner and avoid it or pretend like it doesn't exist. And the other thing that I want to share with about confrontation with our sin is that God uses people. I shared that all ready.

Yeah.

And so sometimes he'll use you, like he used our friend. Sometimes Aaron he'll use, you he'll use our listeners.

Yeah.

In the lives of people that we love. And this is just a small encouragement to say when the Lord prompts you, when you see something, when you feel that ache in your soul, because you know it's going to be uncomfortable to walk it out in love but do it because that situation that we experienced with our friend changed our trajectory of the way we communicate. It didn't make us perfect, but it radically made us look at our life and go, we can't bicker anymore. We, can't talk to each other like that.

All right.

So if God can use you as a change agent in somebody's life, let Him.

And that's something that we'll talk about as some of the postures that we should have-

Yeah.

in receiving these corrections from the Lord. I just want to bring in but another example of how God's been working in me over the years and maybe the husbands that are listening could relate to this. The Bible tells us to walk in an understanding way with our wives. And this is something, Jennifer, I'm sure you can attest to probably in many ways, that I struggle to walk with you in understanding. I'll often be quick to push you to get over the emotions that you're dealing with. Or to quickly answer the question. Or to find the solution. Rather than slowing down, listening.

Real quick, I just want to say this is, 'cause we talked about God's patience earlier, and I feel like you walking with me in an understanding way is one of those areas of our life where I can see God's patient with you because it's not just understanding in this one particular area, it's understanding in a lot of different ways. And so we've seen it kind of flush out in a lot of different areas as you've walked and matured

Right.

and grown in your relationship with God. Does that make sense?

Exactly. Yeah, and me not walking in understanding with you or even trying to understand, right. Like, I'm going to make efforts to walk in the Spirit and I'm going to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Right. And slow to anger. And I'm going to try and understand. What's going on? Why are you feeling this way? Why are you communicating this way? Why are you, you know, what's going on?

And that's loving, right.

So me not walking that way is sinful.

Yeah, and I think the hang up there would be, sometimes you treat me as if I'm emotionally at par with you, like at equal with you, when I'm not.

Right.

So you respond to me or you communicate or you address something or you...

Like you should be able to respond the way I'm responding. And I get impatient with you.

Yeah, and I'm sitting over here going, " Whoa, what's going on."

Yeah.

Yeah. So anyways...

Well and that's something that comes up often. I mean, we're married 14 years now. So that we've had-

There's been some opportunity.

A couple times. But as husbands that's our job. It's a command. It's also comes with a promise and a warning, you know, and I should be walking that way. This is one of the things that God, by His Spirit, has been teaching me over the years.

A lot of the way, a lot of the time by you. You saying, You're not trying to understand. You're not even listening. You're not... You telling me, communicating to me. Often the most fruitful times that you communicated to me is after the emotions have died down but still you communicate to me. You speak to me, you share with me. But none of the change happens in me. None of those things grow in us unless we're willing to listen and receive and desire it. So just because you've been married a long time, you know, it doesn't mean we have a perfect marriage. We're all a work in progress.

You could be married 50 years and you still need the Holy Spirit to sanctify you and your marriage. You can be a Christian your entire life.

Yeah.

And guess what? We're still sinful creatures that need a savior. We're still in the flesh and need sanctification. Right.

Mm-hmm.

It doesn't just stop. You don't reach perfection. The Bible actually tells us that, it says this in Philippians 3, 12, Paul says this, he says, " Not that I've all ready obtained this or I'm all ready perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own." Like Paul, the great apostle, wrote two thirds of the New Testament. This is how he saw himself as someone who needed Jesus, needed the Spirit of God to sanctify him. And that's what we need.

Yeah, I think that this is something that I've struggled with as a Christian is just the expectation I place on myself.

Yeah.

For perfection. Because I truly do want to be and walk perfect and I struggle with myself and I'm frustrated over the fact that I still sin or I still make bad choices or I'm still wrestling with that thing that I said I repented for, you know.

Do you feel like that's something that God's been really drawing out of you recently? Like revealing to you.

That expectation? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, He has. It's just this desire that I have to want to be perfect but the hardest part is making all those little choices to make change. That striving to be like Him, that I wrestle. It's kind of like, you know, you want the nice body but you don't really want to work out or eat healthy. It doesn't work. You know, so..

I've seen programs that do that.

My point is, it doesn't just happen. It's something that we're enabled to walk in and we can choose because of what Christ has done and what he has given us. But it is, like you said, it's a process of sanctification and we need Him. This is where reliance comes in. We have to rely on the Lord.

Yeah.

Every single day and...

Yeah, I remember saying in last episode that God's been drawing things out of us. Sometimes really painful, you know, but I want him to keep doing it because the more He does it, the closer I get to be like His Son And I'm not doing it to earn anything from Him, We can't earn anything from God. I'm doing it 'cause I love God. You know, so when I look back on, you know, my friend calling me out for how I communicated to you and how unbecoming it is. He wasn't just doing it so that me and you had a better relationship.

Right.

We're Christians. And he's thinking like, this is not how Christians talk.

We have a message to share. A different one than what we were sharing.

So that's another aspect of this is God's not just walking us through sanctification, and His son Jesus, for our sake, but for His sake. We're Christ's bride. And the Bible also describes us as the body of Christ. He's sanctifying the Body. We're, if you think about, I just thought about this, the priests before going into the temple wash themselves. And so that's what Christ is doing. It tells us in Ephesians 5 that he's washing his bride with the water by the word. So we're being sanctified. We're being cleansed. It's a process, but it's to bring Him glory. It's to make him more beautiful. Not necessarily us. And I think that's incredibly encouraging and powerful.

You know, I wanted to share... This is going to be a little bit chunky, I don't know if it's going to come out perfectly because sometimes when we're learning something it's hard to verbalize, you know, retell it. But I knew that we were going to be talking about sanctification and so sometimes I'll take certain words like sanctification or purification or pure-

Write them.

and look up like the Hebrew word for it. And so there's still a lot of learning involved with all this, but I was reading something that was talking about how this one word that means to purify in Hebrew, communicates the idea of causing something to go from unclean, sometimes shameful, to pure.

Yeah.

So it's that process that draws from being unclean to pure. And I liked that they brought in the word shame. Because I think what makes me frustrated about this I want to be perfect and that I'm not, is that I have to address the things that I do, the sin in my life and then I feel shame.

Yeah. And I think that's the pattern for everyone, every believer that recognizes sin in their life. Often our fleshly response to the sin is shame.

So when we are confronted by our sin and we repent

but we still feel shameful or that shame,

How do we move forward in that sanctification process?

Why and that's a great question because we do deal with that. And often that shame and that condemnation keeps us there. It keeps us from God. Makes us feel like, well, we're not worthy. Well, believe or just know this, none of us are worthy and the only reason we have anything in us that's worthy to go to God is because of Christ. Romans 8:1, is the thing that we should run to, to remember this is. Yes it says, "Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." So that shame, that condemnation we feel is just that, they're lies from the enemy because the only reason we're saved is because of Christ Himself. Not because we're good, right. And so we can rest in Christ. Now that means we should, like, if we're truly repentant and we desire growth, like we are forgiven.

Like God has forgiven us of our past present and future sins and desires us to walk in light and holiness. And so that shame... I mean, says when Christ died on the cross he despised the shame. Like he's taken it. And the condemnation is no longer there. We have been made right with the father in heaven because of what Christ did. And so we run to Jesus with a repentant heart knowing that he's all ready forgiven us, knowing that he is transforming us with a desire to grow and mature. And then there's also this thought. You've struggled with this, Jennifer. About... Actually I have, and I think everyone that's listening has felt this way. God, why won't you just change this in me right now? Like this thing I have. This way of being. This desire I have.

Yeah, I have to never worryabout it again.

This lust. This, yeah. Can you just, like snap your fingers, Lord, and like make it disappear and I won't like, I won't even crave those things anymore? What's funny about that is, he has. The Bible tells us that He's given us all things that pertain to life and Godliness in Christ Jesus

We actually talked about this in a different kind of context but we were talking about this very thing in our relationship and personally things that we were dealing with but remember we brought up the story of how you... We were trying to get rid of this school debt that we had and how you prayed and you were like, God, just take care of it for us. And it was a faithful prayer. Like you...

Well, we know God can.

We know he's...

We've seen Him do it to other people.

He's got limitless resources, right. Like, and he's all powerful and all knowing.

So take this debt.

Yeah, just take it.

We're praying in faith. Take this debt.

And what actually turned out to happen was we worked really hard to pay off the debt-

Yeah.

for a few years.

Well, he gave us the drive and the resourcefulness-

He gave us opportunity.

and the ideas and the skill-

To work.

and the opportunity and people coming to us and saying, hey, would you take take pictures of our wedding? We're like, what?

Yeah.

Yeah. And things like that. And so at the end of it, the debt was paid off. The prayer was answered,

But not in the way-

But not in the way we want it.

Yeah. Thought it would.

And so what the point I'm getting to is we can sit and do nothing and pray that God changes us or we can trust and believe that what he's given us is sufficient to change us. Meaning you can change. For me, I can get up out of bed. I can learn and walk and understand with my wife.

I can stop asking Aaron snarky questions.

It not funny.

It doesn't just happen. It doesn't just happen. It's... Oh man, I just... I thought of a really awesome story.

Better than mine?

No, this is one of the Bible's, so yes, but it's not my story. So do we all remember the story of Jesus going to the tomb of Lazarus? Okay. I want you to go back and read it. It's in the gospels. And he comes to the tomb and Lazarus had been dead for over three days. Where's there some significance there. It was four days and everyone was like he's going to smell. This is bad. Don't do it. Don't open the tomb, right. And Jesus is like, "Can you open the tomb? Open it." Roll the stone away." He rolls it away. And then Jesus says, "Lazarus come out." Okay. So that's the call. This is the... Jesus's words go forth and it makes Lazarus able to come out. Guess what?

Stumble out.

Guess what?

Did he, like float out? Did he like hovered up and like you see like a mummy floating on the cartoon. No. He waddled probably because he's wrapped up. Waddled out of the tomb. And so he was made able by Christ and then he walked. This is how we we've been made able by Christ to walk. We were once dead and now we are alive. Now here's the cool part of the story. You need to go read this story again because you'll read it with new eyes. Then he tells those around him, "Go unwrap him." Okay.

You need people in your life.

Well, this is what's amazing is that without those people he wouldn't have been able to get out of the wraps that were wrapped around him. Christ calls us and makes us able. Christ gives us the ability. Christ brings the life to us and puts it in us. He's given us his spirit and his word and draws us to his voice. He says, "My sheep know my voice," right.

And he prompts other people to help.

And then he also has given us his church, his body that are also filled with the Holy spirit to come and to unwrap us. As we become unwrapped we can be more able to unwrap others and to slowly peel back the layers.

That's really good.

Right, and so it's not something that just happens. It's something that's happening and it's a choice and it's decisions that we make to walk in the spirit. It's something that we're enabled to do and choose because of what Christ has done and given. In the new Testament, over and over, it tells us to put to death the old man. To walk in newness of life. To grow in maturity. To seek that which is above rather than what is on earth. To keep in step with the spirit. To not walk in the flesh. Okay. All of these callings, all of these these things that the believer is called to do they're necessary because we still have flesh that we live in. We're not yet in our glorified bodies. That's what the Bible says. It says, we're not not yet there but when the perfect comes, we will be perfect. We're not there yet. These are all action words, okay. Put to death. Keep in step. Seek

Seek... Grow.

that which.

Walk.

Grow in. These are all actions. We don't just lay down on the floor and say, okay, Lord, transform me. No, he sends us out into the field and we get stronger as we dig and plow, right. And that's what we are as believers. So as God's sanctifying us in his son, Jesus, we should long for it and desire it and look for it. That's what a wise believer does. Or we can, what the Bible says, kick against the goads. That's what Jesus told the Paul. He was Saul at the time. He says, "Why are you kicking against the goads?" Like we can kick against the thing that's drawing us and fight or we can go with it and receive it. So what do you like, Jennifer, what does it look like if we, like to not receive it? 'Cause like this is... We don't always perfectly like, oh, cool. Yeah, I'll take the correction or I'll take the rebuke. So like what should we avoid and like what could...

Well, I'll tell you what's happened in our marriage.

No, no, no. Don't go there. No, them. The people listening. No, I'm just kidding.

I can see how over the years the times that we have truly, and honestly, repented there has been change made because we were determined in our minds and in our hearts to act differently-

Not just say it.

and the other times where, say, a conflict or something came up or sin was confronted and there was acknowledgement and there was even apology and reconciliation, but not true repentance of like desiring that change. It got pushed aside and not thought about. That thing always came back up over and over and over again in different ways. So...

So what you're saying is if we protect our sinful way, like this thing. No, that's just how I am. Oh, that's how I was raised.

Justify it, yeah.

No, that's just my personality. No, like that's not exactly what you think it is. Like justify and protect and shield then never... It's...

It's never going to be healed. It's never going to be fixed. Put back in place.

That's good. And we shouldn't do that. We should be... We should release. Like we should let go. We're like, okay, if we recognize where we're sinners then it's easy to admit you're a sinner, right. And by the way, if anyone listening wants to hear some example, an in-depth understanding of repentance, we have a couple of episodes, a couple of seasons ago, where Jennifer and I talk about our journey with lust and pornography and those kinds of things in our marriage and we go pretty deep into what it looks like to have a true repentant heart. So if you want to go check those out. But I just want to... I want to read a scripture here in Galatians five 17. Puts the idea of this thing that's happening in us this way. It says for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

I've never felt that tension before. Have you ever-

Never, no.

felt that tension-

I always feel-

of those two

perfectly harmonious.

opposing each other within?

No, this is... Every single time... The idea what this is saying is, and this isn't saying, hey, you're never going to do the thing that you want to do. You're never going to walk holy. You're never going to walk in freedom. That's not what this is saying. This is just literally saying the reality is that there is a flesh. Any sin nature that is still in us while we're in the flesh but we have the spirit of God in us and so we can, as the Bible says, walk in the spirit. We can keep in step with the spirit. We can run to the father in heaven and ask for strength. We can put on his armor, right. That's what the believer is supposed to do to help us combat the flesh. To put the flesh to death, as the Bible says, but man, it's a battle when you know you should, you know, get into the word but you want to be on social media instead. You feel the tug. You feel the struggle.

Sometimes it's like whiplash.

Yeah. When you know you need to apologize to your wife for how you're communicating but you are-

Oh, it's an ache so deep.

But you're mad because you want them to apologize because they also didn't communicate well. It's the struggle you feel. The tug there again. Your flesh is against the spirit. The spirit of God is saying, go do what's right. She's your wife. And you're saying, yeah, but she should go do what's right first. That's the flesh talking, right. So when you're sitting in that spot, you do nothing, but when you say no to the flesh, you go do the right thing but it takes humbleness.

Humbleness. That's good. Yeah, I was going to share that none of us are exempt from this sanctification process, you know, that the Lord is walking us through when we're believers. Our responsiveness to God in the sanctification process matters and you just use the word humble. and that's what like, that is key because if He's faithful to show us and confront the things that we need to repent and change from then how we respond in those times truly does matter. And the only times I've been able to truly honestly repent and be determined to make change in those areas is when my heart is humble.

The good news about all this is that, like the title of this episode says, God's not done with us. Philippians on, six says, "And I am sure of this that He, God, who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." And what that saying is, is the part-

Not completion now?

No, no. This is the life we live. The walk we get to have now and the sanctification that God does in us. The washing that He's doing is going to be completed when the Lord returns.

So that's where the acceptance of I'm a sinner and I'm not perfect today. It's okay. Not that we... That doesn't give us justification to continue in our sin but to not feel the weight of that shame.

Right, and it's recognition that...

He's working in us.

When we have sin in our life, God, because he loves us, is going to deal with it-

Yeah.

and we need to let Him. The problem comes in when we don't. Like you were saying. Like if we don't humble ourselves. The Bible puts it this way. "Don't quench the spirit." It's a warning. It's literally... That's the sentence. "Don't quench the spirit." And the warning is, when the spirit speaks, when believers come to you and the Holy spirit they've seen something in your life and they encourage you and they say, actually, this is dangerous. How you're walking or this thing that I see in you. We could get defensive and fight back but that's not us being humble. And we want to be humble 'cause God's not done with us. He's transforming us, renewing us, refining us through Jesus Christ, which is amazing. It shows that we're His. Just one note on the fact that we're His, just like gold, when it comes out of the ground is not pure. It's mixed with all sorts of things but when it's put to the fire, when it's put in a crucible and intense heat is added to it, it purifies and the way it purifies is all those impurities float to the top. And that's what God's doing in us because we're treasure to Hm. We're His treasure because we're in Christ. Christ is His son. So it's a beautiful thing. It shows that He loves us. We're His to be refined. He's making us more pure daily, moment by moment, second by second when we let Him.

So Aaron, we talked about God's patience, you know. God's patience is a good thing. How does it benefit us? Why is it good-

Yeah-

that God's patient with us?

I'm thankful, like people always mentioned, like being struck down by lightning or something. Like God-

Like what does it take for Him to get angry.

I know, He's a just God and he's going to bring wrath on the earth, right, but He's patient. And the Bible says in second Peter three, nine, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you. Not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach..." What's that word?

Repentance.

Repentance. All. So reaching repentance in this sense is that someone comes to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and then for the believer is walking in repentance. Jesus told the Jews. He said, "Continue in repentance." but he tells the believer the same way that we have a life of repentance that we know that we... We know the flesh in us and we know the God in us and we say, God, I don't want the flesh. That's repentance. I don't want that anymore. That way of being, hate it. 'Cause you hate it. I want to hate it too. I want to hate it more.

Yeah.

So it's a beautiful thing. His patience means salvation. His patients means-

Love.

Love.

Yeah.

Right.

Love is patient.

And it's kind and gentle. Oh, wait.

I know. So, okay. So how does the sanctification process and repentance and transformation impact the marriage relationship? How has it impacted us?

In every way. When you see a strong marriage, and you think, man, I want to be like those people. Like how they love each other so much.

I can tell you what that foundation's made of.

Yeah. It's made of lots of-

Humility.

repentance and humility.

Yeah.

Because every time they had an argument, or what they learned to do in their arguments, is to know that they're on the same team, to repent of sin, to no secrets, being real.

Not justifying sin.

Yeah, not justifying themselves, but they're like, no. Their marriage is stronger because they recognize who they are when they walk in the flesh and they recognize who they are when they walk in the spirit.

And they know who did what to cover that-

Yeah.

flesh.

And then they encourage each other in that.

Every day.

Every day.

Not just, like once a week or you know, once a year or on holidays.

Yeah. It's something that Jennifer and I we have to learn.

Yeah.

To continue and encourage each other. That we don't take things so personally, you know. I've seen in our marriage, it's strengthened our unity.

Yeah, for sure.

There's been tons more trust. I'm sure there's lots of marriages that are like, man, I just wish I can trust my spouse. Right.

When you see somebody repent, apologize, reconcile for even the smallest of offense, you know that that person is for you-

Yeah.

you know.

Well, and is concerned about the way they walk in faithfulness.

It reveals their character.

Yeah, and so the trust comes in even when a spouse fails. Instead of trying to hide it and waiting and then getting caught, they come immediately and they say, hey, I did this thing and I'm really sorry and it's not who I want to be and it's not who I am in Christ. I know you're angry. I'm not going to try and change that but I just want you to know because when we come to do that, one thing I've realized in my life is that I got to love God and my relationship with God more than I love my wife and that's why I go repenting my wife. Not because I want to feel better about my relationship with my wife, but because I love God and I love my relationship with Christ and what he's done for me and so my getting over my self is because of that. My relationship with God.

Yeah. I've been working to get over myself lately. That I wanted to share, because I think it's so important to even address the small stuff and so I've been in this season of like, God gave me fine tune eyes to see even the smallest thing that you want out of me and, you know, I'm just in a place with God where I want Him to refine me on a greater scale. Like just rip me open and do the surgery.

What I've noticed is you'll come and apologize to me for something I wasn't even thinking about but you're like, "Hey, I said this thing to you and I'm really sorry."

Yeah, sometimes I don't-

It was rude and I didn't mean to say-

walk you through what that thing was and remind you of it and you've been really gracious with me but it's been so good for me to see because I feel like the more like something will happen and I address it right away, then I see more.

Instead of pushing it down, hiding-

Hiding it.

and saying, noit's not that big a deal.

Or acting like it's not a... Yeah, acting like it's not a big deal. And this is just one example, but-

It's called minimizing.

Yeah.

Don't minimize.

Yeah, don't do that. We were driving in the car somewhere, having a conversation and we're kind of going back and forth, but you were going back and forth rightly. Addressing context for context-

Which is not always the case.

Okay, but just for the sake of...

A little disclaimer.

Just for the sake of this story, you were replying to the things that I was saying in regard to context, and you would say something and then I would respond with something completely out of left field. And you were really nice about it.

You kept going on tangents that were bothering you. When we were talking about-

Yeah, and like you said something like, "Did you hear what just said?" And then you told me that it... We got into another conversation about how it kind of hurts your feelings when I'm not addressing the thing-

Oh, I know what you're talking about.

that we're talking about 'cause I'm just jumping around.

Right, which made me feel like you weren't listening to me 'cause I would answer the thing you brought up.

Right.

I would say, well, this isn't this.

Well, because-

and then you would just jump to another topic and I'm like-

Yeah.

wait, did you even hear the first thing I said?

So you... It was a very gentle, like acknowledgement and then I started seeing how often I actually do it. I actually did it a lot. And so every time that it happened, I... Well, I repented and I said-

Look, I'm going to change that way-

I'm going to change that and I'm so sorry and so for a while, every time we were in a conversation I'd catch myself and be like, Oh wait.

Every time you'd be like, "I just want you to know, I've heard what you've said. I acknowledge it. That was very good input. What do you think aboutBut I appreciate it. I was like, okay.

My transition's got way better but we're laughing about it. But this was something that was like a fire. A thing that was frustrating you and I wasn't, you know, recognizing. I was blind to. I wasn't even paying attention to what I was doing and I wanted to change in that area. Have I been doing better?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

No, I remember the context of what you're talking about. I do want to make a note, because you were saying that you're like even the little things. I don't think... This is not an encouragement for you to be looking... Just calling out all the little things in your spouse like nitpicking-

Right.

Where, like I'm going to... And this is often kind of where people land. Like, oh, I'm trying to help my husband be better and so I'm going to call out everything that I think he needs to change all the time or the husband. I want my wife to be better. So I'm going to... And then all of a sudden, every little thing-

No that's a good note.

is being called on. This is not what we're encouraging you to do.

What I'm saying is that I'm in a place in my relationship with the Lord where I was asking him to open my eyes and then he started to open my eyes and I'm like going around just saying, you know, changing the way that I'm doing things and that was just one example but that's a really good note. That we shouldn't go around trying... What people would have said before you can't be the Holy spirit to your spouse. You actually have to let the Holy spirit work in their lives.

Yeah.

And that's a really big testament to God's patience like we talked about before. We also, as a spouse, need to be patient like God is patient. We need to trust that He is working in that. He may use us, but He may use someone else. He may use something else to encourage that growth or that change and so yeah, on the other side of things, we should be super patient with each other.

Yeah, that's love.

It doesn't keep records of wrongs. That's another thing. So like you're not just, you know, finding all the things, keeping track of them and then setting them blowing up at someone because that's not love. Love is genuinely wanting that... You're wanting your spouse to grow in their relationship with God because that's the only way they're going to grow. Not because you want them to, but because they are growing with God. A note on this idea of wanting to bring something to your spouse. I think, you know, instead of finding all the little things and chipping at them all the time, which is super destructive, I think. That doesn't mean-

Oh, it's critical.

It's, yeah. It's criticizing, it's critical, it's exhausting, but don't avoid going to them with things that do need to be discussed. Like if there's a pattern. If there's something that's really like hurting you in love not in a heightened, emotional state, sit your spouse down and say, "I just need to share something that's on my heart."

I read something... That's really good. That's so good, babe.

Thank you, babe.

I read-

Example right there.

I read something recently that said that your big emotions last like a minute and a half and so when something happens-

Oh, yeah. It is like that.

Yeah, and it's been good for me to have that timeframe just so that if there is a big emotion, like don't say something you're going to regret or something hurtful.

Wait three minutes.

Just wait a few minutes and then rethink it. Anyways, that was tangent. Yeah, then this... That was good, babe. I liked that. That was a really good example. The next thing I wanted to say, and this is something that has been really encouraging lately, before going to your spouse, go to God in prayer. Bring your spouse before the throne of God in prayer. Like I see this thing in my wife that I... Man, I really wish she would grow in this area or change in this area. Lord, would you help wife see this? She does this, God, and I would really... Can you help her see this, Lord? And then be praying diligently for the things specifically. Something happened recently. Jennifer, you started sharing with me something that God was showing you and revealing to you and you're like, I need to change in this area and God's, you know... I feel convicted on this and this and this and I want to grow in this. And I told you. I was like, I've literally been praying for this very thing and every word you said, I've been praying those words. I'm not kidding. I really was. I've been... So before sitting down and going-

Criticizing.

and criticizing or coming out of... I'm bothered or I'm hurt. Or I might... Okay, Lord, you can change my wife. I know she loves you and praying something that was good for you and God encouraged you in it and I didn't say one word about it too. It's not always the case, but man, that was a really encouraging thing to me to know that I need to be bringing you before the Lord more.

Yeah. That's really good.

Yeah. So husbands, wives...

Be praying for each other

Pray for your spouse, yeah. Okay, what can we ask God today to help us see our sin clearly and then what does it take to see change?

The first thing that comes to my mind is Psalm 139, you know, where David says, "Search me O Lord." We did a podcast on this. You remember?

Mm-hmm.

It was a while ago. You guys can look it up. Search me O Lord because we want God to show us. We want him and his authority in our life to reveal to us the things that we need to see. Things that we're unaware of. Things that we're blind to or things that we've minimized or things that we've justified that shouldn't be there.

Yeah.

Then we need to be humble to receive what he shows. 'Cause you know He's faithful. You know He's going to show us, right.

And he does, especially when the Bible tells us if we pray and do not doubt. So pray and don't doubt that God's going to start showing you and we should desire it as Christians. For our own sake, we'll be blessed. Our spouses will be blessed by the transformation in us, right. As I always say, like, you know, we're known by our fruit. That's what the Bible talks about. Good fruit. But who's the fruit for? It's not for the tree. It's not for the sake of the tree. It's for the sake of others. So that good fruit that God wants to produce in us by His Holy spirit is for our spouse's sake, is for our neighbors' sake, is for our children's sake. And so that transformation that God's wants to do in us and the sanctification process is for our good and for the good of others and for the good of the body of Christ. He's doing the work. He's cleansing his bride. He's preparing his church. He's doing it for His own glory and we should want that too.

And when, you know, we've got a long, good stretch of things especially in marriage just going well and you've gotten through some hard stuff, but you've repented and you've changed and things are like well and then something else happens or something familiar happens where you've sinned again, don't be discouraged because God's not done with us. Don't be discouraged. Just do the next right thing

Run to God. Run to the person you've you've sinned against, repent and let God continue to wash you. I know that's what He's doing and that's what the Holy spirit does for us. So I would say that we said everything that we wanted to sayfor this episode. But last episode, the first episode of the season, you started something, Jennifer, with these episodes that I think is really powerful. Where we share something that we're grateful for and then we encourage our listeners to then go and share something they're grateful for with their spouse or with a friend or social media. However they want to do it.

You just want to spread gratitude.

Yep.

Because-

God wants his people to be grateful.

It's important.

Yep. All right, so I'll kick this one off today. I'm grateful for the way my daughter will reach up and play with a strand of my hair when I'm sitting next to her.

Which is really sweet.

It's so sweet. Sometimes she'll just keep putting my hair behind my ear like over and over again and I just think physical touch and having that closeness, that bond is so important and so just the little things, you know, like that. It's really sweet. I'm also really grateful for the thoughtfulness God put into His design of language and you know, I briefly shared about, you know, looking up a Hebrew word and its definition earlier but I love how we can be led on a little word study. Like one word can take you on a journey when you look into different translations or different languages and sometimes words have pictures associated with them. It's just, I think it's so creative of Him to do for us and it gives us depth that we'll never fully uncover until, you know, we see Him face-to-face and then it'll all be revealed and we'll think He's even more amazing than we all ready think He is but I love language and-

That's really true actually.

I think it's really beautiful. I'm grateful for that. And it's something I've been trying to focus more on lately. Just utilizing His gift of language in my study time of the Bible so.

That was a good one.

Yeah.

Why did... I should have went first because yours was really good. I'm grateful for God's loving patience with me and I know this is kind of what the topic was about but like I was telling you, this is genuinely one of the things I think I thank God for the most. He's patient with me. He's never let me go and he continues to love me and patiently changed me and transformed me daily. When I just look over my life and where I was and where I am today and who knows where I'm going to be in the next 10, 15 20 years and how God isn't going to change but I'm going to change because God loves me. Yeah, that's what I'm grateful for.

Cool, so you guys think about what you're grateful for and then we just wanted to encourage you to share it with the Lord, share it with your spouse, share it with a friend. Anyone who you can and then encourage them if they want to share something that they're grateful for.

Spread the gratitude. All right, so we always end with prayer. Jennifer, would you pray for us.

Yep. Dear Lord, thank you for your patience with us. Thank you for showing us our sin and our need for you. Thank you for using people in our lives to call out what they see in love so that we can be better. Thank you for the opportunities in our marriage where your Holy spirit prompts us to share our hearts with each other or be patient like you are. Thank you for not being done with us. Especially when we aren't listening. When pride keeps us where we are instead of growing, when we choose wrong, when we're stubborn or just remain blind to it. We pray for open eyes and a humble heart. We pray we would choose repentance no matter how hard it feels to our flesh even in the little stuff. We pray we would continue to be sanctified by you and may it be a testimony in our lives of your goodness and power. We pray we would walk in righteousness and we thank you that our marriage benefits from that kind of faithfulness. Transform us O Lord, and may it bring you glory in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Thank you, babe. Again, would you please consider leaving us a review if this episode blessed you and also you're our share warriors

I like that.

and our prayer warriors. Would you share this episode somehow, some way with someone who might be blessed by it. Email, text message a phone call and then have them listen over the phone. That's a weird one, but share it with someone. Let someone know about this podcast. We love you all. You guys are amazing and we will see you next week.

WE. ARE. BACK!

we missed you all. We have a word for you this year and we share what God has been working in us since we took our hiatus back in June!

Join our free Marriage Prayer Challenge Today!

http://marriageprayerchallenge.com

PRAYER

Dear Lord,

Thank you for this last year. Although it was difficult and different in many ways, we know you were working. We trust you and we hope for all that is to come, all that your word says will come. We are excited for this new year and the many opportunities we will have by your grace to share Your gospel with others. We pray for boldness and great faith. We pray for the right words when the time is right. We pray for receptive hearts and we pray for revival. May you draw hearts closer to yourself. We pray marriages would be stronger this year. We pray our eyes and our hearts would be focused on you, what you are doing, and how we can participate. We pray for truth to prevail. We pray gratefulness will overwhelm our hearts and our minds. May your peace guard us and may Your holy spirit Lead us into this next year. 

In Jesus? name, amen!

Transcript

[Jennifer] Welcome to the "Marriage After God Podcast."

[Aaron] We're your hosts. I'm Aaron.

[Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer.

[Aaron] We've been married for 14 years.

[Jennifer] And we have five young children.

[Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other.

[Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together, including our newest book, "Marriage After God," the book that inspired us to start this podcast.

[Aaron] "Marriage After God" is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.

[Jennifer] To reflect his love.

[Aaron] To be a light in this world.

[Jennifer] To work together as a team.

[Aaron] Using what he has given us.

[Jennifer] To build his kingdom.

[Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey.

[Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together

[Aaron] This is "Marriage After God." Hey, welcome back to a new season of the "Marriage After God Podcast," and with it a new year.

[Jennifer] 2021. It's here.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure a lot of us are like thankful that it's no longer 2020.

2020 felt long.

With probably good reason. Yeah, it was a long year. But we're your hosts, Aaron and Jennifer Smith.

Hi!

And we're glad to be back. We've taken quite a bit, quite a long hiatus from recording episodes for the podcast. But yeah, and we're here with season five, January, 2021, excited to be here.

[Jennifer] So I think it's safe to say that 2020 was, different?

[Aaron] Difficult?

[Jennifer] Disorient. I can't say that word.

[Aaron] Disorientating?

Disorientating a little bit.

It is a long word.

[Jennifer] Just so much has happened, you know. And the personal impact of last year looks different, you know, from family to family. But Aaron and I just wanted to take a minute and just speak to anyone who especially felt affected this last year and in profound ways. Even small ways, it doesn't matter. At any point, if you struggled, if you wrestled, if you were frustrated or confused or just had a hard time this last year, we just want to acknowledge that.

[Aaron] Yeah, anyone who's lost loved ones or jobs, businesses, those who got sick, who struggled with anxiety, mental illness, we just wanna say that we're praying for you guys. And we didn't wanna skip over this. We are gonna try and be light, but real things happened this year.

[Jennifer] A lot happened.

[Aaron] We just wanna remind you that your peace and your shelter is God. And we just pray that God would be your peace right now, and that he'd be comforting you. But if you have gone through that and you're here listening today, we welcome you. And we're excited to encourage you today and share a little bit of our life with you. And we're excited to get back into the podcast with you. So, yeah, but we just wanted to start with that.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and now we're here starting a new season of the podcast. And we're jumping into a new year. Hopefully, all looking forward to a better year, but maybe we're just all a little bit more prepared to embrace whatever this year has for us and accept, you know, what is to come, whatever that is.

[Aaron] And just a word we wanted to give, and not to whimsically throw this word around, but for the believer, this word is everything for us. And the New Testament over and over again reminds us of this word for good reason. And so we wanna remind you, also, fellow Christians, of the word hope. And it's an important aspect of the Christian faith that sometimes gets overlooked, because when the world goes the way it's going, it might overshadow, it might make us feel like, "Wait, is there hope?" Like, "What's going on?"

[Jennifer] But, for us, I mean, when hard times hit, it's that hope that gets us through, really, to persevere, to endure. Because we're not just looking for the hope of a better day or a hope of things, circumstances to change. What are we looking for?

[Aaron] Yeah, our hope isn't an earthly, temporary, imperfect thing. Our hope is in something eternal, something sure and everlasting. So, you know, our hope isn't in the things that are perishing. The Bible tells us and cautions to keep our eyes above where Jesus sit on the throne, right? Keep our eyes on heavenly things. So I just wanted to read a section from Hebrews 6 that explains what this hope is for us and where it comes from. It starts in verse 13. It says, "For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself saying, 'Surely I will bless you and multiply you.'" So this was God's promise to Abraham. "And thus, Abraham having patiently waited, obtained the promise, for people swear by something greater than themselves. And in all their disputes and oath is final for confirmation." So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, so the heirs of the promise, that's us, brothers and sisters, that we're the heirs of this promise. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath. So that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf having become a high priest forever. So our hope is eternal. It's sure, it's an anchor, it's steadfast. But what is that hope in? It's in Jesus Christ, it's in his complete work. It's in the fact that he is sitting on the throne next to God in heaven, interceding for us believers. That's what the Bible tells us. He's praying for us. He's encouraging us through his spirit. And at the end of all of this, we get eternity with him because of him. So our hope is not in, you know, the government figuring things out and fixing all the problems. Our hope is not in a cure for things. Our hope is in Christ and his work and what he's done. And that's a sure thing, and it's certain, and it's perfect. And so, brothers and sisters, we just wanna encourage you, regardless of what happened in 2020, no matter what 2021 has for us, we have hope in the perfect and complete work of Jesus.

[Jennifer] That was really good, Aaron. And it was super encouraging just to hear you share that with us. And I just want to just affirm our listeners that one of the biggest motivations of why we do what we do and our reasoning for getting into season five of the podcast is because Aaron and I feel very strongly that our purpose, God's purpose for us, is to be an encouragement to the believer.

[Aaron] To the church, yeah.

[Jennifer] I just really look forward to this next season and the episodes that we have coming out because I truly believe that they are gonna be a source of inspiration and encouragement, and just reminding the believers to have that steadfast hope, no matter what we face, no matter what we endure through. And like we mentioned earlier, from family to family, it will look different, but I guess we're all in this together.

[Aaron] As believers, yeah.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and Aaron and I just wanna be here for you, wanna be a voice of encouragement for you.

[Aaron] So with everyone experiencing so much change, we've experienced change, we actually talked about change in the very last episode of season four, it's explaining why we were taking a hiatus and just taking a break. And the changes we made coming into season five, we've made a little bit of changes. You've probably noticed the new theme song in the beginning of this episode.

[Jennifer] Yeah, it kind of just go straight to the music and our intro. And then you just shared the title of the song that we chose. Do you wanna share it?

Yeah, this song with the whistling which we really like is called "Can't Be Bothered." And so it's kind of like a theme for this year that, as believers, we're just like, we're not gonna be bothered by what's going on in the world. We're gonna keep our eyes on Jesus.

[Jennifer] Actually, when we were gearing up to just start this episode, we heard the whistling and Aaron goes, "It's like we're holding hands frolicking on the hills of green." I don't remember what you said.

That's what it sounds like.

But it was so picturesque. So I just have that vision running around in my mind.

[Aaron] So when you hear the song, we pray that it encourages that idea of frolicking with your spouse.

[Jennifer] No, Aaron prays that it gets stuck in your head and you think about our podcast.

[Aaron] That too. That's the marketing in me. Yeah. So we have a new intro to the podcast. And what we'll do is, instead of starting with us talking and then going into the intro, it's gonna be intro. And then we're just gonna jump into saying hi to you guys and talking about what God has put on our hearts and what's going on in our lives. And so, yeah, that's a little bit of the change for this new season. There's another change that we were doing for this season, and we'll share that at the end of the episode, but it's a little fun thing to encourage new habits and new ways of thinking. And I'll leave that as a secret until the end.

[Jennifer] Oh, they're gonna be just wanting to know more.

[Aaron] Yeah, so as usual, we do wanna invite you, if you haven't done so yet, to leave a star rating. At the end of this episode, if you want, just scroll to the bottom of the podcast app and just tap on one of those stars. And it helps us get into the algorithms so that other people can find the podcast. And if you have time, leaving us a written review is just a huge blessing. It helps others know what the podcast is about. It helps others hear your testimony of what you might've been encouraged by or blessed by from the podcast.

[Jennifer] And it encourages us.

[Aaron] And it encourages us. So we just wanna invite you to do that at the end of this episode, or at any time, really, to help spread the word about this podcast.

[Jennifer] So we already mentioned that this is season five of the "Marriage After God Podcast." And we just wanted to note here that if you are new and you haven't had a chance to listen to previous episodes, or if maybe you've missed any, just to take a look at some of those past episodes, you know, your next commute or laundry day, be sure to catch up. Also, subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.

[Aaron] Yeah. There's a lot of episodes, over 100. So you have plenty of time to go and listen to all of that. And we'd love to hear from you, to know what your favorite episode is, but yeah. Hey, what's happening in two days?

[Jennifer] It's our anniversary. 14 years. I can't believe it!

14? Are you sure it's not like six or seven?

Mm-mm, definitely 14.

No, it's 14 years. Man, it's been a long time.

[Jennifer] Happy Anniversary!

[Aaron] Yeah, Happy Anniversary to us!

[Jennifer] You know, it's funny, as, usually, we're so good about wrapping up the end of the year with talking about goals and visions and dreams and things we desire for the coming year. And I think just because 2020 was such a whirlwind, we did it a little bit in November, just because we were itching for some like-

Normalcy.

Yeah, normal and new. But we never really had that conversation. So I think come-

[Aaron] I'm a little satisfied, too. I'm okay, like, I don't have any huge goals. I'm sure we'll come up with some, but right now I'm just like, "Okay, cool. 2021, let's see what's going on."

[Jennifer] We usually go out to dinner on our anniversary to celebrate. And so I'm excited to see how that will play out. And I'm just excited.

In the coming weeks. But yeah, 14 years. I'm proud to be your husband. It's been a roller coaster. Roller coasters are fun.

Yeah. In a good way. But they're also scary.

[Jennifer] Yeah, I was gonna say terrifying.

[Aaron] And I think that's a good definition of marriage. But man, it's been good. I wouldn't trade the last 14 years. And it's actually been more than 14 years. We knew each other for quite a few years before we were married. So we've been knowing each other for a long time.

[Jennifer] Still love you. Okay, so let's take it way back. What was your favorite memory from our first year of marriage?

Ooh, it was a long time ago.

I know. I know.

[Aaron] 14 years. Okay, so we were gonna be planning on going to Africa.

[Jennifer] We did go.

[Aaron] I know, but in the first year, we were planning. And we moved up to Washington for a short while to spend time with friends, to raise some funds. And that time we were in Washington, actually, was really cool.

[Jennifer] Yeah, do you remember the drive we took and it was just like no agenda type of drive out in like farmland and we saw a bald Eagle.

[Aaron] Eating something on the ground.

[Jennifer] Yeah, that was pretty cool.

[Aaron] That was cool. So that was cool, that was a long time ago. We were like kids back then. But no, that was cool. We stayed in a little tiny apartment above, what was the shop? It was like a print shop.

Print shop or something.

[Aaron] That's what it was, downtown in Washington.

Super fun.

It was interesting and cool. But that was a fun time.

It just feels like a whole lifetime ago.

[Aaron] That was almost a whole lifetime ago, yeah. So, yeah, that was one of my fond memories of year one.

Awesome.

What was yours?

[Jennifer] Well, it's a hard memory, but it's a good memory.

[Aaron] This is your favorite memory, is a hard one?

[Jennifer] I'll tell you why.

[Aaron] Okay, just do it. Pull the bandaid off, just tell me.

Maybe I shouldn't. I think I even wrote about it in one of our books, but do you remember staying in the airport, and we had just flew back from Africa and we're in like Miami or something like that?

We had a transition.

[Jennifer] And we were gonna El Salvador.

[Aaron] Like right from there.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and we're trying to not miss our plane, and I just stop in the middle of the airport and I'm just falling.

You dropped your bags.

[Jennifer] I'm just crying. And you turn around. And I'm a newlywed still, right?

[Aaron] You're a good, like 20 yards behind me, just sitting there crying. And I'm like-

I don't know what I'm doing.

'Cause we're like gonna miss our plane.

[Jennifer] And you turn around, and you come rushing back. And you're like, "What could possibly be wrong right now? We've got a plane to catch." And I just said, "I think you married the wrong girl." Like, what we were doing, the ministry and the missions, everything was just so hard. And you grabbed my hand so hard and you said, "Okay, we can talk about it later." And you pulled me along with you.

[Aaron] Which is like the theme of our marriage. I just, yeah, you got this, let's go. We'll talk about it later.

[Jennifer] Yeah, but it is just a really good feeling to know that no matter what I'm going through, ups, downs, you've always been that hand of encouragement and someone to tug me along and say, "You got this." And even throughout this last year, 2020, you did that for me so many times. But instead of saying, "We'll talk about it later," we talked about it right in the moment. And I just really appreciate that about you, that you are willing to remind me who I am, remind me who we are together, and what are our purpose is, you know, for God's kingdom. And so, like I said, it's kind of one of those twisted, weird, hard memories, but I am so grateful for it.

[Aaron] And that was fun.

[Jennifer] It was so fun.

[Aaron] It was like, yes, there was a lot of hardness in it, but there was a lot of fun in it too. So encouragement for those husbands out there. It's one of your ministries, grabbing your wife's hand and dragging her. Oh, encouraging her.

No grabbing your wife's hand and encouraging her.

Along the way. And telling her you love her and that you wanna listen to everything she's struggling with.

And reminding her that you're there for her. That's what I meant. Thank her.

Okay. Let's move on. Happy anniversary. I love you. And let's move on.

[Aaron] Hey, real quick, we always want to offer something for free for you, for our listeners. We've made quite a few resources, and one of our most popular ones is our marriage prayer challenge. And you can go to marriageprayerchallenge.com, all one word, marriageprayerchallenge.com, all one word, it's completely free. You can join up, and we're gonna send you a prayer prompt every day for the next 31 days for you to pray for your husband or for your wife. And it's not to replace your prayer life. It's to inspire it.

Inspire it.

[Aaron] Yeah, it's like a fun challenge to be like, "Hey, I'm gonna get this email, and like, Oh, here's a new thing. I'm gonna pray for this today for my wife. I'm gonna pray for this today for my husband." And over 100,000 husbands and wives have taken this challenge already.

That's incredible.

Will you join them? If you haven't yet. Marriage prayerchallenge.com. It's completely free. It's 31 days. It's an email. It's simple. Sign your spouse up with you with their permission, yeah.

With their permission.

[Aaron] Yeah, but get that free thing. We wanna offer something every single episode for you guys to either download or get involved with for free.

[Jennifer] This is also made possible in part by our faithful prayer team patrons. And we just wanted to do a shout out to them and say thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you.

[Aaron] Yeah, those patrons help these emails stay free. And so, thank you.

[Jennifer] Okay, can I just say that it feels really good to be broadcasting with you again?

[Aaron] Does it?

I know.

[Jennifer] This is way more natural to Aaron. And he could just jump on a microphone and start talking. And for me, it's a little bit more challenging, but he's patient with me. But I really am excited to be here. And like we said earlier, we took a break starting in the summertime after season four, which was actually cut short a little bit. And we just felt like-

We needed a break.

[Jennifer] For ourselves and for our family, we just needed a break. And it was so nice and refreshing. Guys, we've been doing this ministry for 10 years, and podcasting for, what, almost four?

[Aaron] Yeah, we were going pretty nonstop in the podcast for a couple of years.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and it just takes a lot of, you know, mental capacity to dive into these. And we want to do them for you guys, but it was one of those, just-

[Aaron] Well, and we also, we were about to or just had, I don't remember at what point we had our fifth child.

[Jennifer] Yep. We had Edith. And so I was still in postpartum.

[Aaron] And a hiatus was like, totally warranted. We were like, "Let's do this. Let's take a break."

[Jennifer] But what was so encouraging was you guys. You guys would reach out to us and say, "Hey, we miss the podcast. We miss you guys. What's going on?" And we'd say, "Yeah, we're taking a break, and we're enjoying it." And they would say, "Oh, good." Be like that's-

[Aaron] Yeah, but, "Don't take too long."

[Jennifer] Actually, there was a handful of you that are like, "Well, we're really excited for when you come back." So just thank you guys so much for all of your messages. We really appreciate that.

[Aaron] So although 2020 was a really odd year and incredibly difficult for some and lonely for others, for us, we had our own stuff going on. I mean, everyone has their stuff. We had our own stuff. We had some deep, deep lows. We had some really awesome highs.

[Jennifer] Oh, I wanna share a little-

Do it.

Is it a story? I don't have any illustration.

Good illustration, yeah.

A good thing. A few days ago, I went through about six boxes of Legos trying to help my son look for a particular mini-fig, if you're familiar with those. His was Heartbreaker.

[Aaron] It's an Iron Man figure.

[Jennifer] The irony of his name. My son's been heartbroken over losing this particular Iron Man. And so I was showing him how to sift through the Lego bricks. And I even said that word, "I'm helping you sift." And he looks up at me and he goes, "What's that?" So I showed him that I would take a big handful of Legos and shake them through my hands, and did this one at a time going through these boxes. And so I was just thinking about this last year and thinking about this situation that I had with my son, and I feel like this last year was the kind of year that makes you sift through your soul. It makes you sift through your marriage. It makes you sift through every inch of your life, but in a really good way.

[Aaron] I would even adjust that to say, God has been sifting us. Like through his hands.

Through his hands.

Oh, that's really good. Yeah, we got to do that. And I think sometimes we even got down to the gritty bottom and looked down and said, "What's that? What's that doing there?" And then we got to encourage each other, you know, back up from that place. And so I don't know why that illustration just really stood out to me. But I also wanna just take a minute, Aaron, and just say that you were an anchor for me this last year, someone who grounded me when my mind kind of spun out of control, just with everything that we endured personally, but also on a grand scale of like the chaos in the world and the confusion, you know, in the places that we live.

[Aaron] And becoming a mother of five.

All of it.

There were legit things.

[Jennifer] There was so much. There was so much. But you were so compassionate with me, patient with me, slow with me. You were my reason when things didn't make sense, and iron when God needed to sharpen me. And this year just showed me how much God has used you in my life, in my everyday life, in that refining process that I take for granted. Like, 'cause I know it's been happening over the 14 years. I know it's been happening every day since we've been married. But I think along the way, I just kind of like, I became used to it. But this last year I undersaw the value, the importance of it.

God turned up the heat. To get all that dross, bring it to the top.

[Jennifer] Yeah. So thank you.

[Aaron] Well, thank you, that was encouraging. Well, speaking of that year and how God might've been sifting us and just some things that we experienced in winter, let's just give a quick rundown of some of the things that happened in 2020 for us. One pretty big thing I think is, you know, for those that don't know, we are part of a small home church, and they appointed me an elder in 2020, which is pretty cool. And if you're hearing that word for the first time, I'm just using the word the way that the Bible uses it. I teach and I try and make sure that false doctrine is not in the church and I try and abide by the standards that the Bible gives for an elder. But that was a cool thing. So I've been growing and learning a lot in my gifts of teaching.

[Jennifer] Which you really are gifted in that.

Thank you.

Just being able to explain God's word, you know, and teach it. It's just really beautiful.

[Aaron] Well, and this has been a sifting thing for me to realize the responsibility I have, that I can't just say my opinions and just, you know, "Oh, I'm gonna just say what I think this means." I actually have to study. I actually I have to make sure that I'm teaching, as the word says, "Rightly dividing the word of God." Because it says not many of you should be teachers because you'll be held to a stricter judgment, a stricter accountability. Like there's a level of responsibility there. Which is neat, difficult, encouraging. But I've been doing that for the last year now. And so that's been something that's been, you know, an element to 2020 of, with everything going on of, you know, how do I walk and lead in a church?

[Jennifer] Yeah, and I would say this, having that responsibility, which you were already walking in that responsibility, but seeing you really flourish in that place grew your love for people. I mean, you always loved them, but had so much more care and concern and stepping into those relationships, and, you know.

[Aaron] Well, and I would use that word love. That that is absolutely something that God's teaching me. Which is funny, 'cause like we're Christians, we should love, that's like our word, realizing how not good at loving I am. And so growing in that. And again, God's showing me, like, "Hey, no, I want you to love my way." Like, "This is what love looks like." And I'm like, "Okay." So I'm growing in that. He's pointing out all those rough edges on me.

[Jennifer] So after that we had Edith, which we-

Numero, what, cinco?

Five. Yeah, we had her right in the beginning of, you know, all the COVID stuff changing.

All the COVID stuff.

[Jennifer] But we launched season four with her birth story. So if you guys haven't had time to go hear that and you want to, that's available. But we dive into that story a little bit more, which is a really cool story, actually.

[Aaron] It was our first home birth.

[Jennifer] Our first home birth. Yeah.

[Aaron] We've had the first four in hospitals.

The first four at hospitals. And it was beautiful and it was perfect. And God just, he just really gifted us with baby Edith.

[Aaron] I'm sold on home births. That was like a cool thing. I know not everyone can do it, but that was awesome.

[Jennifer] It was amazing. She's been an incredible joy to our family and our children. They'll walk by her and just go, "I love her so much." And it's just been an incredible distraction from what's going on in the world. I was just thinking like, having a baby during this time-

[Aaron] She has no idea what's going on. She's just always smiling.

The innocence, shes blessed. Her name actually means blessed, which is cool. But for me, it was like looking at the world and everything that was going on gives you that zoom out perspective of like, you know, just you're looking at everything all at once. But then when you have a baby in the midst of it, it zooms you so far in to something as simple as the smile on her face.

[Aaron] Yeah, and the thing that she's trying to grab on the carpet. Yeah, or like cheering her on and she's trying to stand up. It's like nothing else in the world matters. So for me, that was a huge, just tender spot in my heart that I just praise God for it.

[Aaron] And the lesson from this is have children to distract yourself from. Honestly, there's not enough time to think about all of that other stuff because we're trying to raise our kids.

[Jennifer] Okay. Our house has been a lot of fun. It's been super busy, just, our time is consumed. But, yeah, having five kids is a lot, and we're learning.

[Aaron] Also just overall, and I'm sure everyone's gonna have levels of this, this year has been refining for us. God, using the downtime, using the hiatus, using all of the things to draw things out of us and put more of himself into us. And that's been really awesome. Like me realizing how fickle my self-routine is. We've done episodes on talking about just consistency and routine, which is really powerful and really good. But the moment little things messed up my routine, it all went out the window.

[Jennifer] Well, and how much your routine's actually impacted the rest of our daily life.

Oh, gosh, yeah.

[Jennifer] And all of that. I think everybody's probably looking back at 2020 going, "What happened to all of routines?"

[Aaron] Yeah, no one's talking about New Year's resolutions from 2020. Those were like long gone.

[Jennifer] Yeah. That's okay. We've got another chance. We've got another year coming.

[Aaron] Yeah, and you know, what's good about it is it's just showing where, like, is it the strength in me or is in God and like learning discipline on another level.

[Jennifer] Also learning How to be flexible when things are interrupted.

[Aaron] Which is super frustrating, but it's like, "Hey, are we allowed to be interrupted?"

[Jennifer] Yeah, are you still gonna work in the spirit?

What?

Yeah, I know. Some other things that-

Speaking of spirit.

[Jennifer] I know, I know. Some other things that we felt refined in this last year is just, well, for me particularly, but feeling selfish in my relationships and in my friendships, in my view of people and the way that I interact with them. And just had a handful of moments that God opened my eyes and said, "Jen, you need to repent."

Be more selfless.

[Jennifer] You know, "You need to change in this area, because these people love you. And I want you to love them more and love them like I love them."

[Aaron] You have a word here on the notes, inconvenienced. That's something that God pointed out to you a lot this year was when you're inconvenienced is when these things, that's one of the triggers of when certain ways of being shows up in God's... That's just why you brought up the whole, are we allowed to be inconvenienced? Because when you walk in love, when you walk in the spirit, those inconveniences will be opportunities to love.

[Jennifer] 'Cause with your words, I might say, "Yeah, I wanna serve them during this time right now."

As long as it's done this way.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and then for whatever reason, the circumstances are hard or like inconveniencing. And then I go, "Okay, well, how else can I fit this in? Because this is," you know, I'm thinking about myself, which goes into the next one I was gonna say is idolatry and putting yourself up on that pedestal and saying, "I'm more important," or, "I have all these things that I'm worrying about. So I can't possibly worry about someone else."

[Aaron] Or, "I deserve this."

[Jennifer] Yeah. So, what else?

[Aaron] That's a big word, but that's something that God has been showing you in your life. And so the selfishness infringed on things for both of us, like we're both have been confronted this year on certain ways that we are. Not in every circumstance, but like, God, definitely, God's not interested in a little bit of this stuff in us. Like, he's not like, "Oh, that's just so-and-so. that's how they are." No, he's like, God wants holiness. He's refining us. And so he's been sharpening us, pulling some things out, pruning and disciplining. And we're like, "Oh, okay." Showing stuff to us that we haven't seen before, highlighting those things in us. Another thing that God's been showing us this year is helping us realize our insufficiencies as parents.

[Jennifer] Uh-huh, having really rely on him.

[Aaron] Yeah, and just running to prayer, you know, weeping over our of thinking and just saying, "God, change us, transform us. Help us to walk in love, to walk in patience.

[Jennifer] Patience was a big one this year for us, especially with parenting. And I feel like we both came to the conclusion, there was this moment where we looked at each other and we're like, "Wait, we have five kids under eight. This is hard." You know what I mean?

[Aaron] I think we all do this to some level of like, "No, they're ours. We got it, we can do this." And we kind of just neglect the realization that it actually is a difficult thing. It's actually hard.

Yeah, like we are in the trenches with parenting.

[Aaron] We have five children under eight.

Learning and figuring it out.

Or eight and younger. So that was actually helpful to realize like, "Oh, it's okay that it's hard. And it's okay to recognize that it's hard. We should be more patient."

[Jennifer] Yeah, and walking in grace for ourselves with that learning curve, and walking in grace with each other and for our marriage.

And with our kids.

[Jennifer] Walking in grace with others and just, gosh, yeah there was so much that God did that was good. And it reminds me of that song "Miracle Worker," which everybody loves.

[Aaron] "Way Maker"?

[Jennifer] Yeah. What did I say?

[Aaron] Well, it's "Way Maker" or "Miracle."

[Jennifer] Yeah. Olive always calls it that. Anyways, even when we don't see it, he's working.

[Aaron] Yeah, he has. And though some of these seasons in the last year were very difficult, just spiritually, emotionally, and physically, I want God to keep doing it. I'm loving the fruit that I'm seeing. Like, God is actually changing us. He's growing us. He's making us more like his son. And that's what I want. God's growing me and changing me. And I wanna receive what he has for me.

[Jennifer] Oh, receive, that was another thing that this year really impacted me was receiving from the Lord and accepting from him everything and anything that came our way. You know, I don't know why that was hard for me to realize in the past, but when easy things come and it changes you, like an encouragement, you're like.

Yeah, I'll receive that. "Oh, yeah, I can receive that. And I'll change."

[Aaron] And a blessing? I'll receive that, yeah.

[Jennifer] Yeah, you move forward. But I didn't realize how much resistance was in my heart when it came to hard circumstances, hard situations, being confronted, even you coming to me saying, "Hey, I see this happening, and you need to stop." It's like, "Ouch." But receiving that from the Lord and going "Okay." Or things we don't understand, "Okay, Lord."

[Aaron] Well, I remember there was a moment you actually verbalize it. You said, "Okay, I'm gonna receive it." I'm like, "What?" And you're like, "Just the things."

All of it.

"I'm gonna receive these things that I don't want. I'm gonna receive them, and I'm gonna say, 'Okay, thank you, Lord.'"

[Jennifer] But there was like instant peace. And then my heart was just okay. And it was like, "Oh, okay, God, I can trust you." So that was just a handful of things that we wanted to share with you guys briefly.

[Aaron] Just a note on that, it makes me think of Job, when he said, "Shall we not receive the good things from the Lord," or "Shall we receive the good things from the Lord, but not the bad?" Meaning like both things come in life. Like the Bible says that rain, God sends the rain on the good and the bad, the wicked and the righteous. So bad things are going to come into our lives, hard things are gonna come into our lives, and God will bring some of those things in our lives. And so are we gonna be like, "No, I reject that. And I'm only gonna receive all this good stuff over here"? No, we receive both, because God's good, and he has a reason why he's bringing certain things in our lives, good or bad.

[Jennifer] So, yeah, that's really good. Thank you for sharing that. What are some other things that happened last year that we can kind of celebrate?

[Aaron] Something that it didn't necessarily start last year, it started, I believe the year before, but we have five books in Hobby Lobby.

[Jennifer] Oh, that was such a blessing.

[Aaron] And that's been a blessing to us.

[Jennifer] It's been so awesome.

[Aaron] Not just in our lives personally, but the fact that it's like, people can go, it's the cheapest place you can get our books. They have them like 40% off.

[Jennifer] And we just had a friend send us a picture, and all five are in one row right there at the checkout kiosk. But how cool that we've got a row in Hobby Lobby. I just think that's so great.

It's pretty awesome. So thank you, Hobby Lobby, if you're listening.

[Jennifer] Oh, and we didn't really share too much about this, but for our listeners, if you are at Hobby Lobby or online, wherever, you might notice that "Marriage After God"-

The book.

The book had a revamp of cover, the inside's still the same. But do you wanna talk about the cover?

[Aaron] Yeah, the content is exactly the same. But what they did is, Zondervan took it from a hard cover and made it a soft cover and changed the image on the cover. It's cheaper.

Which is good.

[Aaron] And it's really pretty. And it's got this nice matte cover, and it's really awesome. And that's also at Hobby Lobby or Amazon or iTunes, wherever you wanna get it.

[Jennifer] Just Wanted to make that note so it doesn't seem like we have another extra book somewhere.

It's not a new book. It's they totally revamped the whole look and everything.

[Jennifer] Yeah. Very cool.

[Aaron] So another note on that, pretty much the only place to get a hard copy of it, the hard cover, is from our store. So shop.marriageaftergod.com. If you're looking for some of the last copies.

[Jennifer] I was gonna say they're a limited supply.

[Aaron] Yeah, 'cause they're not gonna print the hard covers anymore, they're only gonna be in soft cover. Which they're wonderful. They're beautiful. They're awesome. They're more affordable, which I love. But if you want a limited edition hardcover, they're at shop.marriageaftergod.com It's the only place to get them right now.

[Jennifer] Cool. Speaking of books, we've mentioned this to you guys before, but we've been working on some children's books.

[Aaron] That's a new thing, yeah.

[Jennifer] Well, the part that's new is that we've been working with a local artist for the illustration.

So they're getting illustrated, yep. And thy look really good.

So, that's been going. Super excited about that. So we're hoping that that comes out this next year. Do you wanna talk about social media?

[Both] Yes.

Do we wanna talk about it?

Do we? So do you guys remember when we talked about being on a hiatus from the podcast? Well, we kind of-

[Aaron] To guide us from social media as well.

[Jennifer] Like not intentionally, but I just found myself posting less and less and less and less. And then I started to enjoy it, the fact that I wasn't on it so much. But not really, you guys, just looking at our life, like I'll speak for me personally, and then you can share, Aaron, but being on Instagram and Facebook and all the places, you know, I love it. I love being able to receive your guys' messages and, you know, have that engagement there or comment, being able to share pictures of our family and, you know, encouraging memes or whatever it is. I've always loved that. But after having Edith, there was just less time. And I found it very difficult to be on social media as much.

[Aaron] I don't remember what book it was from, but there was this idea of brain calories. Like, you know how you have food calories, like you eat them and you're like, "Oh, I have 2000 calories. I have that much energy. I can use it to run and do whatever I want." But they gave this idea of brain calories of like, how many calories do you have and what are those gonna be spent on in your mind? So I think that taking the break from posting to social media as much as we used to, man, we used to post a lot.

A lot, yeah.

[Aaron] 'Cause over the years, we've lessened that, but it's been nice to put our brain calories to other things.

[Jennifer] Well, I was gonna say, as my jurisdiction at home grew, my time and my ability to be more connected, I guess I'll say, it just flip-flopped. Which has been happening over the last few years, but yeah, I just wanted to make a note because I have had people ask me like through Instagram, "Hey, have I just been missing your posts or have you not been on?" And so I, again, just wanted to make a note that I've been enjoying the time off. You'll probably see me post from time to time, but it's not gonna be like it was, only because I'm in a season where I'm homeschooling too right now, not including preschool stuff.

You're homeschooling all of them.

Yeah, I'm homeschooling all of them, but to me, the preschool stuff comes way easier. But Elliot's in second, Olive's in kindergarten, and we just have busy days.

[Aaron] Yeah, and another thing, you mentioned that people weren't seeing stuff, we actually started, I don't know if we were shadow banned, like, I don't know if anyone knows these things, but there was a season where people were having a hard time seeing our content. It wasn't showing to anyone. So what's happening is just with the way the algorithms, the way all these big tech giants are going, it has been harder for Christian voices, conservative voices to be seen. And so the amount of energy into those things, we'd rather put it into something like this.

[Jennifer] Yeah, the podcasts.

[Aaron] And our emails that we send. So if you wanna keep up with our content, just like subscribe to our podcast, get on our email list, and you'll get our prayer encouragements daily and you'll get this content weekly. Just one little thing that we're trying, it's an experiment, so I don't know how long we're gonna do it, but we deleted our Facebook and Instagram apps off our phone. We still have our accounts. So we can hop online on our computers in the browser and go check messages.

[Jennifer] It doesn't quite feel the same.

[Aaron] It's not the same.

[Jennifer] I'll say this, the first day that we did this, I kept checking my phone and then I'd find myself going, "What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?" And it actually showed me how often I was picking up my phone and just scrolling or just being a part of that.

[Aaron] Well, the same is happening with me. I'm picking it up and I'm flipping back and forth through my screens.

Looking for something.

I'm like "What am I doing?" So maybe this year 2021, we'll be less addicted to our phones by getting rid of a couple of apps. And if you're listening to this, maybe you can take the challenge with us. We didn't get it from anyone else. I mean, we heard other people doing this, but we just, we're trying it. We're removing those apps, and we'll try and engage through the podcast and through our emails and we'll try and hop onto our social media occasionally when we can. Yeah. It's just something we're doing.

[Jennifer] Okay, so we also want, in this first episode, we just wanted to share our hope and mission for this next year with you guys, with the ministry.

[Aaron] Just with our life.

[Jennifer] Our life, everything that we're doing. So yeah, let's just jump into some of these. First and foremost, we wanna preach the gospel way more. We wanna preach it here, online, wherever we can.

[Aaron] I'd say the last season and the season before that, we started getting more, like teaching the word and preaching the gospel more. And so we just wanna continue that and then grow that, because there's nothing more powerful than the gospel.

[Jennifer] And nothing more important, really.

[Aaron] Yeah, especially, let me just look at the world. We need the gospel.

[Jennifer] Yeah, we've also, in this last year, have been preaching the gospel way more to each other and to ourselves. And I think that's really important. So we're just gonna preach more.

[Aaron] Yeah, and gospel, it means the good news of Jesus Christ. And without Jesus Christ, there is no good news. Think about that. So the gospel, it's what we're gonna, we're gonna be preaching that.

[Jennifer] I love that. We're also gonna be growing in our faith. I mean, this is just the Christian walk, right? But we just wanna be intentional with allowing God to continue to grow us.

Prune us.

Prune us, increase our faith and our knowledge of him.

[Aaron] We also wanna grow in love. I mean, we mentioned this a little bit before, but another thing we wanna continue to grow in is in our parenting, like we're raising five children. We don't wanna just raise them to be functional in society. We wanna raise them to know the Lord, we wanna raise them to love the Lord, and we wanna raise them to be bold, bolder than us, more knowledgeable in the word, but also like lovers, gentle, kind, generous. So we wanna grow in that this year. And I know that sounded like a lot. We have a whole like decade, or several decades where we get to walk with our kids. But that's, we just wanna grow in our parenting.

[Jennifer] I would say this: feel more confident in our parenting, and just like-

[Aaron] That's a good word. Grow in our confidence in parenting.

[Jennifer] Naturally, I just think that there's a lot of insecurities, at least in my heart for parenting. And I just, yeah.

[Aaron] I think that's natural, because-

[Jennifer] We just love our kids so much.

[Aaron] Every phase, we have no idea what the new phases have in store for us.

[Jennifer] Even just with homeschooling, I look at it and I go, you know, I get intimidated a bit, because I don't know third grade, but I'm not there yet. Like he's second grade, second and a half. And so finding those insecurities and then trusting the Lord and letting him build my confidence up so that I can step into that next grade with him. But anyways, off tangent. Another thing we wanna grow in this next year is our love, our love for each other, our love for children, our church, others. When when I was thinking about this, I thought about how life has just changed for a lot of us this last year with like wearing masks and stuff. And the times that we go out in public, out into the stores, I was realizing that I'm not making as much eye contact, almost like just shuffling through. And I see the edge of my mask, and it's like it's hard for me to get past, but I think this next year, in order to show love to others we'll have to utilize our eyes a lot more and be more intentional to make those conversations happen. And I think people's hearts are yearning for that connection. They might not know it, but I think they're yearning for it.

[Aaron] We have a desire to see a revival in hearts, in the hearts of husbands and wives.

[Jennifer] Amen.

[Aaron] Like, not just revival in their marriages, but like revival in their relationship with God. But like we always say, our heart for "Marriage After God," the whole theme behind "Marriage After God," the idea, the intention is not just healthy marriages for the sake of good marriages. God's got gifts that he's given to each one of us as his children, and a healthy marriage is a powerful marriage for God. When you're walking with God, when you're walking in unity, you can be used, and God wants to use us. He doesn't need to use us. He wants to use us in his kingdom. That's why he has distributed, through his spirit, gifts to all of us. And so we want a revival in the hearts of husbands and wives, because we'll see children be discipled, we'll see neighbors be preached to, we'll see churches thrive. These are things that come when husbands and wives have their hearts yielded to the father.

[Jennifer] Yeah, you said the word unity. And I don't know why my mind automatically went to the word division. And I think we all got a healthy dose, whether through social media.

What are you talking about?

Or the news or whatever last year.

We're so unified in this country.

[Jennifer] All of that stuff does affect us. Like normal things are hard to navigate, normal relationship stuff, normal marriage stuff, normal whether it's finances or parenting or jobs.

All of it.

[Jennifer] You know, seeking out jobs or whatever, things used to be-

[Aaron] Normal difficult.

[Jennifer] Normal difficult in our lives. And now we have a lot more layers to it all. And so I just wanna encourage you guys, those listening right now, we have to be what is unified in our marriages. Like, we have to be the ones initiating love, encouraging each other.

[Aaron] Being on the same team.

[Jennifer] Being on the same team, being words of affirmation and encouragement, like, that is so vital to our relationships and our marriages.

[Aaron] And it's gonna be even more visible now than ever when we do it. So, just as we come to a close, what can our listeners expect over the next two to three seasons?

[Jennifer] Yeah, well, this next year, that is our aim, to do season five and six, possibly seven. And we'll have a handful of episodes per season. Some of this season's topics, you wanna go through some of those?

[Aaron] Yeah, we're gonna talk about sin. Yeah, that's a good one.

Nobody wants to talk about that, Aaron.

[Aaron] No, just God confronting us with things. We mentioned a few of them. We're gonna try and talk about some of those things.

[Jennifer] We're gonna kind of look at the purification process, the sanctification process.

[Aaron] Yeah, that gold refinement. What is the dross?

[Jennifer] It's gonna be good. Which, we're also gonna be talking about walking in the flesh versus walking in-

Versus the spirit. Yeah, we have a note on this topic. There was this, when we were discussing this, we'll get into it in the episode, but there was this image I got of standing in a river, and the river is flowing pretty hard, and you will go with the river and it's easy. You go against the river, and it's dangerous. And this idea of like, when you're walking in the spirit, the Bible says, walk in the spirit and keep, "If you're gonna walk in the spirit, also keep in step with the spirit.

Keep in step, yeah.

[Aaron] So it's this idea of, you're not guiding the spirit, you're following the spirit. And so that's gonna be one thing. We're gonna talk about, we're gonna do an episode probably on sabbath, and this comes with a lot of connotations.

[Jennifer] Yeah. The word rest just rings a bell for me. And I think that learning how to just accept slowness.

[Aaron] We came up with this topic just of probably how not restful 2020 has felt.

[Jennifer] And yet at the same time, we found ourselves in lots of moments of rest at home.

Of rest, yeah. Because we have a Sabbath and his name is Jesus.

[Jennifer] Yeah, we have another episode talking about are you really loving? And Aaron actually has a really cool-

[Aaron] Thing that I wanna talk about with that. It's gonna be a decision matrix, I think that's what they call them, to find out if we're actually loving or not.

That'll be good.

So that'll be fun.

[Jennifer] We're also gonna be talking about dealing with stressors and recognizing when things are hard, but also giving yourself grace. We've kind of touched on that. These are obviously all coming from what Aaron and I have been experiencing.

[Aaron] And some of these might change too, but this is our preliminary list that we came up with of things that we thought we should talk about.

[Jennifer] How to comfort each other during hard situations. One of my favorite ones that we're gonna focus on is end time prophecy and how to keep alert, how to how to keep watch, because the Bible tells us to.

[Aaron] Yeah, one thing that, if you didn't know it about my wife, is she loves all things Israel and she loves all things prophecy. She just loves learning about prophecy. I wouldn't say she's, we're not prophecy scholars, but we just love that.

Nope.

[Aaron] I mean, we should, as Christians, we should love prophecy. I mean, Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies in his own life because he was the Messiah. And then there's prophecies that aren't even fulfilled yet that we're watching happen before our eyes. It's so amazing.

[Jennifer] So we'll talk about that a little bit, and the power of lies, and the the mental game that goes on with what we hear and where it comes from and how we can combat it.

[Aaron] Yeah, a note on this is, like, are they our thoughts, or is it just something we're hearing? 'Cause sometimes we can be like, "Man, I have these thoughts." And so we're gonna talk about that.

[Jennifer] Dig into that a bit. And then we're gonna end with Jesus is the Passover. And that aligns with Passover, which I think is cool. So we'll get to share a whole episode on that.

Speaking of Israel.

I know.

[Aaron] Yeah, we hope you're excited. And we're gonna try and be, you know, just on here regularly, you know, weekly. Oh, so we talked about one of the new things that we're adding to the episodes. So, as usual, we will and in prayer, as we always do. But before that, let me share this new thing for this season, yeah.

I had an idea. I had an idea, I told Aaron, you know, a big way to combat complaint or grumbling is thankfulness and being grateful, being grateful-

It is the way.

[Jennifer] It is the way. Being grateful for the things that we do have or have experienced, or just, it's that recognition of God, what God is doing in your life. And so I told him, I said, "If we're gonna start the podcast back up, we are absolutely adding this piece to the puzzle." And that's just, at the end of every episode, we are going to say something that we're grateful for. And our hope is that this spreads joy and thankfulness and inspires you guys to do the same.

[Aaron] You know, the challenge would be that, when the episode is over, you consider what you're grateful for.

[Jennifer] And then share it with someone.

And then share it, yeah.

Share with the Lord, share it with your spouse, share it with a stranger share it with whoever you want. But getting that out of our hearts and into praise, I think is so important.

[Aaron] So we're gonna spend the first tithe of the year in Thanksgiving, like being grateful for God's goodness, for anything that God's blessed us with. You know, there's a verse that says this, this is actually God's will for us, being thankful. In First Thessalonians 5:18, it says, "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." It's actually his will for us. Have you ever saying like, "What's God's will for my life?"

[Jennifer] You're doing it by listening to our podcast.

[Aaron] To be thankful.

[Jennifer] Being thankful.

[Aaron] Yeah, and listening to our podcast. That's God's will.

[Jennifer] No, he's just kidding.

[Aaron] We're not gonna step outside scripture. No, his will is that you're thankful, right? So if you're ever wondering, "What's God's will for my life?" Thankfulness. And to be honest, the mere fact that sinners like us are saved by grace through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone-

Gospel.

Right. It is incredible, miraculous, and worthy of all thanks.

[Jennifer] Our perspective matters, it really does. All right, Aaron, why don't you kick us off with what you're grateful for.

[Aaron] I am grateful for a new year to pursue God and grow in my knowledge of him, because of what I just said about him.

[Jennifer] Awesome, mine's a little bit longer, if that's okay.

[Aaron] You didn't give it a length. It can be as long as you want.

I know, I know. As long or short as you want. I am grateful for the downtime we had this last year, just between having Edith and postpartum and everything else that went on. I'm just really grateful for my family and being able to spend that time with you guys. It was a lot slower than what we are used to, but I really enjoyed it.

[Aaron] Yeah. And God is good.

[Jennifer] God is so good. All right, so now you guys get to consider what you're grateful for. And be sure to share it with the Lord and with your spouse and with your friends and anyone else you can think of. And encourage them to spread the message of gratefulness.

[Aaron] And a PS gratefulness, we are grateful for you.

[Jennifer] So grateful, and it feels so good to be back. This was our kickoff episode, and we just wanted to recap, you know, what kind of took place and moving into the new year. Our encouragement was that beginning portion of that. We have hope as believers, we have hope in Jesus Christ, and we're gonna carry that hope into this next year, whatever it has for us. And we're really excited about the season and the episodes that we just shared and what's to come.

[Aaron] So we're gonna end in prayer, as we usually do. Dear Lord, thank you for this last year. Although it was difficult and different, in many ways, we know you were working. We trust you, and we hope for all that is to come, all that your word says will come. We are excited for this new year and the many opportunities we'll have by your grace to share your gospel with others. We pray for boldness and great faith. We pray for the right words when the time is right. We pray for the receptive hearts, and we pray for revival. May you draw hearts closer to yourself. We pray marriages would be stronger this year. We pray our eyes and our hearts would be focused on you, what you are doing and how we can participate. We pray for truth to prevail. We pray gratefulness will overwhelm our hearts and our minds. May your peace guard us, and may your Holy Spirit lead us into this next year. In Jesus's name, amen. And we love you all. And thank you for joining us for the beginning of season five. We look forward to many more episodes with you. And I didn't note this earlier, but because we're not doing social media as much, what we wanted to encourage our listeners is that you would be the one that spreads the word about the podcast. And so if you were blessed by this, and if you want to, would you just share this, somehow, some way, either on one of your social media networks-

[Jennifer] Or just word of mouth.

[Aaron] Tell someone about it, send it in an email, text it to someone. I think it'd be awesome if this podcast grew this year purely by our listeners. And so if that's something you wanna do, we'd love to invite you to do that.

[Jennifer] Also, don't forget to get your free thing that we have for you guys, and that's just the 31 prayer challenge. You can go to marriageprayerchallenge.com to sign up and get started on that.

[Aaron] We love you all, and we'll see you next week.

Change is inevitable. Some love it, some hate it and sometimes it can't be avoided. Today we talk about how we make changes and we also share some change that we are making with Marriage After God

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the responsibility of parenting. It is not always easy, yet it is a worthy and noble task. We pray we would be intentional parents who tend to the soil of our children?s hearts. We pray we would be willing to get down on our knees, to get dirty even when its inconvenient or challenging and show our children how to live according to your ways. We pray we would raise our children to know You and know your word. May you plant seeds of salvation in their hearts and may our children receive you and be world changers, bringing you glory! 

In Jesus? name, amen!

In This episode we want to talk about a few people in the bible that have really encouraged us lately and we hope their stories encourage you and your marriage as well. 

Do you feel weak or powerless? Do you feel like you can't walk in freedom? If that is you today We want to encourage you from the word of God. 

http://parentingprayerchallenge.com

2 Peter 1:3-4

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,

by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

In this episode, we share how we both came to know and walk with the Lord!

The world as a whole seems to be experiencing crises. In the last five months, we have seen headline after headline in the news and on social media. There is so much hardship, pain, death, loss, uncertainty, fear, chaos, and unrest.

In addition to it all, there are countless more trials, hardships, and painful circumstances that didn?t make headlines. We are all hoping for peace. We are all wondering how to walk out these things, especially together in marriage.

Whether you are currently facing hardship or if those times are ahead to come, we want to encourage you to walk through them in your marriage together, supporting each other and looking to God's Word to guide you.

https://marriageaftergod.com

We start season 4 off by sharing the story of our first home birth.

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 our first home birth story. Welcome to the marriage after God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.

[Jennifer] I am Jennifer, also known as unveiled wife.

[Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as husband evolution.

[Jennifer] We have been married for over 13 years.

[Aaron] And so far we have five children under eight.

[Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over nine years through blogging, social media and writing over 10 books.

[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...

[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 everyone, welcome back to Marriage After God.

[Jennifer] Season four.

[Aaron] We're on season four. Yeah, this is crazy.

[Jennifer] Awesome.

[Aaron] We've had a lot of episodes, but we're back for season four. So if you're tuning in, welcome. If this is your first time, we're so glad that you're here. Listening to the Marriage After God podcasts. We pray that it's an encouragement to you and a blessing, but if you've been listening for a long time, welcome back. We're so excited to have you here.

[Jennifer] Hi everyone.

[Aaron] Yeah, and we're recording this in our garage as usual and it's still locked down season. And I know that a little interesting for everyone. It's interesting for us. Jennifer, have you had any thoughts about the season we're in with lockdown COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented times.

[Jennifer] Yeah, I mean, I've had some thoughts about it. I think what's been really a blessing is that we've been in postpartum season, so we had our baby and so we would have been kind of having a low key life anyways right now. Just with me resting, nursing is always usually an issue with our kids. Baby Edith had a tongue tie like several other of our children. And so the first couple of weeks was just basically me and her figuring that out. And so-

[Aaron] I do feel like though we started self quarantine earlier because we were leading up to having the baby and then all of this stuff happened right around the same time as having the baby.

[Jennifer] Yeah. I would say this we had a really good distraction from what was happening in the world. And so now we're kind of like coming up out of that we just hit the six week mark after having the baby. And I think the most important thing has been for me has been to communicate with you in navigating this pandemic and what the world looks like these days. And it gives me peace, being able to talk to you. It gives me a bit of relief and just knowing that I can share my thoughts, my concerns, whatever that I'm going through with you. What would you say?

[Aaron] Well, same. We've been having a lot of conversations about it. We've also had a lovely conversation with our kids. It's kind of hard to like hide it from them cause why can't we hang out with our friends? Why can't we go out? And we're like, "Well, there's a lot of things going on the world." which is going on.

[Jennifer] And as an encouragement to parents, I think it's so important that we really understand that our kids lean on us for security and support, especially in times like these. So when they have these big questions, we should be answering them. If they see us being able to have peace and hope and joy amidst the chaos it will give them guidance on how they can respond in times like these. if they sense in us fear and anxiety over the situation, then that could also influence them. So I think as parents, I think it's really cool to see that God has given us an opportunity with our kids to help them navigate this whole thing. And I think it's good for us to engage in conversation with them. It doesn't mean we have to explain everything, especially we can keep it age appropriate. But just being able to willing to have conversations with them.

[Aaron] Well, and also being honest with them and letting them know that sometimes we don't have the answers. Like we don't know the appropriate way to respond to all this. We don't know exactly how this is going to turn out. We don't know... Like we just, there's a lot of answers we don't have.

[Jennifer] And then we tell them, but our trust and our hope is in God. And so it's another opportunity to point them back to God and encourage their hearts to be able to trust God and I don't know, just to be able to move forward still in life and know that he has us.

[Aaron] Yeah, and it's also been good to, I feel like in America we have a lot of comforts and this has shown us how dependent we might be on some comforts. And also brought us to a point that one of the other benefits to this is reminding us of our need for Christ, our need for his peace, his satisfaction, being satisfied in him alone. So one thing we've been trying to encourage our children, whether we catch it or not, whether we are always healthy, we don't know how this is going to turn out. We encourage them to know that God is good. God has us, he knows his plans for us and that we can't control all of those things, but what we can do is look to God who's in control.

[Jennifer] Yeah, Aaron, you brought up comforts and especially living here in America. However this whole thing has also allowed us to see how people might be struggling. So you use the word comfort, but I also want to just mention that there's a lot people who've been greatly impacted by this whole thing in a negative way in a lot of different ways. So, I dunno if you want to speak to that.

[Aaron] Well, yeah, we know that there's millions and millions of people that have lost their jobs. Some might not get them back. And so our hearts break for that situation. And we know that there's people that are sick. We know that there's people that are, that have other issues going on, that are not COVID-19 related and are having a hard time dealing with that. There's mental issues, there's abuse, there's a lot of things going on in this world that are being exasperated by this situation. And so-

[Jennifer] As Christians, I think that we need to remember all of that especially if maybe we're in a different situation, but no matter what our hearts should be to be in prayer for everyone who's been impacted by it.

[Aaron] And also been asking the Lord how we can be used.

[Jennifer] Yeah, cause we're his body.

[Aaron] We might know someone that needs some love, some reaching out, some help. And so we should be aware of that and ready for that. And we should be praying for each other. Praying for those that are going through hard situations and our prayers should not just be, "God, make their situation better."

[Jennifer] Or even, "God let us go just back to normal."

[Aaron] Right, because that's a thing that I have is like, "Hey, can we just go back to normal?" Our kids keep praying like God make this go away. They miss normalcy. But our prayer should be that hearts are softened. Hearts are turned towards the Lord, that people are brought back to the Lord, that people that don't know the Lord and find him, that families are healed and mended, that like these deeper things. That even if the body is broken, the spirit can be made whole. And so, yes, we should be praying for healing. Yes, it's good to pray for being taken care of financially and being taken care of in these ways. But right now, this is the time when man, the spirit of God catches hold of people. And so we should be praying that hearts are ready to receive. Hearts are open to hear the word of God are being watered and seeds are being planted. And that's, I mean, I don't know, more than anything. I want people to be saved in this time for eternity, not just for the season. So do you have any last thoughts on, I mean there's gonna be lots of thoughts.

[Jennifer] I know we could probably do a whole episode on it. Two things. The first thing I was just thinking, if people are listening to this episode in the future. So like going-

Yeah, after the-

[Jennifer] After the fact, after all this has kind of settled down a bit. I just wonder what their thoughts would be just being reminded of this time. And then my other thought was just an encouragement and it's just for husbands and wives, it's an encouragement to be communicating with each other because no matter what your situation looks like right now you have someone right next to you who's going through it with you. And sometimes, I don't know those listening are like me, but sometimes I get caught up in my head where I'm having conversations in my head, even with you Aaron, and I'm like answering for you. But, then I realized I haven't actually talked to you in a couple of days about how I'm feeling or about what I'm thinking. So my encouragement is, especially in times like these that we are open and transparent and vulnerable specifically with each other.

[Aaron] Yeah, I was also thinking, we are friends and families. Not being afraid to just come straight out and say, "Hey, how are you dealing with all this? "Hey, how's your heart? "Are you going through any sort of depression? "Is there any fears that you're like-

[Jennifer] Yeah, are you okey?

[Aaron] "that are just getting inside your heart." And just asking so that they can be maybe brought out of that darkness, maybe brought out of their shell and not be afraid to ask those questions. Cause I would imagine there's a lot of people dealing with hidden fears and anxieties right now.

[Jennifer] And it's okay if you don't know how to answer them. It's okay if the greatest thing you can even say is I'm going to be praying for you or just stop and pray for them right then and there. But I think it was important that we just spend a little bit of time on that since this is such a huge thing going on in our lives right now. And our hearts go out to everyone. And we know this is just crazy, but God is good, like you said.

[Aaron] And God's not surprised by any of this stuff. I just wanted to bring up a verse. James 1:12 says, Blessed is the the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Over and over again the New Testament speaks of steadfastness and continuing on and standing strong and standing firm. And I just want to encourage everyone, you believers out there, that we need to stand strong in the word of God and we need to remember who's got us, whose hand upholds us, who guides our steps and makes our paths and brings light into our life and it's God. And so we need to put our strength, our hope and strengths in him because they're not, and our hopes are not in the government. They're not in a vaccine, they're not in treatments, they're not in the, it just going away or those things are going to come and things happen, but we can't control any of this stuff. We just can't. And if we put our hope in those things that our hope is gonna fail. So let's put our hope in the only thing that's consistent, the only one that is a firm foundation and it's God and his word. And let's look to him for wisdom and guidance on how as believers we are to approach this thing that was going on. Cause he's the only, James also says, "If you lack wisdom, ask. "And we will be given wisdom as long as we do not doubt." And so let's ask him for wisdom. I need wisdom. We've been talking a lot about this man. Like how do we deal with all of these things? And we're definitely don't deal with it in fear, but we don't deal with it on our own strengths, our own wisdom. We lean not on our own understanding, but on every word, on God's wisdom. So that's what I just want to encourage everyone with is remain steadfast in these trials. And let's look to God for answers and our hope and for our courage and our wisdom.

[Jennifer] And our peace.

[Aaron] Oh, most importantly, our peace. So, that was just a bit of a encouraging word for everyone. We need it ourselves. I mean, he reminded ourselves, but I just want to invite everyone to, if you have children or if you're thinking about having children or if you're pregnant, we have something that we've created for you. It's a free resource and it's called the parenting prayer challenge. You can go to parentingprayerchallenge.com all one word and it's completely free to sign up and we will send you over the next 31 days, email with something to pray for and a reminder to pray for it. And it's pretty awesome. We've had almost a thousand people sign up for it and we would love for you to take advantage of it. We created it just for you. And man, it's an awesome thing and it reminds us as parents to pray for our children and there's awesome prompts in there to pray for all these different areas of your child's life. So yeah, we just, it's parentingprayerchallenge.com it's totally free and become part of the people that are going through that challenge.

[Jennifer] All right, so today's topic is our first home birth story. No, it's not our first birth story. Obviously if you've followed us for any amount of time, this was baby number five. And, it's just kind of an interesting story and we're excited to share it with you guys.

[Aaron] What's more interesting is that we actually fit every one of our kids and us inside of our explorer.

[Jennifer] It's tightly, but it's good.

[Aaron] It's tight. But that was just a fun little adventure that we figured out.

[Jennifer] Aaron was surprised by that.

[Aaron] I was a little surprised. They would fit without car seats. But the trick is as we have five car seats. We have actually we have-

Four cars seats.

[Aaron] four cars and two boosters or is it three car seats, two boosters.

[Jennifer] Right.

[Aaron] And just the way it's all arranged, we barely fit. It will be a lot better when some of them are out of their boosters. That'll make a big difference, but-

[Jennifer] That's okay. Thanks for sharing. so the first four births were done in the hospital and we were happy with those experiences and we had the same, what's it called? It's not a goal. Same birth plan.

[Aaron] Our plan was, we'd love to having children in the hospital, actually really love our local hospital here.

[Jennifer] And food is so good.

[Aaron] The rooms are just really nice and quite.

[Jennifer] The people are so nice.

[Aaron] It's been good. So we're not opposed to hospital births by any means.

[Jennifer] No, we had that plan held in our hands. My whole pregnancy really, and the word changed that at the finish line.

[Aaron] Pretty much, yeah.

[Jennifer] And so it was our first home birth and I got gotta be honest, I was nervous. Even in the past I've been nervous to even consider a home birth, even though I know people and I've followed people online that have had them.

[Aaron] And even though your pregnancies and labors have all been considerably like easy, not easy and-

Easy is a funny word-

[Aaron] It's safe, I should say.

[Jennifer] Yes. Not emergency or anything.

[Aaron] Nothing, you haven't had any big emergencies. It's like it just, it goes as planned usually.

[Jennifer] Yeah. So anyways, I don't know. We just, we held our birth plan loosely as we believe people should and we submit it to the Lord. And really the last trimester is when all of the world started falling apart with the pandemic. And even more so in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Protocols at the hospital started changing.

[Aaron] They started limiting the number of people that could be in the rooms.

[Jennifer] We started seeing a lot more articles online being shown stories of that happening. And I came home from one of my last appointments and I was sharing with Aaron these changes that had just been made and we were about to have our baby and I, there was a part of me that just was wondering what is the hospital experience going to be like? And we're just sharing some of our thoughts with each other.

[Aaron] And we also, because a big part of this conversation is what was going on in the world. It wasn't just like whether or not we wanted to have a home birth. It was what is our, what does this situation look like for us amidst all of like the virus that's going around. And so we were discussing this and I just wanted to let everyone know that our number one discussion was, are we afraid? Are we gonna be in fear? Are we gonna make decisions or are we gonna be going into this with any anxieties? Because those are realities like, "Oh my gosh, we got to go to like the hospital, "which is where everyone goes that has, "that gets the virus." So that was a part of this conversation was. We are not going to be afraid regardless. Like whether we are going to be exposed or not. We want to have no fear. We want to trust the Lord because he does know what's going on, so.

[Jennifer] Totally. Yeah, and also so everyone knows Aaron has been an advocate for home birth for several of my pregnancies. You would ask me like, "Hey, are you interested this time?"

[Aaron] I've been pushing for a while.

[Jennifer] But you've always been supportive too of what we've decided together. And so, when I came home from that appointment, I shared everything with you. And you suggested it again. You're like, "What about a home birth?" And I'm like, I kind of laughed about it. I was like, no, no, no, no. Like if I'm too far in my pregnancy that's crazy talk, I would have to adjust mentally and it just seems-

[Aaron] And I would even be able to get a midwife. How is this gonna work?

[Jennifer] It seemed impossible. And you were so hopeful and you're like, "Why don't you just call them and just see what's going on? "Cause maybe they've talked to other people about this." And so I made the phone call and no one answered. And I said, "See, okay, so we're not doing that."

[Aaron] Did you leave a message?

[Jennifer] Yeah. So by the end of that day, I had been praying and it had been on my heart just to consider both a hospital birth or a home birth. And the Lord gave me so much peace and I was okay with either one.

[Aaron] And the same, yeah.

[Jennifer] So when I said earlier about having an open hand, having my birth plan and an open hand and open heart, it was this piece that I had that was like, no matter what happens or how I give birth, it's the Lord.

[Aaron] I actually remember, I think it was a, I don't know the exact date, but it was about a week before this. You posted a picture of the kids or something on Instagram and you wrote this beautiful thing saying, "Hey, here's my birth plan. "We want to do this." And you said, "but open-handed of course."

[Jennifer] Yeah, it was an infant story and it was right at the bottom.

[Aaron] And I said, but open-handed of course. And you had this whole idea. And it was before everything started getting really crazy. News-wise, but I remember you got someone messaged you and said, "Please don't have it at the hospital." Cause they were so concerned that's where you shouldn't be. And there were, it was so loving and so concerned. And we saw that and we're like, huh. But we didn't like talk about it.

[Jennifer] I didn't think about it.

[Aaron] But looking back on it, I was like, "Oh, that was kinda cool. "It was like open handed." Someone was like encouraging you in that direction, but.

[Jennifer] So anyways, we were praying about it, but we hadn't heard back from the midwife and until the next morning. Give me some questions and I think they were just being really nice given the situation of what was happening in our world and our state. But because I had established care throughout my pregnancy, I didn't have any-

[Aaron] There was no flags.

[Jennifer] There was, yeah, there was no red flags, there was no problems or issues that I had throughout my pregnancy. My past pregnancies have been healthy and my labors have been fine and I haven't needed interventions or anything like that. And so they said yes and they were willing to meet with me that day.

[Aaron] Which is they never do.

[Jennifer] I just felt-

[Aaron] They were willing to do this in this season for you.

[Jennifer] Yeah. It just felt like an impossible situation that God just said, "Here, this is what I want you to walk through." And I got off the phone almost in tears because I then I had to tell Aaron that it was a go and I was, I was like, okay but like, yeah, this is, I didn't know, I was speechless really. I don't know how to explain that.

[Aaron] Did you want not to tell me?

[Jennifer] No, no, no, no, but I, and there was a part of me that was really excited, like I have never done a home birth before. Like how cool that I get to do this now. And then my next immediate thought was, "Oh my gosh, are we prepared for this?" Because I didn't know. I hadn't been researching about what to have for a home birth. So that, the next thing-

[Aaron] I know is a little weird to think about. Like, what am I supposed... Am I supposed to have anything?

[Jennifer] Yeah. So the other cool thing is that we didn't really need much. I felt like what I had like in my hospital bag and things at home already we were prepared for. There's just a couple of other things that you went out to get like an extra set of sheets and I don't remember.

[Aaron] Some pillows and something like that.

[Jennifer] I don't remember.

[Aaron] The midwife give you a list of things. We had like 90% of the things on the list already.

[Jennifer] Yeah. And they provided-

[Aaron] There was only a few things I had to get. So that was pretty cool.

[Jennifer] Then I had to wrap my head around it mentally and that just took prayer and me so many into God and saying, okay Lord, help me transition.

[Aaron] Yeah, I think you mentioned a little bit ago that I've tried, I've been a proponent for home births and you said you don't know and I was okay with you doing hospital births, but I remember you saying like, "I'll do it when I have to."

[Jennifer] Yeah like if something's gonna push me to do it, then I will. Like I'm not opposed to it. I just, I'm not ready for that yet.

[Aaron] And I was like, "Maybe this is the thing making you have to," but it was perfect cause it was what you had committed to in your heart was like, "Well, when I have to, I will." And this was kind of one of those situations where I was like, we didn't have to, it would probably would have been totally fine, but we had the opportunity.

[Jennifer] Well that's the thing is at the end of that day, I just knew I had peace that, or I'm sorry that the day before I knew that God would help us through no matter what we chose, whether it was home birth or hospital. And I had so much peace about it and I think that's why getting off the phone with the midwife, I was excited and okay and yet nervous about it.

[Aaron] Of course yeah.

[Jennifer] It was so neat that God provided a way for that. And so we started preparing for that. We started telling the kids we were cleaning the house, we were making a way for that to take place. And it was just a really exciting time for our family. A very short time.

[Aaron] Yeah. Though the week prior, I was on maybe five days before we had the baby, I took the, we do have a chalkboard in our kitchen I did a little game with the kids and I said, I want, so who, what day do you think mom is gonna have the baby? And we started doing this voting and I would put down like, do you think it's going to be Monday? And it was like, leading up to the due date. And so everyone put their little dates down, even Truett voted. And I'm just bringing this up because me and Elliot were right. And so, we actually voted for the due date, which was the 20th.

[Jennifer] I actually remember coming out and you explaining this whole thing to me and Elliot looking up at me going, "Mom, the reason I chose your due date is because 'you haven't had a baby on your due date yet." And he just thought that would be so cool.

[Aaron] Yeah, and that's why we actually voted that because I feel like all the babies have been either right before or right after and it wasn't like way after.

[Jennifer] Yeah, well Elliot, our first and Truett our fourth, were both due, were both born a day before their due date. Olive was three days past. And Wyatt was eight days past.

[Aaron] Yeah, he was a big baby. But so we voted for the 20th, which is pretty cool because you were having like on the 19th, I remember you were kind of having some contractions but it didn't like go anywhere. And then the 20th, when did they start?

[Jennifer] So I didn't have any, like I wasn't feeling any contractions the day before, but I just felt like it was going to happen soon. Like I could just tell my body was getting ready. But contractions started at about 1:30 in the morning, on her due date.

[Aaron] Oh, that's what that, okay. It was 1:30 in the morning. That when it was.

[Jennifer] Yeah. And they started and they were pretty close together. I mean seven, eight minutes apart, pretty consistently for a few hours. And then we got disrupted. Truett woke up, which he never does with a huge explosion, poop explosion. I'm trying to keep it clean here.

[Aaron] It was horrible. It was all over his bed. It was all over him.

[Jennifer] I've never had an experience like with having five kids now, I've never had an experience like this. So to be contracting and have that, I'm like, wait a minute.

[Aaron] What time was that?

[Jennifer] It was like five o'clock in the morning.

[Aaron] It was early. So I'm up, like we're putting him in the bath and there's like poop everywhere. It was like, so gross.

[Jennifer] So I told Aaron, you go lay in bed with him and since I'm up anyways, I'll do the laundry and-

[Aaron] We couldn't put him back in his bed. It was like a war zone.

[Jennifer] It was crazy. So now that you guys are all grossed out, I know. I feel like that just distracted my mind and body or maybe that's just the way it was supposed to be. But contractions kind of slowed down and were more sporadic. So it was like 11 to 15 minutes apart for a long time. I mean hours and I have a cute story, another cute story about Truett. This one's cleaner. About 10 o'clock in the morning I came out of the bedroom and Aaron had been hanging out with the kids and you left to go to the bathroom or something. And I started contracting. I had a big contraction and so I threw two pillows down on the living room floor and I was kneeling in front of them because I was gonna kind of try and either lay down or hold them. And Truett comes up and lays down on the pillows looking up at me and I'm just like on my hands and knees looking down at him. But I'm like trying to breathe through this contraction and he's just smiling. It was like a little redemptive moment for us, but it was sweet. So I labored all day at home. And one cool thing that I wanted to share with you guys is, the night before I went into labor, I was doing a little bit of research and just reading people's home birth stories that they've shared on their blogs. And I can't remember exactly who's I read, but she said this, she said, "Through every contraction "I used the opportunity to pray for someone else. "My husband, my children, friends." And I remembered that as soon as I started contracting and I said, "Oh, I'm gonna do that." I was determined. I was like committed to it, to this idea of prayer throughout each contraction. And it was such a beautiful experience. You guys, every time a contraction came, I would quickly think of someone who I would want to pray for my family, friends, really random things that, I kinda just like allowed the Lord to bring to my mind in that moment, whatever he wanted me to pray for. And so I would pray from the beginning of the contraction, throughout to the end. And not only was it a good distraction from the pain, but what a cool experience to use that opportunity to draw closer to the Lord and to lift up others. Like it was just, I recommend that for anyone going through labor. It was so beautiful.

[Aaron] Yeah, it was actually beautiful to watch because you told me you're like, I'm using contractions to pray. And I was like, "Oh, that's awesome."

[Jennifer] Yeah. What was actually even crazier was there was this one contraction that I was determined to pray for kids who during specifically this pandemic and stay having stay at home orders who have experienced abuse at home. And I had seen something on social media, maybe Facebook about this. And I hadn't thought about it before then. And so it stood out to me. And so, the contraction started and I started praying for these kids who are at home and possibly experiencing abuse. And as I was praying, you guys, the contractions started building up and becoming more intense and more painful. And it hadn't been like this in all the other contractions and it lasted the longest. And I just kept praying for these children. And by the end of it, I remember telling you, Aaron, that I felt like the Lord was showing me like almost like in relation to their pain, how bad my contraction was. It was kind of really interesting, but my heart just broke for that.

[Aaron] Yeah, I think I remember you were crying a little bit in that one.

[Jennifer] So, anyways, if you guys are pregnant or if you are gonna have a baby and you're thinking about contracting. I don't know, just remember this, pray, use that time to pray for other people. It's really cool.

[Aaron] It's a similar experience to fasting. Like the point of fasting is when the hunger pains come on. When your flesh wants to be fed or to be consoled, we pray. It's the trigger point to pray. I wanted to just bring up a verse real quick, just talking about this whole experience because we have so many plans in life, we have this, we set in our mind how we want something to happen, how we want something to go. I mean, I don't think it was in anyone's mind that the world was going to change the way it's changing, but guess what? It changed. And things are changing every day. And, Proverbs 19:21 says, Many are the plans in the mind of a man but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. And so it's awesome. I mean, in this situation, we got circular, whatever your purposes, we want that to stand. We'd get, of course we have plans. We're going to make plans, there's many of them. But are we gonna be irritated when our plans get foiled? When our plans don't come true and we get blinded to see like, well, what is God doing? Like, God apparently wants something else to be happening right now. That's contrary to my own plans. And so when we can say, "Okay, Lord, like yes, we've made plans, "but what we want more is your purposes to be, to stand."

[Jennifer] That's really good.

[Aaron] So that's kind of what we saw happening here. And there's other things that God had in store for this, but I just wanted to point everyone back to God's purposes.

[Jennifer] Awesome. So as my contractions progressed, they got a little bit closer together and, but nothing really was like showing us that delivery was soon. So this was probably around nap time. So I remember Aaron coming in the bedroom after he laid the kids down and, you just started praying for me and you weren't telling God what to do because we don't do that. But you were like, let's get the show on the road. I want to meet my daughter. And you were really excited for things too.

[Aaron] Well, I remember you told me, like, you're not, you don't know why it's slowed down. You're like, I feel like we were getting somewhere. Cause we were, it was getting, they were getting closer and closer and closer and consistent. And then it was like, they just totally like tapered off and slowed down. They were still there, but, and you were just like, I don't know. And I was like, "Well, let's pray about it."

[Jennifer] Yeah, and it was kind of a sporadic day, like a very, like when I think about my other four and I even told the midwives this, when I first met them that with my other four kids, once contraction started, they would-

They don't stop.

[ Jennifer] they don't stop and they just keep going. And then I have the baby and they're generally short labors and this was not like that. This was just different and-

[Aaron] Maybe being home made you much more relaxed.

[Jennifer] I don't know. I don't know what it was, but I do think this, something that was on my mind. And I remember sharing this with you after you prayed for me, was that I love end times, when we think about Christ return and all of that, and there's a verse, people probably know what I'm referring to, but it's in Matthew 24. And one of the disciples asked when the end of the age is going to come and Jesus goes off explaining the Wars and rumors of Wars and famines and all these things that are hard. And then at the very end, he said, all of these are, but the beginning of the birth pains. So they're like contractions and-

[Aaron] He points out the world chaos as contractions, just like in labor.

[Jennifer] Yeah, until the delivery of our King.

[Aaron] Which showed off light and distant and they get more and more aggressive and closer together.

[Jennifer] But sometimes they also slow down. It's kind of like, we get these moments of peace and everything's great. And everything in the world seems to be going fine. And then you get this really big contraction or you get this really painful one, or you get this really long one. And you're like, "Wow, this is not stopping." And so I felt like the Lord kind of gave me this picture with what I was physically and experiencing and enduring, with how sporadic the day was with my contractions and showing him a picture of the world and saying, sometimes it feels like you're about to have that baby. And then it slows down and stops. And there's this rest period.

[Aaron] Well, and I wanna expound on that encouragement a little bit, because I think as the church at large, would it be valuable for us to continue to remember that we do have? The Lord is returning. And the things that he's shown us in scripture, like what we see going on in the world, the Wars, the rumors of Wars, the pestilence, the massive earthquakes, the volcanoes, all these things, like everything. Like the chaos in the world, there birth pains. And so it could look scary, but for the believer for the one who has our faith in Christ.

[Jennifer] We know it's to come.

[Aaron] There's something good coming on the other end. The Bible says, that in birth, the woman is in pain, but once the baby comes, she's forgotten the pain. And the point is of course you don't forget the pain, but the thing that you've been waiting for and going through the pain for is now here.

[Jennifer] I think there's a version of the Bible that says that she's in anguish. Is not even just pain. It's like emotional and physical and it's draining.

[Aaron] So church believers, we can look at the world and these things that we see going on the world shouldn't cause fear in us, it should bring us hope. And that's what even Jesus has. He says, I tell you these things that you might have hope because when we see these things, as the believer, we know what they mean. Just like when I see my wife going into contractions, I don't think, what's happening? I think, "Oh man, the more painful "and the more close these get together, "the sooner I'm gonna meet my daughter." And so even though it's painful and it's a struggle and it's a trial, it's temporary. And we even know that Paul says, "I know that our current struggles "are nothing to be compared with the coming glory." So I just want to encourage you believers out there that, the Bible, Jesus and the Bible gives us this idea of birth pains for a reason, because the example we get in birth of the contraction starting far apart, we get to look at the things going on the world and say, wow, the more that we see these, the closer they get together, it should turn our eyes up to look for our savior.

[Jennifer] Yup. That's good. So, I feel like right after you prayed over me during that nap time, the Lord must have heard because things started picking up-

[Aaron] Pretty quick.

[Jennifer] pretty quickly. The contractions started getting closer together, more painful and just really the signs of labor were just all converging. And what was really cool was Olive's home. And so she got to participate. I remember so many times-

[Aaron] Another benefit of having the baby at home.

[Jennifer] Yeah, our four year old little daughter, almost five, was so thrilled to be able to participate in it. And she would, I would be on that big, the big bouncing ball, through contractions and she'd be sitting in front of me on my bed and she'd reach out and put her hand on my leg and encourage me. She'd rub my arms.

[Aaron] Shoulders.

[Jennifer] She'd look up at me and she go, "Mom, you can do this." Or she'd caught pretty much copy Aaron, anything that Aaron did, she'd do five minutes later. So she'd say, mom, she'd see a contraction coming. She goes, "Mom, just breathe." And then she breath with me-

[Aaron] Yeah cause I kept reminding you like breathe, open your mouth.

[Jennifer] Yeah, so that was really sweet. There was a handful of time. She prayed for me.

[Aaron] What was that thing she told you? There was a moment as you got closer and you were just like, I think you said, I can't do this. Or I don't think I could do this. That's what it was. I don't think I could do this. What did she say?

[Jennifer] She said, "You could do it, mom." I don't remember.

[Aaron] It was really powerful. She was like, "You can do it mom. "And actually you have to do it the baby is coming."

[Jennifer] Yeah. She's serious.

[Aaron] She was good.

[Jennifer] She's so funny, but such an encourager. And actually now she would love to be a midwife when she grows up after realizing what they do, handling mamas and babies all day.

[Aaron] She wasn't freaked out by any of it.

[Jennifer] No, she was such so strong. So yeah, things started picking up and I knew I was getting closer. So we called the midwife to come check on us and my friend Angie, who was going to be present at the birth. And another thing that I wanted to share with you guys is one of my desires from the beginning of this pregnancy was-

[Aaron] Plans.

[Jennifer] I mean, yeah. Was to praise my baby out. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but I've heard other phrases of like breathing the baby out or just letting your body kind of push the baby out. But my heart was that I would worship God throughout the whole experience. And I wanted to be like highly aware that I was able to do this during labor and delivery. And not only did Olive remind me to be singing very loudly because she was doing that. We had a specific playlist that we were playing and the songs like Waymaker and I Will Wait For You by Shane and Shane, like just some really great songs.

[Aaron] Did you have in Christ alone in there?

[Jennifer] In Christ alone, it was my Anthem throughout pregnancy. I just, I played that song every day. I just, I love that song and it was actually the song she was born too, which is really cool.

[Aaron] It came on, and then-

[Jennifer] She came.

she came.

[Jennifer] It was so cool you guys. And also Angie, cause I have a really close relationship with her. She knew this was a desire of mine. And towards the end specifically, I remember hearing her voice saying, "Jen remember to praise," like remember to sing, remember to worship and as hard as it was because I was giving birth and it's hard to even breathe at that time to be able to sing. It was like, my flesh was like, I don't want to do that right now. And then I heard the words of the song playing and I would just jump in and start singing. It was such a cool experience.

[Aaron] I think you were singing it while you were pushing her out. Like it was that-

[Jennifer] I was saying, "God you're good, " I feel so good."

[Aaron] Yeah, it was pretty powerful and what's awesome is, another one of your plans and your heart's desire was to be like ministering and you wanted your labor to be a witness and a blessing to the nurses at the hospital.

[Jennifer] I was just gonna say to the nurses at the hospital, it was one of my prayers throughout the pregnancy. I was praying for their hearts. I was praying for whoever was present at the birth to see God in it, whether it was in our relationship and the way we were interacting or in the actual birth. But my heart was that God would use this labor and delivery in a purposeful way in the hearts of those who were experiencing it alongside me, but what I didn't know was, I had been praying for the nurses and doctors. And then at the last minute we changed to a home birth.

[Aaron] But God knew.

[Jennifer] But God knew who was going to be there.

[Aaron] And I remember that, I mean, you're singing worship songs. You're like are just the way we were interacting was really peaceful, really strong, really calm. And with our daughter there and just, I feel like the whole experience was very worshipful. It was really peaceful, really cool. And I know that it impacted the midwives that were there.

[Jennifer] I hope so.

[Aaron] First of all, they were awesome.

[Jennifer] They were amazing.

[Aaron] Really quiet, really calm like just really in control.

[Jennifer] But also attentative.

[Aaron] And attentative, yeah. And I remember afterwards, one of the midwives was saying, what did she say? We are truly honored to be a part of this. It almost looked like she's gonna cry. I don't know if she was or not, but it looked like they were truly like blessed if anything, by your labor, babe, like you did such a good job.

[Jennifer] I praise God.

[Aaron] Yeah it was awesome.

[Jennifer] So little Edith joined us at five on the dot.

[Aaron] Five o'clock yeah.

[Jennifer] 5:00 PM on her due date with bright copper red hair. It's so beautiful.

[Aaron] Yeah, we're praying really hard right now. And if you want to pray with us that she keeps that hair.

[Jennifer] Oh, it's okay. It's just, all of our kids are blonde, so I'm assuming it'll change, but it's such a sweet color, especially in the side.

[Aaron] Olive came out with really dark hair.

[Jennifer] Yeah, it wasn't as red, but it was-

[Aaron] It wasn't as red, Wyatt came out with like a-

[Jennifer] Well, he was bald and so it was Truett.

[Aaron] But its cute when it grew and it was a little red.

[Jennifer] It was like a strawberry blonde. He's still kind strawberry blonde.

[Aaron] But she is like, you were looking at it right now. It's super, she's super red.

[Jennifer] She's sleeping. So anyways, all to say this, you guys, it was a really neat experience to be able to have a peaceful home birth. I thank the Lord that my past pregnancies and history was there. They were fine. And there was no interventions or-

[Aaron] No complicated ones.

[Jennifer] Yeah, there was no complications or anything like that. And that the Lord gave me the confidence to be able to say yes to this and that we were able to lean on each other, Aaron, to be able to do that.

[Aaron] Do you feel like it was what God wanted?

[Jennifer] I do. I feel like he had a plan from the beginning that he just didn't reveal to me until the end. Maybe he knew that's what I needed. I don't know.

[Aaron] And we have no idea what God's doing in the hearts of those ladies that were with us and we need to keep praying for them because we don't know where they're at.

[Jennifer] Or a daughter.

[Aaron] Or a daughter. Yeah, But I mean-

[Jennifer] I mean we know what's going-

[Aaron] She's gonna become a midwife nurse.

[Jennifer] She had all kinds of questions afterwards, but she just, she was thrilled to be able to participate in that way. I know it made her feel super special.

[Aaron] So here's a question, probably all the pregnant ladies are thinking, would you do it again?

[Jennifer] I remember texting a friend that later that night and she goes, so how was it? And I'm like, I'm a fan.

[Aaron] Cause we have several people be like, "You can do this, you can do this." Cause we have a lot of friends that have done home births, almost all their kids, I think. And so they've been, they were really cheering you on another excited that you're like switched. And we know it's not for everybody.

[Jennifer] But here, it's also something that I just keep telling myself as it's open. So like, even if we ever had another baby, I would be okay with having it in the hospital or at home. So it's just really submitting that to the Lord and saying, what do you want? This is for you.

[Aaron] So babe I know there's probably a lot of women that are considering a home birth. If they've never had one before, how would you encourage someone who's already considering this?

[Jennifer] Well for someone that's already considering it, I would just say again, pray about it and submit it to the Lord. Talk about it with your husband and do what research you need to do. All the questions that you might have surrounding it, go ask them, ask your friends, ask your care providers. Whoever's looking after you. But don't be afraid of it. I had a good friend tell me, like having a baby is not an emergency. It's a natural thing that God built our bodies to do.

[Aaron] It's a good encouragement.

[Jennifer] And we need to be able to trust that God's design works. Now there's a lot of cases out there where for whatever reason, someone needs to give birth in a hospital or someone needs an intervention and that's okay, too. So even for someone who's already planning a home birth or someone who desires a home birth, even they have to hold that birth plan loosely in their hands and submit it to the Lord and say, "God, what do you want from me?" And he might even change their plans to be a hospital birth. And I think the greatest thing is to just have peace no matter what that plan is and say, God, it's yours.

[Aaron] Yeah, something I just want to remind everyone also is, and if you're not having caught it yet, we talk a lot about how our lives are to be ministry. It's not just like we have ministry over here. Like, "Oh, I work at this church "or I have this job over here. "That's some sort of ministry which no, those are bad." But when we realized that when Christ comes into us, when we have the Holy spirit, our life now is a ministry being poured out. We're being poured out into the world. We're lights set up on a hill. And so even in our home birth, we are doing ministry. Our life and the way we present ourselves and the way we react to each other and interact with each other and interact with the midwives and those around us is how the gospel is spread in the world. It's by our words and our actions, it's not by this thing set over here. And that happens once a week or every other week or once a month. It's everything we do. And if you're wondering what that looks like, ask God, say God, "How's my life? How is the things that we're pursuing, our labors, our work, our at home life, our schooling, our jobs, our everything? Our hobbies. How are we representing you everywhere we are? Because we are the body of Christ. Where we go, Christ goes. And so that's what we, our heart was for this labor. And it's what our heart is for this podcast, is what our heart is for our books, for our home, for our neighborhood. And so if you haven't thought that way, our parent hope is that your mind would be changed and that you would start to realize and recognize that every bit of your life is the Lords. And he desires it to be a offering to him. He desired, he calls us to be living sacrifices. And so, that's, what's amazing is we can be at home doing home birth, something that we don't need, didn't plan and say, "Okay, Lord, how are you gonna use this for you? "What do you want from us? "How can we participate in what you're doing "in the lives of those that are going to be here? "And also, what are you gonna do in us?" Cause there's a lot that God did in us, challenging us and changing our minds about things and showing us how to trust him more. So that was a little bit about our home birth story, which we think it's, God's story of course, all of our births. I wouldn't say this birth was any better than any of the other ones. Cause they all were amazing. I love meeting my children, but I did love a lot doing it at home. I really enjoyed it.

[Jennifer] I really did too.

[Aaron] So husbands out there, it was a pretty awesome experience if your wife is considering it, just know it's pretty awesome. You're home, it's more comfortable you're in your bed. If you have other children, they get to participate and see how it and know what's going on. And it was a really cool thing anyways. Yeah, that was our story, is there any last thing you wanna add?

[Jennifer] I feel like, no, I think that what we shared was really cool and I'm, I just want everyone to hear me say that I love you and that I'm really proud of you. You're a really awesome support for me, especially during that time of labor and delivery and managing our other four kids during the whole thing. I just really love doing life with you and I'm excited that the podcast is back up and we're in season four. So I'm excited to be doing this with you.

[Aaron] Awesome. Well, that was really nice. Thank you babe. I love you too and ditto and all of that. And bonus baby Edith this year and she is awesome.

[Jennifer] She's doing really great.

[Aaron] She's starting to smile and she's, I want her to cue a lot more, but she's just barely started.

[Jennifer] She likes open's her mouth like she's gonna and then she just sit there and wait, she doesn't do it.

[Aaron] She teases us, but she is so sweet. All right. We love you all. My hope that was an encouragement to you and a blessing. We're praying for you. We pray that God just moved mightily in your marriages and uses you for mighty things for his kingdom, wherever you're at. And during the season of chaos and craziness, just remember God's our peace and our hope.

[Jennifer] And he is good.

[Aaron] And he is good. And if you have been wavering in your faith in the Lord, I pray that you would just ran to him like, like you've never ran to him before and that you would surrender everything. He's the only thing worthy of giving your entire life to, and one day we're gonna be able to spend eternity with him.

[Jennifer] One day soon.

[Aaron] Birth pains.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] So-

[Jennifer] We'll just pray through those contractions.

[Aaron] As usual, Jennifer will you pray's out?

[Jennifer] Dear father, you are the giver of life. Thank you for the gift of children. We pray we would have a deep understanding of children and we pray for a strong desire to bless the children in our lives. We pray, we would understand our purpose and role in raising children that know you. May our examples of life and marriage and everything show them the way that honors and glorifies you. Lord we also pray and ask for your peace to be in all of our hearts and in all of our homes, especially when the world seems to be lacking peace. Help us to be confident in trusting you for everything. In Jesus name. Amen.

[Aaron] Amen. We love you all. If you haven't left us a review, would you take a moment and do that today? Those reviews help us rank in all the podcast apps and it also lets people know what the podcast is about and what other people think. If you have a lot to review, you are awesome. Thank you so much. Don't forget to get the, to take the challenge. It's parentingprayerchallenge.com. We talked about in the beginning of the show. We love you and we'll see you next week.

[Aaron Voiceover] 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.

This Q and A topic is all about communication in marriage. Which we mention often in almost every episode because it is such a vital component of marriage. You have to talk to each other! We answer several questions that were submitted by our listeners. Please enjoy.

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 answer your questions about communication 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 everyone, welcome back to another episode of Marriage After God. It's actually the last episode of season three. So if you've been following along, we're gonna be taking a break, we're about to have a baby. If you've been listening to the last few episodes, you know that. And so, we're gonna have a little break. And then we're gonna come back in another season, in season four. We don't have a date for that yet, which is fine.

[Jennifer] We'll let you guys know on social media.

[Aaron] Yeah. And then, we'll do some new episodes. And so, just as a side note, if you have topic ideas for the new season, go ahead and shoot those in a message to us on Instagram at @marriageaftergod. But, today we're gonna be answering some questions from the audience, but before we get to the questions we like to talk about some things in life, but really, this first thing I wanna talk about is, I wanna encourage everyone listening today, because I know that there's a lot of fears, there's a lot of anxiety going around with the coronavirus, with things that are happening in the world, and I think some of them are legitimate things to be thinking about and considering. We wanna be wise people, that's what the Bible talks about. We don't wanna just pretend that none of this stuff's gonna affect us. But, my encouragement is to remind everyone listening that our trust is not in this world. Our trust is not in the vaccine that they might come out with. Our trust is not in the government. Our trust is not in the healthcare system. Our trust is not even our bodies.

[Jennifer] Or money.

[Aaron] Or money. The Bible is very clear where are trust lies, and that when we trust in anything other than God, other than His son Jesus, that trust is faulty, that hope is false, and we're actually insecure in those hopes. So I just wanted to point our hearts and our minds back to the Giver of Life. To the One that we look forward to, the One where our hope should lie, which is in Jesus Christ. Guys, one day we're gonna be with Him forever, and we're gonna have new bodies, we're gonna be healthy, He's gonna make the world right. All these things that are in the world, the destruction, the death, the injustices, the sickness, the pestilence, all those things are going to be made right. And so, once this thing passes, and whatever the damage is going to be, we don't know. But there's always gonna be something else. That's why our eyes need to be on Christ. And so I just hope that if you're having anxieties about this, the Bible tells us how to deal with our anxieties, it's to lift up our request to the Lord with thanksgiving, and to pray to Him. And He says He'll give us a peace that surpasses all understanding. And what I love about that is that our peace in God is completely standalone from everything in our life. That it doesn't matter what's going on in the world, it doesn't matter what's going on in our life, it doesn't matter about our circumstances. You could be like Paul, in prison and be praising God. You can be like Peter in prison, writing letters to the church. You could be in the midst of whatever it is that this world and that the enemy, or whatever it is, wants to throw at you, and you can have complete and perfect peace in Jesus. And so, I just wanted to quickly encourage everyone with that.

[Jennifer] No, it was really good. I think that there is just a lot of attention specifically on the coronavirus. What I would say is, it is important to pay attention to what's going on in the world, current events and things like that, but--

[Aaron] Wisdom is good.

[Jennifer] When we get those thoughts of fear, or anxiety, or frustration even, we need to remember that even in those times we need to submit those feelings to the Lord, and ask Him to guide us, to lead us, to give us wisdom on how to approach the situation and deal with it. And then remember that our bodies are gonna fail us. Our bodies are gonna get sick. There's gonna be, if it's not this thing, it's another thing, and so we just need to be able to trust the Lord that He knows what's gonna happen to us. He knows everything.

[Aaron] He's knows all, He's omniscient.

[Jennifer] So we can trust that.

[Aaron] We can totally trust Him. And again, this isn't to say do not be wise, like we be wise, if we can make that take measures we do, but we have to remember that we could take every perfect measure, we could take every precaution, we can totally stock up what on whatever, just imagine it, whatever you think you could do to prepare, and your trust in that would still be faulty. Because none of that is actually secure. So, our trust is only good when it's in Christ. So, be prepared to the level that you can, and let the Lord have your fears and rest in Him. That's our encouragement.

[Jennifer] Another thing that we wanted to share with you guys is just how incredibly blessed we feel for our relationship with Hobby Lobby. And, I don't know if you guys all know but they carry our books.

[Aaron] Which was a total God thing, because there was no way that we were connected with them. I wasn't reaching out.

We didn't reach out to them. They actually reached out to us and asked if they could carry our books, and I think it's so awesome. It's one of the cheapest places you can get our books.

[Aaron] The cheapest place.

[Jennifer] And, who doesn't love Hobby Lobby? I mean, just to be able to go there and peruse, and look at everything.

[Aaron] People who've never been to one.

[Jennifer] Well, if you haven't been to one, you should go check one out. I'm sure there's one near you.

If you're near one, yeah.

[Jennifer] But I just wanted to first give a shout out to Hobby Lobby and say thank you. Thank you for being someone who advocates for books like ours, and resources that point people back to God. And I also just wanna thank everyone who has been picking them up and buying them from Hobby Lobby, 'cause that keeps our relationship with them good.

[Aaron] That reminds me, I love when people go into Hobby Lobby and they take a picture. And they #hobbylobbyfinds. So if you ever do that, we love to re-share those. So if you are in a Hobby Lobby and you pick up a copy of our books, please take a picture of it, and we'll probably re-share it on our Instagram.

[Jennifer] Just make sure you tag us @marriageaftergod so that we see it.

[Aaron] Exactly, 'cause if you don't tag us, we don't know. But yeah, so that's just a couple of things, just encouragement on the chaos in the world that had our peace. And then just, we're incredibly blessed and honored by Hobby Lobby and their partnership with us. That, to be honest, I don't think we deserve. I don't think we've, it's a God thing, that He set this up and we just wanna give Him the glory for that.

[Jennifer] And if you're like me and you have been wanting to order our books, and you want it today, you can go pick one up today. You don't have to order it online and then wait for it.

They have them in stock. And they're in every Hobby Lobby, which is amazing. So, it doesn't matter which one, unless they're out of stock. But they carry them everywhere.

[Jennifer] Once I know what I want, it's so hard to wait when I do online shopping and stuff. I just wanna go get everything.

[Aaron] But now Amazon has one day shipping, which is crazy.

[Jennifer] I don't know how they do it.

[Aaron] I don't either. But it gets here. Okay, so, one last thing, we have a another prayer challenge. I don't know if you've taken the marriage prayer challenge yet. Over 50,000 people have taken the marriage prayer challenge, which is incredible. So, we have this new challenge called the parenting prayer challenge, and it's a prayer challenge for you to pray for your son or your daughter, or both.

Or all of them.

Or all of them.

Depending on how many kids you have.

Yeah, all your kids. And it's completely free. Just got to parentingprayerchallenge.com and fill out the form and choose who you wanna pray for, and we'll start sending emails every day.

[Jennifer] You guys might be wondering how it's set up because, obviously, they're not individualized prayers for you and your child, but they're prompts. So, it'll suggest pray for this specific thing, and then, as you're praying, you're making it personal because you know your family best.

[Aaron] And it's a scheduled daily reminder. So you get this email, it says hey, you're gonna pray for your son right now, and here's what you should pray for. And it's not to replace your prayer life, it's to encourage it, inspire it, and give you a new outlook on your prayer life, and maybe expand upon it. One more time, it's parentingprayerchallenge.com to go sign up for the parenting prayer challenge.

[Jennifer] All right so, this last episode of the season is a Q&A. We polled the community, the Marriage After God community, and Unveiled Wife and Husband Revolution, and we asked you guys to submit your questions, specifically about communication in marriage. And so, first of all, we just wanna thank everyone who sent us your questions. It's been cool to be able to poll the questions from the audience from Instagram, from you guys, and to answer them here. It makes me feel more connected and I love it.

[Aaron] They often ask things that I'm not even thinking about. I'm like oh, that's a good question. So, it's really fun that we ask you guys. It also makes us feel like we're connected with you on another level. So, if you follow us on Instagram, that's usually where we poll our audience. You could follow @marriageaftergod, or @unveiledwife, or @husbandrevolution. We're gonna be doing Q&A's often, so if you see us pop a question and ask you to give us your questions, just submit them there, and we store them and we pick from them, and we try and answer them on here.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and just let you guys know because of timing, we don't always get through every question, and so if you're listening and you're like, "I know I submitted a question "for communication in marriage," and we didn't answer it, please reach back out to us and just let us know, and maybe we can just answer it on Instagram for you.

[Aaron] Or on the next time.

[Jennifer] Or on the next Q&A.

[Aaron] Cool. So, before we jump into the questions, why don't we just talk about some of the scriptures that, when I think about communication, these scriptures aren't just, they're not necessarily communication between a spouse. But it's--

[Jennifer] With each other.

[Aaron] Yeah, it's with [Both] people. With one anothers in the church.

[Jennifer] Very applicable to marriage.

[Aaron] So I'm just gonna read through a handful of scriptures.

[Jennifer] I'll read the first one 'cause it's shorter. You read the second one.

[Aaron] All right.

[Jennifer] Psalm 141:3 says, "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; "keep watch over the door of my lips."

[Aaron] Yeah, and I pulled some of these scriptures to just show what a biblical perspective over our mouth is. And the things that we say. In Matthew 12:33 Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, and He says this, "Either make a tree good and its fruit good, "or make a tree bad and its fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit."

[Jennifer] Like we know a peach tree is a peach tree because it has peaches.

[Aaron] Or it's one of those fruit salad trees.

[Jennifer] Well, that would be confusing.

[Aaron] Which totally ruins the analogy. But anyways, "You brood of Vipers, "how can you speak good when you are evil? "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. "The good person out of his good treasure "brings forth good, and the evil person of the evil treasure "brings forth evil. "I tell you, on the day of judgment, "people will give account "for every careless word they speak. "For by your words you will be justified, "and by your words you will be condemned."

[Jennifer] So what you're saying is words are powerful?

[Aaron] They matter, yeah. We need to know that, we can't, like this specifically, and we just talked about this, actually, the other day, we say something and then we say I'm just venting, or I'm just kidding. But in reality if, it's coming from somewhere, those words that we just conjured up out of our mouth. They came from somewhere, and so we need to be careful and aware, like wait, so I said this thing and I wanted to make it sound like it wasn't that bog of a deal, but why did I say that? Why did I say that about so and so?

[Jennifer] If someone has self control of their tongue, and they think, they're about to say something, but they decide not to, which is good, I would say they still need to evaluate their heart and question why was that even on the tip of my tongue?

[Aaron] Why did it come out so quickly? And often, I would imagine this is about people in our life, and then if we say something so quickly, even if it's to someone in confidence, and we think, wait, am I actually angry at this person, or am I actually annoyed by this person, or bothered, or judgmental or whatever? And we have to think about that 'cause sometimes that comes out of our mouth and it's not from a pure heart.

[Jennifer] And I'll say this, words cut deep, and when, especially in marriage, you see that person, you just see their face and you're reminded of what they've said, either recently or years ago. And you can hear them saying it in your mind, over and over again. And so, I think we just need to be reminded that we have a huge responsibility with our words.

[Aaron] The next verse is from James, but there's another verse in James that we didn't write down here, that talks about having control of your tongue, and how the tongue is a, it's a small member of a body, but it's actually like a flame that can start a fire. And you're in the members of your body. It's also talked about as a rudder, something that, you have a large ship that is controlled by such a little thing. The things we say actually matter to a point of it directing our lives. But it starts off with saying, if someone has complete control over their tongue, they're a perfect man. So, we all know that we don't have complete control over our tongue 'cause we're not Jesus. Jesus was perfect. And everything He said was controlled.

[Jennifer] So, when we're not perfect, and we're not controlled, what's our response should be?

[Aaron] Repentance. At least recognizing it and saying, whoa, what I said was off.

[Jennifer] Apology, reconciliation.

[Aaron] I know I can't put those words back. It's like toothpaste, it comes out, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. So James 1:19-20 says, "Know this my beloved brothers, "let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, "slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce "the righteousness of God." So this is more a practical tip of, hey, to save yourself from saying something you don't mean,

[Jennifer] Be slow.

[Aaron] Be slower to say it, probably stop yourself.

[Jennifer] I just wanna say, it also says be quick to hear. And I think, sometimes we wanna justify the things that we say.

[Aaron] What?

[Jennifer] We're not actually listening to how our words are affecting the other person, and so I think, I know you said this is practical, a really practical tip is just questioning, evaluating, making sure that you're being a good listener in your marriage.

[Aaron] Listening to yourself, and listening to the person talking to you.

[Jennifer] And to the Holy Spirit.

[Aaron] Yeah, and to the Holy Spirit.

[Jennifer] Okay, next one Proverbs 12:18, "There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, "but the tongue of the wise brings healing."

[Aaron] Again, showing the power of our words towards others.

[Jennifer] Such vivid imagery there.

[Aaron] Here's one, Proverbs 18:2, "A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, "but only expresses his own opinion." So, we have to be careful about this, this is something I've struggled with in the past, my foolishness of just only interested in sharing my opinion. Like, oh, well let me tell you what I think, let me tell you what I think, rather than listening, rather than being thoughtful, rather than actually considering the other person. I've dealt with that for sure.

[Jennifer] Another one is Proverbs 18:13, "If one gives an answer before He hears," again, going back to be a good listener.

[Aaron] This ever happens to me, I don't do this. I do all the time.

[Jennifer] "If one gives an answer before he hears, "it is his folly and shame."

[Aaron] So, the next one, and the last one, which is by far not the last verse, 'cause there's tons of scripture that talks about how we communicate and the way we communicate. Proverbs 18:21, "Death and life "are in the power of the tongue, "and those who love it will eat its fruits." So, understanding that our tongues are powerful. If we love the power of our tongue, we're going to eat the fruits of it. Meaning, if we want to share our thoughts, and we're totally fine with just speaking things, we need to be able to be aware that those words are ours, and we have to own them.

[Jennifer] All right, so that was just a little foundational prep for communication in marriage, just looking at a biblical way to communicate with your spouse.

[Aaron] And get a perspective on how we use our words.

[Jennifer] 'Cause honestly, no matter what question we answer, that was probably the most important that you hear today.

[Aaron] Yeah, the scripture. Not our words, the Bible's words. Always. So, question one from the community says, how do you two come together and talk about your dreams as a couple and as a family?

[Jennifer] Oh cool, I like that it's as a couple and as a family. Which we do talk about, dreaming together, in "Marriage After God", and I just love that chapter. Just because it's something that Aaron and I have found a lot of joy in.

[Aaron] It's fun.

[Jennifer] It's fun. And what we do is, we look at our life and we say, okay God, what do you wanna do with us? And we get to talk about it.

[Aaron] How would you say, how have we been doing it over the last few years?

[Jennifer] So, our biggest, probably dreaming session, as a couple happens at the end of the year, and we take time to go over what did that last year look like? What's still on our plate? And what things do we wanna try and accomplish in that next year? And it takes a good three hours or more to get through.

[Aaron] But they're fun.

[Jennifer] Just because it's a lot, but it's so fun, and we do it over dinner. And then we have checkups throughout the year, when things change, circumstances change, or goals change, or we accomplish things sooner than later. So, we just check in with each other throughout the year.

[Aaron] Or we're in the middle of a goal, accomplishing a goal, and we evaluate, is this what we really want? Now that we're in the middle of this thing, which we've done.

[Jennifer] I will say this, our dreams don't come from nowhere. Well, for one thing, there's seeds planted by God that we feel really strongly about that God gives us these desires that we have. But we also, what we call the tool belt, our marriage tool belt, we look at what we have, and we go from there.

[Aaron] Yeah, and it's not like, we talk about this in the book a lot more, the practical side of it. We're not just throwing out, and casting a line out as far as possibly, and trying to see what we can grab. We look at what God is doing in our life, what we've already accomplished, in Christ, of course.

[Jennifer] It's like we take that next step.

[Aaron] And we say okay, if we have any money, we say okay, how do You want us to use this money? Our home, our cars, our business? And then we even talk about things that we would love to explore and pursue. And we hold all of it loosely, pretty much usually, right?

[Jennifer] Yeah. 'Cause there's nothing we can guarantee.

[Jennifer] Another fun way to do this is, on those smaller check ins or smaller dreaming sessions, when we like to talk about it, we like to go on a drive, let's say like a 40 minute drive. It's super fun. We're both buckled in. Can't leave the conversation. And we just talk about it there. But, I love doing this and I think that, over the years, Aaron, wouldn't you agree, that it's something that's been cultivated in our marriage because of our intentionality? It's not really something that is just gonna happen on its own, but it's also something that, I don't know, we put the time in to do it.

[Aaron] Well, I'll say this, and this would be my one tip in this section, is yes, it needs to be scheduled. So, you and your spouse need to say, we are going to do this, and we're gonna do it on this date. So it's on the calendar. And then the other part is, setting actual goals, writing them down. So, for us, you may not be us, you're goals are gonna look different. Maybe they'll be the same, but, we'll say we want to have this book self published, or traditionally published next year or this year. Or, usually, the traditionally published is a little bit more out of our control. But, self publishing, we wanna have this book published by this date. And then that one goal gives us a whole list of tasks that need to be accomplished before, for that goal to happen. And so, setting that goal and giving it a realistic time frame, and writing it down on paper, and verbalizing it out loud.

[Jennifer] The success rate is so much higher.

[Aaron] Oh yeah.

[Jennifer] Let's use finances. If we had a goal for finances and we just talked about it--

[Aaron] We wanna save $1000.

[Jennifer] By next week, we would have forgotten what the plan was. So it's like, oh yeah, we talked about that, I think. So, when you go to write something down, I feel like it's super helpful.

[Aaron] The finances is actually a good one. I would imagine almost everyone has some sort of financial goals. Maybe getting out of debt, or saving for a vacation, or pay for college, or who knows what it is? And so, setting the goal, a realistic goal, the thing that you know you can attain, and you can come up with those strategies of, we're going to save $10 a month, or $100 a month, or we're not going to buy this thing every week. When you do that, and you say it out loud, there's now accountability as well. So, something comes up and you could spend the money on it, and you both look at each other and be like, are we willing to cast out that goal we set four months ago? No? Then we have to say no to this. Even though it's difficult. And so now you both are on the same page. And man, that actually feels like victorious. You're like wow, we just said no to something that we really wanted, because there's this better thing down the road that we're saving for. So, I would say set those goals, put them on paper, say them out loud, put them on the refrigerator, put them on a chalkboard, make them visible. And it's true, your success rate exponentially grows.

[Jennifer] Again, I really like the second part of this question 'cause they also wanna know how do you do it as a family? So, you have kids involved. I'd say, as our family, Aaron, you are really good about leading our kids through these things, and prompting their hearts, and preparing their hearts.

[Aaron] Well, thank you.

[Jennifer] And just asking them really good questions. Our children are still pretty young, so we don't download every dream or goal to them. We don't feel the need to explain everything, but as we talk about dreaming together, and as we set goals we do keep the impact it will have on our family in mind.

[Aaron] Well, always, yeah.

[Jennifer] And so, we share it with our kids, and we'll talk about it, and we'll invite them to participate in the ways that they can.

[Aaron] And I would say, because we have this pattern of setting goals and dreaming together, we teach our kids how to do it. So, I'll tell my son, and he's drawing, and he might get to a point of not wanting to complete the thing he's creating. And then I'll tell him, I'll be like, hey, do you wanna be a really good artist one day? And he'll be like, "Yeah." I'll be like well, the way people become really good artists is a lot of practice. I said, so I know that it's difficult to finish this, or you wanna move on to the next thing, and I totally get that because you're excited but, there's a lot of value in you sitting and finishing this and coloring it, and you'll see a completed work. So, that's a little way of teaching my son on how to set a goal.

[Jennifer] And that's really good, what I would call that is casting vision, 'cause you're showing him what the future would look like, but what it requires, and I think the same exact thing is important for marriage that both the husband and wife are reminding each other constantly. Because this whole episode is about communication, our words matter. We need to be encouraging each other. We need to be reminding each other, hey, remember we set this goal, hey, remember, this was our strategy, hey, this is what's gonna happen once we meet it, and encourage each other and stimulate each others hearts toward those those goals in that way.

[Aaron] I totally agree. That's good. Let's move on to the second question, how do you gracefully bring up subjects that have been touchy in the past? You don't, you just skip over them, you just ignore it. I'm just kidding. No, this is a hard one 'cause sometimes you can't avoid the sensitivity of it, in some scenarios.

[Jennifer] I think it's good to be sensitive to it.

[Aaron] What I'm saying is not that we be just harsh, or cold about it. I'm just saying you could come, I would imagine that there's some conversations that you can come perfectly gentle, with the best intentions, with the best words, and it will still be a hard conversation. That your spouse still may take it very personally. So I would say you come cautiously, you come patiently. And I would say the number one thing is make sure your heart's right. Is your intention because you're just bothered and you want this thing to change and there they go again? Is that your heart, or is your heart that you actually care that they're growing, they're changing, they're following through with their own words, because of their integrity, 'cause you love them, and you wanna see the mature? So, if your heart is a selfish one, like, I'm gonna go deal with this because I'm offended, which doesn't mean you're not allowed to have offenses. We have to deal with our offenses. But, if it's a conversation from the past, we have a lot of these, about specific things in our life, and some things are little, and some things are big things. I would say, don't avoid them, but make sure that our hearts are right, and make sure that the intention is for actual growth and maturity in your spouse, or for healing. Do you have any tips on that?

[Jennifer] Yeah, I was just gonna say that, when I go into conversations like this, I genuinely desire a good conversation about it. And, I think the most important thing that we could do, knowing that it's been touchy in the past, is pray for each other before we even get to the conversation. So, praying that I have the right heart, bringing it to the table, if I'm the one bringing it, and praying that I share in a respectful way, with the right words, words that will bring you understanding, but I also pray for your heart that, if there is sensitivity or anything like that, that you would be able to respond in an understanding way as well. That we're able to come together and have a good conversation about it. And I think that doing it with God at the center is the most important thing that we could do.

[Aaron] The tip for the person having the topic brought up to is humbleness. And also, being aware of defensiveness. I do this. I get defensive, we just had a conversation and I was defensive. And you called me, and you're like, "Why are you being defensive about this?" Often, defensiveness is self preservation. It's selfish, often. And so, if we're defending ourselves, then we're not in unity, and we're also not being humble.

[Jennifer] You're also not being quick to hear.

[Aaron] And I'm also not being quick to hear. Thank you for reminding me of that.

[Jennifer] I don't know if this helps practically but, when we go into conversations like this, I'll usually say something to Aaron like, hey, I really wanna share something with you, but, just so you know, my intention's not to upset you, or point the finger at you. It's just something that I've realized or recognized recently that I wanna talk about. Is that okay? Making sure that there's a place and a space for that conversation. You don't wanna just bring it up when you're at the dinner table, or you're walking into--

[Aaron] Right here on the podcast. Actually, I've been wanting to bring up to--

[Jennifer] No.

[Aaron] Not on the podcast.

[Jennifer] No.

[Aaron] And then, one last note on this. I think we can get in a pattern sometimes. Some relationships are special in this way, but I think a lot of us can, in some way, have this pattern of bringing up everything. And not overlooking certain things. There's this one thing that we actually, it's not that big of a deal, but I just have to bring it up every single time 'cause I don't wanna have to deal with it ever again. And so I think, truly internally evaluating, is the thing I wanna bring up, is it a thing that needs to be brought up? Or is it something that I can actually just let go? The Bible tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. So not that we overlook sin and pretend sin doesn't exist, but if I said something one time, we're talking and I said something and you're like, "Well that was rude." But you know I didn't mean it, it doesn't need to be brought up, in that one scenario. Now, if it's a pattern, like I'm always rude, that's one thing, but if I said something, and you think, "He must've not meant that." Or, the way they are with something. Sometimes it just needs to be let go.

[Jennifer] And I wanna speak to the other side, if your spouse is coming to you with something, I was gonna say something of importance, but, no matter when your spouse comes to you, how would you answer this question, does your spouse feel like they're walking on eggshells around you? Does it feel like you're here, there's a layer of eggshell around you, and they can't come that close to you? Does that make sense?

[Aaron] Yeah. So I think it's important for both sides that people listening can evaluate, okay, am I being aware of what I'm bringing up, and is it necessary? And then, how are my responses towards my spouse? Am I someone who gets defensive? Am I being selfish?

[Aaron] Am I being critical? Like I'm just over-critiquing my spouse.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and so I think that's it's important to think about are we setting ourselves up for putting eggshells down to where no one wants to come close to us and ask us those hard things.

[Aaron] And I think a good remedy for this, specifically, 'cause we're not tryna say, don't have conversations that need to happen. What we're talking about is evaluation and discernment. Is the thing that I want to bring up something that should be brought up? So my solution to that is, when you wanna bring something up, first evaluate in yourself if the thing that you're seeing or wanting to talk about in your spouse, is something that you deal with, but maybe in a different way. Because often, we're very keen to sin or issues in other people's lives that we ourselves deal with. Someone's always late to something for you and it bothers you. And then you realize that you're always late for something else. But you don't think about it. So, ask yourself, is this something that I deal with? And truly ask yourself, because if you care about it in them, you should care about it in yourself 'cause want to. So, just a little tip.

[Jennifer] It's good. All right, question number three is, how do you talk to your spouse when they are distracted by their phone? Can we just skip this one? Just kidding.

[Aaron] Again, I never do this.

[Jennifer] Okay, repeat that for everyone to just take a minute and hear.

[Aaron] How do you talk to your spouse when they are distracted by their phone? You can't.

[Jennifer] We have struggled with this so much you guys.

[Aaron] Before there was phones, there was TV. If you're ever sitting next to me and I'm looking at a TV, I'm not even watching what's on the TV, everything's shut off in my brain. Which is why we don't have a TV 'cause I would just sit there and I'd be gone for hours.

[Jennifer] This is true, but, what I was gonna say is, before phones there was an iPod. And I remember when the first iPod came out and we were dating.

[Aaron] And it only did one thing.

[Jennifer] I know, one thing. And I'm sitting at a restaurant, next to you, and you've got the wire from the cord in your ear, both ears, and you're scrolling through music on your iPod.

[Aaron] Now, to my defense, I had just got it.

[Jennifer] You were so excited about it.

[Aaron] Yeah, I was excited about it.

[Jennifer] But here's the point, we do get distracted, and it's a real thing, and I think it's important to talk about.

[Aaron] Yeah, I would say, and Jennifer, you've gotten good at this, Aaron, I'm tryna talk to you, can you put your phone down please? Because I didn't even know you were talking to me, and you've been talking to me. And I'm on my phone. Which we have whole episode on phones and boundaries, which is something we're constantly working on. But being free to say that, say hey, can you put your phone away? I wanna chat with you. And you've also gotten good at voicing to me how it makes you feel. You're talking to me and I--

[Jennifer] Mid-sentence you'll pull it out.

[Aaron] And then I'm on my phone. Maybe it buzzed or something, and I'm on it. Or, we're talking about something, and it's something that I need to do, and so I go to do it while you're talking to me.

[Jennifer] Yeah, oh gosh.

[Aaron] You're like, can you--

[Jennifer] Can you wait 'til I'm done?

[Aaron] Do that after we're done? I know that you're excited to do that. Yes, it's mostly on my side, sorry. I would say yeah, just get really good at voicing it, hey, can you put your phone away so we can have a chat? I know that's distracting. You're gonna get on it afterwards, but, so we're not distracted, let's put our phones away. But, be willing to receive it on both sides. 'Cause we're cellphone generation.

[Jennifer] I was gonna say, I think it's important to have patience with each other because, yes, we are a part of a generation that uses technology on a daily basis. This is such a hard one because it's not just you, Aaron, it happens to both of us. But being aware and allowing your spouse to help you be aware, so not getting defensive when they say something about you being distracted on your phone. I don't know.

[Aaron] A little side note about cellphones, something fun that we've done in our community for a long time, I don't know if I started it or someone else did, someone must've started it, but if see someone on their phone and they're spending time with you, just lean over and be like, hey, who you hanging out with?

[Jennifer] It's kinda mean and sarcastic but.

[Aaron] What's powerful about it is, oh, I'm hanging out with people on my phone, not the people that I'm actually hanging out with. But that's has nothing to do with someone distracted by their phone. If you're distracted, you just gotta ask, hey, this is an important conversation, or I wanna tell you something, can you put your phone away for just a second so we can chat?

[Jennifer] I will say this, Aaron, you have been making it a point this last year to leave your phone in the car, especially--

[Aaron] On Sundays.

[Jennifer] On Sundays, so that we are not distracted during fellowship time. You leave it out in the living room at bedtime, so you're not constantly scrolling in the bed. On date nights, you tend to leave it in the car.

[Aaron] What I'm tryna to do is just, because I know how prone I am to just pick it up when it's near me, I'm tryna find ways of getting it away from me. Which I wish that I could do more.

[Jennifer] We've also had some pretty deep encounters with our kids, where they recognize that we're on our phones in front of them, and I think we've shared this on the podcast before, but just realizing how it impacts our relationship with them as well.

[Aaron] I think that's an adequate answer for now.

[Jennifer] Which is, what is the solution here?

[Aaron] Tell them.

[Jennifer] Tell them.

[Aaron] Can you please put it down so we can chat?

[Jennifer] Hey, just so you know, it hurts my feelings when I'm talking to you and you're looking at your phone. Oh also, I gotta mention this, if you're in the middle of a really heavy conversation, and there's no resolve yet, but there's been silence for a while, don't just jump on the phone, that hurts so bad. Just--

[Aaron] Remain in the situation.

[Jennifer] Remain in the situation, remain in the silence until it gets figured out. And if it doesn't get figured out, communicate that with each other say, hey, we're just gonna put this on pause until we can figure it out, and then move on. But don't do it without that communication.

[Aaron] That's a very good point.

[Jennifer] Okay, number four.

[Aaron] As a wife, how do you teach yourself to respond, ask, speak respectfully to your husband?

[Jennifer] So I guess I have to answer that?

[Aaron] Well, it's not for me.

[Jennifer] Okay, so first you have to know what respect is. I remember back when we were first going to a marriage ministry, probably in third, fourth year of our marriage, and there was a group of young wives that I was friends with, and we're hanging out one night, and I remember asking them how would you define respect? I don't remember really growing up understanding. I kinda knew it what respect was, and I could get by with a makeshift definition, but I didn't actually know what it looked like in marriage. And they didn't either. It was like they looked at me like why would you even ask that question?

[Aaron] Why're you even bringing that word up in our midst?

[Jennifer] And I'm just sharing that because I do think it's important to know what respect is. So Google says respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone. So, if you want to teach yourself to respond respectfully, you should know why you respect your spouse, right?

[Aaron] Right.

[Jennifer] You should know why you deeply admire them. 'Cause that's what's gonna fuel you or propel you to respond that way.

[Aaron] Do you think a wife can respond respectfully to husband who is not respectable.

[Jennifer] That's a really hard question, and I don't feel comfortable answering it for every single person, 'cause I don't know every single situation, but I would say this as an encouragement, that there are some things that you can find to admire about a person.

[Aaron] The thought I had, and I was thinking about, not a spouse, how should we respond to a stranger that we know nothing about? With honor, with respect, with kindness, right? So my point was, I think, that in pretty much most situations, on the individual level of a person who loves the Lord, we can find, even if it's not for the husband's sake, or the spouse's sake, out of my respect and love for the Lord, I'm going to speak to this person the way Christ speaks to me.

[Jennifer] That's a better answer than I gave.

[Aaron] I think you were being careful. I don't think your answer was bad. That's what I was thinking about is, regardless if they find something respectable, 'cause a lot of people might struggle with that, I don't respect my husband, therefore I'm gonna talk--

[Jennifer] I'm not gonna, and then that becomes a justification.

[Aaron] And on both sides, I don't respect my wife because of this, this and this, therefore I'm going to, rather than treating them the way Christ wants you to treat them.

[Jennifer] That's good. Well, I think that we can, just as you're talking about we can be respectful, and it's not contingent on other people. We can be respectful in our communication towards others, towards our spouse, and like you said, out of that love and admiration for the Lord. I love that. And that that will influence our relationship. My admiration for you has grown over the years.

[Aaron] Totally, and vice versa. And I would say also, none of this subtracts from the kinds of things we get to say. If you need to tell someone, which you told me before about my sin in my life, what it was doing to God, what the reality of it was, but you said it so respectfully, so honoringly. And the Bible says to speak the truth in love. It doesn't say don't speak the truth because you want them to not feel bad. You can still say really difficult things to someone in a loving, respectful way. So that's just a thought I had.

[Jennifer] Just to clarify too, the question was how do you teach yourself to respond, and ask, and speak respectfully? I would say the one word that comes to mind is practice. That's probably what I should have just started with. But practice. As you practice this, and as you walk in it, it will become more natural for you to respond respectfully.

[Aaron] That's good. And remember who you're doing it for. It's not necessarily your spouse, it's for God, because you love the Lord. Yeah, that's good. And it goes for the husbands too. The answer is the same. Okay, so number five says, what do you do when one spouse gets tired of talking and stops listening, and refuses to respond, or to keep the conversation going? This is like that situation, we're having, it's a difficult conversation, maybe it's a frustrating conversation, maybe it's just another one of those conversations that we've had 20 times. Well, first of all, you can't control your spouse, just, I think, the quick answer is that you can't control me--

[Jennifer] You can't force them to give you an answer or or to--

[Aaron] You can lovingly say hey, it's really hurting me that you're refusing to finish this. Is there a better way we can finish it later maybe? Or can we finish it now? I would say also, being understanding in the situation of how the conversation's going. Often, these kinds of conversations are the ones that are, both spouses are at each other, both spouses are annoyed, both spouses are selfish.

[Jennifer] Both probably need some humility.

[Aaron] Yeah. I would say just, sometimes maybe you just need to step back and pray for your spouse and say hey, I get that you probably aren't interested right now, but we need to have this conversation. Can we do it another time?

[Jennifer] I know some things that I like to do with you is, hey, I get that were not in agreement on this, can we just pray about it and close with prayer, and ask God to reveal things to you over the course of however many days, or until you talk about it again.

[Aaron] And I would also say, for the one who's wanting to continue in the conversation, so one's checking out, and the one's like hey, we're not done. Maybe ask yourself, are you elongating because you haven't gotten retribution yet, or are you wanting this to keep going because you haven't convinced them yet of your side? Are you wanting to, discern and spiritually evaluate if you're wanting the right thing? Are you wanting reconciliation or you wanting to be right? Are you wanting unity or you waiting for them to yield? And this goes for the husband or the wife. And so, ask yourself, are they checking out because they're not getting to where I want them to be? And that's why I keep going. Rather than hey, are we gonna find a solution, a unifying solution? Are we gonna find reconciliation, are we gonna find a place that we're back in the right relationship with each other? Rather than I'm getting my way and they've come to my side?

[Jennifer] That's good. I know I keep going back to prayer, but if your spouse is getting tired of the conversation and refusing to continue it, pray for their heart. Pray that the Lord would minister to them, and transform them, and bring resolve through them, because ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit, right, that does it.

Mm hmm, amen.

[Jennifer] Okay, moving on to number six. How do you overcome the fear of vulnerability? That's a really big question, but it can be simplified.

[Aaron] I think it has to be. Well, first of all, most people are afraid of being vulnerable.

[Jennifer] I would say everybody is. Vulnerability isn't something that's like, yeah, let's be vulnerable. It's hard.

[Aaron] It's spiritual nakedness. It's showing what's on the inside, and often we don't like what's on the inside. And so I would say, you said earlier, practice. But really, asking the Spirit of God. Say God, transform me in this because, it was other people's vulnerability with us that freed us to be more vulnerable.

[Jennifer] It gave us the courage.

[Aaron] So yeah, if you're struggling with this, just pray and say Lord-First of all, regardless if you never reveal anything about yourself, we all know who we are. We are wretched. We are sinners who need a Savior, who need His righteousness, who need His power to transform us. And so, just recognizing that and say, okay Lord, humble me, and help me be open so that you can A, change me, the things that I'm afraid of, the things that I don't like, the ickiness, the grossness inside me, but also use that vulnerableness, use that transparency to free others, to heal others. Not because of me, but because of You, Lord. I don't know, that's my idea.

[Jennifer] I think a big thing that I learned through being vulnerable in marriage, is having this resolve to understand that love requires risk in making yourself known. So, what I mean by that is, in order for me to know that my husband loves me, like actual me, not someone who's pretending over here is--

[Aaron] Not what you show me.

[Jennifer] You have to know me, so I have to reveal it to you, and that requires risk. Because that means I'm gonna share something with you, and then you get to respond. So there's a risk involved, and that's what makes it hard. But I'd say, like you said, practice is really good, and then I was just gonna plug the Unveiled Wife here, because if you wanna get to know someone who wasn't vulnerable, and then was extremely vulnerable, not just with you, Aaron, but with the whole world by writing a book about it.

[Aaron] It was a big deal for us.

[Jennifer] The Unveiled Wife is my journey of learning vulnerability in marriage and with God.

[Aaron] That was good. So, question number seven, we have been married over a decade and feel like we lost things to talk about.

[Jennifer] Aah. So, I would say,

Find things to talk about.

[Jennifer] I would say start learning again. So, Aaron has this really great quality about him where, when he gets excited about something, he just starts learning about it, I don't know.

[Aaron] I research.

[Jennifer] Yeah, you have this research brain where you just, you get hooked on something. Even with the kids, like when it comes to Legos, it's like, oh Elliot, I figured out this new thing. You're even learning the Rubik's Cube, okay. You been researching.

I have been.

[Jennifer] Watching YouTube videos, and you been sharing it with me. So you'll sit down on the couch with me and be like, "Babe, look at this," what do you call it?

Algorithm.

Algorithm. And you do this twist thing and I'm not following, but I'm just smiling 'cause my husband loves to share this with me.

[Aaron] And then you see it working and you're like, "How'd you do that?"

[Jennifer] Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So start learning something again that you can share with them. It could be anything. And then talk about it with them.

[Aaron] And to be honest, if you've lost things to talk about, I don't know this person. I don't know their life. But if you guys are in a place, if you're in a place that you have nothing to talk about, first of all, that's not true. There's never nothing to talk about. There's never nothing to explore with each other, and to walk with in each other. There's, at minimum, there's tons of challenges in life to have to navigate.

[Jennifer] So you're saying they're choosing not to share things?

[Aaron] Yeah, I would say, I don't think it's possible to have nothing to talk about.

[Jennifer] Especially if you have children. If you have children, you have a lot to talk about.

[Aaron] Well, and the other thing is, is if we're pursuing God together, if we're looking to what He's doing, He's going to reveal to you sin in your life, He's gonna give you jobs to do, like this idea of He's got work for us to do, good works that He's prepared for us since the foundations of the world, those things are remarkable, meaning that they are able to be remarked about. There's something to be talked about. And so, I think that if there's nothing to talk about, there's potentially, maybe your minds aren't on heavenly things. Maybe your minds are an earthly things, and worry, and things that you're not looking up.

[Jennifer] Or maybe there's sin your guys's life that you've been avoiding confronting because--

[Aaron] Mm hmm, sin keeps us in darkness. So I would just challenge you, if you think there's nothing to talk about, I would start praying and say Lord, what's in my life, what's in our life that is keeping us from each other? Keeping us silent, keeping us in the darkness, keeping us from moving forward and being excited about life? Guys, if you're believers, we have the greatest hope, everyone in the world, the greatest hope is for the believer. That's remarkable. That's something to talk about, forever. We're going to do it in Heaven. We're gonna be worshiping the Lord, forever in Heaven. So, if we've lost that excitement now, we gotta ask ourselves why? What's taking it away? Where have we misplaced that?

[Jennifer] Now simply, if you're just bored, and you've forgotten how to communicate with each other, and ask each other good questions, I have to let that we have a freebie for you called Date Night Conversation Starters, and you can take these out on your next date, or just hanging out in the house, and use one of those to prompt a question and get started talking.

[Aaron] Start asking questions to each other. You can go to datenightconversations.com. Was that prompted, was that planned?

[Jennifer] I just thought about it.

[Aaron] These are some good things to think about.

[Jennifer] Okay, we're gonna get through these next ones fairly quickly, just for times sake, but, how do you get an introvert to communicate? Here, let me change it, Aaron, how did you get me to communicate in marriage? 'Cause I'm an introvert.

Keep asking you questions. Never give up. Do it gently with love. The goal is not to ever change someone, the goal's to engage, and the goal is to encourage, and exhort, and to lift up, and to love, and to strengthen. Remember, you're one, and God's given you unique characteristics for a reason. So, they're not things to be bothered by or hated, they might be things that need to be grown in. Just because, quote unquote, I'm an introvert, doesn't mean that quote unquote, you need to stay an introvert.

[Jennifer] Don't label yourself that way.

[Aaron] You can grow. You never know, what God wants to grow you into, and transform you into. So don't just say well, this is what I am, and therefore that's what I am.

[Jennifer] I'll say this, over the years, Aaron, your affirmation and encouragement has really gone a long way in that, you ask me a question, and maybe I'll answer it very quickly or short, or maybe not at all. And you say, just so you know, I want to hear from you. That affirmation, hearing that over and over again, reminds my heart, my mind, he really does just wanna know.

[Aaron] And then, one last little thing I would say, recognizing and cultivating the differences in your spouse will make them feel loved and makes your spouse more able to communicate in those times that they can't-So, if they're introverted, recognize that in your spouse in saying, hey, why don't you get some time alone, when you go be with the Lord, I'll take care of the family, I'll take care of the kids, or whatever. And that let's them know that you appreciate them, and their differences, their uniqueness, and you're excited about it. You're like, how can you use that in a good way, so that in those times that it's necessary, you're not allowed to just retreat into your title, into your whatever. They they know that you love them, and that you're saying hey, I know this is hard for you, but we do need to deal with this.

[Jennifer] Yeah, that's really good. Okay, so the next one says, how do you stay in touch with your spouse when your husband works two jobs and you're a stay at home mom? I'm just gonna answer this one really quickly for what comes to my mind is get creative, text them, send love letters, make a journal where you guys can pass it back and forth, putting things on the schedule and protecting that time, even if you're super tired or there's other circumstances going on. I would say that those are some practical ways that I would answer that. And I'm sorry, that's such a hard question to try and answer, but the communication is still a priority.

[Aaron] I would say if it's a priority, we'll do it. And we have a brother in our church that leaves real early in the morning, comes back real late, and he just he works a long job, and he records videos of him reading the Bible, and asking questions and sends them to his kids. So even though he can't be home, when he has the break, when he has the time, he make sure to, everyday, send them something to lead them and disciple them. So, father's who have these jobs, if you're listening to this, and maybe you're on the road right now, don't use your absence as an excuse to not disciple and lead your children and family. There's ways to do it, especially in this day and age, man, we have technology. You could FaceTime every day, there's ways to do it. So I just wanna encourage you that, get creative like my wife said, find ways of connecting with your spouse and your children regularly, to show them that you're there. Because even though you can't physically be there, you can spiritually.

[Jennifer] Cool. Okay, we got two questions left. The next one is, how do you handle conflict when you are very irritated? Which happens to all of us, right? No one's immune to irritability or irritation. But the verse that I thought of was Psalm 4:4, it says, "Be angry and do not sin. "Ponder in your own hearts, on your beds and be silent."

[Aaron] And that's a good point is, when you're frustrated, make sure that, again, you're coming with the right heart. So, you've dealt with your frustrations with the Lord first. Doesn't mean you don't say something about it, and you don't address it.

[Jennifer] It's that being slow to speak.

[Aaron] And then also, maybe wait. Wait for when you've cooled down. That's always a good posture to take. Right, so the last question we got for you guys is, what are important questions you need to ask your spouse every week? Aah.

[Jennifer] Okay, so we don't ask each other the same questions every week, but, we do have a standard of questions that we lean on when we want to know each other more, Aaron. And it's stuff like hey, how's your heart? Or hey, what are you thinking about? Or hey, what's God been teaching you? What are you gonna be working on today? Or what do you need help?

[Aaron] Or what are you reading in the Bible? These are interesting questions that help, if the other person maybe hasn't been, they say oh, well nothing. I'm gonna get into the Word, right? So they're encouraging. And if they are, you can start a conversation with them about what they're learning for the purpose of growth. And we have some friends, really good friends, Jeremy and Audrey Roloff, they actually have a resource called the Marriage Journal. And it's an awesome resource. They actually have, it's a weekly check up for your marriage.

[Jennifer] There're actually specific questions that you ask every week.

[Aaron] And they draw you closer to your spouse, they help you get to know each other. It also helps you stay on track with each other. So, if you're asking this question, if you're out there thinking yeah, what should we be asking ourselves? It's called the Marriage Journal by Jeremy and Audrey Roloff. You should go check that out, it's an awesome resource, we totally support them, we totally love them. And it can totally help you in growing in your marriage. So, we love you all, and we thank you for joining us on this last episode of the season. If you haven't checked out the other episodes from this season, please go do that while we're on this little break. And also, check out last episode because we have a giveaway going right now. And it goes only until April 10th, so go check out our last episode and find out how that giveaway is gonna work. But, as usual, we pray before we sign out.

[Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of marriage. We pray we would be husbands and wives who are willing to communicate with each other in a respectful way. We pray we would have the courage to say the hard things in love. We pray we would be good listeners, and truly hear what our spouse is sharing with us. We pray to share our heart with one another, always. We pray that your Holy Spirit would infuse our speech and open our ears, so that we can hear. Help our minds to understand each other, and to extend grace to each other. We pray the posture of our hearts would be humble. We pray we would strive to make marriage a safe place to communicate, and not a scary one. Help us to work through our marriage issues, and the things that we're experiencing to gain knowledge of each other and of You. Help us to grow in how we walk, and may it be in a worthy manner as we navigate life together. In Jesus Name.

[Aaron] Amen. We love you all. And we'll see you next season. 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.

We are hosting a giveaway at the beginning of this episode!!! Listen to find out how to enter :)

FREE DOWNLOAD: datenightideas.com

In this episode, we have a fun conversation about the experience Moses had with the Lord and the burning bush. Reading the Old Testament and the many miraculous things God has done over history is a powerful way to see who God is and His plan for redemption even from the beginning. 

Our physical health and learning how to take care of our bodies have played a large role in our growth of the years. In the beginning of our marriage, we dealt with sexual issues and after 4 and a half years living with those problems we finally discovered what we believe was a major contributor to those problems. We began replacing our toxic products with non-toxic products and almost immediately found healing in the area of intimacy. We have had many people over the years ask what kinds of products we use now and so in this episode we share a little of our journey and the products we like to use. Pleas enjoy!

PRAYER

Dear Lord,

Thank you for our bodies. We pray we would be good stewards of our bodies and consider all that goes on them and in them. We pray we would be willing to take the time and research the items we use on a daily basis, using things that help us and not hurt us. Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom as we navigate living a healthy lifestyle. Help us to make good choices and be on the same page in marriage so that we can enjoy the benefits of living toxic-free. Please help us not to be overwhelmed by the process of learning, but rather, help us to be humble and willing to learn so that we can choose what is healthy for us and be advocates of healthy living for the sake of others. We pray living healthy would not become an idol in our lives and would not hinder any of our relationships. May we be people who don't just consume, but who are about our bodies and take care of them.

In Jesus? name, Amen!

Some things mention this episode.

http://Parentingprayerchallenge.com

https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/the-unveiled-wife-embracing-intimacy-with-god-and-your-husband-by-jennifer-smith

https://ENG.org

https://unveiledwife.com/oils/

https://norwex.biz

Dr. Bronner?s - https://amzn.to/2vRCQ91

https://www.bendsoap.com/

Native Deodorant - https://amzn.to/2VXpWkz

Bert's Bees - https://amzn.to/3cPJkpN

Burt's Bees 100% Natural Moisturizing Lipstick - https://amzn.to/3aKRNs7

Ancient Minerals Magnesium Lotion - https://amzn.to/2TQu6YT

READ TRANSCRIPT

[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.

[Jennifer] Helpin' you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

[Aaron] And today, we're gonna share with you our favorite non-toxic products. 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 of our life together.

[Jennifer] This is Marriage After God.

[Jennifer] Welcome back everyone to another episode of Marriage After God. We are happy to have ya, and today we are just going to share some, it's kinda like a funner episode, where we're gonna share, not just our non-toxic products, but why we choose those, and part of our story.

[Aaron] Yeah, and well, we've had a lot of people over the years, kind of, 'cause we've talked about our journey with health, and we talk about products we use, and you have people often asking, "Well, what do you use?"

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] And so--

[Jennifer] A large portion of my first book, "The Unveiled Wife," you know, talked about our journey, you know, figuring some stuff out, and so, we'll probably start there.

[Aaron] Yeah, but it'll be fun. We believe that it's good to have a healthy life, I mean, everything we talk about it spiritual, but there's something to be said about, taking care of our bodies, and being careful with what we're putting on, being thoughtful, we even talk about, yeah, we talk about this often in our books, we talk about it in our life. We actually try and live it also, doesn't mean we're perfectly healthy in every aspect, but what's been awesome about it also is, we actually have less stuff, which is cool. So we'll talk about that a little bit too. So first, before we get into that, why don't you give a little update on baby Edith?

[Jennifer] Yeah, is everyone as anxious as I am to meet her? I'm--

[Aaron] Some people are probably like, "They're having another baby?"

[Jennifer] I know,

[Aaron] Yes we are, number five.

[Jennifer] Yep, I'm 38 weeks, and just starting to feel like way more ready and prepared, mentally,

[Aaron] Some of that pre-labor stuff

[Jennifer] Yep, and my body, but also, just in our home, I feel like, we are all kind of getting to that transition point where, I don't know, we're just, we're just ready.

[Aaron] So I'll say this, if you don't hear of any more podcasts coming out, after this one, it's because we had the baby.

[Jennifer] But, I haven't ever gone that early, so--

[Aaron] Yeah, you--

[Jennifer] I don't know.

[Aaron] We're usually like, I should say, you're usually right on the dot.

[Jennifer] I will say this, usually nesting kicks in, and I you know, look forward to, just utilizing that energy, that extra energy to clean the house, and get every nook and cranny, and this time I didn't get that way at all. I had to like, really rely on the Lord, and just um--

[Aaron] Well I'll say this, I think you did have the desire to nest, but you didn't have the energy this time.

[Jennifer] Yeah, I had the desire for sure.

[Aaron] You're like, "I just can't get up off the couch, "I just, I don't feel like I," So, there was all these things that you wanted to do, but it took a lot of my helping, it took a lot of like, extra stuff that you didn't have--

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] and so, but that's just unique for this time.

[Jennifer] But we got some stuff checked off our to-do list this weekend and now I feel ready. So thank you Aaron, thank you for your help with that. Yeah well, I'm sure we'll have a little bit more stuff before the baby comes.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Gettin' the house ready, just gettin' some things off of our plates, so that we can enjoy little baby Edith,

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] when she's here.

[Jennifer] What I did do, was I got through Olive's old clothes, and got like a drawer ready for her, and all of her clothes are ready, so,

[Aaron] Oh, we also moved all of, 'cause right now we have all of Truitt's clothes, in our bedroom, like right below the changing station, so that we can like change him, and put clothes there, but we moved those. Now he's got his clothes in the boys' room.

[Jennifer] Yeah,

[Aaron] I'm imagining, we're probably gonna move him into the boys' room soon, right?

[Jennifer] Soon, yeah.

[Aaron] And then he's gonna be one of the big boys.

[Jennifer] Uh?

[Aaron] I know

[Jennifer] Everyone's growing up too fast.

[Aaron] Who in the world?

[Jennifer] Elliot feels like he's seven feet tall. Doesn't he feel so big?

[Aaron] Yeah, he's gonna be a tall one.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] But it's awesome, seeing them grow, we were just talking tonight about if we would have had children earlier, which kinda goes into a little bit into our story, but if we would have started, day one, we'd have a 13 year old.

[Jennifer] Yeah, just recognizing, how long we've been married and--

[Aaron] And we probably have 13 kids. So,

[Jennifer] At our rate.

[Aaron] Yeah at our our rate, yeah. Hey, I just wanted to also bring up something that I've been doing lately, and maybe you can chime in on this, Jennifer, as well, but for the men listening, something I've been trying to do, I know not everyone has our situation. We totally understand that. We get that. But Jennifer and I both, I would say I work the majority of the time, it used to be much more equal, but as we've had more kids, Jennifer's desires, and our desires has changed to, you spending a lot more time homeschooling,

[Jennifer] My work just looks different

[Aaron] Totally looks different, but the idea is that we're keeping things going, but what I've been doing lately, is letting you have Fridays to yourself, often that's so you can get, you know, the work that you need to get done, done. But sometimes it's just to go.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] To get into the Word. To meet with a lady

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] From the church. To just have time to yourself, or a little bit of both, like you get some work done in the morning, and then you have like a hair appointment, or you have a meeting with a friend,

[Jennifer] Yeah, I try and use that time to schedule appointments--

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] But um, I will say this, I've really enjoyed it, and it's been super beneficial in a lot of ways, but I also recognize that change is coming, with having the baby and post-partum, and all that. So it'll be something that we reevaluate, come very quickly.

[Aaron] Right 'cause we go through seasons, and ebbs and flows, and we have to adjust our schedules and our way of living to the situations in life. But, I just wanna encourage the men out there, that even if you're not in a situation, where maybe your wife works with you, or works at home, or maybe, I don't know, like your situations are gonna look differently. The idea is being intentional, to let your wife know that, especially if she doesn't have like, a regular nine-to-five job if she is at home with the kids, if you have a similar situation in that aspect, is giving them time. It may not be every week, maybe it can't be every week, but if it's once a month, if it's every other week, if it's for a couple hours, there's times like, "Hey why don't you, "I got the kids you get out of here--"

[Jennifer] And maybe it can't be during the day, but it's at night or, if it can't be during the week, it's you know Saturday morning or something like that.

[Aaron] Yeah, there's always going to be a way to just let your wife know that you're thinking about her time, and also, as men who are leading our wives, spiritually, giving them time specifically like, maybe it's at home like, "Hey, why don't you just go lock yourself in the bedroom? "Open up the Bible like, read, journal, "go take a bath, and listen to some worship music." Giving them time to themselves, time to recharge, regenerate. I know some women probably recharge around people, not alone, but, whatever it is, maybe they need to go be with some friends. Just, keeping that in your mind, something we've been practicing, like we said, it's a it's a seasonal thing. So it's not necessarily that it's always going to be this way, but currently Fridays have been your day, and you've been enjoying them, we've been slowing down on that with the baby coming.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Also 'cause, you're having less energy, and you're like, "I just wanna be home."

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] But, it's been a cool thing.

[Jennifer] I think it's a really good encouragement, and I think it's good for husbands to hear, that when it's even spontaneous, 'cause this was something that we kind of scheduled out, and looked at our situation, and said, "This needs to be happening." But even when it's at random, you know, spontaneous, it's a huge encouragement to the wife's heart to know that the husband is thinking of her like that. You've done that for me plenty of times over the years and so, I love that you're bringing this up. I think it's cool.

[Aaron] So hope you're encouraged by that. One more thing before we get into our, our list of our favorite non-toxic products is, we just want to invite you to join the Parenting Prayer Challenge. We created this prayer challenge, it's very similar to the Marriage Prayer Challenge, where you get 30, 30 some-odd emails everyday, reminding you to pray for your children, and giving you a topic to pray for over them. and you can actually sign up for one for a son, or one for a daughter, or you can sign up for both, which is pretty awesome 'cause some of you probably have a son and a daughter, or just sons, or just daughters, or just one or the other, but you can go, you go to parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word, and you sign up, it's completely free, and we just pray that God blesses you, and your prayer life for your children, because praying for your children is so important. Just like praying for your marriage. Just like praying for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Prayer is so important. God wants to be praying people, and so this is just a fun challenge. It's a way of being a catalyst for your prayer life, for your children. It's parentingprayerchallenge.com, it's completely free.

[Jennifer] Okay, so for some of you listening you may have already read "The Unveiled Wife," if anything we talked about today, you know sparks interest and you haven't read that book yet, that was our first book that we came out with, you should go check it out, just because it shares more in depth of our journey, of kind of coming to this place of like, being aware of healthy living, and living a healthy lifestyle. But we're going to kind of summarize it. Just to kick off this episode, just so that you guys can, just get some background into Aaron and Jen. How about that? Okay.

[Aaron] Let's see how quick we can make this summary.

[Jennifer] Okay so I would say that when we first got married, Aaron, we didn't really, we didn't have a strong foundation of what it look like to live healthy. We grew up on fast food, and and home cook meals, but there was no,

[Aaron] We didn't have an awareness of healthy living at all.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and so we didn't really care about looking at ingredients on products, or you know reading the labels of things. I would say that you know I used all the all the really good smelling lotions and body washes, and if you didn't have more than three or four in your shower, it was like, "What are you doing?" You know, that type of thing. Fragrant candles, the kind of laundry detergent that you just never think about, you just use it because your parents used, or that's what so-and-so use. I remember using MAC makeup. This one, actually, I didn't really ever talk about this one, but this was one that affected me, in my teens because I was caking on the foundation, but I was using it to cover up acne,

[Aaron] Which that made more acne.

[Jennifer] Which made more acne. And I was actually allergic to something that was in it, and so I stopped using that, even probably around like 18. But anyways, the point that I'm getting at is that we didn't care about what was inside of these bottles that we were using to put on our skin, you know, the soap that we use, the body wash, the lip balms, the hairspray, we just consumed it.

[Aaron] Not internally necessarily.

[Aaron] We were consumers. We bought what we liked, we didn't have any consideration of what it was, and I actually think, back then, not very many people did. There was movements of it, but social media wasn't a huge thing back then, so not a lot of people were talking about it. Like news wasn't talking about it, like it was just, you got these products, and it wasn't until there was some sort of, big blow up or news story about something that people were aware of something, but I think with, now looking back, everyone is much more considerate about what's in products, people care about it, but back then we didn't have that experience. No one was telling us to, like, "Oh, do you know what those ingredients are?" Can you even understand what there, like, we just figured, like, "Oh, that's what they put in everything.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and then, on the side of like, I'm not gonna go too much into this, but medicine, it was kind of just like, the Benadryl, Tylenol, like, whatever you could get over the counter type stuff. And I wasn't raised with a really big awareness of homeopathy, or how to, you know, use what you have at home.

[Aaron] Right.

[Jennifer] To help through sickness or things like that. Or to even just look at what's the root of the problem here? Of whatever symptoms you have.

[Aaron] Or having an understanding of what those, why those symptoms exist. How fevers work, and how, like, why are you coughing, and sneezing, and these kinds of things.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Rather than just, medicating the symptoms, which we're not totally against medication.

[Jennifer] No, I'm just saying this is kind of like, where we came from.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] So we get married, and I, you know, it was just like a normal thing people talked about, to go on birth control, so I did that. 'Cause I thought that was--

[Aaron] It's what you do. You get married,

[Jennifer] What we were supposed to do.

[Aaron] birth control, wait.

[Jennifer] Yeah, wait. And I only on it for about two to three months, and it like, drastically effected my body, and so that was the first thing that I noticed should go. And so we did that. But that was also in conjunction with trying to find a solution for what we were dealing with in our marriage, which started immediately--

[Aaron] Physically, yeah.

[Jennifer] And for those of you who don't know, Aaron and I, we struggled with intimacy right off the bat, like, zero, none.

[Aaron] Like sex, specifically we couldn't have sex. It was very painful for you, and we've talked about this in the past, there's a few episodes where we talked about our story, and in your book you talk about it, we talk about it in our new book, "Marriage After God." We talk about it so much because it was such a influential season in our life, and how it brought us to our knees before God. Because, it drew out of us, so much other sins, and frustrations, and bitterness, this situation we were going through. Which is often when we go through things that are hard. They often will draw out those negative things in us. Which is cool, because then God gets to deal with them. But that was, yeah, we didn't know it, you would go to see doctors, and they would say, "You're young."

[Jennifer] "You're fine.

[Aaron] "You're fine--

[Jennifer] "You're really great."

[Aaron] "there's nothing wrong, "this should be working just fine." And then we'd go home and cry, because it's not fine, it doesn't work, nothing's changing, it hurts you.

[Jennifer] Yeah, it was like at least if you told me that something was wrong, I can work with that. I can't work with nothing. But moving on, so year four of our marriage, we had a conversation with some friends, we were being really transparent and honest with them about our struggles, and they kind of like, I remember them sitting across from us, just looking super confused, like, "How--

[Aaron] Dumbfounded, or like, "Are you serious?"

[Jennifer] "Yeah, is this really happening?" but she goes, the girl, she goes, "The only thing I can think of to help relate your story, "to someone else's that I heard is, "a friend of mine has PCOS, and she changed out all "of her products to be more organic, "and just cleaner, and three months later, "she ended up pregnant." Which people with PCOS, it's a hard thing to do, and they weren't even trying to get pregnant. She was just trying to heal some of her other symptoms. And we quickly disregarded that because we thought, "Well, we're not trying "to get pregnant, we're just trying to start off "with the first thing, which is--

[Aaron] Yeah, how do I have sex?

[Jennifer] "sexual intimacy." And we didn't think about it again for about five, six months. And then what happened, Aaron you share.

[Aaron] Well, I would just, it got worse of course, 'cause we're like, "There's like no hope, "like this in never gonna change." You know, it started off with a lot of hope, like, "Oh, it'll get better, it'll get, "but it can't possibly keep going the same way." And it just did, and you know, I'm praying through this, God was working in our marriage. There was a, if you read in our book, in both of our books, actually, there's this moment that God gets ahold of my heart, and just totally convicts me of my wrong heart, towards my wife. Not just over the situation about our sex, but about a lot of things. And it brought me to my knees, I repented, and I just said, "Lord, I'm gonna obey you. "I'm gonna walk with you, "and I'm gonna love my wife, "regardless of if I ever get what I think I deserve, "or whatever she owes me, or whatever. "I'm gonna love her. "The way you've called me to." And that was the beginning of a lot of transformations, in our marriage, in our life, and our being. But how, I don't know how, it was like.

[Jennifer] It was shortly after--

[Aaron] It was like that weekend, maybe,

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] or the next weekend, or that week, 'cause it was at church that this you know revelation that God gave to me happened. And I'm in the shower, and I'm just praying, 'cause I'm still like, "God, there's gotta be something, "that's gonna fix this." 'Cause even though, I've totally committed my heart to say "I'm gonna love my wife,"

[Jennifer] You still wanted change--

[Aaron] I still want a change, right? But my heart was totally in a different place now. And I'm just praying, and I'm like. "Lord, what is it? "It's been since before we were married, "like this is, since we've been married, I mean, "and there's gotta be something." And I looked down in the shower actually, and there's a face wash in there, and I just immediately remembered this story about the PCOS, and the girl that got rid of her stuff, and I just asked myself, I was like, "Is it possible that there's something reacting "with my wife's body?" And then I started thinking like, "What has there been, that you've used, "ever since the beginning, of our marriage?"

[Jennifer] 'Cause shampoo and conditioner changed out, body wash changed out, a lot things changed, in those four years, but my face wash was the one main thing that I always was consistent with.

[Aaron] And so, I said, I just yelled from the shower, I remember like, "What have you been using "since before we were married?" And you were like, "My f-why?" You were like, confused. Anyways, I take the face wash out of the shower, and I hop onto our computer, and I just start researching every ingredient on the thing. And there was like, first of all, like, half the ingredients were, I went on this site, and it talks about the toxicity level, of ingredients, right? You type the ingredient in, and it just tells you what the level is.

[Jennifer] Had you ever done anything like that before?

[Aaron] Never, never done like that before. Didn't even know it existed, I had to Google, and I'm searching like, how do you figure out, I'm typing these, and then this site shows up. And like half the ingredients in this thing, were--

[Jennifer] It was EWG.

[Aaron] Toxic.

[Jennifer] EWG.com.

[Aaron] EWG.com, I don't even know, is it still a thing?

[Jennifer] I think so.

[Aaron] Okay. So half the products were toxic at some level. And then there was several of the ingredients that had specific terms that it said it was, that the affect. Specifically the endocrine system in your body. Then I looked up, I was like, "What's the endocrine system? "I'll just start looking it up." I'm getting all technical, and we're not scientists, we're not biologists, we don't know, like, I'm not gonna try and diagnose people, but all I know is the Lord lead me to something.

[Jennifer] We were putting pieces together.

[Aaron] I started researching, and regardless if it has any effect, the fact that it had all these toxic chemicals, and I'm like, "Maybe she should, regardless, "she probably shouldn't be putting this on her body." and the endocrine system something that's, it's super important to the whole reproductive system. To the normal function of the woman's body. Like secretion of normal hormones, and I was like, "Dang, that sounds like a lot "of like the things that we deal with." And so it--

[Jennifer] The specific thing that you're talking about is parabens.

[Aaron] Parabens, yeah.

[Jennifer] So there's four, different types of parabens, in this specific face wash.

[Aaron] Methyl, propyl, like all these different kinds.

[Jennifer] And this was before parabens was a thing,

[Aaron] Yeah, like no bottle said paraben-free, back then.

[Jennifer] Nobody was talking about it yet, but it soon became a thing, shortly after that.

[Aaron] A few years later.

[Jennifer] I mean, I remember a few years later, you'd go into like, Ulta, or Sephora, and you'd start seeing, you know, makeup lines that say, paraben free this, paraben free that.

[Aaron] Which is interesting because back then, no one cared. I should say no on knew. And then we're like researching this and finding this out, and I don't wanna say, like started move, we actually didn't start anything. Other people are already trying to get this moving, but because of social media things like that, that it exist. Things were a lot slower. I think things are way faster now. But I was just like, "Hey. "I want to be with you, physically." And in this is a big deal because Jennifer has been using this forever, she believed that without it, she was gonna have acne. And be, and feel ugly, or whatever it was, and I remember I was like, "Hey, would you get this up?"

[Jennifer] I said no.

[Aaron] And she was like "No!" And I'm like, "I'd rather you have acne and us be able "to be together, than you have clean skin, clear skin."

[Jennifer] And then I was like, "Well maybe there's something, okay. "I'll just do it 'cause you asked me."

[Aaron] So you did, you chose to put it away. And now, I'm sure everyone's thinking like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go use this to get my wife, "or get someone to stop doing something." But, I, my heart was not just to get her to stop using this. I actually had never thought about it until this moment, and I was just like, "Would you be willing to experiment with me?" Like, "Let's just delete this from your life."

[Jennifer] Yeah, it was an experiment. And here's the thing you guys, three days later, three days later, I was at work and I remember just feeling different, and I called Aaron and I was like, "I don't get too excited but, I feel different, "and I wanted you to know that my body feels, "it feels like things are changing." And I feel like it was just like two more days after that that we had sex for what feels like the first time.

[Aaron] Yeah, in four and a half years.

[Jennifer] Like pain free.

[Aaron] Pain free. Not just pain free, but like it was enjoyable.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Like it was, like we were like, "Whoa. "Like that's what it's supposed to be like.

[Jennifer] There was nothing else that was gonna convince me, that what we stumbled upon, was the thing.

[Aaron] Right, and I would also say, we, God lead us a new place, in our hearts toward him. We had been repentant, of things that were going on, and I think that the Lord revealed thing to us, so I would say I definitely think that there is certain things are engaging, or interacting with your body. I mean we know over the years that you're sensitive to certain things, I'm sensitive to certain things.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] But I also think that the Lord, was like working in us. So I'm not trying to over-spiritualize it but, I don't wanna take away from what God was doing.

[Jennifer] Sure.

[Aaron] And he revealed this to us--

[Jennifer] Well and I think, he's the one that revealed this to us, and it was really awesome, and so the next step was, "I'm getting rid of all parabens." Like parabens became this like,

[Aaron] We literally threw

[Both] Everything,

[Jennifer] And I am telling you guys,

[Aaron] All of our shampoos, all of her makeup.

[Jennifer] It was it!

[Aaron] My makeup too. I'm just kiddin'.

[Jennifer] It was in everything. It was in so much stuff. People will message me on Instagram, and they're like, "So you know, "You talked about parabens in the "Unveiled Wife," "and what kind of stuff did you have to look at?" It was like,

[Aaron] Everything.

[Jennifer] I tell 'em, "everything." And so what's funny is that, I look at our shower now from what it used to be, and it's like you had mentioned earlier,

[Aaron] There's two things in there.

[Jennifer] Yeah, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode. 'cause we just thought it'd be fun to share with you guys, some of the things that we use now, but this indecent, this thing that happened over something as small as face wash, is what stimulated our hearts to say, "Hey, what were putting in our bodies. "What we're putting on our bodies, "is important because it has an effect on us."

[Aaron] And I mean it's definitely not our main focus, I mean everyone that listens to our podcast would know that this is not, we're not like a health and fitness--

[Jennifer] Freaks,

[Aaron] Podcast. No, we just know, that there's a holistic view that God has of us. He wants us to love him with our minds, our souls, our bodies. Like so, when we look at the world it's not just, "Oh, we can be unwise over here, "as long as we're wise over here." we look at idea of, what we, we gotta be wise in every aspect. And we seek God on that. So what's wrong with just, caring about what goes on our body and in our body? Not out of a, like, not putting something on my body and not putting something in my body is not making me more holy. It's making me more healthy.

[Jennifer] It's taking care of yourself.

[Aaron] it's taking care of the body that God's given me.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and I will say this, back then, it felt a little bit harder to know what to switch to, because--

[Aaron] Well, there was also less things, I think.

[Jennifer] Less cleaner things available and so I just wanted to make that clear, that, you know, anyone who wanted to make a switch today, like if they want to go to their products or--

[Aaron] There's a million products now.

[Jennifer] be more healthy in this way, there are so many good products out there and so, it's a lot easier, I would say. But another thing that triggered our healthy lifestyle, was doing the Sugar Busters diet, which we--

[Aaron] This was long time ago.

[Jennifer] that was just a couple months, after all of this, and we made the commitment to do it together. We even took a class on it do you remember that?

[Aaron] I do.

[Jennifer] And they taught us how to read labels--

[Aaron] It was at the church.

[Jennifer] Yeah, it was at our church.

[Aaron] The church put this like health class on. It was cool.

[Jennifer] Yeah so, it taught us how the read labels, and so I remember going grocery shopping with you, and we're looking at the back of like pasta sauce--

[Aaron] Well, everything we bought, had added sugar in it. Every single thing.

[Jennifer] But we were like, amazed, we were like, "And this has it too!"

[Aaron] I was like, "Bread doesn't have sugar in it." and every loaf of bread, was like, the second ingredient was sugar. And we're like, "Okay, what's going on here?" So anyways,

[Jennifer] And then you had to go with a list of what are sugars called? because there's a lot of--

[Aaron] All the different names of sugar, yeah

[Jennifer] Different names, for it. But that was another one, when we talk about eating, like that was what stimulated our healthy movement towards eating healthier and just buying things so that we're aware of what we're putting inside of our bodies. It doesn't mean we don't consume sugar, and we don't, you know, we'll have Chick-fil-A, we'll go out and--

[Aaron] No, but that education, the learning about how to read labels. What are ingredients, you know, how they order the ingredients, that's important, I can give a little tip on that. Even though we don't still do Sugar Busters, that month or how many? It was a couple months maybe.

[Jennifer] It grew a muscle in us, We now, that's how we shop. When we go grocery shopping, of course there's gonna be stuff that we grab that has added sugars to it, but for the most part, we look at the ingredients in almost everything we buy. Everything, now especially with you, you need to be gluten-free. We look at, we actually buy less things that have wheat in it period, because of that, but it was a good tool in our tool belt, as we talk about in "Marriage After God," to just help us be healthier, help our kids be healthier. They enjoy things, here and there, we just had icecream tonight, so we're not like, sans sugar in our life, we're sans sugar all the time.

[Jennifer] I was gonna say, we try and make the best opportunity, or we take every opportunity, when we can, to be healthy, eat healthy, and you know, choose the right thing, but it doesn't mean that we don't get,

[Aaron] We also enjoy things.

[Jennifer] Yeah, we also enjoy things, so,

[Aaron] In moderation.

[Jennifer] in moderation. That's good.

[Aaron] So, Oh I wanna give that quick tip real quick, 'cause people are probably thinking like, "Well, what about the ingredients?" Just a quick tip on ingredients, the order of ingredients on the box, so like starting from the first, to the second, to the third, the higher up an ingredient is on the box, the more of that ingredient is in the product. So if sugar is in the top three ingredients, that means there's a lot of sugar in that item. So if wheat's the first or water, that's how they order the ingredients, based off of amount of ingredients.

[Jennifer] So here's another one, it's really random, but I've been seeing a naturopath for my thyroid issues through this last year, and one of the things she asked me is if we use Weed and Feed. And I didn't even know, 'cause you usually do--

[Aaron] For the lawns? Yeah.

[Jennifer] the lawns, yeah. And that was just one instance where she was like, "Well, instead of using that, "why don't you just pick the weeds?" like--

[Aaron] Or leave the weeds.

[Jennifer] or leave the weeds. So there's a lots of things in our life that we can look at and evaluate, and say, "Oh, we should probably make change." It doesn't have to happen all at once, but it is something that we should be aware of, to go, "Hey what's happening to this exposure "that we're doing to our bodies. "And how can we maintain a healthy body?'

[Aaron] And the Weed and Feed was important because was saying, "You guys walk on "that grass all the time." And like, it goes into your skin, and you're going to be affected by it. Because you're you're working with your thyroid and all of these things, effect that. Which is interesting because, we knew back then that you were probably sensitive to some stuff, and now we know now, you are definitely sensitive to things. Your body's gonna react, maybe differently than someone who, has normal functioning thyroid, or endocrine system or all that.

[Jennifer] Right. Okay so, we we're just going to get into kind of a list of our non-toxic products because--

[Aaron] These are literally things that we use, pretty much on a regular basis.

[Jennifer] Two reasons, one we just thought it would be fun to share these things, and if you guys you know want to know more, you can reach out to us on Instagram @marriage--

[Aaron] Reach out to Jennifer about the

[Jennifer] I was going to say @marriageaftergod.

[Aaron] Ah there ya go.

[Jennifer] or @unveiledwife We also know that everyone's always looking for, you know, new things or ideas or inspiration so, we just hope that by sharing these, it's an encouragement to you, and give you some information.

[Aaron] And I'll also let you guys know that we're not like necessarily sponsored by any of these people. We're just we're literally going to share with you guys the things that we love--

[Jennifer] Now I will say,

[Aaron] and use.

[Jennifer] that some of these things that I put on the list, and we've been using Young Living Essential Oils for

[Aaron] Several years now.

[Jennifer] about four or five years now. And we did just recently, just be more open to sharing the business side of things on social media. You may have seen that, maybe not. And so I know you said that we're not sponsored by this, but we,--

[Aaron] But we use it.

[Jennifer] but we do use Young Living, and we do believe in what they have to offer, and and have really fallen in love with their products. So, I just wanted to put that out there, just so that people know and we're clear about that.

[Aaron] We're not trying to be tricky or anything, we just, these are literally products we love and no one's asked us to share about them. Except for us, wanting to share about them.

[Jennifer] Okay so when it comes to cleaning I really love the Thieves Spray, which in the beginning I was using wrong, because I didn't know it could be diluted. I literally would just put the spray cap--

[Aaron] And everything was just like slimy and had like, film all over the

[Jennifer] Uh yeah, like a residue.

[Aaron] We had residue everywhere.

[Jennifer] On the countertops.

[Aaron] Oh man, there was no germs I bet.

[Jennifer] Ah, probably not. So the Thieves container comes, and then you dilute it, and it lasts a long time. But it smells really good, and I can use it for--

[Aaron] Everything.

[Jennifer] I feel like every, one product, I feel like I can use for so much.

[Aaron] And what's awesome is like, if you sprayed it on food by accident, I'm not saying you should eat it, but it's not going to be like spraying Lysol on something. Like you spray the table, you spray the the highchair, you spray, you're not worried about this, you know hurting your children. Which is awesome. It's an added benefit to this kind of cleaning product.

[Jennifer] Another awesome cleaning product, is by a company called Norwex, it's really awesome you guys, they do these microfiber cloths, but they're like--

[Aaron] Aren't they infused with like silver?

[Jennifer] Yeah, they're infused with silver, and they just, I don't know what about it is, but like, when you go to clean the stove, you barely have to even scrape, it's just like,

[Aaron] Reusable

[Jennifer] It like makes you want to clean. The window rag, you just you put water on it, and just wipe your window down, and they look crystal clear. I bought these mitts for the kids that have, they're just really easy slip-on gloves, but they're good for dusting,

[Aaron] So that they can help clean?

[Jennifer] So that they can help clean. Oh and our mop, I use the Norwex mop, and it's just really nice. It's good, I like it. I like their stuff.

[Aaron] I wouldn't say those are necessarily, healthy products, they're just good products that we love using.

[Jennifer] Oh yeah.

[Aaron] On that specific one,

[Jennifer] On the Norwex side of things.

[Aaron] I did wanna go back, and just real quick, the Thieves Spray, we just talked about, I wanted to say it like it what it replaces. Because I think, as we go, we should just remind them, also, what it replaces like, it replaces Lysol spray, it replaces window spray, it replaces like toilet cleaner, it replaces all these things that you'd use to clean your countertops, or your floors, or your tables, or your, it does all of those things.

[Jennifer] So for all you minimalists out there,

[Aaron] You get one thing, and it does all.

[Jennifer] It'll make your cleaning closet, or cupboard very pretty looking.

[Aaron] It also smells really nice.

[Jennifer] It does, that's true. For laundry, again that they sell Thieves Laundry Detergent and we've really liked that. And I just noticed that, there's a drastic difference when washing towels and washcloths. They're just so much cleaner.

[Aaron] And they smell fresher, and they feel nicer. I've been really liking that, as well. This is this one's kind of like for me. So Jennifer, actually, doesn't use the the Thieves Laundry Soap for me, because I'm really sensitive, my skin, if we, if there's any laundry detergent that has any sort of dyes or perfumes or anything, I get like a rash, on my whole body.

[Jennifer] If I even think about changing it, he breaks out--

[Aaron] Now, it happens, we've gone, we've stayed at hotels in the past, and I wake up in the morning and I'm just like red, and I go down and I'm like, "What are you guys washing your stuff with?" And they're like "We don't know, why?" And I'm like "I like I need something else." It's like horrible 'cause I'm like sleeping on these blankets and pillows, and so the only thing that we found work, we've actually tried venturing out, into other things, is the Arm & Hammer Sensitive Skin laundry detergent.

[Jennifer] But it's fragrance-free, it's clear,

[Aaron] Dye free. I'm sure it's got a couple of bad things in it, but literally, it's the only one that I've been able to use and not like break out in a rash on my body. But that comes in a huge bottle and we use it for me so.

[Jennifer] Okay so earlier, we mentioned the shower, and just how the bathroom is much

[Aaron] less cluttered,

[Jennifer] Yeah, less cluttered. So we use dr. Bronner's for just about everything when it comes to washing our bodies.

[Aaron] Body wash, shampoo,

[Jennifer] I use it in the kids hair, I throw it in their bath and they have different scents, and they come in big bottles

[Aaron] I like the rose scented one.

[Jennifer] I will say this, the first couple times that we used it, do you remember how it felt like, really different, almost oily, but then once you got out of the shower it was like,

[Aaron] Yeah, 'cause it doesn't suds the same way, as like a regular shampoo and also, you have to dilute it. And so you if you use too much, it's like everywhere but it comes off really easy. Doesn't leave any residue, but it's, we love it we use it for everything. Apparently you can use dr. Bronner's for like, laundry soap,

[Jennifer] Yep. and dish washing soap

[Jennifer] You can use it for a lot of stuff.

[Aaron] We use it mainly in the shower, but yeah, you can

[Jennifer] I use it for my face wash now, face and body wash,

[Aaron] You can use it for everything. We wanna make a note that, the company that that owns dr. Bronner's, they write a bunch of weird stuff on the packaging so we're not necessarily endorsing what is written on the packaging, but we love the product.

[Jennifer] When it comes to my like, lotions and things like that, Cetaphil is pretty bland, there's not very much stuff in it. I've used that for years now. I love the orange blossom and ART brand from Young Living when it comes to face moisturizer. The Genesis lotion is also really great, especially because, well, it smells clean and fresh, but it's not super fragrant. That one's good, just an overall lotion, I use that one for the kids. But also, Aaron,

[Aaron] Yeah, there's a lotion that I, I hate lotions, like I don't like putting anything in my hands, even though, like right now, my hands are so dry because it's so dry out. But I hate feeling like greasy and the lotion I love the most is from Bend Soap Company, they're actually right here in our hometown. And they make this goat milk lotion, they make goat milk soap, they make a lot of really awesome things. So if you have really sensitive skin, like eczema, things like that, their soaps are amazing for it. That's actually why they started the company, 'cause one of their sons had issues with skin like that.

[Jennifer] What I like is their milk bath, it comes in these like shavings,

[Aaron] Oh yeah.

[Jennifer] And it's just, you toss it in the bath with the kids, and it's just so fun.

[Aaron] So just go check out Bend Soap Company, I can't remember the domain, but just Google Bend Soap Company. And their lotion, does not feel greasy. Once it's rubbed in, it's like, it smells nice, it feels great.

[Jennifer] You don't have to go wash your hands

[Aaron] It feels soft, yeah I don't have to wash my hands afterwards.

[Jennifer] For toothpaste we do use Young Living. The Thieves whitening, specifically, is really good for us. And then we use it the kid's ones for the kids. But for the deodorant, this was a big one for me, because I feel like every time I try to use like, a natural deodorant, it just felt weird

[Aaron] They don't work.

[Jennifer] and didn't work

[Jennifer] Yeah, but there's a new company out I'd say a fairly new. They're gaining ground, they're like in Target now,

[Aaron] Yeah, they actually have some body washes now, I saw.

[Jennifer] Oh really?

[Aaron] Yeah, I almost bought a bottle of it.

[Jennifer] Oh you should, I'll have to try it.

[Aaron] But I like my Bronner's

[Jennifer] I know. It's called Native. And they have great scents, it goes on smooth, almost silky like, and it works. Someone asked me, "Do you think it'll work during postpartum?" And I'm like, "That I haven't tried yet, "so we'll know this time around." But I've really really enjoyed Native.

[Aaron] Yeah, it doesn't have the heavy metals, or nothin' in it,

[Jennifer] Paraben-free

[Aaron] So it won't necessarily protect you from perspiring, I should say. It's not an antiperspirant, it's a deodorant. So it protects from the smell, but--

[Jennifer] I don't, really notice--

[Aaron] Yeah, well, it's winter right now, so I don't know, sometimes.

[Jennifer] I've been using it for a while though.

[Aaron] But I like it a lot. It smells great, it feels good, and deodorant is another one that's really been a, hard one for me because, like, pretty much any deodorant I use, I used to use the Arm & Hammer deodorant, but that has some metals in it, and so I've since switched to Native, but Arm & Hammer and Native are the only ones that don't give me rashes on my arms. And they're painful, you've see them.

[Jennifer] Yeah,

[Aaron] Like, I they hurt. And I've loved their deodorants.

[Jennifer] Another good product for chapstick, is Burt's Bees.

[Aaron] Yeah that's good. Especially their vanilla brand,

[Aaron] I think a lot of people are like, "yeah, I like that." Burt's Bees, they've been pretty synonymous for chapsticks.

[Jennifer] That or coconut oil. Which coconut oil, you guys, you could used for literally everything.

[Aaron] Yeah, we should do an episode on that.

[Jennifer] Dry skin, lips--

[Aaron] intimacy, oh we're gonna talk about it.

[Jennifer] Lubricancy, or, lubricancy?

[Aaron] Lubricancy

[Jennifer] Whatever that is.

[Aaron] It's like, new word.

[Jennifer] Okay before we get there, supplements, some things that I've been taking his last year, Nordic Naturals--

[Aaron] You've been, just real quick, you've been getting a lot, into the supplements, just because of your--

[Jennifer] Thyroid.

[Aaron] your thyroid. So you've been learning a lot about these.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Because we're, we're trying to avoid going with other stronger, methods, we're trying to do the natural way,

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] and you've been, pretty consistent with this.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and just as a testament, after being on the supplements, I have actually, my numbers have gone down, and in my symptoms have pretty much dissipated, but I've also been pregnant the last nine months.

[Aaron] Which does change things, yep.

[Jennifer] So it does change things. But Nordic Naturals has a really great, strawberry flavored, omega-3. Which I love. And I've been taking--

[Aaron] So it doesn't just taste like fish? It tastes like strawberries? That's good.

[Jennifer] Yeah. We've taking D3 a lot. Young Living has a great line of supplements that we use, like the vitamin C, the vitamin B, Multigreens,

[Aaron] Yeah, I've been loving their Master Formula. It's like a pack of like five little supplements, and vitamin B, C, D3, all these different ones. I've been taking that, pretty much regularly, every day, I really enjoy that one.

[Jennifer] Cool. Okay so for pregnancy and post-partum care, my friend recommended ancient magnesium lotion for restless legs, and it works.

[Aaron] Do you get restless legs when you're pregnant?

[Jennifer] Yeah, mostly towards the end,

[Aaron] I'm being facetious, because I know.

[Jennifer] I know, Aaron does the massaging, with the lotion,

[Aaron] Yeah

[Jennifer] Thank you, Aaron.

[Aaron] You've had pretty bad restless legs this time.

[Jennifer] Yeah,

[Aaron] And the magnesium lotion--

[Jennifer] It's been good.

[Aaron] And lavender, on your feet.

[Jennifer] Yep.

[Aaron] Has been, really helping you.

[Jennifer] Yep, that's true.

[Aaron] 'Cause I can tell, 'cause then you fall asleep.

[Jennifer] Yeah. I've love it. And then the other thing that helps, has helped me during this pregnancy is the Young Living Deep Relief roller and I don't necessarily put it on, but like I smell it, like especially when I'm nauseous, or anything like that.

[Aaron] I personally don't like this one because of how cold it feels. It's like all this--

[Jennifer] When you put it on, yeah.

[Aaron] Like the peppermint in it, I just can't.

[Jennifer] The cooling effect.

[Aaron] But it does work, but it's too cold for me. So you brought up makeup in the beginning, I remember you used to go to the MAC store and you were like, "We have to go to the mall, I need some MAC." And I was like, "Are you serious? "You look beautiful." I've never liked you wearing makeup. You remember this? I was like, "You don't need to wear makeup." But you've used since not used makeup, the MAC makeup and for a long time, you didn't use almost anything, because we couldn't find anything. What do you use now? I'm sure some of the women are like, "What kind of makeup do you use?"

[Jennifer] Yeah, so I would say, like my everyday would be, a primer from Urban Decay, which just kind of holds the eyeshadow on, and the eye shadow is also from Urban Decay. And I just like it, they're neutral colors, easy to put on really quick, and the times that I do use foundation, it's a powder foundation from Young Living, it's called Savvy Minerals, it's like a mineral makeup. And it goes on super light and so,

[Aaron] But that's rare.

[Jennifer] Yeah, it's like on Sundays.

[Aaron] I would say you used to use a lot more makeup, and now it's like, you do a little eyeliner,

[Jennifer] Yeah,

[Aaron] You do a little mascara,

[Jennifer] I don't use eyeliner actually.

[Aaron] You don't use eyeliner?

[Jennifer] No but my mascara, Smashbox has been a really good favorite, paraben-free, and Clinique.

[Aaron] Clinique,

[Jennifer] Yep.

[Aaron] So no eyeliner, but mascara, okay, and then you use some lipstick sometimes.

[Jennifer] Every once in a while.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] The Burt's Bees tinted is really nice.

[Aaron] 'cause it's kinda like lipstick, and it's moisturizing

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] Yeah, so I'm just making a note that you wear way less makeup than you use to

[Jennifer] Oh yeah.

[Aaron] And I think you're beautiful.

[Jennifer] Thank you.

[Aaron] Yeah, well, I'm not lying. I've never been a fan of a lot of makeup, and because of this, you've since found contentment in just a very little.

[Jennifer] Yep.

[Aaron] Which I think is really awesome.

[Jennifer] Okay so when it comes to intimacy, you guys we ditched pretty much, well, we did all lubricants because of--

[Aaron] And we've tried a lot of lubricants 'cause,

[Jennifer] We've tried a lot

[Aaron] 'cause, things didn't work.

[Jennifer] But there were so many of 'em that had parabens in it.

[Aaron] All of them.

[Jennifer] Every single one,

[Jennifer] We didn't even know,

[Aaron] Had parabens, yeah.

[Jennifer] And then other things on top of that that were just not good for you, so, we stuck to coconut oil for a really long time.

[Aaron] So, tip, coconut oil's amazing, for that, specifically, and it's so good for you too. And it feels good. That was a little side note, for the adults in the room. So, I guess what we wanna get at, and I'm sure there's like a ton more things that we--

[Jennifer] I know,

[Aaron] we use that are healthy, and we could probably, make a whole other list, but we essentially, wanted to show you that we've simplified, we found the handful of products that we love, and that we know what's in them, and we just, what's really awesome about this is, we it makes shopping easier, it's actually cheaper 'cause we're not buying a bunch of stuff and always experimenting, we're not always saying like "Well, let's try this new thing." We just say "Nope, we love this product. "Let's just go with it, we know it works." And so it makes, we don't think as much about those things. We know that we're minimizing the amount of chemicals we're putting on us, on our kids. And so we can have some peace of mind, and just one less thing that we have to think about, in our home. And we can put more intention into the spiritual growth of our family, into our careers, into our children, into each other, and we're not like worried about these other things.

[Jennifer] Yeah, or when you say, "don't put as much "thought into them," I would say initially we do, because we do look at ingredients. We look and we do our research and figure out what we want to use, and we're in agreement when we choose things, but then, once we know what it is, it's kinda like that going back to that spaghetti sauce, once we found the one that didn't have sugar in it, we just stick to that one.

[Aaron] And it's great. We love it.

[Jennifer] And it makes it easy. It makes it so easy when you know what you are good with.

[Aaron] Well, and grocery shopping's hard. I don't know if everyone who's listening is like, "Yeah grocery shopping's hard." Like, for us it's hard, like, so once you, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every single time, we've kinda, we slowly over time with built, our list of things that we like, "Oh, these are the things--

[Jennifer] Stick to the basics

[Aaron] "that we can, "we're just gonna go to those things." And some of them are a little but more expensive. But what's awesome is we don't get as much of everything, like we get those handful of things and I was just at the grocery store the other day, and I was just thinking how awesome it is, that we have these habits on the things that we get. There's just the staples in our home, there's things that we get often. We've already looked at the ingredients. We know we enjoy them. We know that we like them. And it just makes these normal, everyday things so much more enjoyable and easy. They're less stressful like, all around like, this this this way of thinking, is just good for our everyday life. To simplify, to know the things that we like, and we create the good habit. And then that habit is there. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel, every single time we walk to the grocery store. Or every time we are shopping for something for our home, and for our kids.

[Jennifer] And we also gotta know when we do choose that organic, clean, non-toxic, or non-GMO, whatever the thing is, we can't be up so obsessive about it that when we go out, or someone offers us, or brings us--

[Aaron] Right. That's a good point.

[Jennifer] food during, postpartum, or whatever it is, that we're not nitpicky in a way that promotes--

[Aaron] Is this from that specific brand?

[Jennifer] Yeah, let's not be like that.

[Aaron] Yeah, we're not, yeah.

[Jennifer] And I guess what I'm trying to say is we can't make it in idol. I think it's important to be healthy, and do the best that we can, but there's going to be times that we can't, and that's okay. We can't make living out this way, become an idol in our lives, and especially not become a strife point between husband and wife. I think this is something that you guys,

[Aaron] Or friends,

[Jennifer] can learn about together. Engage in together, and agree on together.

[Aaron] That's a really good point, you know it's good to, in general, be making healthier habits in our life, but the point is not just to be healthier, it's too have a good habits. It's to walk rightly and have wisdom. And so is that thing, if those things, are getting in the way of your relationships with other people, they need to be put on the shelf. Not forever, but like you need to check yourself, and say "Am I letting this thing get in the way of them?"

[Jennifer] Yeah, or if you really, truly have a heart to encourage your friends, or family members, or whoever to also, live a healthy lifestyle, be patient with them, because it might take someone else more time, than maybe it took you, or I don't know, I just feel like we need to have compassion for people's learning experience,

[Aaron] Yeah, well and also don't let this, one last little warning, don't let this be the message you preach. It's good to encourage people and say "Hey like, you know, why don't you try this? "Why don't you try some more healthy things? "Here's an idea." It's one thing to share, healthy lifestyle, and to encourage someone, but if that if that replaces the message we should be preaching, the message of Christ, if like we have this opportunity and we're instead, we're encouraging someone to be healthier, and then what were thinking is, holiness comes from that. Rather than encouraging someone in Christ, and making the healthy lifestyle thing, that's an ancillary thing in our life that were like, "Oh and I like to live healthy, "and here's some ideas if you're interested." So the main messages is our life represents Christ and we preach him. 'Cause, we could do that sometimes. I got excited about crossfit, and every conversation I had was about crossfit, and I have to check myself and be like, "Hey, is this getting in the way "of the message I should be preaching right now?

[Jennifer] That's really good Aaron, and I just, you know, just even thinking about this episode, it's little bit fun and quirky, and you know, not very Christ driven, but yet, I think the encouragement here is that we're aware of what we're putting in and on our bodies because, the scripture to tell us about, our bodies being the Holy Temple.

[Aaron] Right, and we're, it's just being wise. Let's be wise with our bodies, and we can't control everything, and we shouldn't try and control everything. But what we can control, with moderation, with wisdom, and with sober mindedness, you know, thinking rightly, I think there's wisdom in that. And walking good, and not just putting junk in our bodies, and on our bodies.

[Jennifer] And it has felt really good, I think you would agree with me, in having the conversations from time to time, about our lifestyle choices, about the things that we're doing, the things that were buying, and it's something that we evaluate often. You know, even when we go to the grocery store and so, I would hope that this episode, encourages couples to do that.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[Jennifer] So I also wanna let you guys know that if you, especially the wife, if you're interested in following me on Instagram, @unveiledwife, there's a highlight tab called toxic, free, healthy living, and you can get more information there. And also if you're curious about more things, if you want to hear more about, you know, the things that we use just message me.

[Aaron] So before we close in prayer, I thought it'd be cool if we let everyone know some of the resources and people that we follow that kinda promote, some healthy living, so what are you share some of those?

[Jennifer] So Dashing Dish, she's a good friend of ours and she is--

[Aaron] She's awesome.

[Jennifer] really good at just like, meal planning, healthy fitness,

[Aaron] Believer, loves the Lord.

[Jennifer] everything you can think of, if you want some inspiration she's a great resource. Dr. Mark Hyman H-Y-M-A-N, is a really great resource, he just talks about the holistic living, like that Aaron mentioned. Carrie Vitt, I think it's a Vitt, or Veet. It's C-A-R-R-I-E V-I-T-T and on Instagram, that's where I follow her, and she talks a lot about thyroid health. So I mention that earlier--

[Aaron] Yeah, which is important to you.

[Jennifer] Yeah, if you guys are interested in more inspiration for thyroid health, she's a great one to listen to, or watch, or follow. Follow, yeah.

[Jennifer] I don't know what it's called. Another one is just.ingredients. She is going to really fun resource, a newer resource that--

[Aaron] Someone shared this with you, yeah.

[Jennifer] someone shared with me, and she does like, Costco overhauls, she'll compare products and it's just been really great.

[Aaron] A note on her, isn't she the one, that she'll say "If you can't do this, "at least do this?"

[Jennifer] Yeah, I think so.

[Aaron] And so she shows you like, if you can't afford this, the best product, here's one that's a little bit better than that other product.

[Jennifer] I know she shows pictures too, of like, comparing products and things like that. So that's just.ingredients. And then another one I've been falling recently, is Purely Parsons. She's a fun one, just a mom, also nurse, who shares a lot of things, and her highlight reel, I mean, so much about birth, postpartum care, flu season, just home remedies, farming, like, anything that you can think of that you want to know more about, she's just a fun person to follow. And I really appreciated, how much time she takes in explaining things, and sharing resources. And then we had mentioned Sugar Busters, but if you want to know more about the toxi, I can't say that word,

[Aaron] Toxicity. of sugar, Dr. Robert Lustig L-U-S-T-I-G

[Aaron] Oh yeah, he's the guy

[Jennifer] he's the guy. And especially on YouTube. Just research him and check out some of his--

[Aaron] He talks about what sugar does in our bodies. and this is not to be an anti sugar talk, we just when we're aware of how things interact with our body, how God created our bodies, it's pretty interesting 'cause it's not normal things to learn, so just wanna encourage you to check that out. So hey, we just want to thank everyone for being here today. As usual, we like to close in prayer. And so just Jennifer, why don't you pray for us?

[Jennifer] Okay. Dear Lord, thank you for our bodies. We pray would be good stewards of our bodies and consider all that goes on them, and in them. We pray we would be willing to take the time and research the items we use on a daily basis. Using things that help us and not hurt us. Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom as we navigate living a healthy lifestyle. Help us to make good choices, and be on the same page in marriage, so that we can enjoy the benefits of living toxic-free. Please help us to not be overwhelmed by the process of learning, but rather, help us to be humble and willing to learn so that we can choose what is healthy for us, and be advocates of healthy living for the sake of others. We pray living healthy would not become an idol in our lives and would not hinder any of our relationships. May we be people who don't just consume, but people who care about our bodies, and take care of them. In Jesus' name, amen.

[Aaron] Amen. We love you all, We thank you for joining us on this episode. We hope it was enjoyable and educational. Go follow @unveiledwife and check out some of her, some more of her things. She posts about them often. And again, we love you, and we look forward to having you next week, possibly as long as we don't have the baby before then, we'll get some episodes up. See you next week. Did you enjoy Today 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.

Physical touch is such a powerful and amazing gift from God. He designed us for it. We need it. And it is physically, spiritual and emotionally damaging when we avoid it or do not get enough of it. In this episode, we discuss why Physical touch is so important and we give some practical tips on how to touch and be touched more.

Being married and living in that sacred space of physical closeness, embrace, touch...there is no other relationship like it on Earth. Make the time to send those messages of love to your spouse through touch.

READ TRASCRIPT

[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 "The Power Of Touch 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.

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." Well, welcome back, everyone. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Marriage after God, we're super excited to have you. You're looking at me funny Aaron, why are you looking at me funny?

[Aaron] I was wondering if everyone knows that you're still pregnant. Or if they're waiting to hear about the baby 'cause I don' know if everyone knows the exact

I'm still pregnant?

[Aaron] March 20th is the due date?

[Jennifer] Creeping up on us.

[Aaron] More like, almost there. Also soon along with the baby coming, we have the end of our season coming. Season three of the "Marriage After God" podcast.

[Jennifer] You're just prepping their hearts.

[Aaron] I'm prepping their little hearts.

[Jennifer] Will come back don't worry.

[Aaron] Yeah, we have this episode and I think three more episodes. To finish up this season.

[Jennifer] It's actually really great timing you guys. And it was intentional, because postpartum is the real deal. And so I need time.

[Aaron] We're gonna take a break during the postpartum season and then will come back.

Right before summer starts. We're super excited about that.

[Aaron] Which always want to take these breaks gives you enough time to go back to all the episodes you haven't listened to yet, or haven't fully listen to.

[Jennifer] Or relisten listened to your favorite one.

[Aaron] Or relisten to your favorite ones.

[Jennifer] I wanted to before we get into today's topic, I wanted to start off this episode with an encouragement of something that happened. But Aaron, when I mentioned that's what I wanted to share about, you're like, "No, let's just do the whole episode on that." I'm not gonna share it right now. That's what the whole episodes gonna be about. Enjoy it later.

[Aaron] Right, but what we can talk about is so everyone, we've talked about how we're going through what's it called? "My Family 24 Ways".

[Jennifer] "Our Family 24 Ways".

That's what's it is.

By Sally and Clay Clarkson.

[Aaron] It's a family devotional and it's 24 weeks long. We did it twice. The first time we did it. We did it in a quarter of the time because we just kind of took each day was a--

[Jennifer] Each day was a new way. And they come with these coloring pages. Those are really great kind of quick overview of what it was about and gave us time to wrap our heads around it and get familiar with the content. And that was super fun for the kids. We did that last summer and then kicking off the new kind of school year in September. We're like let's do the whole week. And we'll use the was it a devotional or resource? We'll use it the way that they wrote it--

[Aron] Which is every way is a five day--

Process.

Process, yes. Every day, there's another verse you're reading, another idea, there's another question, but it's all in the same family way. And we just finished that a couple of weeks ago.

There's a couple of weeks we didn't do because of travel or different things. But we just finished it and it was great. The kids loved it, we loved it.

[Aaron] Yeah, and we're bringing this up to just to kinda recap that we told you we were going through we gave it as an example to you all, on a great way to start doing a family bible time. It was a lot of fun was really easy. I had a lot of prompts for the parents to walk through it gives you the questions to ask. But Jennifer, what are we doing now? We finished our family 20 or 23rd, "Our 24 Family Ways".

[Jennifer] "Our 24 Family Ways".

[Aron] By Sally and Clay Clarkson. You should go pick that on Amazon. But when we're done with that and we love that. But what are we doing now?

[Jennifer] There was that question creeping up to the end of that resource that were like, Hey, keep in mind, what are what are we going to do next? And there's lots of different things that we could have chosen.

[Aaron] Now we've done before, where we just like read through some of the Bible, read just whole chapters.

[Jennifer] I proposed to Aaron, I said, "Why don't we focus "on some of the kind of major Bible stories?" Our kids are still pretty young, and they know a lot of the stories but just clarifying for them, what actually was taking place during those stories, and what are the details and so we'll take a whole week on one story. And what I didn't share with Aaron was, my heart behind it was and let's focus on how Christ is pictured in these stories, which I just thought would be a really cool perspective, but I didn't share that part with you for some reason. I just said the Bible story thing really short and brief. And so I started making a list of the different Bible stories and I put them up on our chalkboard and you love the idea, and that first day that we started out with creation and Adam and Eve. You're like, and guys, because you're like, basically laying out what they can expect from how Bible time is gonna change for us. And you told the kids, "so we're gonna dive into these Bible stories, "one story a week, but we're gonna see how Christ "is at the center of each one." And I love that you did that we are totally like on the same page without even having talked about it.

[Aaron] And it's been really good. Elliot's been loving them, because He loves learning about these stories. And also the questions and the digging in and how those correlations to Christ and Adam, or these stories that we all know of.

[Jennifer] Just in simple things like in Genesis when it says, "we're gonna make them in our image" and get the kids to really like, focusing on what that one is.

Like who is the hour. Who is us, who's talking here about Adam and Ellie is like, "Oh, it's God and Jesus in the spirit."

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] He got the idea in the beginning. And just an encouragement for those that are listening. You're probably thinking like, okay, like all of our kids know these stories, but you're actually surprised at the stories that you kind of know because you grew up in Sunday school, or how if they don't ever get brought up, your kids aren't gonna know them. They're not gonna know the story of Noah's Ark. They're not gonna know the story of Jonah and the whale. They're not gonna know the story of Joseph and Abraham and Isaac and Adam and Eve and creation. We have to do that. We have to teach our children these stories, and not just stories, their history.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and my encouragement would be for our sake, as adults, going back to some of these stories have been encouraging because then we either see things we never saw before, or somehow it's relevant to something that we're going through that we can apply. That's just an encouragement.

[Aaron] It's just getting back into the Word of God always and remembering these powerful, testimonies that God's given us of who He is, His plan for redemption and His story for us. Awesome, before we get into the topic, as usual, we have a free thing for you. If you haven't taken the marriage prayer challenge yet, we dare you. Take the marriage prayer challenge. It's marriageprayerchallenge.com. It's a 31 day email series where you're gonna get emailed every day with, something to pray about, and a reminder to do that. So you're gonna be praying for your husband or your wife every day for the next 30 days, 31 days, and we just wanted to get you jumped in. It's almost 50,000 people who have now taken this challenge.

That's incredible.

Yeah. If you're not one of those 50,000 I just wanna encourage you to go right now and take a break from the podcast even go sign up marriageprayerchallenge.com, It'll take you like one minute, and then come back and finish the episode.

[Jennifer] Alright, so today's topic is on The Power Of Touch. And again, this is something that happened recently in our marriage that impacted me so much that I told him and I'm gonna share about that in the next podcast and he was like, "No, we're doing "the whole episode on this."

[Aaron] And you went, "we don't need to do a whole episode "it's just a little passing idea." I did I was like, "No, this is actually really important "'cause of how much value you got out of it."

[Jennifer] Yeah, so, and we understand that sometimes our episodes go quite long. And we're just gonna jump in, we're gonna dive in and give you the tips and tricks that you can do--

Up front.

Right now we're gonna just do them up front.

[Aaron] That way if you don't listen the whole episode, you're gonna walk away with the best tips for touch.

[Jennifer] Yeah, I like that.

[Aaron] What's the first tip they can get real quick.

[Jennifer] I mean, I'm just thinking like, when you're passing by each other in the kitchen, you both have these tasks on your mind that you're trying to get done. Just give a little, elbow to the gut and let that let that spouse know that you're there next to them working alongside side them.

[Aaron] It also might get them out of their way for a second. Another little tip is like when you guys are laying in bed and like just just right before your spouse is falling asleep, just to remind them that you're there and that you love them. Just giving them ,a wet finger to the ear. Or like a little like tap on their neck to like tickle them a little bit.

[Jennifer] Maybe a pinch.

[Aaron] Pinch. Those kinds of things that let your spouse know, "Hey, I know you're just we're almost falling asleep "but I love you."

I love me so much. One of my favorite ones is when you're like out on family excursion, and your spouse is wearing a backpack And you're kind of walking, a little bit behind them just give that backpack a little push to the left or right. And it really throws them off. But it reminds them, hey, I'm here with you.

[Aaron] It's almost like gets them to like flip around a little bit and then they could see you.

[Jennifer] The whole point of touch really is to interrupt what's going on. It's to interrupt the day and to say, I love you.

[Aaron] Everyone's thinking are they serious right now? We are totally playing.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] We're being playful. These are funny ways. Don't don't actually go by and especially if your wife's pregnant. Or go and hit the stomach.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

[Jennifer] No , we're just kidding.

[Aaron] No, we actually legitimately wanna talk about the power of real loving touch, and what it means and how it works and why God's given us this gift of touch and the benefit from what we've seen in our own life. Something that Jennifer's gonna talk about in a second, an experience that she had with me. And then we're just gonna talk about that and encourage you the listener, you husband and wife who are in your car or in bed or at home, walking around the house, whatever you're doing listening to this, to just remember to touch more. It should be obvious but it's not.

[Jennifer] I'd even say evaluate how long it's been since you've intentionally touched your spouse or what does that touch look like, either throughout the day or in the morning or at night, and just let the Lord inspire you today, when it comes to touching your spouse.

[Aaron] And this isn't just for those that one of their love languages is physical touch, because every human actually every organism in the world requires touch for that stimulus for healthy growth, especially for human beings. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. But so this isn't just for those that the love language's physical touch. Every single one of us need to focus on this and if it's not your natural tendency to do so then we just gotta work a little harder.

[Jennifer] Yep, okay, so this is what happened. I was having an off day. I felt rundown, I felt tired.

[Aaron] Super pregnant.

[Jennifer] I mean, just physically I just was not doing well. And yeah, just super pregnant. And I mean, everyone listening right now you're just thinking about that off day you've had and you're like, "Okay, I can relate to that." But I felt overwhelmed. And I was getting ready to jump in to school time with the kids. And I just had already felt exhausted. And so I was--

[Aaron] It was like the morning we hadn't even gotten our routine going.

[Jennifer] Nothing had started yet. And I was already feeling down. And I didn't say anything about it. I just was trying to do what I knew I had to do, right that saying, "Do the next right thing." And so I'm in there with the kids. And Aaron, usually your routine is, after Bible time you get a cup of coffee and got out to the garage, that's were you work. But you didn't do that. You came in, you came straight to me your like Beeline right for me.

[Aaron] Which is not normal for me.

[Jennifer] No, usually there's just this space where you like maybe even question like, "Hey, how are you?" "What's going on?" You didn't do any of that. You just opened the door, walked over to me had me stand up. And you just wrap your arms around me and you just held me and I was like in tears over it because I didn't realize that I even needed that in that moment. And even though I felt like sobbing in that moment, I think I might have even chuckled 'cause it was like so refreshing, it was like that. Oh, okay that I think--

[Aaron] Also like, why are you doing this?

[Jennifer] Definitely questioning that. But it was such a beautiful moment. And such a beautiful experience. I had to share it. And I wanted to share it with you guys, because it really impacted me and nothing needed to be said. Nothing needed to be more than that. It was just "hey," like there was so much said in the action itself of, "I'm here for you. "I love you, you can do this." And I remember at I had climbed up on the desk. And he was just staring at us probably wondering like, what are they doing? He's still literally a year and a half.

[Aaron] And all that PDA is going on. And he's like, What's happening here?

[Jennifer] But it really made me feel so good to be embraced. And I just I loved that moment. I love that you had a heart that was soft enough to know what I needed and to not let anything distract you from comforting me in that way.

[Aaron] Well, and I'll all admit to everyone listening. I'm sure other men are much better at this. There's some people that are just naturally prone to like oh, like gentleness and comforting and recognizing weaknesses and others and wanting to go love on them. But that is not my natural position. I'm not naturally gentle, I'm not naturally sensitive.

[Jennifer] I would say that you're more so you'd like to communicate about it. Like tell me what the problem is. And this is how--

How can I fix it.

This is how I can fix it. which I think a lot of people probably think that way.

[Aaron] And then on the negative side, I was in my worst way of dealing with this is feeling inconvenienced by someone else's weakness feeling inconvenienced by you're feeling down or because all I'm thinking is like we have this routine. You just got to move forward. And what's happening right now is like stop halting all that and that's my I would say that's my natural position. But you have been praying for me for a long time for this. Others have been encouraging me and rebuking me at times about my lack of sensitivity, my lack of gentleness. And it's something that I've been praying for myself. Because I'm a dad, I'm a husband, a leader in my church. And it's important in every aspect. I just been praying that God would help me be that way. This is not uncommon event, but that morning, I just felt like, Oh, she probably just needs a hug.

[Jennifer] And it was perfect. And I just feel like I have to say this, logistically I know that this can't happen like this in every marriage. Schedules are different.

Soldiers that are gone, for a long time

People are deployed. Yeah, there's a lot of different types of scenarios or situations where in marriage where maybe you can't comfort them in that way with the power of touch, but it can be done still in a phone call or a text message or any opportunity where you are together, right?

[Aaron] I would say, yeah, the physical touch is still important. I would say more important in those very little amounts of time that you would have. If anything, I would just, the encouragement for some one who's not around their spouse often, should make sure they take that focus more seriously. I got a question for you. I again, this is a new year--

[Jennifer] For me or for them?

[Aaron] For you, Jennifer. It's not normal. But in that moment I came in and I surprised you by doing something out of the ordinary. And just holding you not trying to give you solutions not trying to ask you questions. Not feeling annoyed by the inconvenience. I just genuinely came to hug you and hold you and love you. What message is this into your heart?

[Jennifer] It was really powerful for me. I felt like in that moment, there was this. Just first of all rush of peace. I feel like you reminded me that I'm loved. That I am cared for, that I'm thought of, that I'm not alone. Even though I'm alone with the kids currently trying to do school. You we're reminding me in a physical way that you're there and you're supporting me and you're encouraging me. And that how I'm feeling physically in that moment yet sucks and it's hard, but that I can continue on and that I have to, basically. but it was immediate comfort.

[Aaron] It gave you something that you didn't have before?

[Jennifer] Reassurance.

[Aaron] How did it make you feel toward me? Was there like anything you thought, Or like, "wow, like this about my husband?"

[Jennifer] Well specifically just that we are on the same team that you're there for me even when you can't take over for me like you just couldn't take over and do school that day, like you had work to do you needed to go get to it. But that you were supporting me in a comforting and encouraging way by letting your presence be known. And just that embrace. Did it make you, 'cause you've seen plenty of times in the past my annoyance, my dissatisfaction with a scenario like this.

[Aaron] Did it make you feel more confident in my love for you to see the opposite of that?

[Jennifer] Oh, totally, it really affirmed me and to think that you stopped your routine. You stopped your day, you stopped what was habitual, of going out to go to work. For me that was super thoughtful. And it was an immediate affirmation of this man loves me and cares for me and wants me to be okay today. And it did that like my perspective, my attitude, everything kinda just shifted in a more positive direction. And I was able to get through that time with the kids in a much better way.

[Aaron] And I remember it drastically changed your perspective of the day--

As you see my countenance.

Your countenance, by the end of the day, like I feel like you were more accomplished. At the end of the day, like you at the house clean. You had the, like you felt like a winner. Everything was done that you probably were in the morning thinking none of this is getting done today.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and it feels so weird talking about it. Because in this way, 'cause I feel like we're sharing, like in depth, what the impact was, but it was such a small thing. It really was. It was it was such a small moment of physical touch that happened in our marriage. That really changed the whole day around.

Imagine what would happen if that was a more consistent event

Yeah, for both.

For both of us.

[Jennifer] I have a question for you.

[Aaron] Okay.

[Jennifer] Are there any standout moments of when I have randomly touched you or that have impacted you?

[Aaron] Yeah, when I saw this question I immediately was thinking about the times in the past where we're sitting somewhere, maybe in church or at a friend's house or just out in public. and you'll put your hand on my back and just start tickle rubbing my back or rub your fingers across my hair, or the back of my neck or those little things even if they're only for like a split second. It instantly makes me feel like wow, that felt really good. My wife touching me wanting to connect with me that way. It also gives me this boost of confidence because in public when you're around people, I don't know if other men feel this way. But there's a confidence boost of like, my wife, my woman loves me. And like is showing it, isn't afraid to show it is--

[Jennifer] It's basically like earlier you asked me, what message did it send to my heart what you did to me. This would be what message is a couple when they're showing physical touch and affection. What message is it sending to others?

[Aaron] Well in it, but the message to others sends a message to me, it makes me feel powerful, makes me feel respected. Like it's a little thing but like, my wife not being afraid to show affection to me in public means that she loves me that much that she's willing to show others that love publicly. And there's that there was a confidence boost in that. Other times, just like if we're laying in bed and you just, reach over to hold me or to play with my hair or to scratch my back like little things like that, that have been really like oh, immediately makes me feel really close to like, we're together. We're on the same page. Because what, when you're like, and everyone can relate to this. when there's like a fight or disagreement that there's conflict in the marriage. The last thing you want to do is touch. And so usually not touching is that is a common signal for distance for like we're not on the same page. That reaching across the bed, that reaching across the table, that reaching over to your spouse getting close drawing near. Is the symbol of unity. Is that proof of we're here together? I'm with you like your mine. And it's not obligated it's not like, "Hey, can you scratch my back? "Hey, I need a back massage? "Hey, can you rub my feet?" Which is not bad things to ask, but the unprompted, the desire, the actual desire, I'm going to reach out and put my hand on my spouse in a gentle way and for the purpose of touching them, knowing them and feeling their the warmth of their skin. It does a lot for that spiritual connection, that unifying nature of being one.

[Jennifer] So, when I was thinking about ways that I'm intentional with trying to be, physical with you. I wanted to share this. Just as a tip for anyone listening is for me, getting in the car is a trigger, because I know I can reach over and hold your hand. Whether you're driving or I'm driving One of one of our hands is free. And so for me, I know it's such a simple thing, but just reaching over and grabbing each other's hands for a couple seconds, even if it's not long lasting. Is just really good too.

[Aaron] Something that just another tip, another trigger when we're out to eat, I know I'll put my hand on your knee. When we're close together.

A date night.

[Aaron] Or we'll hold hands under the table. Things that keep us connected. And then another thing you're bringing up these trigger things to remind us of when we can touch and where. When we're in battle, because often we're both really hot. We don't cuddle too often because we get--

Temperature hot.

Yeah, we're temperature hot. but like it could be easy to just get in bed do you thing forget and then you're rolled over and no touchings happening, no connection. But reaching over and like playing with your hair, or putting my hand on your shoulder or holding hands with you.

I love all of that.

Even though we can't cuddle because we're too like temperature hot.

[Jennifer] More so during pregnancy.

[Aaron] But I'm just a hot sleeper, it's hard for me to just want to cuddle for hours. But that doesn't mean there's not ways that we can connect.

[Jennifer] And Would you say that there's any ways that I've failed in this area? I just wanna be honest with people.

[Aaron] That's a big question to ask.

[Jennifer] I know.

[Aaron] Well, of course we've both failed in this area. Because selfishness creeps in, and when we're selfish. And usually it plays out. On "oh, I'm not getting what I want, "I'm not getting what I deserve." So I'm not going to give, what they deserve what they want or what they think they deserve. until I get mine. And we do that to each other. And we have in the past, we gotten way better at it. I would say we're talking about just non sexual touch right now. I mean, sexual touch is so important. We're gonna talk about that in a little bit.

[Jennifer] I'm just on this side note. Any sort of physical touch will not just lead to sexual intimacy, but definitely cultivates that environment where you want more.

[Aaron] Not negative physical touch, we're talking about actual, intensional--

Positive.

Positive touch.

[Jennifer] Affirmative.

[Aaron] I would say just over the years, and it's something that God's been growing us both in is sexual touch, yeah, like initiating, reaching out and saying, "hey, I want to be with you, "I want to experience this time with you." But that's something that we've been both growing in.

[Jennifer] Something that is required in order to grow in this area is communication. This is just an encouragement to our listeners, if they struggle with, I wish my spouse would touch me and they're not, and not wanting that bitterness to grow, you gotta tell them, you gotta tell them how it makes you feel or that you want to be encouraged in your relationship that you want to have more. when you say that's really important to be able to talk about it.

[Aaron] Not just 'cause we sometimes get into this mode of, if I say something, then it's gonna devalue the reset receipt of it.

[Jennifer] I've done that before, don't do that.

[Aaron] If I tell my wife what I want, and then she doesn't, then it's devaluing it. It's almost like no, they just got to know. Rather than, like, I'm gonna communicate, maybe they don't know, maybe they have a way of thinking because of the way they're raised that just totally makes them disregard things that I want, or need.

[Jennifer] Or maybe their mind just hasn't been on it. And by bringing that message in a positive way, "Hey, I think we like we've done this before, "hey, I think we need to kiss more," or, "hey, I think we need to hold hands more" or whatever the thing is that would feel you fill you up. Talk about it in that sense, where it's like, let's both make a commitment to do this more.

[Aaron] I totally agree. And I think just having this desire to... We'll talk about the actual like, touch is just so much more than just it's a good thing to do. And so we'll talk about that more. The Bible talks about touch a lot. Jesus touched people a lot. And so we get this idea of the savior of the king, the Lord the Creator. come the earth himself, God Himself coming to earth in the form of man to touch us, right? There's a famous painting of God touching Adams finger right? There's this idea of Jesus coming to earth and in the flesh is like the ultimate intimacy active saying, God's saying "I'm gonna go, "come to touch you and and to heal you "and to make you be with me forever" and so we get to see this picture and Why don't you read John 13:5 of this super intimate moment that Jesus had with his disciples.

[Jennifer] Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. So that was, like really simple. And I just like you said, it's just a really beautiful picture of intimate touch.

[Aaron] Right, and it's this story shows us the servanthood of Christ. him girding his loins wrapping the towel around his waist, getting on his hands and knees.

[Jennifer] And everybody was probably quietly--

[Aaron] Beneath his disciples. He lowered himself even beneath his disciple to wash their feet. And then he tells them go and do likewise. Essentially which is go wash each other, go touch each other, go embrace each other, go walk in such a way that you guys are unified, and do and do what I'm doing. Look I'm lowering myself as a servant, go lower yourself as servants for the sake of washing each other and embracing each other.

[Jennifer] I wish that the Bible was more descriptive in this situation because I would love to hear what was going through the disciples mind when Jesus is getting ready to do this. And while he's doing it.

[Aaron] But we only get Peters response, which is he's like, "No, don't do it." He's like, "unless I do this, "you have no part of me." He's like wash my whole body.

Oh wait do it, do it. But also how were they impacted by this experience? I wanna hear more of that. But they walked with Jesus and I'm sure they had even more physical interactions with him as far as just arms touching or hugging or shaking hands or whatever, probably took part in their relationships as they spent that time together. But just thinking, how was this touch different? And what message did it send to each one of them about their relationship with Jesus?

[Aaron] What I think is awesome is, you have Jesus called our high priest, and this is just a thought I was having right now we're talking about this. And the high and the priests in the Old Testament had to do all the ceremonial washings for themselves so that they can atone for the sins of everyone else. They first had to wash themselves we learned that Jesus did not have to do this because he was perfect. We have perfect Jesus, already perfectly like did not need to be washed, by any means, because he was perfect. Getting down to actually touch the dirt of his brothers, of his disciples. And also how powerful it is because God's created us in such a physical way to need touch.

[Jennifer] Where he designed our bodies with the ability to receive it, right like we have nerve endings, and we can feel and I used to think that's fascinating.

[Aaron] We have this perfect God in human flesh touching other men's feet and touching the flesh of others. And so there's a physiological response happening, a spiritual response happening, an emotional response happening. All of these things are happening at the same time with the king of the universe. But we get to experience that in little ways, and in everyday life with our spouse, and with others. 'Cause this physical touch thing, we shouldn't just end at, "Oh, I'm not a very touchy person, "and I'll try and touch my wife more. "But I don't touch others." The Bible tells us to embrace each other and how important touches, just gentle, loving touch in everyday life actually has a physiological healthy response in the body. That helps us with many things, but spiritually, it reminds us that we're close. And that we're together and that we're unified and that we care,

[Jennifer] Which is so important in marriage, right?

Really important infinitely.

[Jennifer] Do you remember the time that I washed your feet when you came home from Brazil so we didn't have this, as pre-kids, probably--

My feet were pretty dirty.

[Jennifer] Second year of marriage. I wanna say, we're living in Florida at the time. And I had a job. I was working in a preschool and you felt encouraged to go to Brazil, we were missionaries. I just happen to have a job to support us while we were working in Florida. But we were working for an organization that was preparing a trip to go to Brazil, I think it was for two weeks, three weeks?

[Aaron] It's two weeks on the Amazon River it's pretty awesome.

[Jennifer] And so you went and I missed you like crazy. But I had been reading this Passage about Jesus washing his disciples feet. And I just felt so encouraged when you got home. I think it was like three o'clock in the morning. It was like the middle of the sleep hours. And, and I remember you came home and you went to go take a shower, and I'm like, take a bath. And let me wash your feet.

Yeah.

Do you remember this?

I do, I mean, two years in our marriage where we were already starting to experience some of those--

Hardships.

hardships. and relational struggles and it wasn't as bad as it was later on in our marriage, but it was already there, but it was events like this, which I think helped elongate our process of not falling apart sooner. Those little bits of surrender that those acts of like, well, "we don't know what to do. "We're gonna try this like," you're praying and you see this, you're like, "I'm gonna try and walk in this." You tell God, "Jesus says to do this, "and I'm my husband's gonna get home, "I'm gonna wash his feet."

[Jennifer] When I remember specifically thinking like, I wanted to feel close to you. I wanted to send that message to you that, "hey, I'm your wife, I'm your helper, "and I want to do what Jesus did and love you in that way." And I saw this what Jesus did as a very intimate thing. And so I just told myself, I'm gonna have the courage and just asked him if I could wash his feet.

[Aaron] And I remember it made me feel really close to you. It made me feel really loved, it made me feel really honored. Also, it just surprised me. It was a surprising It was like wait, what? It was a very impactful moment for us. we actually put that challenge in our 30 day devotional for husbands and wives, for them to wash each other's feet.

[Jennifer] While we're talking about Jesus, my mind's always, I feel like I'm always going back to "Marriage After God". But if you haven't gotten a chance to read it, you guys should definitely get a copy. It's the book that Aaron and I came out with last year. But there's a section of we're talking about how a marriage after God is intimate. And it talks about Jesus and I just wanted to read it really quick. It's on page 65. If you do have the book. "And marriage after God relentlessly "pursues and embraces intimacy "with each other, and with God, "our greatest example of this level "of intimacy is of course, Jesus. "He put his hands on people "who no one else would dare to touch." And there's a reference there to Luke 5:13, "He reached down and held a dying little girl's hand "giving her life again." Mark 5:41, "He broke cultural taboos to talk to people." John 4:9, "And he wept over the death of his close friend." John 11:35, "That's our Savior, he embraced intimacy. "If we are not intimate with God, "we cannot be intimate with other people. "We cannot weep with those who weep or mourn with those "who mourn or laugh with those who laugh. "We must look to the example of Christ and be willing "to embrace intimacy with God, and inner marriage." And I was just brought to remembrance of that section of the book because of how intimate Jesus was that he was willing to do all those things when I think about him, holding that little girl's hand and it's like, no matter what hardships we face in marriage, we can think to his example and go, "I can reach over and hold my spouse's hand."

[Aaron] Well I think the example of Christ touching like the lepers and the sick and the bleeding and the things that a priest wasn't allowed to touch otherwise would make them unclean. Jesus was willing to touch unclean people, because in reality all are unclean. And so he's, he's touching these lepers. He's touching these these sick, he's touching these blind, these people that were outcasts that desire to be healed, to be desire to be known to desire to be reconciled to the community. And it's kind of like this picture in our marriage. Like, are we only going to touch when everything's perfectly right? Or are we going to in the midst of our pain and our hurt and our ugly, our smelly and in our dirty times? Are we gonna touch? Are we gonna embrace? Are we gonna hold? Are we going to reach out our hands and draw our spouse closer to us? Because even though often in our vows, we say, for better or for worse, it's often just for the better, and when it's in the worst is like, I don't have the energy right now. All right, until you change or unless this happens when it's those times that it's the most necessary. Jesus said it this way, he said, "I didn't come "for the healthy I came for the sick."

[Jennifer] And I would even say most impactful, when you're either at odds with each other or there's tension or there's hardship

[Aaron] Or you don't deserve it.

[Jennifer] Or you don't deserve it and your spouse reaches across the table and touches you in that way. Oh my goodness. It's powerful. It's impactful. And I think that that's exactly what maybe one, maybe a lot needed here today. I mean, I just feel like that was really encouraging and even to me.

[Aaron] It's encouraging to me, it's something I have to continue to be to remember. You're, you're having a hard time today. And my flesh is like--

[Jennifer] Get up, Jen.

[Aaron] It's like, I don't know if I can handle you having a hard time again today. Because I mean, which is totally my selfish flesh, because I'm not experiencing what you're experiencing. So it's hard for me to just empathize right away. But when you walk in the Spirit, so my choice to be like, like, I'm gonna understand my wife right now I'm gonna walk in an understanding way as the Word tells me to do. I can realize this is hard season for you, I'm gonna have this hard season with you. And so just go and hug you and hold you and--

[Jennifer] Tickle me with your beard, which didn't help Aaron.

[Aaron] Funny, touching is good to be playful.

[Jennifer] It was really sweet. And again, I do appreciate that you came to my level and you saw me were I was at and you had compassion on me. And for the husband's out there who are similar to me, go against your flesh, and walk in the Spirit and and do this for your wife. To be honest some of you men that are listening, are probably thinking like, "Man, I don't ever do that." She'll probably not know what to do. You'll go and you'll try and like draw close to you, and you're gonna feel super awkward and she's gonna tense up and you're gonna pull her closer and you're just gonna say, "I know, it's kind of weird, I just wanna hug you." And then what's gonna happen, she's gonna realize it's real. And then you'll, you'll probably feel her melt. And so don't be afraid to do it the first time, it gets easier, and ask the Lord to help you do it to sort of help you physically encourage your spouse with that physical touch with the gentle the loving, the caring, the caress, the just that softness.

[Jennifer] It's good. So we've said it a couple times, but just this idea that physical, physical touch sends a message to your spouse and there was just a kind of handful of ways that I was wanting to share with you guys about what those messages might look like. This isn't like, 100% perfect. It's just some encouragement.

[Aaron] When you do this kind of sends these messages.

[Jennifer] Embracing each other says, "I trust you and I need you in my life." A comforting hug says, "I'm here for you." A kiss says, "you're mine and I love you." Holding hands, let your spouse know, you like them. And you like spending time with them. Tickle rubs, massages, running your fingers through their hair says, I wanna make you feel good. And most times lets them know that you desire even more physical touch.

[Aaron] It's true, and for those that are afraid of that last part, if I do this, then it's going to make them want more. I think that's something that should be prayed through. Your heart of like, you're avoiding touching your spouse because you are afraid that that will make them want more from you sexually. And if that's a fear you have and that's an negative thought you have which is something that keeps you from reaching out and touching your spouse. I think that's something you should pray about, that God would change in you. And there's a scripture specifically about this.

[Jennifer] Real quick, I just have to say, there's a flip side to this of when your spouse is giving you physical touch, and you don't want it to lead anywhere that you're not just doing while they're touching you thinking they better not they better not. And then the moment it starts leading somewhere that you don't want it to go. You're thinking, "See, I knew they were just doing it "to get that thing." But, you guys God designed marriage to be physical, and--

[Aaron] It's the pretty much the only confines for Biblical healthy physical touch.

[Jennifer] Yeah, like we need to be there for each other in that way. Now, if there's a specific reason why you don't want it to be led somewhere, you got to speak up, you got to let them know. Otherwise, your heart's just going to wrestle.

[Aaron] And there's a loving way. It's like, "Hey, I'm really enjoying, "you reaching out you touching me playing with my hair, "you rubbing my back, I know, "you might want something more. "And I just wanna let you know that It may not work. "And so can we plan it for tomorrow night? "Can we can I reach out? "Can I let you know tomorrow?"

[Jennifer] Yeah, or the other way is to set aside whatever justification you're rolling around in your head and go for it and enjoy it.

[Aaron] Oftentimes, you get to the end of it, you're like, "Oh, I'm glad we did that part."

"Oh, I needed that."

Exactly.

[Jennifer] Okay, so why don't you read that? It's 1st Corinthians 7:3-5.

[Aaron] And this is this is a scripture that challenges both husbands and wives. On the actual obligation, we have to physical intimacy. It says this, "The husband should give to his wife, "her conjugal rights," and we all know what conjugal means. "And likewise, the wife to her husband, "for the wife does not have authority over her own body, "but the husband does. "Likewise, the husband does not have authority "over his own body, but the wife does. "Do not deprive one another except perhaps "by agreement for a limited time." I like how first of all says it says, "except perhaps." So it means like, if this is going to happen in the rare occasions of depriving each other, it's going to be by agreement and only for a short period of time. Like don't let there be long periods of time that this stuff happens. That's what almost destroyed marriage. Was long periods of time of not--

Me avoiding--

Yeah.

[Jennifer] Yeah.

[Aaron] That you may devote yourselves to prayer but then come together again so satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control. There's a very stark warning of the temptation that comes from avoiding each other sexually. And there's also at the command that my body is not my own. It's hers and her body is not her own, it's mine, right? Which has tons of implications and we can have another episode about this. But just just as an encouragement, you shouldn't be withholding sexual intimacy from your spouse. If there's a good reason then you need to discuss that and come to an agreement on it. If there's infidelity, which is a good reason to have a break from sexual intimacy.

[Jennifer] Not just a break, it's a break being prayerful.

[Aaron] It's a prayerful break from purpose of reconciliation, for the purpose of building trust, for the purpose of coming together against stronger than before, if that's where you're at. And so there's there's a stark command on the Word of God that whose bodies ours, are my bodies is not my own, I don't get to just make decisions for my own body. I have my responsibility to my wife, and vice versa.

[Jennifer] And we shouldn't be using, sexual intimacy as a tool and withhold it from each other or anything like that. We can't, we can't let division and disunity and that kind of heart to seep into the marriage relationship which is so beautiful, the way that God designed, being married and living in this sacred space of like there's no other relationship like it on Earth. I receive from you, Aaron you receive from me. There's physical closeness, embrace touched, like there really is nothing like it on Earth and to be aware of that and the opportunities that we do have to come together. And again, this is just another place where I wanna assert that if distance or timing doesn't work because of work schedules or something, that is key be circumstances that are keeping you guys from being physically close, that you're affirming one another with your words, words are really powerful. And as much as this whole episode is about touch, you need to be affirming to each other and encouraging each other. Like, "we can't be together right now. "But I'm gonna make this a priority as soon as I see you." Right?

[Aaron] Yep, and I want to talk about some of the way God designed us. And created us to for touch for that human connection. Not just verbal, but actual physical. And there's a story that we've been told from friends of ours that have adopted in China. And they went to China, and they walked into the orphanage, and it was silent.

[Jennifer] There's babies.

[Aaron] There's babies everywhere, but it's silent, no, no crying no. Like you would imagine in a room full of lonely babies.

[Jennifer] They said it felt eerie.

[Aaron] It was what's wrong. And this has actually been researched by a lot of people. There's several orphanage systems around the world that this is kind of a case where the babies aren't touched. They're not held on a hug. They're not cuddled, none of that stuff. And the babies very quickly learn that they're not going to be comforted. So they don't cry. They need it, they want to be comforted, but the only way they can communicate does nothing so they don't communicate. And it actually stunts their their neurological growth, it stunts their physical growth, it stunts a lot of things in them just because they're not being touched. I remember hearing a story a while ago, of an old man who's single, his wife died years prior, and he wanted to find something to do with his life. And so he started going to the NICU in his local hospital, just to hold the babies. He would go in there and he'd sit in a rocking chair and he'd hold babies that didn't have families, or that they were sick or whatever it was and he would just hold them for hours. Rock them sing to them talk to them. And he had this ministry of going and just holding babies which is amazing. When he gets to heaven one day, God's gonna hug him for doing that. Human touch is fundamental to our communication, to our bonding, to our physical health. There's been tons of research on how physical touch on even little mounts of levels. It brings healing to your body physical healing, like it helps you with your immune system helps you with your neurological development. What human touch does is there's a chemical that God's put in our bodies called oxytocin. And it's released during sex. It's released during hugs,

[Jennifer] It's actually released during breastfeeding while a mom is bonding with her baby.

[Aaron] Yeah, it's called the bonding drug. When you have an orgasm and during sex, and oxytocin is released in both of your bodies. It actually causes you to physically, emotionally, mentally bond closer with your spouse, which is also why it's prohibited to be having sexual relationships outside of your marriage. Because you're bonding in this way with other human beings that you're not married to. And this is this should be only happening within the context of marriage. But that oxytocin release that hormone is actually so good for so many things. It relieves stress. It combats what's the stress hormone, it's cortisol. It combats that. So you have too much of that in your body and you have all this stress and oxytocin being released through a hug, through a kiss, through an orgasm through that these things that are that release oxytocin in your body, and then boom, you're actually helping your body do what God made your body to do. Which makes it even stronger, healthier, more excited, more fit, less sad, right? It helps with depression, it helps all these things. And these are all just the just the biological function of touch in your in your life why it's so important. So again, like I said in the beginning, regardless, if you're love language's physical touch, every human being on the planet needs physical touch for healthy growth, healthy living. You could have access to this on a daily basis with your spouse. Think about how much more joyful, and secure, and confident and happy you'll be if physical touch's more consistent like healthy, loving, gentle physical touch. A caress here, a hand holding there, a kiss, a hug, caressing the neck, touching the ear, playing with the hair. All these things, that are so good for us and make you have to be so close. And it releases all these good things in your body. And it actually it's a spiritual thing. It's an emotional thing, it's a physical thing.

[Jennifer] That's really good. So often, I think that as humans, we become contingent on the other person in the marriage to step up and do something--

[Aaron] Transactional.

[Jennifer] And I think it's important to speak to that for just a moment Aaron, and maybe you can share on this but Just as an encouragement to those listening. That we shouldn't be waiting to initiate, waiting to insert ourselves and be physical, for our spouse to do it first or to take that first step or especially if there has been distance or time between, a season of no physical touch. What would you say to encourage them?

[Aaron] Well, I first want to talk to those that, like, maybe I'm imagining a husband has a hard heart. There's something, wherever they are in their marriage. And like I said, we talked about earlier touch is the last thing they want. And I would imagine a wife is afraid to like to reach out and hold their hand because they're gonna pull away and reject them.

[Jennifer] Or maybe the couple who they have tried to openly Express and communicate that they want more or that there's they're hurt because it's not happening and then they get shut down. And so that kind of like what you're saying about the baby's crying, not crying in the orphanages. They've learned to not speak up and to not say anything.

[Aaron] 'Cause they're not gonna get it.

[Jennifer] That makes me sad just thinking about that in marriage.

[Aaron] So my encouragement to those is to do it anyway. Even if even if they reject you, even if you, you lean over and you go to caress your wife's neck and she swats your hand away, or you reach over to put your hand on your husband's shoulder, and he shrugs it off. It hurts. I'm not gonna pretend that that doesn't hurt, I'm not gonna tell you to pretend it doesn't hurt. But you can hand that to the Lord and say, "Lord, that hurts me. "But I want to love my husband, "I want to love my wife." And, and maybe it's the next time you're walking by them, to the kitchen you just for half a second, rub your hand across their back. They can't stop you. Whether they say a word to you, they're gonna think like, she touched me.

[Jennifer] You're sending them a message still.

[Aaron] You're sending them a message still. And you do that over and over, and over again. They they look frustrated. You go up and you get close and say, "Hey, I'm praying for you." Just put your hand on their shoulder. They look sad. So you say, "can I give you a hug?" Even if they say no to you, do it. Reach out to touch someone like the song goes, "I reach out" and go to your spouse and just don't give up. Don't give up doing good for in due season you will produce a harvest, you will reap a reward. And I mean think about it's like what Christ did. He reached out and touched a lot of people. And so be Christ in your home to your spouse, reach out and touch them, pray for them. Put your hand on them. Try and grab their hand, touch their lower back, put your hand on their shoulder, put your hand on their forearm. Whatever it is, just let them know that you want to touch them.

[Jennifer] Yeah, that's beautiful. We hope that this episode encouraged you guys. And this really brought you to a place where you're evaluating physical touch in your marriage. And I would say our charge to you would be an encouragement to be the initiator. I know we already mentioned that but to be the initiator of physical interaction, in your relationship with your spouse. And don't let your flesh, your insecurities, or your frustrations get in the way. Be courageous enough to reach out and see how that touch impacts your spouse.

[Aaron] And ask Christ to give you the strength and the courage to do it in a supernatural way with your spouse.

[Jennifer] All right, Aaron, you wanna close us out with prayer?

[Aaron] Yep. Dear Lord, we praise you for the gift of touch. We thank you for the way you created our bodies and gave us the ability to fill and touch. We pray that we would be husbands and wives who use the power of touch to affirm each other in marriage and let one another know we are near. We pray we would have the courage to reach out and hug or hold each other's hand. Even when it feels hard to do that or inconvenient. May our marriage be a priority in this way. May our touch remind our spouse that we love them and that we support them. We pray touch with encourage intimacy and closeness like we have never experienced in our marriage before. In Jesus name, amen. We love you guys. We thank for listening to episode, we pray that you would touch more and that if you haven't already would you just take a moment, leave us a review. Just scroll down to the bottom of your app, hit a star rating that the easiest way to do it, you just tap a star. Or you can leave us a text review. We love those and also blesses other people when they're coming to check out the show for the first time. It also lets iTunes and other podcast apps know how to rank our podcast based off her reviews. So we love you all. We thank you and we pray that God moves mightily in your marriages and draws you closer to him and your spouse and see you next week.

[Narrator] 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.

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?I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.? - Ephesians 4:1

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 answer some questions from the community about not seeing eye-to-eye 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 that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life--

Love--

And power.

[Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God--

Together.

[Aaron] Thank you for joining in 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 gonna be a Q&A episode where we polled our community and we got a buncha questions about a specific topic, which is not seeing eye-to-eye, and we're gonna answer those in a bit. But first, before we get into that, Jennifer, is there anything new going on in your life? Is there anything you wanna chat with me about?

[Jennifer] I love chatting with you. Something that I wanted to share, that's been on my heart for our listeners, is just something that I been doing intentionally with a girlfriend of mine and that is discipleship and it's going really well, we meet bi-weekly. And the reason that I wanted to bring it up is because I think so often we can go about our days and our times and our schedules and just focus on what is at hand and what we need to do and sometimes we forget about discipleship or mentorship or how we impact other peoples' lives. And I just think it's really important for us to consider, you know, who's that older, more mature Christian in our life that we can glean from? So, someone we can be spending time with that will fill us up that will maybe speak truth into our life or see something that isn't going the way it should be and call it out in us or maybe we can go to them for a question. And then, who's that person who is younger than you that you can reach out to and have an impact in their life? You know, be that person for them.

Toward God.

Yeah.

Encouraging them.

Yeah. So, I just, I'm bringing it up because it's been going so well in my personal life that I just thought, "Man, if they're not thinking about this, "I want them to be thinking about this."

[Aaron] Well, and it's a, we've talked about this in past episodes, about the necessity of community and walking with each other and our ministries in other people's lives.

Yeah.

[Aaron] Just the importance of we're not autonomous creatures, we're part of a body, and God's given us gifts that must be used to glorify Him and to mutually build up the Church and to encourage each other and to bless each other, so.

[Jennifer] And sometimes our flesh can get in the way, you know, those insecurities where we go, "Oh, it'd be really nice to spend time with that person." But then we answer for them, right? We go, "Oh, they're too busy." Or, "They can't." Or, "I don't know"--

You're really good at this, aren't you?

"I don't know what to say."

Answering for people.

Answering for people, yeah. And you've drawn me out of this. But my encouragement to that person is don't answer for that person but surrender to God, pray about your desire to build that relationship up, and then have the courage to just ask. And if they say, "I can't at this time," receive it and say, "Okay," and pray about, maybe, who else you can engage with in that way. But chances are, they're gonna be thrilled to hear from you.

[Aaron] Yeah, I've been through something very similar. Not necessarily, I don't have a scheduled meeting with a single person each week or every other week, but I've been trying to intentionally meet regularly with all the men from our fellowship. Mainly to get to know them more, to get into deeper relationship with them, to be encouraged by them. But also to, yeah, disciple. And we're called to make disciples, we're called to walk with each other and sharpen each other, as iron sharpens iron. If we're not doing that and we're just kind of going about our day and, yeah, we see 'em at church on Sundays and then we leave and we have dinners every once in awhile, but if there's no intentional, like, "'Kay, I actually want to be in this person's life, "lifting them up to the Father, "and I want someone in my life doing that for me," we're kind of missing out on a huge part of what it means to be a believer, so. That's a great encouragement for everyone listening.

Yeah.

So, before we get into the questions, we wanna tell everyone about our free things that we have to offer you guys. We've made a bunch of resources now that I feel like they keep compiling, like, we're making more and more. 'Cause we get an idea and then we're like, "Okay, "let's make it and let's give it to everyone," so.

[Jennifer] And I gotta admit, I'm the one that pushes for the new ones because I want you guys who have already been through, maybe, some of the ones that we've been offering to jump into the new one, which, the newest one we just launched is the Parenting Prayer Challenge, which, oh my gosh, I'm so excited about.

[Aaron] Yeah, it's a totally free email challenge and essentially, we send you an email every day for 31 days giving you a prayer prompt for a specific area of your child's life, either your son or your daughter, and it's a reminder every day.

[Jennifer] And it doesn't matter what age your kids are because it could be for your infant all the way up to your adult--

Your kids that are out of the house.

Children, yeah.

[Aaron] And you can get that at parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word. It's totally free, you should go sign up today if you haven't. And just a quick note on the other ones, we have a free download called Date Night Conversations. It's a list of 52 conversation starters. You can get that at datenightconversations.com, one word. And then the last one is Marriage Prayer Challenge. It's similar to the Parenting Prayer Challenge, but it's for your marriage.

Prayer's best.

[Aaron] Yeah, you can sign up to pray for your wife or you can sign up to pray for your husband and we send you a prompt every day for 31 days. So, get those, those are completely free.

[Jennifer] All right, so we are moving on to today's topic, which, we're doing a Q&A. We already polled the community from social media. We usually do this on Instagram, so if you're not already following, be sure to follow @marriageaftergod. You can also follow me @unveiledwife for some more wife encouragement and then @husbandrevolution for more husband stuff.

[Aaron] And we'd love for you to be following us on Instagram so that you can see the behind the scenes stuff in our life. When we do the polls, we'd love for you to participate in those. We look at all those questions that you guys give us.

[Jennifer] So, what we do is we poll you guys, we ask you to submit your questions, and then we use those to order these Q&As.

[Aaron] Sometimes the questions are not all in the same category, but if we find enough in a category, we're like, "Oh, that's what we're gonna talk about." And so, we try and answer those. And we also always wanna start with: we don't have all the answers.

Yeah. That's a funny way to start out a Q&A.

We don't.

We know this.

[Aaron] We will answer to the best of our abilities, we will answer based off of things we've experienced and, as always, we're gonna try and, to the best of our abilities, point back to scripture. We don't always do that well either, but that's our heart because we know that the Word of God is the Word of God; it's perfect and we know that everything that we order our life by should be ordered by it. And so, we try, to the best of our ability, to do that, so.

[Jennifer] So, today's kind of overarching topic is not seeing eye-to-eye in your marriage, which can play out in a lotta different ways, but I would also label this as disunity. So, this idea of not being unified--

[Aaron] Right, not on the same page.

[Jennifer] Not on the same page in marriage.

[Aaron] Which is that, the analogy of not seeing eye-to-eye, that we're unbalanced, you know, one's higher, one's lower, and so you're not seeing in the same space. And so, you have the, unity is a huge thing for marriage. And I'm sure that many marriages don't even struggle with this, right? Like, this is a unique issue in--

[Jennifer] I'm gonna correct Aaron, I'm gonna correct that.

[Aaron] We're not gonna see eye-to-eye on this.

[Jennifer] I think every marriage encounters this.

Yeah.

A lot, actually.

Every human relationship.

Yeah.

[Aaron] In the history of human relationships.

[Jennifer] Because we're all different heights.

[Aaron] Like, it started in the Garden of Eden. You look at Adam and Eve.

Come on, guys.

[Aaron] Eve was like, "Oh, it does look good to eat." And Adam's like, "All right."

No, just checkin'.

[Aaron] And just, from the very beginning, not seeing eye-to-eye. But that's what we're gonna talk about today. There's quite a few questions, so why don't you start off reading some scripture?

Okay. So, we're gonna dig into Ephesians 4 and starting in Verse 1, it says this: "I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, "urge you to walk in a manner worthy of "the calling to which you have been called, "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, "bearing with one another in love, "eager to maintain the unity of "the spirit in the bond of peace." And if, for some reason, you hear that verse right now and you're like, "You guys have shared "that verse so many times on this podcast"--

A couple.

I'm not gonna apologize. The more we say that verse and the more you hear it and the more we live according to it, we will experience this, right babe?

[Aaron] Well, and it's essentially Biblical meditation. We're repeating it, we're chewing on it, we're gonna say it over and over again because it's true.

[Jennifer] And we're gonna see how it applies to our life and, you know, what we are--

[Aaron] Well, and it's a good tone to start with, to set the mood for this conversation, because no matter where you're at in your marriage, you could be thinking, like, "My husband "just thinks this certain way "and I'm not gonna get on that page with him." Or, "My wife just doesn't understand," fill in the blank. If we're eager to maintain unity with our bride--

Maintenance.

With our spouse.

[Aaron] That's gonna be the place that we start from, not a, "They need to change because I'm not gonna change." It's a, "What needs to change so that "we're on the same page?"

And maintain is, that's a constantly occurring, that's not a, "Okay, we got on the same page "and now we're fine for the rest of our lives." This is a consistent--

Oh, we gotta realign--

Checking.

Oh, we gotta do it again.

Yeah.

Oh, let's do it again. Let's continue to be this way, yeah.

[Jennifer] Yeah, so I couldn't help but start out, also, obviously, God's Word is the priority and first and foremost, but I also wanted to start out sharing a little bit from Marriage After God because we've--

Book plug!

Written a book for you and if you haven't gotten it yet, we want to urge you to get it, but this is from page 56 in Marriage After God and it talks about this idea of oneness, okay? You know, in Genesis, it talks about two becoming one flesh and so, we though it'd be great to elaborate on this in Marriage After God and so--

[Aaron] Okay, so I'm actually gonna read this section. Jennifer's actually a little outta breath, being pregnant and all--

He's saving me!

[Aaron] So, it says this, it's on page 56: "One flesh does not mean two "independent individuals sometimes acting as one, "neither does it mean two individuals "negotiating a workable schedule where they "inhabit the same space but leave each other alone. "One flesh is a picture of unity, a joining together, "a growing together, where parts of each are woven together "in a way that there is no noticeable seam. "Oneness is one of the greatest ways "we show the world the true gospel."

[Jennifer] So, what you're saying is it's powerful.

Yeah.

Our oneness in marriage.

Did we write this?

Yeah.

[Aaron] Yeah, the idea of oneness it's not our idea, it's a Biblical idea, we pulled that from the Bible directly. And it's, again, the reason why I wanna talk about this and we always go back to it is because our marriage represents something more than just our marriage. It's a symbol that God created to represent Christ and the Church and the relationship between the two, that we are no longer separate, we're no longer nomads, we actually are part of Christ, we are one with Christ, the same way my wife and I are one. But when we walk in disunity, when we walk in brokenness and we're not seeing eye-to-eye, we're against each other where actually--

[Jennifer] Or even apathy where it's like, "I know we're off, I know we're"--

"And I don't care."

"Not seeing eye-to-eye "and I don't care."

Yeah.

That's so dangerous.

It's not the symbol that God intends it to be, so we're walking in opposition to God's way when we walk that way, so--

So, it's good to maintain that, you know, what you were talking about earlier, it's good to--

Maintain, yeah.

Have priority in our marriage to focus on unity.

[Aaron] So, question one, from the community, it says, "How do I become more selfless in my marriage? "I wanna please my spouse."

Okay, first of all, this is just an outstanding question. I love that someone is even admitting that they want this because so often, our flesh gets in the way, our selfish nature gets in the way of even admitting this.

[Aaron] Yeah, 'cause we're selfish.

Yup.

Naturally, without the Spirit workin' in us. I guess I would first say, this was specifically from a wife to a husband but I said spouse because it goes both ways, and the short answer and the practical answer is: serve the other person.

Yeah.

Right? The antidote to selfishness is service, you know? The antidote to wanting my feet washed is washing someone's feet. You know, you look at the picture of Christ and what he did for his disciples. And so, I guess, I just had a conversation with a brother from church, we were talkin' about meeting with people, and I brought up this idea of how, if you look at anything in life, how does anything grow? You feed it. Like a tree: you water it, you nurture it, you feed it, you prune it, and it grows. If I want my muscles to grow, I have to work them out, I have to use them, I have to feed them with the right nutrients, and I have to do the correct thing for them to work. I can't just sit back, wish they grew, desire them to grow, desire these things to happen, but do nothing.

Children, right? You want them to grow--

You gotta feed 'em, it's like--

No.

Oh, that's not--

But more than that, you can't just sit back and just let them have at it in the world, you gotta--

Yeah.

Teach them and--

[Aaron] They can't be left to their own devices, they have to be guided and teached and disciplined and corrected--

Taught.

And talked to and taught.

You said teached.

[Aaron] Teached. Oh, did I really?

Yeah.

Okay. So, in the same way, to become more selfless or, on the flip side, less selfish, you have to practice and work out that muscle.

Yeah.

So, an example in our marriage: we all go through these seasons where I want physical intimacy and maybe Jennifer can't give it to me. Like, we're pregnant right now, so this is a natural thing that happens, but times that we're not pregnant, maybe she's tired or whatever. And in my selfish flesh, I want something physical. But the selfless, spiritual-driven decision would be like, "Okay, I'm using that as a trigger, "I'm recognizing I want something. "I bet my wife wants something, too." And so, I tried, and I didn't do this every time, I don't do this all the time, but it's something I tried practicing is, "I'm gonna go and try and"--

[Jennifer] Give me the thing that it is you want. So, if it's a foot massage or--

Yeah, I want something--

Physical touch.

[Aaron] Physical but I'm gonna go and say, "Hey, can I give you a massage?" And she wasn't even expecting it.

Yeah.

And that, it wasn't to manipulate, it was purely like, "I know I want something and right now, I'm just, "I know she probably can't give it or isn't interested "and it would be very selfish for me to "try and make her feel bad about it "or try and get something without her desiring it as well." So, I go and serve her. And so, that was one example, is practicing that muscle of service. Which, again, I'm not tryna make myself sound great.

[Jennifer] So, I think the word that keeps coming to my mind as you're talking, Aaron, is the word initiation. And we have to be initiators, we have to be people who are willing to start first and not let our selfishness get in the way of that. And so, that would be my answer to this question, is: be an initiator. But even, prior to that, I would say we have to be people who are willing to get into God's Word and know it and let it transform us. And how does that happen? When we recognize our selfishness and we repent of it.

Mm hm.

Right? Because without repenting of your own selfishness when you see it flare up, you're never gonna change. You're always gonna be a selfish person.

[Aaron] Which, repentance literally means to change your mind about. So, thinking you deserve something and therefore you're not gonna give something because if you're not getting what you deserve, why would you give what someone else doesn't deserve, right? And two scriptures come to mind when I think about this, a way of thinking about how to know when to give, to be selfless. I think of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others "as you would have them do unto you." And that's kind of a trigger, is any time I'm desiring something, it's probably a safe bet that the other person in my life, my wife, also is desiring something, right? And so, if I take that as a trigger, like, "Oh, I want, I'm trying, my flesh wants something "or my heart wants something." I can say, like, "Oh, I can go give this to my wife. "The thing that I want, I can give to her." But it's gonna be different, it may not be the exact thing I want, but. Let's say I want time to myself. It's probably possible that you want time to yourself. So, I can go be like, "Hey, "would you want to go out tonight?" Or, "Is there anyone you want to get together with?" Or, "Do you just need to go take a bath?"

Yeah.

Like, I can think that way. And so, I think of that loving your neighbor as yourself or doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, it's just thinking about the things that you want and then flipping it and saying, "How can I give the thing that I want to someone else?" The second verse that comes to mind is in Luke and it's about lending to people and it says this, it's Luke 6:34 through 36, it says, and this is Jesus talking: "And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, "what credit is that to you? "Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. "But love your enemies and do good and lend. "Expect nothing in return. "Your reward will be great "and you will be sons of the most high, "for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. "Be merciful even as your Father is merciful." And this is kind of not directly talking about selfishness but it's this idea of lending without this expectation. Like, give without saying, "I'm giving to you "only if I'm guaranteed you're gonna return it to me." That's true selflessness. So, that's what it's saying, is God's even kind to the ungrateful and evil, he's patient with them, let's the rain fall on them as well and gives them crops. That's what this idea's talking about. You know, so we should be merciful, so.

[Jennifer] You know, I was gonna ask you a question in conjunction to this question and that is: when people, when a couple, when they're not seeing eye-to-eye or there's disunity in the marriage, usually they don't want to serve each other, right, and so there's that that they're combating. And my question was gonna be: how do you do that, how do you serve each other, how do you love each other amidst that disunity? But I feel like you just answered it in that scripture.

[Aaron] Well, it's giving, so, and we always go back to this, I have this quote I say all the time: we can't let our obedience be contingent on our spouse's actions. Like, "Well, you're not loving me "the way I wanna be loved or deserve to be loved, "therefore I'm not gonna respect you." It doesn't work that way. The only person we have control over is ourselves. So, the only person we have to worry who's being obedient, yes, I'm concerned if my wife's being obedient to the Lord, but for me, the only person I can actually control, in the Spirit that God's given me, is myself. And so, even if my spouse isn't walking the way I want them to or doing what I want them to, I can still choose to walk in righteousness, I can still choose to walk in love and be graceful and merciful and patient and kind and loving, right, on my side.

That's really good. So, even when there is disunity, even when you're not seeing eye-to-eye on a specific thing in your marriage, you can still love unconditionally.

Right, exactly.

Cool. Okay, so let's move on to number two. "How do we live for God together? "My husband never really has been "to church or anything like that, so."

[Aaron] Okay, and again, this would go back to you have a wife that's not, doesn't go to church with you, isn't a believer, and the husband is a believer or vice versa in the situation.

[Jennifer] So, how do you live for God together when one person isn't already living for God?

[Aaron] Again, I go back to you can't control the other person. You can't make someone live for God that doesn't wanna live for God.

[Jennifer] Basically, this is a not seeing eye-to-eye on a spiritual level.

[Aaron] Yeah, on the greatest level, I would imagine. But you, the Bible gives instruction to the wife on how she can walk in a certain way that can totally spiritually influence her husband. You see that with the husband, the husband can walk a certain way that will influence his wife.

[Jennifer] Regardless, any person who is following Christ and Christ is living inside of them has an impact in this world.

Yeah.

Bottom line.

[Aaron] And if your spouse, as the Bible says, is willing to stay with you, even if they don't love God, if they're not walking with God, and they're staying with you and you love God, think about the thousands and thousands of hours that that person who doesn't know God is gonna be around God because of you. Like, it's not like you walk up to a stranger on the street and they had a split second that you got to preach the gospel to them. Like, this person's living in the gospel daily. It's going have effect.

Mm hm.

[Aaron] So, I would say there's no answer on how you can walk together with God if the other person doesn't want to, but you can walk with God for your spouse and in front of your spouse and toward your spouse.

[Jennifer] And I would say your greatest desire, before even living for God together, is: how can I get my spouse to live for God? And so, being prayerful for their salvation and being prayerful that they have a growing desire to serve God.

Nonstop.

[Jennifer] That's a foundational thing that needs to happen.

One more note on this. So, me and you, we got married, and from the beginning, wanted to serve God together.

Yeah.

Right? Essentially, what this wife is desiring, for her and her husband, we were there. But even in the middle of two believers who love God, loved each other, and wanted to serve God together, we were often not on the same page spiritually, we were often at odds with each other in how we wanted to serve God, in our own sins. So, even in the midst of what you might be desiring, of that perfect, like, we're both chasing God together, you still have to walk in your own faith, uprightly, with God for your spouse because they're going to fail you at times, they're not going to be on the same page with you. And that's something that we experienced.

Yeah.

So, we were on the other spectrum of wanting to do it together but still felt chaotic sometimes.

[Jennifer] Yeah, and I would say, after all these years of continually growing in our personal relationship with God, that is what has brought us closer together and has driven that desire to continue to serve Him together. And so, I would say to live for God means that you know Him and so, a good starting place, well, we already talked prayer and praying for salvation, but, is knowing God, getting in His Word, going through resources like Husband After God or Wife After God.

[Aaron] Yeah, our marriage devotionals.

[Jennifer] Yeah, which you can get and maybe you'll start it and maybe your spouse won't. Maybe you'll be halfway through and it's still sitting untouched for your spouse. Maybe you'll be finished with it for months and finally they pick it up. I don't know how God orchestrates all of that, all I know is I've heard plenty of stories where a couple has the resource and they start going through it and it draws their hearts closer to God, so. And that's just one resource out of so many out there.

[Aaron] Okay, so question number three. We have a lotta questions, so we'll see if we can get through 'em. It says, "What are some tips for consistency "and communication within marriage to build intimacy? "i.e. You may not be in an agreement on a topic, "so how do you communicate through it?"

[Jennifer] Gosh, I wanna say don't go into it super inflamed and heated.

But that's the best way. You go in at a hundred.

No, but sometimes you just feel that intense about it and so, whatta you do, Aaron, when you have that intense of an emotion about a topic or about something that you need to navigate with your spouse?

I mean, practically, being quiet, starting with silence. I think of that scripture that says, "Be slow to speak and quick to listen and quick to hear." 'Cause often, to be honest, most of the communication issues in marriage is misunderstanding. Because you, as a emotional creatures, God's made you more emotional, you're gonna say something with emotional words and I'm gonna interpret that a hundred different ways and none of the ways I interpret it are how you feel, right? And men being logical creatures, and that doesn't mean women are illogical, it's just hearing something and it's not what you meant and it's not what you're saying and I'm hearing it a certain way and I'm putting it through my own filters and that's what happens, so. Being slower to just jump at the person and be like, "Oh, you said this and that hurt me." But actually hearing and listening and being slower to saying stuff because once the words leave our lips, they're gone and they're--

Yeah, but we're also held accountable to them, right? I think something that I've learned in our own marriage, Aaron, is the way that I can have self control in coming to you with my emotions and still be respectful but still communicate them to you and let you know, "Hey, when this happened, I felt this way." And so, I'm not yelling at you, I'm not out of control, I'm not making you feel little, I'm just explaining this is what happened and this is how it made me feel. And I think it's important for couples, like you said, to be slow to speak and quick to listen so that we hear each other. I think hearing each other is so important.

[Aaron] Yeah, and then, and we always bring this up, is: what is your intention? Is your intention to win, is it to defeat your spouse?

[Jennifer] Well, the goal should be unity, right?

Right. But that has to be a conscious decision, like, "Am I mad right now and I wanna destroy you "or do I actually want there to be peace?" And not just apathy, like, "I just don't wanna deal with it "so let's not talk about it anymore," but, "Am I fighting for something and it's chaotic "or is this something that I even need to be fighting about? "Is this even matter, what I'm frustrated about "or what we're miscommunicating about?" But recognizing that the whole purpose, at the end of it, is that we're unified, we're reconciled, we are one again, we're in intimacy, you know?

[Jennifer] Well, and intimacy means to be known. It's not just a physical intimacy, although that's how you're known physically, it means to be known. And the way that we make ourselves known is we are vulnerable, we are transparent, we are real. And so, we're not hiding anything, we're not keeping things from each other, but we're also not disrespectfully just throwing it all out there. There's this self control that comes with it and a safe place where we know we can communicate back and forth and that's what builds intimacy in marriage. That's what makes me feel known, that's what makes you feel known.

[Aaron] Yeah, so knowing your end result, which is, it should be humbleness, because God wants his people to be humble, and it should be reconciliation. So, that deals with 99% of our arguments from day to day. It's very rare that we're having arguments over real big things, it's always the little things. And then, what happens is you get all those little things, when the big things do come up, you're gonna be infinitely better at dealing with that with your spouse 'cause you know that you're on the same team.

[Jennifer] A good little side note tip would be to start out and use sentences with I instead of you. So, you're not pointing the finger here, you're actually opening your hand and saying, "I want you to know who I am."

[Aaron] Mm hm, yeah, that's good, that was a good tip. So, here's a good one. Everyone's gonna have some level of issue.

[Jennifer] What's the first thing that pops into your mind when we say this question?

[Aaron] How do you work through disagreements on hobbies? And the example that was given is motorcycles and it's probably very personal to that person.

Yeah.

But women have, this actually could be a wife's hobby. But any hobby at all, hobby's essentially the extracurricular, it's, "I have this passion "outside of my home or outside of my work or"--

[Jennifer] Which, I know you'll generally answer, but I just have to say, when I saw this question come through, I think there would be a disagreement on something like the example they gave, motorcycles--

Motorcycles, right.

[Jennifer] Because it's dangerous, right, and so, we also have to address that aspect of, maybe, what this question means, but why don't you kick it off?

[Aaron] I would, on the hobbies side of things, regardless of what the hobby is, because there's so many different levels of ability. There could be a wife that is into skydiving with their husband and most people would be like, "No way," but they're like, "No, this is totally fun." So, I'm not gonna just pick on any specific hobby 'cause that doesn't matter, for the most part. I'm sure there's hobbies that are absolutely like, "Well, that's sin, you shouldn't be doing that."

[Jennifer] And then there are safer ones, like quilting.

[Aaron] And then there could be totally benign ones that mean nothing and it's like, "Well, what's the big deal? "This is not a sin that I'm doing this." The questions should always be wrapped up in wisdom. Can you afford it? If your wife or your husband's not in agreement with it, that should be immediately a red flag because you're not in unity and it's not just a, "That person needs to change how they think about my hobby," because what if God put an insight or a discernment in your spouse? Because remember, you guys are on the same team, regardless of if you feel like you're in a team or not, and your spouse has a reason for having an issue with it. Now, that spouse, as you guys communicate about the hobby, humbly, it could, you could find out that the spouse just has, like your wife, has some sort of disposition from a childhood about the thing you're doing. So, it has nothing to do with anything else other than they just feel uncomfortable.

[Jennifer] But if that's the case, is it worth it to listen and hear?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

[Aaron] But what I'm saying is they could, through the conversation, be like, "You know what? "I am being irrational and it's not that big of a deal." Or--

The point is that they're talking about it.

Yeah. Or it comes to this side of, "Well, "I just can't get behind it." And then at that point, are you gonna say, "Well, then get outta here 'cause I'm gonna keep doin' it"? And then essentially, you're choosing a hobby over your spouse.

Well, on the flip side to this, the spouse that's in disagreement with that spouse's hobby, what's your heart posture and reasoning? Because are you just against it because you don't like them spending time alone from you? Are you just against it because you don't like what they like? So, I feel like the biggest part of this question, and it's for both spouses in the marriage, is: what are the motivations of your heart?

On both sides.

And are you communicating that to each other?

[Aaron] Right, and usually, if you're defensive about something, if you're trying to defend and protect your hobby, that usually is rooted in something and you gotta immediately start asking yourself, "Why am I trying to protect this so much? "Why does this thing mean so much to me?" Because you could be using that hobby as a surrogate for your marriage. Like, "I get more fulfillment out of this thing "than I do out of my marriage or my kids."

[Jennifer] Like an escape or something, yeah.

[Aaron] And if that's the case, that's dangerous and that's called an idol. You should be careful with that. So, I think, any, there should be nothing in our life, not a single hobby should have any sort of weight against our family, against our ministry, against our marriage, against our responsibilities at our work, with our kids, none of that. Anything, it doesn't matter what the hobby is, it shouldn't be off the table for a negotiation. It should be something that you should humbly be willing to release, if necessary. And the necessity could be your wife or your husband just is like, "I don't like it." And to be honest, even if they're irrational, they are one with you. And if you're gonna just say, "I disagree with you, "you're irrational, I'm gonna keep doing it," you've just literally, how are you ever gonna be intimate, on any level, with a person that you said, "I don't care what you say, I'm doing it anyway"? You just can't. So, I would just put a warning in anyone's life, and this goes for the husbands and the wives, if there's anything in their life, a book club, a quilting club, a hobby of, like, you name it, everyone that's listening is probably thinking, "Oh, I have this hobby."

[Jennifer] "I know what my thing is," yeah.

[Aaron] And my job right now is not to say hobbies are bad 'cause you can totally have a healthy hobby, maybe it's something that you do with your family, maybe that it's something that you do by yourself, and you have total control over it and it doesn't get in the way of your responsibilities and your family totally feels taken care of and loved and that you're present--

[Jennifer] And they actually enjoy participating in it with you.

[Aaron] Yeah, there's lots of things. But at the same time, if you have any level of, "I'm not lettin' this thing go "and no one's gonna stop me," that's a wrong heart. And whatever that thing is that you're into has got some sorta hold of you that you need to deal with.

Yeah. So, I wanna share two things. One of them just kinda popped into my heart and I can't push it away for some reason and that is: if you, the individual, have some sort of hobby and you've been feeling convicted in your own heart because of timing, finances, lack of--

How often you're doin' it.

[Jennifer] Yeah, whatever the thing is, please please please please please don't push that feeling off and just wait for your spouse to come and share their disagreement with you about it. Be a mature, Christian person, yield to the Holy Spirit--

Who's speaking to you.

And say, "God, what are you trying to tell me "and how can I surrender this to you?" If that means give it up 100%, are you willing to do that? I just felt like I had to say that. The other thing is more personal, but I just wanted to share an encouragement. I didn't want it to all sound negative. But Aaron, you have been so good at, first, learning who I am, I don't wanna say studying me, but over time together, you know me pretty well and you know the things that fuel me, as a person, like writing and painting and crafting, and you encourage me in it. Now, there have been times in our marriage where we've been so strapped, it's like, "You can't spend that money on that, "you know, whatever that thing is." But there's also been, often, there's been times where you know that I've been going, going, going and you look at me and go, "I think you "just need to go to a coffee shop and write. "You just need to go do this thing with your girlfriends. "You just need to," and you're a supporter and an advocate for giving me space and time to be fueled by the things that interest me and I just had to say that because I think that, as a husband and wife, we have an incredible position and opportunity to support one another in the things that do fuel us, the things, the hobbies that we're interested in. And you've been really good at that, so I just wanted to say thank you but also use it as a testimony for those listening that they can be that way in marriage, it just requires communication.

Yeah. That was good, thank you, I wasn't expecting that. Okay, why don't you read question number five?

[Jennifer] How do you keep chasing dreams God's called you to when your spouse is in a totally negative place? So, I'm imagining this is a season, not just a day but not always like this, but they're just in a negative place and how are you supposed to keep moving forward with those dreams that you, maybe, were chasing together or were hoping to chase together?

[Aaron] This, it sounds more personal, it sounds like this person, whoever it is, feels like God's called them to something specific.

Oh, like individually.

Yeah. And they're spouse is in another place.

Okay.

Either emotionally or mentally or maybe they hate their job and the other spouse is trying to pursue a ministry of some sort or--

Okay.

[Aaron] The question itself tells me that the initial, the way the question's worded tells me that they're missing out on the first calling.

The marriage?

The marriage.

[Jennifer] Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

[Aaron] We have a responsibility, we're told to love our neighbor as ourself. And I always say, "Who's your closest neighbor?"

Yeah.

It's your spouse. And then your kids and then your actual neighbors and then your fellowship. And it's not like you neglect the others for the first, but you don't go out of order. I don't neglect my wife, when she needs me the most, to go serve someone else. That's out of order.

Well, and here's what I think about that, is: if, let's say it is individual and one of the spouses is pursuing ministry or whatever they feel God has called them to do or maybe it's that they had a specific calling as a couple and that person's in a negative place now and they're not doing that anymore. How effective would either one of them be in any of those situations if they're not unified in their marriage?

Not very effective at all. Well, and here's, this is actually the sad part, is they actually could be effective. But they're not effective where it counts. You know, we have children at home, we have our marriage to take care of, and it's not just to have a happy marriage, it's that we have a powerful marriage and that we, like, if I can't minister, we say this in our book Marriage After God quite a bit, actually, if I can't minister to my spouse, what right do I have to go and minister to someone else? I don't want to minister to you, you're in a negative place, but I'm gonna go try and minister other people that are in a negative place. There's something backwards with that. And I also understand that you could be, have already in this mode and you see God moving and God's using you and then your spouse, your husband, your wife, is going through something. And you're like, "Well, do I have to put everything "on hold because this thing's happening?" Yes.

Is it totally possible that God brought them to that place and then is asking them to postpone it or wait until--

Absolutely.

Something else happens? That could be part of it, right, just as an encouragement.

[Aaron] Yeah, I'll get, I don't have the specific scripture on this, but Jesus, when Jesus talked to the Pharisees, you know, we all have a negative connotation of the Pharisees, right? But the Pharisees were God's people and they were the priests in line, they were the ones that were to teach the law to everyone, right? But Jesus, the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees was not just that they were Pharisees. The reason they get a bad rap is because of how they acted. They acted holy and they did the thing that they believed God was calling them to do without doing the things that they should have been doing.

[Jennifer] The very specific things that He--

[Aaron] Yeah, He gives this example and He says, "You take advantage of your parents. "You say, "The things that I would "give to you, I give to God instead."" And that's exactly, that's what this question sounds like to me. "God's calling me to this thing over here "but my spouse is holding me back." And I feel like Jesus would say the exact same thing to that person: "Okay, you wanna do what I want you to do, but you're "neglecting the thing I've already told you to do. "I've told you to honor your husband "or submit to your husband." Or, "I've told you to love your wife "as Christ loves the Church. "And yet, you don't wanna do that thing 'cause "they're holding you back from my call in your life? "My call in your life is that also." And so, in another place, Jesus tells to the Pharisees, he says, "You tithe your mint and your cumin "and yet you neglect the weightier things of the law." He says, "You should, the weightier things "are justice and love and mercy." And he says, "And you don't do those things when you "shoulda done those things and the other ones." So, I just go back to this idea of if there's something going on, let's say you have a spouse that gets injured and you no longer can go do the things that you usually do and the ministry that you had and now you have to focus on your spouse. Does that change that you're doing ministry? No. No, you just have changed your energies to a place that the energies need to be right now. If your spouse is in an emotional place, broken, they lost a family member, they're depressed, they're going through things, do you just leave them behind because they're getting in the way of the true ministry? No, if it says the good shepherd was willing to leave the 99 for the one, the one is your spouse. You don't, you leave the 99 that God can take care of because it's God and it's His sheep and His ministry, and you can minister to the one that God's given you. And minister and wash and take care of. And that should never be neglected. I just, we can't do that, I can't tell someone, "Yeah." Well, first of all, we like to use words like, "God told me to," and "God's shown me," and "God's given me" as if that's a trump card. "You can't tell me I'm not supposed to "do this thing because God called me to it." But you know what I can tell you? I know what the Word of God says and if you're not doing the things that the Word of God says, it doesn't matter what you believe, you're wrong. And I'm not trying to be harsh but I am trying to be harsh because many, many families have fallen apart because of this very thing. "No, I'm doing what God wants me to do "and you need to be left behind."

[Jennifer] They forsake what He said in His Word.

[Aaron] Yeah, and another quote in the book, I said--

In what book?

In Marriage After God, yeah. I said, "Don't sacrifice your marriage "on the altar of, quote unquote, ministry." Like, "Oh, I'm doing ministry over here, "so my wife has to deal with it. "She's not gonna ever see me, she has no idea if I love her. "She gets the last bits of my energies "rather than getting the best of my energies "and being the thing that energizes me to do more ministry." It's so much more fruitful to do it the other way than leave them behind. And I just, I think that's my answer.

[Jennifer] I think you've covered it really well. So well that I think we should move on to number six. Do you wanna read that one?

[Aaron] Yeah, it's about me. Do you, Jennifer, struggle with trusting me?

[Jennifer] Do I struggle with trusting you?

[Aaron] Specifically speaking about porn, how can you battle thoughts, like the--

[Jennifer] So, I just have to say, I feel like we need to record a whole 'nother episode on this topic altogether because--

[Aaron] We've already done one but--

I know.

We should probably do another one.

Well, I have received, really, lately, a lot of wives messaging me about this very topic, about trust and rebuilding trust after finding out that your spouse has sinned against you, sinned, especially with pornography, and so, that just needs to happen, but it's not gonna happen this season, so I'm just gonna have to plant that seed and say, "Stay tuned." But just to answer this question, up front, for you guys. I don't struggle to trust you anymore, Aaron.

Why?

[Jennifer] I think it's because we've worked so hard on building that trust back up and it absolutely takes time. And because, in the beginning, there were times that I did struggle with doubt and fear, especially times that I know you were left alone while I was out running an errand or something like that. And you know what it required is humility and communication. Because I had to be willing to say, "Hey, I'm thinking about you right now and I just, "I don't want you to fall into temptation. "Just be strong, I'll be back at this time." Or when I got back, I would ask you, "Hey, how've you been?" And the more times that we had encounters where you continued to stay pure, it built that trust up in my heart.

[Aaron] And then, specifically, along that journey, what did I do, anytime I did choose to get back into pornography?

You told me and you repented and you shared with me your own frustrations over the struggle of sin that you had, but you owned it and you were real with me and--

[Aaron] And no matter how little the offense was.

[Jennifer] No, and I knew that you struggled with shame and guilt and I knew it was hard for you to tell me. And you learned how to give me a place to respond when I was emotional over it because it makes, I mean, just thinking--

Without trying to control your response.

Yeah, 'cause it just, it made me broken knowing that those things took place and I felt a lotta things and I thought a lotta thoughts. But I would say that the humility of you coming to me or me coming to you and the reconciliation process was so important. And when I say reconciliation, I mean we talked about it. Even if it took two and a half hours, we talked about it. We prayed for each other and we tried to affirm each other that we were gonna move forward.

Right. And the, some of the, just the practical things is: first of all, it does take time and you should never expect your spouse to just flip a switch and be like, "Well, I'm gonna trust you again." 'Cause that's actually not even Biblical. It does take time to build trust. Now, forgiveness immediately is Biblical, but that doesn't mean immediately, "Oh, we're back to where we were." No, there's been broken trust and it takes time, it takes repetitive purity, right? And then, the other practical is: I made a commitment to tell you, to let you know. And here's the thing, is: the offenses, although they changed in size, relatively, the thing I did, I still confessed it to you and you were able to see the true repentance in me. And so, it's not like it was the same each time, it was less and less and less. But my continuing to come to you and say, "Hey, I made this choice. "Yeah, it was a split second, "but I chose it and I feel shameful about it "and I wanna repent to you because this is not who I am "and it's not who I wanna be and so, I need to tell you." 'Cause I've learned, through the Word of God and through experience, that the confession and repentance is one of the ways that God's given us to kill our flesh. My flesh hates it, it wants to hide in the darkness and keep its, it wants, my flesh wants to not be known because it feels icky and I don't wanna be seen for what I truly am. So, the being consistent and telling you the truth and not just waiting 'til you found out but actually coming forth and saying, "Hey, I made a bad choice." And calling it what it is, a choice, not minimizing it, not justifying it. Those kinds of things helped you trust that I was actually changing. And that I love you and that I don't wanna be that person and that I'm willing to tell you because I want you to know, for my sake, so that I can heal and change and repent and be repented of that sin.

[Jennifer] Yeah, I appreciate you sharing all of that and the second part of this question is: how can you battle those thoughts? And I just am thinking back to all of the stuff that I used to struggle with because the sin that you chose to partake in were like seeds planted in my mind and heart for the temptation to feel insecure or unloved and fall into those traps where your mind is just going wildly crazy with the worst kinds of thoughts about you and of our relationship. And I would say that being vulnerable with those and still being willing to be in an intimate place with you where I can say, "Because you did this, I feel this way," or, "I'm thinking these things," and revealing those types of thoughts to you helped me battle them. Because I gave you the opportunity to affirm me and say, "No no no no no, I know I chose that "and I'm so sorry, but that's not who you are. "You don't have to be insecure because of what I did." And there was this back and forth of understanding each other that I think was really valuable.

Right. And again, another thing that, for the spouse that has dealt with this and is dealing with it, the mistrust is a natural consequence for a sin.

Yeah.

Right? And so, we have to recognize that. And so, another thing that builds trust, from the offender's side, is, 'cause what happens is: I've confessed, we've dealt with that event, and then you are leaving somewhere and it's a time when you know I would, usually, in the past--

[Jennifer] You mean I flared up with anxiety inside my whole being?

Well, but, no, if you say something like, "Hey"--

Oh.

"I wanna encourage you to stay pure while I'm gone." The not truly repentant person would say, "Babe, babe, we already dealt with that, you don't need to bring that up."

Oh, getting defensive--

Like, "C'mon, you don't trust me?" No, I should be totally humble and willing to be like, "You're right, thank you for reminding me "and be praying for me and I'm gonna let you know "if I feel tempted and I'm gonna call you and I'm gonna." Instead of being defensive and prideful, I'm gonna be humble and realize that it's totally natural for my wife to not trust me and she's gonna learn trust by how I receive her care for me in that moment. You reminding me, like, "Hey, don't go to that thing." Me receiving that is a trustworthy action, right?

Yeah. Another way that I battled thoughts of mistrust was I asked a lot of questions. So, if I ever felt uneasy about a situation or discerning. You know, maybe I woke up from a dream or something where it was like I couldn't shake it, I asked.

Or you just feel it. Like, "Hey, something's off."

Yeah, I asked you. I asked, "Have you been struggling?" And so, I think that when we recognize that we're battling thoughts, you can't just keep battling them, you can't just keep, you're just gonna be wrestling the whole time, right? And so, being able to open up and share with your spouse the types of thoughts that you're having and also go to God and say, "God, these are "the types of thoughts that I'm having," and finding scriptures that would help fight those thoughts for you and--

[Aaron] Well, and also be praying and asking God to transform your own heart, asking God to transform your spouse's heart.

To purify your marriage.

Yeah, to use you both for His work and for His kingdom.

[Jennifer] See, I told you that this was gonna be a big topic. I feel like we just--

There's a lot, there's a lot more, yeah.

[Jennifer] We need to be able to do another episode on that.

Yeah. All right, so the last question, it's kind of a bigger, blanket one. It'd be: What is your number one advice to couples who are currently struggling with this eye-to-eye thing? They're not on the same page, they feel at odds with each other.

[Jennifer] Well, I will say this: one of the most powerful, impactful, incredible ways that God got ahold of our hearts, Aaron, and made change and transformation in our lives and our marriage was entering into mature, Christian, Biblical community and being transparent with people who we allowed to speak into our lives and say--

"You're off base, bro."

But sometimes we didn't even see that we were off on that whole eye-to-eye thing and we got called out for it and so, like, bickering or whatever the thing was. And I just remember how, and even still to this day, it's been such a huge part of our testimony, is being in Biblical community and how being a part of the body, and I don't mean like a one day a week type thing, I mean immersed in it where you know you can text that person, call that person, meet them on the fly for dinner to gain wisdom, to ask advice, to cry about, to praise for, you know, all the things.

[Aaron] So, the bit of advice I would give that goes in align with being a community, and it kind of, it's, I talked about it quite a bit in this episode, is humbleness. And in Luke 14:11, he says, "For everyone "who exalts himself will be humbled "and he who humbles himself will be exalted." And all through Proverbs, it talks about this idea of the humble will be lifted up and the haughty are God's opposed. To receive anything from community, you have to be humbled and willing to hear. Like, "Hey, I think you are being a bonehead, Aaron." Like, "Oh, you're right, I agree. "I didn't realize that, I need to change in that area, "I need to go apologize to my wife." So, that humbleness, and even outside of community, in your marriage, if you're in a difficult place, there's something miraculously, spiritually powerful about humbleness. All of these fights we get in, all of the eye-to-eye issues, it's all because they're not seeing our eyes, they're not on our page, which is pridefulness. When we could be like, "Maybe I need to be on their page."

[Jennifer] Or humility would point your spouse's eyes up to God and say, "No, look at Him."

Right.

[Jennifer] "Don't look at me in this, look at Him."

[Aaron] Or recognizing you're wrong or maybe don't know or don't have the answer or need to sit back and say, "You know what? "I'm just gonna, I'm gonna let you have this one because, "I mean, I know I've been wrong in the past anyways." It's not a false humility, it's true humbleness, recognizing who you serve, you serve God. And so, in community, which was the number one thing that we believe totally transformed our life, but it also took us, in community, being willing to listen and hear and receive, which takes humbleness.

And time.

And time, yeah. So, that would be my bit of advice, is: man, humbleness is gonna go infinitely farther than any level of selfishness or pride.

[Jennifer] So, the next time, it could be today, tomorrow, next week--

[Aaron] It's gonna be right after this episode, probably.

[Jennifer] If you are finding yourself in a place where you're not seeing eye-to-eye with your spouse, remember humility.

Absolutely.

Remember to pray. Remember to go to God and say, "God, what is it that you want? "'Cause I don't want to get in "the way of what you're doing."

Yeah, "How can my response and actions "and attitude right now glorify you?" And that, man, it changes everything 'cause you're like, "Oh. "Yelling and throwing a dish at the wall "is not gonna glorify God right now." Or, "Telling my spouse that they don't know anything "or that they're wrong, those might not glorify God."

[Jennifer] Well, that wraps us up for this episode of having answered your guys' questions. Thank you again so much for being there and submitting those questions when we called out for them.

Yeah, appreciate it.

And, again, if you wanna participate in a Q&A episode, all you need to do is follow @marriageaftergod on Instagram and wait for the next time we poll for 'em. And then you can submit your question and we try and get through as many as we can with the time that we have. And if we ever do an episode where you're like, "I know my question would've fit in there," and maybe we didn't get to it, just message us and let us know. But we just love hearing from you guys and we love participating in this way where we get to kind of answer your questions or at least try.

[Aaron] So, as usual, we end every episode with prayer. So Jennifer, why don't you pray for us?

[Jennifer] Dear God, thank you so much for marriage. Thank you for our spouses and thank you for the opportunity that we get every day to walk this life with each other. We pray for humility to be a priority in our lives, that we would walk humbly before each other, that we would be motivated by how you're moving in our lives individually and in our marriages. God, we thank you for our marriages and we just pray for unity. We pray that, even in times where we don't see eye-to-eye or we have disagreements or there's conflict, that you would remain at the center of our marriage and that we can submit our hearts to you. God, we pray that we would be one with each other, that we would pursue oneness in our marriage and support each other in that way. And God, we pray that these situations that come up in marriage where we don't see eye-to-eye would be an opportunity where we can learn from each other, where we can grow to understand each other, where we can experience intimacy. No matter what, we pray that your will would be done and that you would be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. So, thanks for joining us on this week's episode. We love y'all, we thank you for being a part of the Marriage After God community. And we just wanna invite you, if you have not yet, would you leave us a review? We love your reviews, they help the podcast get reach, and new people find it because of your reviews. So, if you wanna leave us a star rating and a text review, we'd love that. 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.