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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.

FREE DOWNLOADSDatenightconversations.comMarriageprayerchallenge.comparentingprayerchallenge.com “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 How do I become more selfless in my marriage?What are some Tips for consistency in communication within marriage to build intimacy?How do we live for God together...my husband never really been to church Etc?How do you work through disagreements on hobbies? IE motorcycles?How do you keep chasing dreams God's call you to, when your spouse is in a totally negative place?Do you still struggle with trusting your husband? Speaking about p 0rn and how can you battle thoughts?What is your number one advice to couples struggling?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.

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, we thought it would be fun to share some gift ideas to help inspire you. All of the gifts we share in this episode are things that we love and use often.ONE QUICK NOTE: If you are trying to get out of debt we suggest skipping gifts for a while. Instead, find free ways to bless each other and show your spouse your are thinking of them. We never want to promote spending when we can't or shouldn't. PRAYER:Dear Lord,Thank you for being the ultimate gift giver. Thank You for the gift of marriage. We pray our hearts would be pure in the way we give gifts to each other. We pray we would be thoughtful in the ways we give to each other. Help us to study and know our spouse well enough to give them gifts we know they will love. More than giving good gifts, we pray our love would be genuine and deep and extraordinary as we pursue intimacy with each other. Grow our love for one another….In Jesus’ name, amen! READ THE TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with "Marriage After God." - [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today we're gonna share some unique Valentine's Day gift ideas for your spouse. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. - [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. - [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life-- - [Aaron] Love-- - [Jennifer] And power-- - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God." - [Aaron] Hey, welcome back to another episode of the "Marriage After God" podcast. This is the second episode in season three of the "Marriage After God" podcast, and it's gonna be a fun one. We're gonna talk about gift ideas and Valentine's Day, and these are fun episodes that we get to do. It's just to become a resource for you to help you in stuff that you guys are trying to pursue with each other. But before we begin today, I just wanna check in with my wife. How are you doing? - [Jennifer] I'm doing good, I'm doing better, I should say. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Jennifer] I don't know if people can hear it in my voice, I-- - [Aaron] She hasn't stopped laughing for 15 minutes. - [Jennifer] It's been really hard, guys. We went to go record this episode and I could not stop laughing. Something was hysterical but really it was nothing, and that made it even funnier. - [Aaron] And I'm sitting over here not laughing. - [Jennifer] Though I think it's spiritual because we're trying to record. I couldn't stop, but I finally got my bearings and I'm here, and I'm excited to do this with you, Aaron. - [Aaron] Yeah, so, me too, now. It's the second week of the year, 2020, new decade. How do you think things are going? I know it's new, but. - [Jennifer] Yes, I would say so far, so good. I mean, I'm still looking forward to this year. I think one thing that I've already been noticing is that I have this hopefulness to savor this year so that it doesn't feel like it flies by super fast. - [Aaron] Yeah, 2019 felt like it went really fast. - [Jennifer] Really fast. - [Aaron] Every time I looked at the calendar, I was like, wait a minute, we're in the third quarter. What's going on? - [Jennifer] Yeah, how is this already possible? So I'm hoping that this year just is a slow year for us and for our family. - [Aaron] Yeah. Well, seeing our kids grow up also. - [Jennifer] It breaks my heart, really. - [Aaron] It feels like it's going way too fast. - [Jennifer] Why do they have to grow up every year? If they skipped a year, it'd be cool. - [Aaron] I actually think time is going by faster 'cause when I was kid, I remember time feeling like it was going so slow. - [Jennifer] Playing in the backyard for hours. - [Aaron] And then people say when you get older, time flies or goes faster. But we even asked our kids, and my son Elliott, he was like, "Dad, why does it feel like every day goes by so fast?" So my son-- - [Jennifer] Even feels that. - [Aaron] Is even feeling time go by fast, so I'm wondering if there's something to that. Maybe the earth is spinning faster or something like that, I don't know. - [Jennifer] There's still 24 hours in a day. - [Aaron] Yeah, just real quick, what is something you're looking forward to in 2020? I know that there's stuff around our house that you like to do. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so specifically this week, I'm really excited to prune our trees. When we moved into this house, it was kind of bare ground in the sense that we got to do whatever we wanted with it and we decided, on the side of our house, we had this space. I really wanted to plant a little mini orchard. So if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see pictures of it throughout the seasons. - [Aaron] We've got some apples, we've got some peaches. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and I've never been able, I've never really had the opportunity to cultivate fruit trees before. I really don't know what I'm doing, thank you YouTube and friends who share their information with me. But I've just learned kind of the art of pruning and I practice it, and January's my time to practice. And so this week I'm gonna get out there. I use pruning to shape the trees and also to keep them, to keep their form small because our backyard is small. - [Aaron] Yeah, we don't want them to get huge. We wanna keep them small trees. - [Jennifer] But also, though, pruning stimulates growth which is exciting, so it's kind of like-- - [Aaron] It's almost biblical. - [Jennifer] It is biblical, which I also love that whole thing about that. - [Aaron] Yeah, and you've been loving doing it. It's therapeutic for you. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so even in the summertime, I'm actually looking forward to January 'cause I think, oh I get to prune my trees again. - [Aaron] Yeah, and we also get to see the fruit that comes from it, literally. Like literally fruit grow on these trees. Something that I'm looking forward to doing this year, and I'm trying to do, I've already implemented it already. I bought a journal for each one of my kids and I'm gonna, we did this parenting class a couple months ago and I felt convicted that I'm not taking time to study my children. And that sounds intense, but I'm not taking time to just evaluate the things that they like, the things that they say, how they act. - [Jennifer] What they're going through. - [Aaron] What they're going through, yeah. Evaluating their spiritual, where they're at spiritually, where they're at in their heart and emotionally, and even physically. So I'm just, I don't know how exactly I'm gonna do it. I started doing it, I'm just writing notes down in a journal about each kid. - [Jennifer] But I have to, I was gonna say, I have to explain this whole, what happened, because you didn't tell me that you were gonna be doing this and he's unboxing these journals on the bed. And I didn't know they were journals at first. I just saw these different colors. - [Aaron] She's like, "What are you doing?" - [Jennifer] I'm all, "Are those Christmas presents?" 'cause this was just a couple weeks ago. And I thought they were a part of all the other gifts that were coming in from Amazon. And he goes, "Oh, they're journals for the kids "and each one," and he holds up the yellow one. And I'm like, "Is that for Wyatt?" and he goes, "Yup," 'cause yellow, Wyatt calls himself the yellow boy, yeah he likes yellow. And you got a pinkish purple one for Olive. - [Aaron] A blue one for Elliott. - [Jennifer] And I think a gray one for Truett. - [Aaron] Yeah, oh I think that's backwards. I think the gray one's for Elliott and blue one's for Truett. - [Jennifer] Okay. And so he's putting them on his shelf and he's like, "You know, I just, I really feel "like I need to study my kids," and my heart sank in a good way. It was such a beautiful picture of a dad's heart for his children and something I never even thought to do myself. - [Aaron] You do have a journal for the kids, though. - [Jennifer] I write to them, though. - [Aaron] You write them letters. - [Jennifer] I write them letters and prayers, and it's quarterly, so I don't do it all the time. But this is different. This is a way for you to get to know them in a very deep and personal way, and to keep your eyes on them. And I just, I was blown away by that. And so I'm really excited for you and jumping into this, even though I know you're still figuring out what it's gonna look like. - [Aaron] Yeah, and I'm not doing it every day. My intention originally was to do it every day. And I'm like, okay, I can't do that. - [Jennifer] We got a lot of kids. - [Aaron] Yeah, but when I think about it, I'm gonna pull them out and I'm gonna write down observations of my children in it. And so it's not necessarily for them, it's for me. But one day they'll probably read it and they'll learn a little bit about themselves, probably. Okay, cool. So I just wanna encourage everyone that's listening to download a free thing that we came up with for you guys. It's called "52 Date Night Conversation Starters". It's an e-book that we made for you. And the point of it was to inspire your date life. We have a whole episode talking about date nights and putting it on the calendar, and you should go check that out. We're real huge advocates for having a scheduled date night. - [Jennifer] We're also huge advocates for conversations and communicating well with your spouse, which is why we've combined these two. And we wanted to give you something that would stimulate those really good conversations during date night. - [Aaron] Yeah, so you go to DateNightConversations.com, all one word. And you can download it for free, just give us your email address and boom, you'll have that PDF. And what you do is you can print it out. And there's one for every week of the year. And so the encouragement is, hey go on a date every week. And what's awesome is that you're gonna have a conversation about something deep. Why don't you give some examples? - [Jennifer] I was gonna say, so that's your freebie. But here's your freebie. This is for everyone listening. We're gonna give you three sample questions that you could ask on the date night. This is what you would get if you were to sign up for this. So the first one is, I thank God for our life together because. - [Aaron] Dot, dot, dot. - [Jennifer] So you get to answer that. - [Aaron] Yeah, and then you spend the time, while you're eating or getting a dessert, or going for a walk or whatever, and talk about that question. - [Jennifer] So the next one is, is there any part of my work routine that is negatively impacting our marriage or our family? So I feel like this is a really good one to kind of evaluate, where are we at, what's going on, and what can I contribute to this by sharing my heart with you? - [Aaron] Right, and if work routine doesn't work in both roles, you could say routine. Is there anything during my day that I do regularly that maybe needs to be massaged, moved around, cut out all together? - [Jennifer] Yeah, and the recommendation is that you guys ask each other the same question. - [Aaron] Exactly. Number three is, if we envision ourselves in our 90s, sitting on the porch in matching rocking chairs, if you would look over at me and say, "I wish we," - [Jennifer] Dot, dot, dot. - [Aaron] Yeah, so it's this idea that, why don't you transport yourself to 90 years from now, or when you're 90, and then ask yourself what you would have been doing today. That's kind of the idea. But these are fun, creative, there's 52 of them. This is just three of the 52. So we wanna encourage you to go get that DateNightConversations.com. Completely free, go download that. - [Jennifer] All right, today's topic is unique gift ideas for him and her on Valentine's Day. And the reason we wanted to bring this up is 'cause in just a few weeks, everyone around the world is gonna be celebrating Valentine's Day. Not everyone, but you know, a lot of people. - [Aaron] Not in some countries. I don't even know who celebrates it, but, lots of people. - [Jennifer] My point is this, it's gonna be in our faces. It's gonna be everywhere. And we just thought we'd give it some thought beforehand because if you're like Aaron and I, getting inspired is key for gift giving in marriage. - [Aaron] Yeah, and can I be a little honest about my disposition towards Valentine's Day? - [Jennifer] Quickly, go. - [Aaron] Okay, I'm just gonna be quick. - [Jennifer] Hold on, let me cover my ears. - [Aaron] I'm not a huge fan of feeling obligated to give gifts, and I feel like sometimes certain holidays do that. That's not to say if you love doing this, and you love the holiday, don't listen to me. But if you're kinda like me, then don't feel like this podcast is for you, necessarily. Or maybe it might inspire you and you won't feel like I feel sometimes. I'm just being honest, sometimes I feel. But I've had to, I've been challenged by people in my life to not take it as an obligation, but take it as an opportunity. - [Jennifer] Opportunity, I like that. Also, I just wanna encourage those of you who are listening and maybe you're not married yet, that you can use these gift ideas for a significant other in your life. Maybe you're dating or-- - [Aaron] Or a family member, maybe. - [Jennifer] Or a fiance. - [Aaron] Or a friend that's also single with you. That's a good idea. - [Jennifer] Okay, so gift giving is actually an art. I think it is. I don't think I'm very good at it. - [Aaron] Some people are gifted at it, for sure. - [Jennifer] When I think about how I give gifts, sometimes I'm so embarrassed because my wrapping skills are off the charts terrible. - [Aaron] Your rapping skills, like rhymes, or wrapping? - [Jennifer] No, like wrapping paper. - [Aaron] But that sometimes makes the gift even better, the way you wrap it. - [Jennifer] I always opt for the bag and tissue 'cause I don't like, I can make it look cool without having to do much work. - [Aaron] Yeah, and it is an art form. Some people are really gifted at it naturally. They're just so thoughtful in the way that they give gifts. And some of us aren't that way. So sometimes we just need to be inspired with ideas. That's kinda the point of this podcast. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so Aaron and I, why don't we just share a little bit of our experience of giving gifts in marriage and what that journey's been like. - [Aaron] I've tried to be really creative over the years, and some of them hit big, some of them flopped. And it's not necessarily that you didn't like the gifts, they're just, they're different, the way that they are received and the intention behind it versus how it actually turns out. - [Jennifer] Yeah, I'd also say it depends on what's going on in that season of life that that gift is given because one of the things I'm gonna share later, I'll point it out later 'cause I don't wanna give it away yet, but it was very significant to the season of life I was in. It stood out to me more. - [Aaron] And we've done all sorts of things. Sometimes we don't give gifts on certain days. Sometimes we do experiences, we do things together. - [Jennifer] Sometimes we just look over at each other when the time is coming and we go, "We're not doing gifts, right?" - [Aaron] And we're like, "No, no gifts. "Promise me you're not gonna." - [Jennifer] If we're on the same page, it's good. If we're not on the same page or haven't talked about it, then feelings-- - [Aaron] Remember, conversations. We talk about these things. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say, there have been times where I've felt a little neglected or left out. I don't know if you ever have, but sometimes you look at an opportunity and maybe you didn't get something you expected to get or desired to get. - [Aaron] Yeah, and we weren't gonna talk about this, but I do wanna just encourage anyone that, a day like Valentine's Day shouldn't be an opportunity for us to feel neglected. - [Jennifer] Or hurt. - [Aaron] Or hurt. Let's not let it turn into that. If it goes the other way and it's an opportunity to bless and love, and to enjoy a moment together and time together, but let's not let it do the other thing. Let's be above that as Christians. - [Jennifer] 'Cause it comes out in our responses. - [Aaron] It does. And we make expectations and criteria that don't necessarily need to be there and we can put burdens and obligations on our spouse or on our fiance that doesn't need to be there. So let's be above that. Let's take the opportunity to maybe use it as an opportunity to bless and love your spouse. But let's not let it do the opposite. - [Jennifer] That's good. And I just wanna make a note that our ability, Aaron, to give gifts to each other has really grown over time because as we get to know each other more, 'cause we're always getting to know each other. And we recognize the things that inspire us or things that we're learning about and we give gifts based off of those things. It's been really thoughtful. - [Aaron] Thank you. - [Jennifer] And then other times, just the thoughtfulness of bringing your spouse their favorite candy. Sometimes even those moments can stand out because they're like, "They know me." That feels good to be known in that way. - [Aaron] And you've done that, you know I like candy. I don't eat it all the time, but. - [Jennifer] Aaron's an easy gift receiver. - [Aaron] I'm easy to shop for, I would say. 'Cause I don't ask for much, just candy. - [Jennifer] Just candy. - [Aaron] Good & Plentys, to be specific, so if anyone out there wants to get me candy, or Hot Tamales. Okay, I just wanna do one quick note before another quick note. - [Jennifer] How many quick notes do we got? - [Aaron] Lots of quick notes. We don't want this to, we're not gonna try to over spiritualize this. We didn't grab a bunch of scriptures to be like, "See how powerful gift giving can be?" To be honest, we just wanted to have fun with this and give you some gift ideas. And I think it'd be wrong of us to try and turn this into a overly spiritual, here's the rules on how to give gifts. We just wanted to give you some ideas, things that we've loved, things that we've used. And you can take them or leave them. I think it'll just be a simple fun episode. - [Jennifer] Another quick note is that if you're trying to get out of debt, we suggest skipping gifts for a while. Instead, find free ways to bless each other and show your spouse you're thinking of them. And I'll just give you a handful right here. DIY gifts with materials you already have. Using a talent like drawing, I did this before. I think it was for Christmas. I drew you a picture of us kissing. And it was a really small five by seven, I framed it, it was cute. - [Aaron] I think we have it somewhere still. - [Jennifer] Yeah, I do, it's in the mudroom. - [Aaron] Oh yeah, oh yeah. - [Jennifer] I cherish it. - [Aaron] No it's just somewhere I don't ever see. But I like it. Yeah, writing a note, a song, a poem. Those things have deep meaning. But again, the reason I wanted to bring this up is because I don't want anyone to think that we're advocating you should go spend money you don't have. Or that you should spend money when you're trying to get out of debt. Valentine's Day is just another day. It might be an opportunity to give a gift, but you don't have to. - [Jennifer] We're actually bigger advocates for getting out debt than we are to give gifts. - [Aaron] That's the best gift. - [Jennifer] Get out of debt. - [Aaron] Spouses get out of debt, yeah. So yeah, and real quick, some of our favorite gifts we've received, my favorite thing that I pretty much received is whenever Jennifer has done some sort of special event with me. Either planning a birthday party, which she's done a couple times, or planned a guy's hangout time. She's like, "Hey, I've already set it up. "Here's your friends. "You guys are going here, go hang out, go have fun." Those kinds of things have been really special for me. She knows that I love being around people. - [Jennifer] He's so social, you guys. - [Aaron] And Jennifer would love to sit on the couch with me and not do anything. So for her to set something up like that, which makes her not be with me, and gives me time to go be with friends is a huge thing for me. And so those have always been really special to me. And what's been special to you, gifts that we've given? - [Jennifer] Well the first thing that comes to my mind is all my children, each one of them are a gift. - [Aaron] You're right. - [Jennifer] Do you love me for that? - [Aaron] Couldn't have done it without me. - [Jennifer] Okay, so the gift that I was thinking about earlier that was very significant to my season of life and it just stands out to me, was Mother's Day 2015. It was just a couple, maybe a week and a half after I had Olive, and there was a little bag sitting on the table for me for Mother's Day. And I opened it up and it was a pendant with an O on it for Olive to match my E that I had for Elliott. So it was one of those-- - [Aaron] You have a necklace that has, you put little letter pendants on it. - [Jennifer] And it was so thoughtful. It was something I hadn't asked for, which I think that would be my big thing. Is when you give me a surprise or a gift of something that I never requested or asked for, but you know me and you did it because you love me. Those are the kinds of gifts that really stand out to me. Those are my favorite. - [Aaron] And I know that about you. - [Jennifer] That's good. - [Aaron] That you, here's a little quick tip for all the husbands. Just listen to your wife and she'll tell you what she wants throughout the year and you just write them all down and then pick one of them. And they'll be surprised 'cause they'll forget that they said it, but you won't. - [Jennifer] But it won't sound like a request. It'll just be like a nonchalant, "Oh I really like this." Or, "I really love that." - [Aaron] "And I wish I had a--" Or, "I've always wanted one of those." That's how they come out. - [Jennifer] We try and be subtle. - [Aaron] All right, hey let's just get into some of these gift ideas. We're first gonna give ideas for the men. - [Jennifer] So all the men have to close their ears, right? - [Aaron] No. Or they could listen. - [Jennifer] Sorry guys, this is kinda like giving it away but not. - [Aaron] So these are all things that I use and have really enjoyed. They're not necessarily gifts that Jennifer's gotten for me, but I'm putting them out there as, hey this would be great because I've loved them and I think other men would love them. I'm gonna start off with my ESV Heirloom Study Bible. It's made out of goat skin, it's all black, it's huge. I love it, I never thought I'd love this big of a bible, but I really love it. And it's pricey, right now it's on Amazon for 217 bucks, where it's usually $375, so it's actually like a hundred bucks off, over a hundred bucks off. - [Jennifer] Also just a quick side note that these prices could change, depending on when you're listening to this episode. If you're not listening to it at the weekly launch, prices can change. - [Aaron] Yeah, we have no clue. I have no control over the price. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and this goes for everything that we list. - [Aaron] Yeah, I also wanna give a note, we're not being sponsored by any of these people. These are things that we actually have used and loved and enjoyed. I love this bible. It's got 20,000 plus study notes in it. It's got 80,000 plus cross references. Over 200 charts, 50 plus articles, and 240 full color maps and illustrations which I really love because they'll show you an illustration of the temple right in the middle of a chapter when it's talking about a temple. So you get this picture, and you're like whoa, and you see the temple, and it visualizes what you're reading. - [Jennifer] There's something else it has that you've left off and I just know this because I like this feature about your bible. The different ribbon. - [Aaron] It's got four ribbons. - [Jennifer] Instead of just one. - [Aaron] And I use them, actually. When I teach at church, I have all the ribbons in the spots that I'm trying to jump to. - [Jennifer] And it's really great because sometimes I don't want to move my ribbon because I want it there for a reason, but I wish I had another one, so I end up sticking a napkin or something. - [Aaron] Yeah, something in there. - [Jennifer] Something, whatever's closest to me, a business card, so I like that feature. - [Aaron] Yeah, it's ESV, I love the ESV translation. It's an amazing bible, it's beautiful too, when you look at it. I know it's expensive, but I wanted to put a note out there. We spend money on lots of other less important things. Why not spend some money on an heirloom family bible that you're gonna hand down to your kids? Just a thought. The second thing is a wallet. Not any wallet, this is a special wallet. It's by a company called Saddleback Leather. And it's awesome. I've had this wallet since 2014. - [Jennifer] Just to clarify, it's not a dad wallet. So a dad wallet is about five-- - [Aaron] It's not this 14 inch dad wallet. - [Jennifer] That has everything. But it's more compact and it's simple, and it's perfect. - [Aaron] It's made out of genuine leather. It's hand stitched. This thing's beautiful. Saddleback Leather has what they call a hundred year warranty. It's like a lifetime warranty, but it's way better 'cause it's called a hundred year warranty. If anything happens, if the threading comes off, if the leather starts to tear, they'll replace it, no questions asked. - [Jennifer] And it's not the kind that folds open. What you have is just a single kind of billfold. - [Aaron] Yeah, they call it a front pocket wallet. It's a single thing and it's got these slots. And it's got an open pocket for the ID. And so it doesn't fold open. It literally just stays really compact, really small. And it lasts forever. I've had this since 2014. It's got a few, it's really worn down, really nice and soft. I love this wallet. It keeps me from having too much stuff in my wallet, as well because it only can hold so much. I wish you could see it. I'm holding it right now in my hands. Go check it out though, go to SaddlebackLeather.com, SaddlebackLeather.com, and check it out. It's 49 bucks, it's super cheap actually, 'cause I've seen prices on other wallets and they're really expensive. But for how long this lasts, for the quality of it, for how it feels, for how small it is, I think it's an awesome gift idea for any guy. Unless you're the kind of guy that loves their super thick wallet. Number three, and this goes back to, remember we were talking about the journals I bought to write in for my kids. This is by a company called Baron Fig. Baron, B-A-R-O-N F-I-G, Baron Fig. And they're called the confident hardcover notebook. And these notebooks, they did a lot of research on what people are looking for in a notebook. It lays flat, the way the paper feels, the thickness of the paper, the way the pens write on the paper. Everything about it has been manufactured to fit perfectly what you would want in a journal. - [Jennifer] And you've been using them for years. - [Aaron] For years, when I buy a journal, I buy one of theirs. They range from $12 to 22 bucks. Their standard size one, I think it's like $17 or $14. It's not expensive at all. And they ship really fast. They've got 100 and something pages in it. They're just great journals. I use them all the time, I have a couple in my desk right here. Their largest one, I use as my bible study journal and they lay perfectly flat. You just open it up, it lays flat on the table. It doesn't have to, the pages don't bend or anything like that. It's called Baron Fig confident hardcover notebook. Those are awesome. And those are all the journals I bought to write for my kids in it. Number four, this is a little bit more pricey of an item, but-- - [Jennifer] Like much more pricier. - [Aaron] It's much more pricey, but man, this has got some major benefits to your wife. - [Jennifer] It's true. - [Aaron] So wives that are listening, it's not just a gift for your husband. This is a gift for you and you'll see why. It's my Traeger smoker, it's a grill where you can smoke pretty much anything you want on it. And how often do you think I use my smoker? - [Jennifer] At least once, but even sometimes up to three times a week. It just depends on what it's for, what's going on. - [Aaron] Pretty much every Sunday, I bring something smoked to church. I smoke a tri tip, or a brisket. That's kind of something I love to bring to church for our after church potluck. And so my church benefits from it even, too. I'm selling this pretty hard. I love my smoker. But they range from anywhere from 400 to $900, a smoker grill. - [Jennifer] And Traeger's just one brand. - [Aaron] Trager's one brand, they're not the cheapest brand but they're super high quality. It's the one I have. But there's tons of other brands. There's one called Green Mountain. They have pretty affordable models. They're a great brand. Another one is Pit Boss. Camp Chef is one of the top of the line brands that are out there. And then while doing my research on this, there's a really affordable brand called Z Grills and yeah, you should expect to pay between 400 and $900. But man, we get a lot of use out of this thing. I use it all the time. There's nights that Jennifer's like, "Are you gonna be--" - [Jennifer] What sides should I make? - [Aaron] Yeah, "What sides am I making, "'cause you're smoking some pork." Or we're smoking some chicken, we use it all the time. And the flavor you get in the meat is just so good. Anyways, I love my smoker. I couldn't not bring it up because of how much I love it. And how useful it's been to the family, to the church, to giving you breaks for dinners. It's just been amazing. - [Jennifer] Would you recommend a wife just picking one out for her husband, or more of like a certificate of I wanna get this for you, let's talk about it. - [Aaron] That's a good point. To be honest, I think they should just, when it comes to these kinds of purchases, you absolutely should discuss it. - [Jennifer] That's what I was thinking. - [Aaron] That's a big purchase. 'Cause either he's gonna have a preference for the kind, the brand. - [Jennifer] But you can still do something cute like put a little note or certificate in a box and say this is for you. - [Aaron] Buy him some tongs, like a-- - [Jennifer] Oh, a barbecue kit. - [Aaron] That way he's like, "Wait, what's this for?" And you're like, "For the smoker you're gonna get. "We have to talk about it 'cause it's expensive." But yeah, you should always talk about a purchase like this, just with how expensive it is. Never just do it. - [Jennifer] And get them what they want and not just pick something because of the expense. - [Aaron] And then the last gift idea. It's a new thing that I've-- - [Jennifer] This was a gift to yourself, actually. - [Aaron] I did give this to myself this year. It's called the Ember self-heating coffee mug. And I drink coffee every day, I love coffee. - [Jennifer] Multiple times a day. - [Aaron] Multiple times a day. Well that's often because my coffee goes cold and I have to go in and get a new cup. This coffee mug, it's got a heating plate built into it. And it has an iPhone app. It literally keeps the coffee at the exact temperature you want until you're done drinking the coffee. - [Jennifer] This is for all those coffee lovers out there. - [Aaron] Oh yeah. - [Jennifer] I guess tea would work, too. - [Aaron] Yeah, and these range from 75 to a hundred bucks. They have different sizes. They have an older model that you can get that's even cheaper. You can probably even find them used on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. But it comes with a little charging plate. They can last up to 80 minutes, a charge, which is like an hour and some. And if you have it on the charging plate, it lasts all day. - [Jennifer] I feel like this would be a great gift for moms too, 'cause I feel like moms are probably constantly reheating their coffee. - [Aaron] Well, there's a ton wives out there that love coffee and they'd probably really enjoy one of these. - [Jennifer] Maybe like a matching set? - [Aaron] Yeah, they have a gold one, a white one, a black one, they have all these different colors. But I've really loved it. Keeps my coffee hot. It's super practical. I love gifts that are useful. That it's not just a trinket. - [Jennifer] It's gonna make my life better. - [Aaron] It's gonna make my life better. I'm gonna use it on a daily basis. At the end of the day, if it every breaks or falls apart, or I lose it, I'm gonna miss it. I'm gonna be like, where's that thing at? I want that back in my life. So my Traeger, my coffee mug, these kinds of things. My wallet, when I was writing this list down, I was like, "What things do I use all the time?" And these are all those, so. - [Jennifer] All right, my turn. Women close your ears, no just kidding. I just have to make a note that we just hope that this episode brings inspiration to the way you give gifts and especially if you're just in a place where you want to give a gift, especially for Valentine's Day, but maybe you don't know what to give. So hopefully this is sparking some creative juices flowing. - [Aaron] Yeah, the two words I would think of is meaningful and useful. Is that right? That's kinda what these are. - [Jennifer] All right, so for her, gentlemen. The first thing that I wanted to share was something called a growth book. And it's similar to the journal that Aaron mentioned, the Baron Fig journal. I would say-- - [Aaron] But way more useful. - [Jennifer] Well I would say the quality is up there with it. It also is, it's like a journal. But, instead of lines, it's dots. And so it's actually really useful because you can use it for multiple things. - [Aaron] You can draw in it. - [Jennifer] You can draw in it. You can do calendar stuff or scheduling. You can journal in it. I use it for journaling my time with the Lord. I use it for taking notes during the parenting class that we took. I take it for goal setting, things that Aaron and I are aiming for. - [Aaron] You keep yourself on track, too, with a little bit of homeschool stuff, don't you? - [Jennifer] Yep. So, it's just a really, really awesome way to kind of detail your life and what you're working on. - [Aaron] I wanna note, one of the coolest things I thought about these is, doesn't it come with a sticker pack for you to label things? - [Jennifer] So it comes separately. So the growth book itself, which you can find at GrowthRootsCo.com, the book itself is $32. The stickers that accompany it is $2 extra. So all together, you're talking about $34. And honestly, I've never liked something so much that I use on a daily basis. - [Aaron] She's holding it right now and it's full. - [Jennifer] And it's beautiful. They come in different colors. It's got the cloth feature for the cover. And then you open it up and the first thing you'll notice is it says volume, with a line and a date. - [Aaron] So when did you start this and what volume is it. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so this is my, my growth book is volume one from 2019. - [Aaron] You started in September, looks like. - [Jennifer] And I started in September. But I've been using and I'm about three quarters of the way through it. So it's got a lot of pages, and it has other special features. So, in the very back, which I love, it has all the books of the bible with all the chapters and you can cross them off as you read them. So if you're doing a bible plan. - [Aaron] Yeah, keep track of where you are in the bible. - [Jennifer] It has a spot for prayers that you're praying through and ways that God has answered and when. Books that you're currently reading, or a list that you can put together. So it just has a lot of features to it that I really love and I think it would be a great, a great gift but also it's a growth gift. It's like you're encouraging your wife in something that she's probably either already doing or working on, and you're just saying, "Here, why don't you record it?" - [Aaron] Yeah, I wanna support you in this. - [Jennifer] So along with that is my number two, and it's these colored pens that I got that a friend recommended. And they're just on Amazon. They're by Tao Tree, T-A-O T-R-E-E. But they're fine liner color pens and they come with 24 different colors. They're super fun. I use them specifically for journaling in my journal. They're 11.99, so a super cheap gift if you wanna combine those two, it'd be a fun little. - [Aaron] And you use those a lot. You use the different colors for different types of notes. It helps you organize what you're writing. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so that's my number one gift right now, is that-- - [Aaron] Growth book. - [Jennifer] And that's by GrowthRootsCo.com, so you can get that there. And then the colored pens are at Amazon. Okay, now my number three. Aaron mentioned his favorite ESV bible. I'm gonna share mine. It's the journal bible that is about eight and a half inches tall and it's almost square, it's not quite square. But the cover of it is really beautiful. It's this linen print that is yellow, mustard yellow, and flowers, it's just so beautiful. And I use it every day. And it has, what I love about it, is it has a margin on the side, a ruled margin, so you can write notes. I use it, I love reading through the bible. And when I get to one of those notes from two years ago and it was me in labor with Wyatt, or whatever, and just looking back on prayer requests or things that I've mentioned next to whatever it was that I was reading at that moment. So it's kind of like you said, it's a heirloom, a family heirloom. - [Aaron] And it's single column, also right, so on each page is one column of text. And what's nice about that is I believe that the lines actually coincide with the lines on the text, pretty close. And so you could actually have notes that are directly, line by line if you wanted to. It's a really pretty bible. I've always liked it. - [Jennifer] And it's available, also-- - [Aaron] It's hardcover, too. - [Jennifer] On Amazon. - [Aaron] It's a hard, nice-- - [Jennifer] It's a hard, solid bible. And it's just a pretty bible, so you wanna keep it out. - [Aaron] It's really pretty. - [Jennifer] And that runs about 33.99 on Amazon. - [Aaron] Which is not expensive at all, for a bible. It's great. - [Jennifer] Okay, my number four is Made by Mary, and I talked about this stamped pendant necklace earlier. They are just a really great company, MadeByMary.com. And they have something new out, which actually I really am fascinated by. It's called a birth flower pendant. And so you can go on there, and depending on what month you were born in, or if you were gonna get one for your daughter, you just order the month, and it comes with that specific month's flower. They're beautiful. - [Aaron] Every month has its own flower? - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] I didn't know that. - [Jennifer] Yeah, they're really cool. But they also do birthstones and you can get, you can order either a bar or a circle, or whatever shape you want, and they stamp whatever it is you want. So currently, what I have is a single circle with an initial of each of my kids, so E for Elliott, O for Olive, W for Wyatt. - [Aaron] And when you say currently, that's a hint. - [Jennifer] No. - [Aaron] At what's coming next. - [Jennifer] No, it was because the one that I mentioned earlier, I was doing individual pendents, like circles with individual letters. - [Aaron] And you were getting-- - [Jennifer] It was heavy. - [Aaron] It was 24 circles on the necklace and it's getting real heavy. - [Jennifer] It was getting heavy, so I switched to a single circle with each of them stamped on there. But Made By Mary, just really beautiful jewelry on there. And they range-- - [Aaron] Super meaningful, too. - [Jennifer] Super meaningful, but they range in price. And I'll just say it's about $38 for one of those pieces of jewelry. The last thing that I will mention and it's one of my all time favorites gifts, and it's from a local spa. And it's just going to get a massage. It's time alone. Or a couples massage. But it's that time that you get to feel rejuvenated and relax, and-- - [Aaron] And usually they're rare, so they're really special. - [Jennifer] So this would be my pricey gift. Aaron had a really pricey gift. This one would probably range between 65 and 250 to $300 because it depends on what service you get and where you're getting it done. - [Aaron] And my gift was the gift that kept giving, though. No, I think that's a great gift idea, is the occasional local spa. - [Jennifer] Yeah, just go spoil yourself. - [Aaron] Yeah, just letting your wife go and have a couple hours to herself, getting pampered and loved on, and massaged, it's nice. - [Jennifer] A great thing about that kind of gift, we talked about giving a certificate to your husband for his grill, but this would be the same kind of thing where you give a certificate and then she can make her own time to go do that and make sure that she's able to really enjoy that time. - [Aaron] Or secretly in passing be like, "Man, I wish there was really good spas around here." And then your wife would be like, "There is, the best one's down the street." And you'd be like, "Oh, that's interesting." And then just keep that note hidden away and then you just get her a little gift certificate. So we wanted to give you those five gift ideas each. We hope they inspired you and maybe even sparked another idea for you, which is awesome. But, we wanted to give you a couple bonus ideas, and these are more gifts that would bless both of you in your marriage, in your parenting. And the first one is we wanna share with you, some good friends of ours launched an online course called "Courageous Parenting" and it's an online program and you take it together. And there's videos, and there's questions, and it's a whole thing to help you grow in your godly parenting with your children. We all need this, Jennifer and I, when we talk about the parenting class, this is exactly what we did. - [Jennifer] We just got to walk through it with them in person. - [Aaron] Yeah, we're blessed to do it with them in person because they're a part of our church. But their program is called "The Courageous Parenting Program" and you can get that at CourageousParenting.com. - [Jennifer] Now it is a little bit pricey. It's 399 per couple, so that's why we're recommending it as a gift, it's a huge investment, both financially, but also mentally and spiritually. - [Aaron] It's actually cheap when you consider the lifelong lessons you're gonna learn from it based off of parenting your children. - [Jennifer] And we're saying this because we're sitting here right now, having just gone through the course and we're going, "Wow, we have some stuff ahead of us "that we're working on and working towards, "and we're so grateful for the information "that we got from them." And so this would be a really great opportunity for you guys to do something together that's going to, like Aaron said, just be an investment for your whole family. - [Aaron] Studying my children, that concept, came from "Courageous Parenting". They were teaching about that and it convicted me. I was like, I'm gonna study my kids. - [Jennifer] So another option, bonus, that would benefit both of you guys-- - [Aaron] Shameless plug, enter now. - [Jennifer] It's our devotional. So it's "Husband After God" and "Wife After God". - [Aaron] You can get those at Shop.MarriageAfterGod.com. They're 30-day devotionals and you do them together, or separately, and then you can come together and talk about them. But there's a husband one, and it walks through specific things for the husband and his role. There's a wife one, talks about specific things that a wife and her role. And then there's questions, there's journaling pages, there's scripture. Man, thousands, and thousands, and thousands of couples have gone through this devotional together. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and it's about $32 for the bundle on our site, which is a really reasonable gift, especially when you think about it being a together gift. - [Aaron] Husbands, this is a great gift to just go and get. - [Jennifer] Yeah, just go get one right now. - [Aaron] And your wife will probably hug you for it. I'm not kidding, you should do this. - [Jennifer] Okay, and this is a great way to cultivate intimacy and communication, and just invest in your marriage in this way. - [Aaron] Okay, the last one that we wanna say, this is for both of you, is Jennifer and I went to one of these years ago and we loved it. It was pretty amazing, we still advocate for them. It's called "Weekend 2 Remember" by Family Life. You can find out about it by going to FamilyLife.com/Weekend-2-Remember. You can also just go to FamilyLife.com. I'm sure they have a huge graphic for it because it's one of the biggest things they do. It's helped save countless marriages. - [Jennifer] So what they do is there events held throughout the year, nationwide. And so you have to go on their website to find out which one is nearest to you. Or if you wanna get-- - [Aaron] And there's probably gonna be one near you. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say, or if you wanna make it a road getaway and go somewhere, you could do that too. But they're hosted at hotels and it's literally a weekend. So you go and you spend the night. And they have sessions. - [Aaron] No kids allowed. - [Jennifer] It's beautiful. It's such a great time to really intentionally focus on your marriage and what God desires for your marriage, and what his purpose is for your marriage. And Aaron, we did it coming out of a season of darkness and hardship. - [Aaron] It really helped us. - [Jennifer] It was reconciling for us. I remember just sitting there, holding your hand, going, "This is exactly what we needed." So we've always been an advocate for "Weekend 2 Remembers" and chances are, there's one very close to you. So they range about 175 per person, which again, this is an investment, but you're talking about your marriage and it would be a great gift opportunity for both of you to sit down and really consider getting away for the weekend to do something like this. - [Aaron] Hey, we hope you enjoyed these ideas. And if you have more ideas, would you share them on our social media so that other people can see them? Just post about it in your stories and tag @MarriageAfterGod, or on Facebook just tag us. People are always looking for ideas. We all need some inspiration sometimes, everyone of us. Well, we thank you for joining us. We're gonna close in prayer, and then yeah. So let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for being the ultimate gift giver. Thank you for the gift of marriage. We pray our hearts would be pure in the way we give gifts to each other. We pray we would be thoughtful in the ways we give to each other. Help us to study and know our spouse well enough to give them gifts we know they will love. More than giving good gifts, we pray our love would be genuine, and deep, and extraordinary, as we purpose intimacy with each other. Grow our love for one another. In Jesus' name, amen. We just wanna thank you for joining us this week on this episode. If you haven't left us a review yet, would you please do that? Your reviews are incredibly powerful at spreading the news about this podcast. It helps other people to find it. It encourages our hearts. And it helps other people know what to expect in the podcast. So leave us a star rating and a review today. We greatly appreciate it. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Having a mission statement for your family isn't required but it can be very beneficial for creating and maintaining the culture of your home. Jennifer and I have never created a mission statement before so we thought we would make one while you listen. If you have been blessed by the Marriage After God podcast please consider supporting it by picking up a copy of our book titled Marriage After God. https://marrigeaftergod.com 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 do something fun and we're gonna talk about creating a family mission statement. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just "Happily Ever After". [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as "Unveiled Wife". [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as "Husband Revolution". [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years, through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God". Firstly, we want to just thank everyone for joining us on this podcast today. We're super excited just to have you join us 'cause this is gonna be an interesting episode. We have a lot in store for you, but first we just wanna ask that you would take a minute to leave us a review. It's easy, you just scroll to the bottom of the app and just leave us a star rating review or comment review. This is one way to support the podcast "Marriage After God" because it allows other people to find the podcast, and we wanna do that. So, please take a moment to help us out there and thank you. [Aaron] Also, our book's out. Our new book, "Marriage After God", is available. It's been such and awesome ride seeing the response we've been getting, and if you have not picked up a copy yet, we'd love for you to go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, and pick up a copy today. One of the most powerful ways you can support us, is by buying our book, and it also supports your marriage and your life. We wrote the book for you. We wrote it to encourage you in the ministry that God has for you and your spouse, so go grab a copy today. [Jennifer] Okay, so we are going to start off here with an ice-breaker question, and Aaron came up with this question, so I'm hoping he has an answer. What is the ideal family trip or vacation? [Aaron] I actually didn't think about it when I said it, so I don't have... Okay, let me think. Ideal family trip. So, I can look back on something we have done that I really enjoyed, when we went to the East Coast, but we did like a plane-drive, plane-drive. [Jennifer] It was over a period of a week and a half, two weeks. [Aaron] Yeah, and I thought that was a lot of fun 'cause we got to fly the portions that I thought would've been boring, maybe. Get to a new area and then drive around, stay for a day or two, go to the next place-- [Jennifer] And here, you said, "Ideal family trip". That doesn't sound ideal for any family. [Aaron] For me! Oh, are you saying ideal for everyone? [Jennifer] Yeah, I don't know if that was your question, but I'm just thinking everyone listening right now is probably shaking their heads, no. [Aaron] I thought that was a fun trip for us. [Jennifer] I think the majority of families, especially with young children, would say flying and driving multiple times in one trip would be a difficult challenge. [Aaron] Okay, I didn't know it "ideal for everyone". Ideal for everyone would be like, going somewhere awesome and staying there for a while. Like, with a house that's comfortable and you have all your family with you, and there's a pool or a beach. [Jennifer] Where would that place be, Aaron? [Aaron] Maui? I don't know. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] What's ideal for you? What would that be? [Jennifer] So, I think you and me just like adventure because I really had fun that time too, that we went to the East Coast, but I think an ideal family trip is visiting family in California. I think that's just because I know it's something the kids enjoy. We usually hit up the beach. We stay there all day. [Aaron] Yeah, that is fun. [Jennifer] I think it's just an easy, kind of, go-to is when you're visiting family somewhere, you're staying with them, and you're just doing something simple. [Aaron] All right, that's good answer. [Jennifer] Relaxing. [Aaron] I'm sure everyone listening has their own ideal. Like, staying home. Eating ice cream, that sounds ideal. [Jennifer] Now that it's summertime, I'm sure there's a lot of people traveling and doing, you know, maybe family vacations or summer trips. [Aaron] Camping. So, we hope you guys are, and we hope that if you can spend that time with your family and doing something fun, even if it's local, like camping in the backyard, you're doing it, 'cause those are memories that your kids will love forever. [Aaron] Oh yeah. So, I just wanna, before we get into the main topic, I'm gonna read a quote from the book "Marriage After God", and it's about this idea. It's from Chapter 13 of "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] About what idea? Just that you clarify. [Aaron] Yeah, it's about the idea of creating a vision statement or mission statement for your marriage. It says this, "Casting a vision together for the future "of your marriage is an intimate experience "where hope for the future "stimulates perseverance for today." What's awesome about that is, when we create a vision for the future, it doesn't mean we're necessarily planning to the "T" everything that's going to happen in the future, it's just saying like, "This is where we'd like to be." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] "This is what, you know, "the trajectory we want to be on as a family." It helps in those moments when it's tedious; when it's hard; when you're going through something and you say, "Well, we're in this together. "We're going the same direction. "We know where we wanna be, and even if we never get "to that exact point in time, or ideal situation, "we're going there together." [Jennifer] Yeah, and in Chapter 13 of "Marriage After God" we really, you know, drive home this idea that this is an intimate experience that you guys get to do together, and it's something to look forward to casting a vision together and having hope for your marriage and hope for your future together and for your family. This is something that we've kept as a valuable thing in our marriage for years, and I enjoy it. I enjoy the process with you, and so even though in "Marriage After God" we don't strictly talk about creating a family mission statement, we do talk about casting a vision together. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] And in the back of "Marriage After God" we even list some questions for you to sit down and have one of those date-night conversations and be mindful of the next five years, the next 25 years and what that looks like, because when we look to the future of things, there is hope there. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I think that's important. [Aaron] And we have, like you said, we've always cast vision, planned for the next 60 days, next six months, next year, five years. [Jennifer] We kinda do seasons. [Aaron] We do seasons of that, but we've never sat down and actually wrote down a family vision statement. [Jennifer] Yeah, so even thought we kind of operate out of this same understanding, we've never sat down to do it, and it was actually because of the "Marriage After God" podcast series, which if you guys haven't checked that out, we've been going through-- [Aaron] Yeah just-- [Jennifer] Yeah, 16, 17 episodes about this idea of 'Marriage After God' but several people who we interviewed brought up this idea of creating a family mission statement, and how it has impacted their marriage. I know people share about it online too. So, we just kinda wanted to use this time to, first, encourage you guys in your marriage. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] Encourage you guys to have hope for the future as you vision plan together, but even more so create a family mission statement. That's our challenge for you at the end of this episode and because Aaron and I have never officially done this before or wrote it down, we thought it would be fun to-- [Aaron] We're gonna do it with you. [Jennifer] Do it with you, so-- [Aaron] We're just gonna start talkin' about it in this podcast episode, and we're gonna start coming up with kinda the foundational ideas for our own mission statement. [Jennifer] This was an idea that I had after having those interviews and being encouraged by people because I thought, "So often we hear people say, "'We did this thing. "'We created this family mission statement "'and here it is, or it's still a work in progress.'" [Aaron] That sounds wonderful. Good for them. [Jennifer] That's awesome, but where's the example of doing it? Which I don't know if everybody needs an example of that but sometimes it's helpful to go, what does that actually look like in a conversation? [Aaron] Yeah, how do you have that conversation with you spouse? I feel like every time a couple that we interviewed brought it up, we looked at each other and we're like, "We need to do that!" We wave our hands like, yeah, we just need to do that. [Jennifer] So, the unique part of this episode today is actually that we're gonna be jumping in here in a bit to kind of experience it with you guys. This is like a behind the scenes kind of-- [Aaron] We have not talked about this before recording this. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, you'll hear the candid conversation about how we see our family, where we see we're gonna go, yeah. So, you're gonna join us on this little adventure with us. [Jennifer] Okay, so-- [Aaron] Before we start, why don't you read that quote from "Seven Habits of a Highly Effective Family" by Stephen Covey. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] 'Cause it's in his whole book about creating a mission statement. [Jennifer] So, I will let you guys know that we actually haven't read this book, but I just jumped on really quick and I typed in Google and said, "family mission statement". [Aaron] This is a part of the process. [Jennifer] Yeah, I encourage you guys to do that too. So, we haven't read this book. We probably will in the future, but there was several people who were quoting this from his book, and it says, "A family mission statement "is a combined unified expression from all family members "of what your family is all about, "what it is you really want to do and be, "and the principles you choose to govern your family life." [Aaron] That's cool, and that's essentially what we're doing. We're not doing it with our kids this time. Our kids are, I think, too young. They'll eventually get older and then what we'll do is we'll probably sit down with them and invite them in and we'll adjust 'cause maybe our kids will have other perspectives they wanna bring in. I know that we have families that they have large families, lots of kids, and they bring their kids in, their older kids, and invite 'em to be a part of this vision planning and mission statement. [Jennifer] So, two things, since we're being candid here. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] The first one being, I don't think our children are too small to be incorporated, even at this stage of the game because it's not finalized yet, right? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] This is our initial go at it. And so I think-- [Aaron] And Elliott is pretty smart. [Jennifer] Yeah, Elliott's smart. [Aaron] He'll be like, "Why don't we..." [Jennifer] But I think... Okay, so our kids are six and a half, four, two, and eight months. So obviously, Truit's not gonna say much. [Aaron] I don't know. [Jennifer] But having a family fun meeting, where we're saying, "Okay guys, here are some questions "mommy and daddy have for you", and getting them involved. Maybe even if some of the questions are over their head, it'll still be a fun time to spend together and maybe we'll be surprised." [Aaron] Let's write down the funny answers and then we'll keep those for the future and say, "This is what you said when you were four." [Jennifer] Maybe we'll be surprised by them. [Aaron] That's probably true. [Jennifer] So, I do-- [Aaron] I concede. [Jennifer] The second thing is I wanna encourage those listening, if you do have children, that you do find a way to incorporate them in this process because they are a part of the family; and if you're doing it and you don't have kids yet, that's okay too. You and your spouse-- [Aaron] And I guess it's gonna give them more ownership and be like, "Hey, you are members of this family, "not just people that are in it." [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] "You're part of it." [Jennifer] Yeah, and I think what I've gathered from trying to understand this family mission statement saying, is that it's not something that is like, "here are the rules", you know. It's more of something that's supposed to encourage the family unit to be in agreeance and have the same understanding of what those family core values are. So, even though this quote up here says "to govern your family life", I think there's freedom in that. It's not like a list of rules, but it's something creative, a creative way to establish standards and core values. [Aaron] Okay. So, should we do it? [Jennifer] I think we should jump in, yeah. [Aaron] Should we start working on this? I know our kids aren't here but we're gonna start at least with the foundational stuff, maybe? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Answer some questions. [Jennifer] And just again to preface, this is not something that's... There's not a final answer to. We're kinda just jumping in to show you guys how the conversation could go. [Aaron] Well, it's gonna go. [Jennifer] Well, it's gonna go. This is it. [Aaron] This is our legitimate conversation that we're gonna talk about our mission statement as a family. [Jennifer] Okay. You might hear keyboard typing 'cause I'm taking notes. That's how I'm doin' it. [Aaron] Yeah, so you have a question there, but I guess I wanna start with the first one. I know we kind of hit it up, but when you hear "mission statement"... 'Cause I'm sure everyone has their own little definition of it, and you even had to Google it, like, "What's everyone do?" Everyone's got a little different take on it. When you think mission statement, what do you think? Like, is this our one word phrase or few words phrase? Like, when we are out and about we say, "This is who we are!" [Jennifer] Yeah, we get t-shirts made, right? [Aaron] Yeah, we can get some t-shirts made. [Jennifer] That's not a bad idea. The word that comes to my mind is it's a motto. It's a way of being. It's a way of doing life together, and I do think it is something that should be shortened and concise so that it's easy to remember. [Aaron] I agree. [Jennifer] There might be portions of it that are expanded upon, but I think it should be something that is easy to remember. [Aaron] Okay, it's almost like a statement of faith on our website [Jennifer] Exactly! [Aaron] It's like, "This is what we believe, "this is who we are." [Jennifer] Exactly. [Aaron] Yeah, and this is how we're gonna live. Of course, because we're believers and we love the Lord and we love the Bible, that's probably gonna be a big part of this. [Jennifer] Well, yeah. I would assume that Christians who create a family mission statement, it's built upon the Word. [Aaron] Right. Okay, so we're gonna have to have some verses and we'll get to that probably. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, here's the first question. What are some words that describe our family or what we want our family to be? [Jennifer] Hmm. [Aaron] I'm just gonna throw out the first thing-- [Jennifer] Okay, go. [Aaron] I thought of is generous. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And for those listening, a lot of the things we're gonna say, because we kind of have just walked in certain things over the last 12 years that we've been married and even before then. I think there's just gonna be some natural things that come out of us. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But now it's gonna be solidified as, "This is who we are." So, generosity is something I believe has been a mark of our marriage for a long time. [Jennifer] I like that. A word that comes to my mind is, I think I already said it, but "adventurous". Meaning that we find the fun in things. [Aaron] Write that down, "we find the fun in thing", 'cause there could be lot's of different "adventurous." Adventurous like, we like to take financial risks. Or adventurous like-- [Jennifer] No, more like, we do fun things. [Aaron] Okay, that's a different kind of adventur-- [Jennifer] We like to explore. We like to eat. We like to go-- [Aaron] We love change. [Jennifer] We love change. [Aaron] Not too much change but we like new environments. We like-- [Jennifer] Yeah, I would say, not change so much to our rhythms and routines, because those are important but more so just experiential. I don't know how to explain it. [Aaron] Like new environments. [Jennifer] New environments. [Aaron] It goes into the adventurous side of... We like to go to new places. We like to be around new people. [Jennifer] I don't know if we've shared this before but we've kind of done these Saturday adventure days with the kids throughout the summer time. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] 'Cause we go through seasons where it's just easier. [Aaron] We did a podcast about the adventure days. [Jennifer] Okay. So, that's an important thing. When I think of adventure, I think time set aside where we know we're gonna be doing something with the kids, whether it's local or maybe a-- [Aaron] Out of the norm. So, like, we have our normal flow. We have our normal rhythm, and then we're gonna go do something 'not'. [Jennifer] Go on a hike. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Go look at the river. Go whatever it is. [Aaron] Go for a long drive to a new place through a rose garden or apples. [Jennifer] I do, I make... You guys don't know this about me. I make Aaron go out of his way for me all the time because-- [Aaron] She's like, "I found this orchard "on the other side of the mountain. "Can we go?" And then like, it's not open or... I'm just kidding. No, we've actually had a lot of cool adventures just 'cause you Google and find a cool place to go see. [Jennifer] Yeah, even like, we were in Portland this time last year. I remember it was hot and only Elliot was awake, the other kids were napping. I was like, "Will you just pull over and let me go see "the rose garden? "I've been wanting to see it." You know, but it was a fun little detour and it worked out for everyone. I like that kind of stuff. [Aaron] So, adventurous in the fun kind of way, in the environmental kind of way, the experiential kind of way. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] I would say another word I think of is community. [Jennifer] Mmm. [Aaron] I know it's like an easy buzz word for Christians. [Jennifer] No, it's good. [Aaron] We've made big decisions in our life and one of the main criteria in that decision was community. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Often. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] When moving, our prayer was, "Well, we can't move until something changes "in our community because we have these relationships, "we have these connections. "God has us here." [Jennifer] So, being loyal. [Aaron] Yeah, I like that word, loyal. We walk with people and we don't just say, "Well, "they'll get over it, we're gonna move on "and find new friends." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Not that we've been perfect at this, but community's been a huge part of how we make decisions. Even now we think, "If we ever had to move, "who's are we gonna convince to move with us?" And it's not that we don't like being... Like we couldn't do it on our own. We know that community is so important and we want to take it with us. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, I would say a part of that is also walking in light, and we've done this time and time again where it's just being transparent, being able to communicate-- [Aaron] Oh, put that word, that's a good word, transparent. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] I guess it is tied to community, but it's transparent in other things too 'cause our online communities we are transparent with and we don't know any of them. [Jennifer] If nobody knows what he's talking about, we have these online communities who are amazing people. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Who have been following us [Aaron] Facebook, Instagram. [Jennifer] For eight years now. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] It's so awesome. [Aaron] Yeah. So, we try and be the same person to every person we meet. Would that be like-- [Jennifer] Integrity? [Aaron] Integrity. [Jennifer] I like that. [Aaron] I don't know if that's in-Integrity's like being the same person when no one's around. Right? [Jennifer] But also when different people are around. It's all the time. [Aaron] Right, okay. Say like, I'm not showing this person that face, and then that person this face. [Jennifer] I only show you different faces. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] I used to have to work on this. [Aaron] Showing me like... I'd be like, "Why do you give everyone the 'good' face?" And then when you get home I get that face. [Jennifer] Yeah, you said, "I want the best of you." [Aaron] Yeah, that was-- [Jennifer] 'cause I had a problem with showing you too much-- [Aaron] Well, I think it's normal. Just as a little tangent. It's easy to let down the face you have on for everyone else, when you're around the person you know loves you. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But we should really say, "No, I'm actually gonna work harder to give the best "to my closest neighbor, my spouse." It doesn't mean we give the worst to our other neighbors. [Jennifer] Everybody else. [Aaron] Yeah, I guess it's just-- [Jennifer] I needed balance in my life when it came to that. [Aaron] Yeah, it's learning how to be real. Like, when you're around someone, you could at least be real and say, "I'm not feeling good right now" or "I'm not"... Anyways, that was a tangent. So, transparent, I like. That's a good word. That's something that's always been, we've always prided ourselves in... I don't wanna say "prided ourselves". Just being transparent. Not wanting to hide things, be open. Integrity is a good word. So, I think community, transparency, generous, let's think... [Jennifer] I would say faithfulness to our Christian walk, to being obedient to God's Word. Our faith is foundational. [Aaron] I like faithfulness though as the word, because it's easy to say faith. Faith's important, but faithfulness means to our faith and to the Word, and to God. [Jennifer] It's like active. [Aaron] Yeah, it's like a movement word. Is that a verb? It's an action word. What are some... I feel like there's other words that we often say. [Jennifer] Just real quick as a side note to those listening. [Aaron] Extraordinary. I just wanted to say before I forgot it. [Jennifer] Okay. That's fine. [Aaron] Extraordinary is a big word for us. [Jennifer] Yes. Do you wanna explain why? [Aaron] Well, we talk about it a lot in the book "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] But it's this idea that we've always had a heart to not just be normal. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And that doesn't mean that our goal was to be special and like how we wanted to have this... 'Cause starting this ministry online wasn't even an idea in our hearts when we first got married, but our idea was like, "Well, let's just do what God wants "and that's going to be extraordinary." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] We went to the mission field for a while and then we went to Canada, and we went to Florida, and we did all these different little things. [Jennifer] I can actually see how even smaller decisions in our life, like buying this house, that wasn't a small decision, but-- [Aaron] It was at-- [Jennifer] But I just think of decisions that we've made together and we've even out-loud said to ourselves, "Well, that's extraordinary", or "That's not the normal way!" [Aaron] Right, well we could do the ordinary or we could do it the extraordinary way. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And the reason you brought up this house, for those that don't know, they can actually find a YouTube video about us doing the house process. We bought a, I wanna say a fixer-upper. [Jennifer] Decrepit. [Aaron] But it was a beater-upper. It was really bad. We had to tear down most of the house to fix it back up, but when we thought about it we were like, "Well, this is how we're gonna get what we can afford." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] "And then we can make it ours." Which, lot's of people do that, but it was extraordinary in my mind. So, extraordinary is a good word for us. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, when you paused back there I was just gonna note that that's okay when you're doing this process together. There's gonna be times when something might be on your heart or right at the tip of your tongue, and you don't know how to explain it. I think that's why the majority of people will say, "You don't just sit down and write a mission statement. "It's a process, and the process is what counts. "The process is the important part "because you're actually communicating with each other "on what matters most to you." [Aaron] Good tip. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, you just mull it over and come back to the drawing board over and over and over again until you narrow it down. [Aaron] Yeah, and I think after we go through this, we'll be able to see these words and think of better words. [Jennifer] Probably. Or use the good old dictionary! [Aaron] Or just the thesaurus. [Jennifer] Thanks, Google. [Aaron] Thesaurus. [Jennifer] Okay, so are there any phrases that we repeat often or say? [Aaron] Yeah, there's a-- [Jennifer] I know one! Go ahead, what were you gonna say? [Aaron] We do hard things. [Jennifer] Yes! That was what I was gonna say! [Aaron] That was... But you know what? That's a phrase that we only started saying when our kids started getting older. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But-- [Jennifer] To encourage them we would say things "We're the Smiths and we do hard things." [Aaron] And so they own it, and they say, "Oh, okay. "This thing that I said is hard, we do those things." [Jennifer] Yeah. What's cool is they've recognized when we're doing Bible time, certain stories in the Bible of people doing hard things they'll recognize and go, "Hey, David does hard things!" [Aaron] Yeah! So, I think "We do hard things" is a important phrase, and we didn't come up with that of course. [Jennifer] But we use it. [Aaron] We use it often. [Jennifer] I don't know where it came from. [Aaron] And it doesn't just remind our kids, it reminds us because how many times a day do we get to this point of like, "Ugh, I don't wanna do this right now." And they're like, "Ugh, we do hard things." [Jennifer] It's the fight against the flesh. [Aaron] Yeah, we just did our lawns for the first time this season, and I just kept wanting to quit. I was like, "I did enough. Next week I'll finish the weeds." And I'm like . And then I go through and I'm like, "Oh, I'm just gonna go "a little bit further and make this look nice. Then I'm like, "Ugh, I just wanna give up." And then I go a little bit further, and I just kept telling myself, "No, I can finish this. "It's like my first time ever doing this, I should be fine." [Jennifer] That same conversation happens to me every single time I go to work out. It's like, you have ten squats on the list to do and you get through four and you're like, "Ahh!" [Aaron] "I should be able to do this." [Jennifer] "Okay, I'll do one more." And then you want to bail out but then you just keep going, you keep going, you keep going. [Aaron] I think it's a good phrase. What's another phrase that we say? Oh, it's kind of a word but we use it as a phrase. [Jennifer] What? [Aaron] "Gotta have self-control." [Jennifer] Oh, self-control. [Aaron] So, it's a word but-- [Jennifer] Self-control. [Aaron] We use it in a sense that we say it probably a million and a half times a day to our kids. "Are you having self-control? "You need to have self-control. "Remember self-control!" [Jennifer] We say it to each other now, too, because in conjunction with "We're setting the example. "We're setting the example". [Aaron] One of us will be having an attitude about something, just tired or exhausted or frustrated; and I'll be like, "Okay, are you self-controlled right now?" We say it a little quieter to each other. [Jennifer] Okay. So, what-- [Aaron] Is there any other phrases? We say other things. [Jennifer] I'm sure there are and we can come back to this if we think about it, but I was gonna ask, "What is it that we value? "What are some things that we really value?" [Aaron] The Word of God. We have to start with that. I know that sounds like the default answer, but it has to be the number one thing we value. It's what we tell our kids is the most important thing, it's what we try and teach them, we try and live it. So, I think the Word of God is... Now, I will say this, and it's something I've been convicted on recently and something that God's been convicting me on for my whole life, probably. I think this, and then I'm like, "But do I actually show this?" Am I in my Word as much as I could be? I don't want to say "should be" because I don't think there's a number or how many chapters or how many words or how many verses, or whatever; but I know in my heart when I'm in and out of it. I know when I'm giving God's Word the attention it deserves in my life. We could feel it. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Recently you've been kind of just overwhelmed with the book launch that-- [Jennifer] Lots of stuff to do. [Aaron] Lots of stuff to do and I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, "I wonder what-I didn't say this to you, but I was wondering when you were in the Word. [Jennifer] It's so funny, it's not funny, it's... Wow, this is really convicting because I know exactly the moment in that conversation where I had this thought that, "I wouldn't be feeling this way "if I was in the Word", and-- [Aaron] When was it? 'cause I was thinking about it. I didn't say it to you, I was just... 'Cause I was just encouraging you and comforting you and letting you know it was gonna be okay. [Jennifer] No, it was really impactful for me, and I've been in the Word since. I think sometimes we just get in these ruts or seasons where we're busy or we're going strong on certain areas of our life, and we don't realize when another area have kind of-- [Aaron] Yeah, we've neglected an area. [Jennifer] Been neglected, and that was happening with me for a couple days. I'd say about a week and a half. [Aaron] Well, me too, and I was feeling... Remember I told you how I was feeling? [Jennifer] Yeah, I think it was compiling. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I think the Lord is good. [Aaron] Well, I was just thinking on Sunday, the message was about... Actually the message wasn't about it, but Matt said, "Hey, we can't know all of this in one sitting. "We have to just go line by line, verse by verse, "chapter by chapter, over years of reading and reading, "and re-reading and re-reading, and re-memorizing "and re-stating, and chewing it over." Then this morning, I was listening to J. Vernon McGee, and he was in Isaiah and he was bringing up the scripture that talks about "precept upon precept, line by line", and he was saying... You know, it took five years for J. Vernon McGee to teach through the Bible. That was just him going through one time. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Five years. How much do we go 'precept by precept'? Are we just reading through it? Laying on the knowledge that we're getting out of it. That was another good tangent, but Word of God I think is the most valuable thing. It needs to be-- [Jennifer] Bolded? [Aaron] Yeah, bolded and-- [Jennifer] Italicized? [Aaron] Italicized, highlighted in green, but I think it needs to be more evident in our own lives for our kids sake and for our own sake. [Jennifer] Yeah. What a great tool, this mission statement, to remind us to do that. If this is gonna be a foundational thing that is in front of us by maybe putting it on a plaque in our house or however we're gonna display this once we do finalize it. To be reminded of that, you know, every single day. [Aaron] Yeah, "Let's go back to the Word of God. "What does the Word say about this situation." [Jennifer] So, what other things do we value? I feel like we value-- [Aaron] Stewardship? [Jennifer] Stewardship. [Aaron] Is that a good word? [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Like we value-- [Jennifer] I'm gonna write that down. [Aaron] Being good stewards, which we talk a ton about in 'Marriage after God'. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Because of how important it is to our ministries. [Jennifer] It's like the whole book's message, really. [Aaron] "Are you stewarding the way God's given you well?" That's the whole book actually. [Jennifer] I guess part of what I was gonna say goes along with this. I don't know if you would agree, but recognizing our need verses want in minimalism. Not that we're minimalist people because we have stuff. We have stuff, but I don't feel like we exaggerate and go outside of what we need. Does that make sense? [Aaron] I would agree. I think there's been seasons in our life that, because of discontentment or dissatisfaction or whatever, we've chased after things. [Jennifer] Or acquired. [Aaron] Collecting things, or buying things that we don't need. That's rarer, I would say. I'm not gonna say, "It's not super rare", but we tend to get what we need and not much more. Again, there's plenty of things that we have. [Jennifer] I think we've been good over time of challenging each other or encouraging each other, you know, "Maybe we don't need that thing right now", or "Hey, if you are gonna go get that, think about this." [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] You've done it with me with kids clothes before. "Hey, instead of buying off that website "can we just try and"-- [Aaron] "Because they're not gonna fit in it "in six weeks." [Jennifer] "Or they're gonna be stained up." [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Or whatever the reasoning's were. That was just the first thing off the top of my head. I think that... [Aaron] Stewardship minimalist. Yeah, I agree. We're not minimalist, but we definitely think on a more, "What do we need verses what do we want? "And what do we want, is it something we need, "and is it something we can use and is it gonna be"-- [Jennifer] We're willing to be confronted by that, for sure. [Aaron] Right. What is other things we value? Relationships? [Jennifer] I was gonna say people. [Aaron] People, yeah. I would say this goes up higher. [Jennifer] You can even see this in our kids because Olive really values relationships. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] All of our kids do, but I could just see it in them. [Aaron] Yeah. Well, it's of course, the Word of God points us to-- [Jennifer] God's relationship. [Aaron] I would say that's almost the number one message in the Bible, other than Jesus Christ and him crucified, which everything points to that, is why he died for us is to give us relationship with the Father, and then through that gives us relationship with other people, right? Like, John 17, which we should put down because the next thing we're gonna talk about is scripture, but John 17 is a major one, which is the high priestly prayer Jesus prays for his disciples and for everyone who believes in the message that the disciples bring to the world; is that we would be one. That we'd be unified just as Christ and God are unified. [Jennifer] Yeah, but before we move on to the scripture section, I had some things I wanted to share about the values. So, 'cause this is all about brain-dumping and just getting out of our minds and heart what we believe to be true about our family, to build up this mission statement. So, words like 'creativity'. I feel like we value. Inspiring each other towards greatness. [Aaron] Can I throw in a word? Creating. [Jennifer] Creating, okay. [Aaron] I mean, we've done the self-publishing thing, the blogging, the social media. It's just kind of been a part of what we do. So, creativity, inspiring, but we also create. It's part of us. [Jennifer] Mmm, that's good. [Aaron] Elliot loves to draw, Olive loves to paint. [Jennifer] Yeah. That's good, lots of Lego building. [Aaron] Lots of Lego building! By the way the Lego thing you built yesterday is awesome. It's like this huge city. [Jennifer] It was supposed to be Bleecker St. in New York. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] I just didn't get to finish it. [Aaron] I didn't see the signs. [Jennifer] Oh, go back and look at it. So yeah, some of the things that we value are experiences where, being able to go to a museum if we're near one, or-- [Aaron] I feel like that falls under adventure, adventurous, right? [Jennifer] Okay. Yeah, but it's like learning experiences. [Aaron] Well, put learning then. That's a good word. [Jennifer] Learning. So, whether that's-- [Aaron] Learning is a big thing-- [Jennifer] Experiences or books, resources, pretty much anything I can get my hands on for us or for the kids that encourages growth and investment. [Aaron] All the educational films like Marvels, Avengers, and Iron Man, those are really for us. [Jennifer] For us. [Aaron] For us, yeah. Yeah, I think learning is a great word. So, under value... [Jennifer] Does food count? [Aaron] Oh, you know, can I say wisdom? [Jennifer] Wisdom, yeah. [Aaron] And you actually should put food on there because that is a huge thing for us. Food. We love food! [Jennifer] Not just food. [Aaron] God loved food. [Jennifer] I know but the experience of food, like the actual tasting good and figuring out what flavors are there, but then the experience of eating with people. [Aaron] Yeah, so actually food kinda encompasses all these. [Jennifer] Okay so, on our family mission statement it's gonna say, "The Smith family", and then in bold right beneath that-- [Aaron] "Food." [Jennifer] 'Food'. [Aaron] That'll be our... It's short. [Jennifer] Semi-calling Gods word. So, it's like both, right? It's like the Word of Life. [Aaron] Well, God's Word is the bread of life. So, it just literally all fits in. Everyone here that's listening, our mission statement is [Jennifer And Aaron] Food. [Jennifer] This is how our conversations really go in real life, to you guys. We're not makin' this up for you. [Aaron] I'm pretty sure I can fit every single one of those things into food. [Jennifer] We'll figure it out. [Aaron] Yeah. Wisdom, what I mean by wisdom is, wisdom is the application of knowledge. [Jennifer] Yup. [Aaron] 'Cause you can know lots of things and do nothing with it. [Jennifer] Not ever implement it. [Aaron] Yeah, wisdom is like, "Oh, I actually know how "to navigate this kind of relationship, "therefore I'm going to navigate it that way." Or, "I know that I should keep my mouth shut "in this situation", so I could choose to act on the knowledge or not. So, wisdom is taking the Word of God, taking life experiences and letting it teach us and then saying, "Oh, last time we experienced that. "Let's make a different decision this time." [Jennifer] Mmm. [Aaron] We were actually just talking about this in the car. All the experiences the God's given us, hard ones that have taught us things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That a lot of people won't ever experience. [Jennifer] Right, but everyone listening has their own set of experiences that-- [Aaron] That no one else will have. [Jennifer] No one else will have. [Aaron] That God wants to use to teach them wisdom. [Jennifer] Yeah, but wisdom is saying, "Okay, I'm going "to learn from that, and not just learn from it, but"-- [Jennifer] Apply it. [Aaron] "I'm gonna apply the knowledge to my life now "regardless of how easy it is or how it feels to my flesh." [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, wisdom is a big one. [Jennifer] Okay, cool. So, moving on, were there any more scriptures that you wanted to share? [Aaron] Think of some scriptures... [Jennifer] One, you brought up generosity earlier, and so one of the scriptures that came to my mind was 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, it says, "The point is this: whoever sows sparingly "will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully "will also reap bountifully. "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, "not reluctantly or under compulsion, "for God loves a cheerful giver." So, I just thought about that. [Aaron] That's a great one. Cheerful giver. [Jennifer] I think it defines how we give, which I love. [Aaron] Yeah we don't ever, I mean we try not to give out of compulsion. As in, "Oh, we must do this!" No, we'd be like, "We want to do this." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, that's a good one. Another one I think of is the Great Commission in Mathew 28, where Jesus literally tells the church what it's job is. It says, Mathew 28:18, "And Jesus came and said to them, ""All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son "and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe "all that I have commanded you. "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." [Jennifer] I love that last portion. [Aaron] Yeah, and we can take this as our individual mandates, but really it's the mandate for the church as a whole, 'cause there's all these different functioning parts. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Discipling, evangelism, teaching-- [Jennifer] Baptizing. [Aaron] Baptizing, all these different things, and we sometimes get to do all of them, and sometimes get to just play at planting or watering. [Jennifer] A portion of it, mm-hmm. [Aaron] It's what the church's job is and I think it should be what our job is. [Jennifer] I feel like if I could summarize that whole verse, it would say, "to make Him known", you know? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Like, to know Him and to make Him known. That's such a big-- [Aaron] Put that down. That's a awesome thing, make Him known. I think that should definitely be in our statement because that is our life. We want our children to do that. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] We want our children to know Him. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] And then we want our children to make Him known. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Is our desire. [Jennifer] Okay, so we want to encourage you guys that as you do jump into experiencing this process of creating a family mission statement, to go to scripture, to see where your family values line up according to His Word, because it is foundational to how we live our lives and do what we do. This was just to give you guys a glimpse into the behind the scenes, Aaron and Jen, and how we communicate through things like this. Being able to share your vision for your family and life, being able to come up with, and create a family mission statement. It's supposed to be a unifying experience of togetherness, intimacy, understanding one another, identifying "who are we" and "what are we doing"? [Aaron] Yeah, "Who are the Smiths?" [Jennifer] Well, "who are they listening, who are you?" And kinda just build this missions statement to look forward to sharing it with your family. [Aaron] Yeah, and we're not done with this. We are going to on our own, now, finish this up; but this was our getting started. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] We started it out. We're glad that you got to join us on this candid conversation of us trying to think out "who we are and what we're about". [Jennifer] Yeah. I did want to share a couple practical things. When you do do a family mission statement, based off of what I've seen and you guys have probably seen too. Some fun ways to have this experience and share it with each other is use a whiteboard, or get some poster paper, or a pen and paper, or like we just did, use your computer, your phone, whatever it takes to make those notes. You can brain-dump and then cross stuff out as you go, but have fun with it. Also, some examples of making it visible in the home. I have some people say, "In this house", and then they list all their words. [Aaron] So, once we're done with it we can put this up somewhere so we're always seeing, "Hey, look what we... "We're not acting the way we say we're gonna act." [Jennifer] Exactly. Some people do the last name in bold at the top and then share the core values or the mission statement. Some people put it in a frame. Some people put it on script, on canvas. There's so many different ways that you can visibly show it in your home and the great thing about that is-- [Aaron] Tattoos, that's a really good one, right? [Jennifer] Just tattoo it on our backs? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] No, but this is a great thing, like you said, to be mindful of how we operate as a family. We can even share as our kids get older, and teach them through it like, "Hey, we're the Smith's and we do hard things. "See it says it right there." So, those are just some things and we wanted to encourage you guys in that. [Aaron] Yeah, and I hope you had fun with us, too. We had fun. We're gonna finish it up, we'll probably do it on a date night or over the next... It doesn't have to be done right away, right. It's something that we can evolve with us. [Jennifer] It's a work in progress and so many people who have shared theirs with ours have said, "It's still a work in progress, "and you can change it and alter it as you go." Remember, you can incorporate your family, your kids and everyone to participate in it, but we did wanna challenge you guys with doing it. Even if it's just the initial go at it like we just did. [Aaron] Start it on your next date night. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That's the reason, you're like, "Oh, we have to go "do our mission statement. "Oh, we'll need a babysitter! "Let's go do this." [Jennifer] Have fun, have fun, have fun! [Aaron] Yeah, and then invite your kids into it also. Not on date night. Go to date night, start it, come home, invite them in afterwards, or on another day. [Jennifer] And you guys don't need a specific set of questions to figure out. What we just did is we just said, "What are some phrases "and words that define our family, "of what we know of our family already?" [Aaron] We just started. [Jennifer] We just did it. Ask each other hard questions. [Aaron] Cool, so we like to end our episodes with a prayer, and so, Jennifer, would you pray for us? [Jennifer] Sure. Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of marriage. May we continue to walk in obedience to Your Word as we seek to fulfill Your will for our lives and our marriage. We pray, we would consider the purpose You have for our marriage and we pray we will work together to communicate what our family mission statement is. We pray we would humbly submit it before You and that it would become a pillar in our family and in our life, that reminds us what we are doing and where we are headed. May this family mission statement build up according to Your core values, be an anchor for our marriage and family, motivating us to live our lives on purpose. May the experience of considering and building our family mission statement be a time of togetherness intimacy and understanding. Thank you for the hope You give us every day. May we honor You with our lives. In Jesus name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen. So, we just want to thank every one for joining us this week and listening to this episode. I hope you had fun with us. It was a lot of fun for us, as I said earlier. But go, start a mission statement with your spouse and with your family, and see what happens. See how it focuses you. You might end up finding out that you're participating in things that don't even line up with what you guys believe as a family. That might be cool. Or you might realize that there's opportunities out there that you could be tapping into because of it. We just wanted to thank you. We look forward to having you next week, and if you have not yet went to shop.marriageaftergod,com and picked up a copy of our new book, "Marriage After God", we'd love to invite you to do so. We thank you for everything. You guys are awesome. All the reviews, all of the comments and stuff we get on our social media, and just all the listens. You guys listening to these podcasts, we just so appreciate you guys. We look forward to having you next week. See you later. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes, also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Order our new book today! Marriage After God: Chasing Boldly After God’s Purpose for Your Life Together https://marriageaftergod.com In this episode, we chat with Jerrad lopes and his wife about the place that the word of God should have in our life and marriage. A quote from Chapter 4 of Marriage After God “A marriage after God is one that is eager to allow the Word of God to transform them by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Dear Lord, Thank you for your word! It is living and it is active, sharper than any 2 edged sword. Lord, you created everything by your word, and faith comes by hearing your word. You tell us that man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of your mouth. We pray that as husbands and wives who love you and are chasing after you, that we would be men and women of your word. That we would make it a priority in our lives. That we would read it and meditate on it. That it would be our sustenance. That we would allow ourselves to be transformed by it and renewed by it. May our marriages be transformed by it. We pray that our lives would represent what your word says. We pray that we would take the sword of the spirit which is your word and use it to fight against the schemes of the devil. Lord, your word is good and gift for everyone. May we read it, may we know it, and may we live it out daily. In Jesus’ name, amen! READ: [Aaron] Hey! We're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're in part four of the Marriage After God series and we're going to be talking with Jerrad and Laila Lopes about our relationship with the Bible. [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith everyday. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life [Aaron] love [Jennifer] and power [Aaron] That can only be found by choosing 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. [Jennifer] Thank you guys so much for joining us today. We just want to take a moment and ask you to leave a review for the Marriage After God podcast. So if you've been encouraged by this podcast, if you want to support this podcast, that's just one great way that Aaron and I would love to invite you to do that. It's really quick. You just scroll down to the bottom of the app, leave a star-rating review or a comment review and we really appreciate that. [Aaron] And then the reason we're doing this 16 part series with all these interviews is because we're launching our book "Marriage After God" and we're excited to get it in your hands. And so if you want to take a moment and go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, either now or after the podcast, and pick up your copy of our new book. Jennifer and I wrote it. We wrote it for you and it's to encourage your marriage to chase boldly after Christ's plan and mission for your marriage. And so that's what this podcast is about and we're gonna be talking about Chapter 4 today with Jerrad and Laila Lopes. Welcome to the show guys. [Laila] Hello, thank you. [Aaron] We're so happy to have you guys. We've known you guys for quite a while now. How many years actually? [Jerrad] Uh [Laila] Probably three? [Aaron] Three years? [Jerrad] I think [Jennifer] Four? [Jerrad] Yeah, like three years now. [Aaron] We've met you guys once in person. We've been doing You guys have been doing the podcast thing way longer than us. Jerrad, you're from DadTired, the podcast and the website. [Jerrad] Yup. [Aaron] And so, you guys have helped us on our journey of podcasting and just, it's been awesome knowing you guys and so we're excited to interview you both. So before we get into the ice breaker question and the interview questions, why don't you just let us know who you are, what you guys do, children, marriage, all that. [Jerrad] Yeah, well first of all, super excited to be here. We are obviously big fans of you guys and what you guys are doing to help encourage marriages. So really really honored to be here. Laila and I have been married for nine years this last week. [Jennifer] Awesome, congratulations! [Laila] January 2019, it's nine years. [Jerrad] Thank you. So nine years. We have three little ones as we're building our team. We have a seven year old son named Elijah, a five year old girl named Eden, and a brand new baby girl named Ella. [Laila] Two months old. [Aaron] Congratulations. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Laila] Thank you. [Jennifer] I love that you said building your team. [Jerrad] Yeah, yeah. So we're super excited about it. We thought we were done with two but once we decided we're not, like, we're just like, [Jennifer] How many more can we have? [Jerrad] Yeah, let's just keep having lots of babies. [Aaron] You know, God's good like that. Just changes our hearts. [Jerrad] Yeah, yup, yup. Yeah so, we totally see children as a blessing and we're excited to keep the legacy moving on and the kingdom advancing through our family. So anyway, that's our family. I run a ministry called DadTired and Laila is a nurse, an oncology nurse at the hospital. [Aaron] Awesome. Well we are so excited to have you guys and we always have an ice breaker question and this is just a fun way to get our listeners to get to you know you guys, to get to know us, but the question is for you guys. If you could have a second honeymoon, what would it be? [Jerrad] Do you have an answer to that, babe? [Laila] Um, I actually quite liked our honeymoon. We went to Maui. I had never been to any of the Hawaiian islands and I really enjoyed that. I would probably re-do our wedding if we could do that. [Aaron] You can, can't you? [Laila] I'd take a second chance at that. [Jerrad] Our wedding was terrible. It was so bad. [Laila] It wasn't so bad. [Jerrad] I didn't like it at all. [Laila] Jerrad didn't like it. [Aaron] You like your marriage though, right? [Laila] Yeah, our marriage is good. The wedding was not us, that's all. [Jennifer] I always think that [Jarred] The thing is, Laila, Sorry to interrupt you, go ahead. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, I always think back to our wedding too and I think, well, Pinterest didn't really exist back then. So I think I would want to re-do it just for the sake of having my Pinterest board setup. [Aaron] Yeah, that's the problem. We didn't do know marriages, weddings looked like because we didn't have Pinterest, so. Well, we like. Laila and I met and then four months later were engaged [Jennifer] Wow. [Aaron] Nice. [Jarred] and six months after that were married and we didn't have a style yet. You know? We just didn't know each other very well, which is crazy to think about. And our friends didn't know each other that well yet and it really is a testament to God's grace and His hand on us, protecting us, because we really were still getting to know each other in so many ways. So anyway, now that we've obviously been in this for like a decade, we are like, alright, we would re-do it and invite more people or maybe different people. [Laila] It's just the style. It just wasn't really our, well we didn't have a style. We didn't have a "us" established yet because we were so, we had just met nine months prior to our wedding, but. [Jennifer] What about the honeymoon though? Would you do something different? [Jerrad] I'm geeking out on Southeast Asia right now, so I would do like two weeks in Vietnam, Thailand. [Jennifer] Aaron would love that. [Aaron] Yeah, I think we've known some people that have done that. And you could do the whole thing for like 500 bucks. [Jerrad] I know, I know. [Laila] It's a lot cheaper than Maui. [Aaron] Awesome. So Jennifer, why don't you give the quote from our chapter, this chapter, in the book and then we'll get into the topic. [Jennifer] So this is from chapter 4 of Marriage After God and it's titled, "Your Relationship with the Bible". It says, "A marriage after God is one that is eager to allow the word of God to transform them by the power of the Holy Spirit." [Jerrad] Nice. [Aaron] And so, this whole topic in this chapter is just, without the Bible, without our foundation there, without our hearts and minds in that thing, the very word of God, we won't know what we're supposed to be doing. We won't know how to know God and so we just wanted to talk with you guys today about our relationship as Christians with the Bible. And so, [Jennifer] Specifically your relationship with the Bible. [Aaron] Yeah, your relationship and then our prayer and hope is that the listeners would get inspired, would be encouraged, would be reminded of the importance and the vital place that the Bible has in our lives. That it is our faith, which is the word of God. So, you know, we'll just jump right in. So here is the first question. What is your current relationship with the Bible? And I know that's kind of a big question, but I just want to know, where does the Bible land in your life, as a married couple, as Christians, right now? [Laila] That's a good question. For me, it's been a bit of a journey. I didn't grow up a Christian at all. So I was really unfamiliar with it for the first 21 years of my life, actually. But after becoming a Christian, I was really in awe of the gospel and Jesus and that God loves me, as I had heard it, like, preached on Sundays. But I still, I actually wasn't interested in the Bible for a long time. My view of it was that it was, maybe just a collection of old stories or something. It just seemed really irrelevant. But now as a more mature Christian, I understand that it's actually, you know, as it says, the inspired word of God. Which I think makes it rather important. So I placed a much higher importance on reading it, learning it, and knowing what God's word says about himself specifically. [Jerrad] Yeah, and I would say for me, I grew up kind of opposite of Laila. I grew up going to church from the time I was just a young kid and so I remember learning the stories of God even as a child. But I think it wasn't until maybe, I don't know, seven, eight years ago where I started to realize, as you read the scriptures, that this isn't just a random book of stories but that there's actually a woven story in all of it of God redeeming everything back to himself and it's really this beautiful grand story and it became much more beautiful to me that this wasn't just like some stories where God was trying to get us to be more moral, behave better, but that He was actually telling a story about Himself and His relationship with His creation. So yeah, I think that's where we are now. [Jennifer] Awesome. So for everyone listening, just to encourage them, I like practical. I like to know what everybody else's routines look like so that I can look at my life and go, okay, what can I maximize here or there or do better. So what is digging into the word on a daily basis look like for you guys right now? What is, do you have some routines put in place? [Jerrad] Yeah. [Laila] Yeah we do. It's about to change a bit for me. I still work. I work two or three days a week usually and I commute about 45 minutes to an hour each way. So I use that time, just as a practical way to get into the Bible, I listen to it through some audible app or the Bible on audio and that's been really helpful. It's just a quiet time. You know, we have three kids including an infant. So there's not a lot of quiet time around here. But for me that's been really a helpful and practical way is just in my commute. [Aaron] That's a great tip. [Jerrad] Yeah, we use that. So last year we read through the Bible together from Genesis to Revelation and then we can kind of get into what that looked like practically if you think that that would be helpful. But this year, we are going through just the New Testament in a year and then next year we'll do the Old Testament in a year and then we'll cycle back through the whole Bible in a year. [Jennifer] I love that you guys are already looking ahead. Like, these are what our years look like. I just think that's so awesome. [Aaron] Yeah, and being prepared like that and having a plan, it does make it easier because you know where you guys are at and the whole family being on the same page makes it easier rather than, like well what am I gonna read today. You all know. You're like oh we're reading, you know, we're in John right now [Jennifer] Right. and we're on the same chapter and we're gonna talk about that later. [Jennifer] So could you guys share a little bit about that? Reading together as a couple. Not only how and when but how it makes you feel? [Jerrad] Yeah, I think, for us, like last year, when we read the Bible together front to back, we started out with really grand plans of sitting down and having an hour together a day and reading through the Bible together as a couple and with the family and journaling, and that just wasn't practical. It didn't work out that way. And so, we didn't want to give up on it. So we said, why don't we just keep doing this on our own as much as, like everyday we'll just read what the plan tells us to read, and then as many as times as we can do this together as husband and wife, let's do that. As many times as we can do it together as a family, let's do that. But we just didn't want to get behind and we wanted to be realistic with it. [Laila] If it came down to, should we just skip today because we can't read together, we didn't want to do that. So we just thought, you know, if we need to, we can still just make sure that we ourselves personally are filling up and then, as able, we'll get together. We did try and prioritize that, to read it together as a couple because it was really fun to see what stuck out to Jerrad and I think he enjoyed hearing what things stuck out to me. 'Cause sometimes it was different, sometimes it was exactly the same. But yeah, if it comes down to don't read at all because we're not reading it together or just get what we can when we can, then we just did it separately. [Jerrad] And the other thing is, so I travel a lot too for work and for speaking and stuff. So like [Laila] Yeah. [Jerrad] It was cool. And Laila works a few days a week. So it was cool to even know we were still reading the same thing. So even when I was on the road, we would still be doing phone calls and being like, what did you think of that passage today, what stuck out to you, or can you believe Paul said this, that was super convicting, you know? We were talking about it really organically all throughout the week and the year. [Jennifer] That's so cool. So I don't know if people are like me in this. But you guys talked about setting this goal of what you wanted it to look like and be like and then quickly realize that it wasn't practical and that you had to change things up or even go with the flow almost. And I know I have struggled with this in the past and really when it comes to anything in my relationship with Aaron, but you set these goals and when they don't happen like you want them too, I'm saying, I'm saying it as if it's not happening to me. But what I mean is I would get defeated or I would feel down and not want to move forward because it's not happening like I want it to. [Aaron] Yeah, like you failed. [Jennifer] Yeah, like I failed and so I think that this is just really encouraging to hear from you guys and to be reminded that goals are good and having expectations are okay as long as when you come up against them and things aren't working that people can still move forward and just change how it's being done. [Aaron] Yeah, so shift it quickly rather than just give up. [Jennifer] Exactly. [Laila] I would credit Jerrad for that because I am a bit like that if we've set a goal to read it together every day and now it's been two or three days and we haven't read it together then let's just quit, we'll start over next year and try again. But Jerrad's like, no it's okay. You have something you say about setting goals that I can't remember. [Aaron] What's that really good phrase you always say? [Laila] What's that good thing you say that is really helpful sometimes? [Jerrad] I have no idea. But what I do know is, as Christians, man, we can just get so caught up in being really rigorous and disciplined and we have to have our morning quiet time and we shame ourselves if we don't. But the point isn't that we read everyday as much as the point is that are we getting do know God, right? And that's like. Life happens. You might skip a day. You might like whatever. And obviously, it's cool to be disciplined and it's important. But even more important is are we getting to know God. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jerrad] If that ends up being a chapter a day, or a verse a day, or six chapters a day, whatever. Let's not forget what we're trying to do here and that's to get to know the God of ours. [Aaron] Yeah, I was gonna, this transitioned perfectly in what I was gonna bring up. Being marriages after God and chasing boldly after what He has for us and that He would use our marriages and knowing His word is the beginning of that because in knowing His word is knowing Him and what He wants, where He's going, what He loves, what He hates. And so I just wanted to ask you guys, because a lot of Christians could be listening to this and be like, okay they're talking about reading the Bible, everyone always talks about reading the Bible. Yeah it's important. I gotta read the Bible. I gotta pray. Those are the, quote on quote, Christian things to do. But it's so much more than that. It's not just, like you said, here's your reading plan because, to be honest, you could monotonously go through the Bible and not get anything out of it. But why? Why is it vital that the believer, that Christians, that marriages are in the word of God. What is that doing for us? Why is God desire us to know His word? [Jerrad] Yeah, so at the heart of it is it's bigger than just, I think what you said is so true, that as Christians we feel like, man I know I should be praying more. I know I should be reading the Bible more. I know I should be tithing more and whatever. It's these disciplines that we kind of get on ourselves about. But at the heart of it is we are all susceptible to making up our own Gods in our own minds. We don't drift towards good theology. We drift away from it. We drift towards selfishness and so often times, what happens is, we end up making our God look like us and he ends up liking the things that we like and he can tolerate the sins that we tolerate and he's not, he loves the people we love and he hates the people that we're mad at, right? He ends up looking a lot like us. And so scripture confronts us, right? II Timothy 3:16, it's useful for rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness. When we read scripture, we realize quickly God is his own person. He has his own personality. He is who he is. He is Yahweh God. And so we are trying to, if we don't learn who that God is, we will drift towards making up an own God in our mind and that is a really really dangerous place to be as a Christian. [Aaron] So we dig into the word. We learn, and I love what you said because we do make up our own gods. When we just, and this is where a lot of Christians are today and I pray that my listeners aren't there. But if they are, I pray that this snaps them out of it and says, oh we need to find out who God is, not who we think God is. But knowing who God is, what does that do to the Christian? What does that do in our lives when we're like, oh. Laila, you mentioned that you met the love of God and you're like, He loves me. And at first you weren't like, and you heard that from the pulpit. You heard that from pastors and from church. But you weren't interested in the word of God and then all of a sudden you were like, wait a minute. The word of God is who God is. You know? [Laila] Right, exactly. Well I think if I would have just stuck with what this pastor had said to me or what the Christians are saying to me then I would also be pretty susceptible to also listening to maybe what other people were telling me. Untruths and lies. And so I think having first been drawn in by hearing God's word spoken, then able to really ground myself in knowing who God is because of who God says He is and Jesus is and I wouldn't know that if it weren't for the scriptures and like I said, I would just be so easily swayed to believe who knows what if I would have just kept to what people tell me about God instead of what God tells me about God. [Jennifer] Now when you do hear people tell you things about God you can test those things because you know His word. [Laila] Exactly. [Jerrad] Christians say all kinds of really crazy things, especially on social media. Like God told me this, or just believe this, and it's like, that's not at all what God's word says. And that's why it's so important for Christians to know the word of God because even Christians, or especially Christians, will say things that are just like, man that sounds really great but that just is not at all what the scriptures teach. [Laila] They're like half-truths. So they sound really Christian-y and good, but not quite right. [Aaron] Yeah, I take the example from Christ when he's in the wilderness being tempted by the devil and the devil uses scripture [Laila] Mm hmm, right. [Aaron] to tempt Jesus. He goes to the very thing that teaches us about who God is and he takes it out of context, you know? Which is funny because this is what false teachers do today. They're using scriptures and they're drawing it out of context and they're using it to, like you said, create their own God from the scriptures rather than, well actually, this is why it's saying what it's saying and this is what it's saying and this is who it is saying it to. That we have to be like Christ. Knowing the word, so we can go back to the enemy or to these things we see on social media, and say well okay, maybe that is right but it also says this and so, therefore, that thing can't be true. [Jerrad] Right, yup. That's such a good reminder. And we remember in scripture, Satan has been doing that since day one. Didn't God say. Very first words we ever see from Satan was "Didn't God say". And so yeah. We have to know the character of God because you're right. The enemy loves to twist the words of God. [Jennifer] So talking about the character of God. Can we know God without a close relationship with the Bible? [Jerrad] I guess the only hesitancy I would say in that is there's so many believers who didn't have any actual Bible in their hand for a long time. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Mm. [Jerrad] Who had to hear stories about God and they relied on, maybe they had one Bible in their whole village, right? [Laila] Even today. [Jerrad] Even today that's true where the word of God is being taught orally because people don't know how to read or they don't have access to the scriptures. And I believe that God, supernaturally by the Holy Spirit, can continue to work in their lives and mature believers for those that are in the situation. But that's the exception right? For an American who's listening, who's got a Bible to say, yeah I kind of got a good idea of who God is, I kind of get the jist of the Bible, to say I don't really need to read. That's just foolish thinking. [Aaron] Yeah I was just gonna say that. We've heard that before and that argument, well there's other people that don't have the word of God. But that doesn't give an excuse to all of us who have multiple Bibles and we can literally go to a hotel room [Jerrad] Right. [Aaron] and there is a Bible in the drawer. We can go to the store and get a Bible. People give out free Bibles. You can to your church. They'll probably give you a Bible. [Jerrad] Right. [Aaron] So we don't get to have the excuse of like, yeah. [Laila] Right. [Jerrad] So if you're listening right now and you don't have a Bible, I will send you one. Like that, there is zero excuse and I know you guys would too. [Aaron] So Laila and Jerrad, you guys were talking about, when you got married very quickly and how you guys hadn't established an "us" yet and that's why you couldn't do the wedding, you didn't have a style for the wedding, you're like who are we gonna invite, what does this thing look like? But things are much different now because you know each other and I just was trying to, I wanted to highlight that again because, we can know, you know the question was can you have a close relationship with God without the Bible. And I like your answer, no, I don't think we can. But the Bible does tell us, in Romans, that we can know of God just by nature itself. Just by creation itself. But that does not tell us who God is. So we can experience God. Any person in any village anywhere can know that there is a God. Which is what Atheists they have to just literally deny that there is a God. They can't just assume that there's not because there is no, the world is proof of it. But to know God, just like when you guys were getting married, you guys didn't yet know each other, we couldn't know God without knowing what He's said because that would be like being married and you guys never talking. Jerrad never explaining who his family is and showing you who they are and never telling you things from the past and how he thinks and things he's done. And you literally just, you live together and you have no clue who Jerrad is. Yeah, you're married. [Laila] Right. [Aaron] You're connected with him but, that's not a very fruitful marriage, right? [Laila] Right. [Aaron] So I wanted to bring that up, that beautiful analogy. But now you guys know each other, and you guys are consistently knowing each other and that should be the heart of the marriage after God is that we, whether we know everything now, and whether we're in the word of God four hours a day, whatever that looks like, that we have a desire to go that direction. And it sounds like that's where you guys are at. [Laila] Yeah, I would say. Right, it would be the same. I mean, that is a good analogy. If I had married Jerrad and in the first year decided that I know everything there is about Jerrad because now I've been married to him for a year. That's crazy. Every day that goes by, I am changing and when I interact with Jerrad, I learn about him. Something new about him. I mean almost daily we just learn the nuances and I think it's that way with scripture too. Last year we read through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, and I am certain that when we read through it again, I am going to learn it in a totally different way as opposed to have having just assumed that I know what I need to know and be done with it. I mean they say it's the living word of God. It's not changing but I am and the way that I, the way that God speaks to me through His word changes every time I read even the same scripture, over and over. It's different each time. [Jennifer] I love that you give that picture that it doesn't change but I am. Like, I change because of it. So I want to kind of dig a little personal here and just ask you guys in what ways has the word of God transformed your marriage? [Laila] Well I'm reminded through scripture who God is and what He's already done and so I can count on what I know He can do. You know, like we said, we've been married for nine years and a couple years ago we had a really really hard season in marriage. It's really part of how DadTired was actually born out of that season. But it was just, it was actually really awful. But I was able to pull from scripture what I know about God and what the Bible says about marriage and instead of bailing out like what my flesh would want to do and what my emotions were telling me to do is just get out of here, this sucks, this is hard, I don't like him anymore. I was able to just know that God can change hearts and I just prayed like crazy through that season. And like what your quote from the book, "allowing the word of God to transform them by the power of the Holy Spirit". I wouldn't know that power if I hadn't been in scripture. But I just was able to trust in the power of the Holy Spirit because I know what He's done. I know what He can do. And here we are. Nine years in. And way past that awful season. [Jennifer] What a powerful testimony. Like Aaron was saying, I pray for those listening. My prayer for those listening would hear that and be encouraged. And if anyone is in that place right now where things are, where maybe they're rough or it's hard to persevere right now, I hope that they would dig into the word of God and find the same hope and endurance that you found through the word of God. [Jerrad] Yeah I was just gonna say too, to kind of piggy-back off of that is, your whole book is called Marriage After God, which is really like, that title says I want to marriage my, or I'm sorry. I want to model by marriage after God, right? In the character of God. And so to do that you have to know what God's character is like. And when you read the scripture, you learn that God is a God who is relentless in His pursuit of people who constantly turn their back on Him. And he's faithful even when people aren't faithful. And so Laila, being connected to that truth, and the truth that she learned through the word of God and who God actually is, not who she wanted him to be in her mind, she was able to pursue me relentlessly even when I was not being faithful in my love and pursuit of her. And so, that's a testimony. That's much deeper than, hey, you should read the Bible every day [Aaron] Yeah. [Jerrad] because it's a good thing to do as a Christian. It literally saved our marriage. Had she had made up some God in her mind, she probably would have said, well God wants me to be gone because Jerrad's being an, you know, he's being a jerk. But I know who God is and I want to model my marriage after who God is and as a result, I'm going to pursue Jerrad the way that God has pursued me even if Jerrad's not fully in it. And as a result of that, the Holy Spirit worked and changed my heart. And literally, the reason that we're sitting here today, doing this podcast, is because of that. [Aaron] And that's what's amazing about the word of God. When the Bible tells us that the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, and we also see that in Revelation when it's describing Jesus, you know this two-edged sword coming out of his mouth. And that it cuts even to the marrow. Like it cuts through our flesh. It cuts through our desires. It cuts through our opinions, our way of thinking, down to the motives and then it reveals to us who we are. You know? And that's what changes us because, going back to that idea of creating our own little Gods. You know, creating what we believe God to be. You end up with the conclusion, Laila, is that well God wants me to be happy. Therefore, since I'm not happy, God wants me to leave. You know? [Laila] Right. Oh yeah, I would have loved to have, at the time, made that true. Jerrad's not being what I want him to be. He's not making me happy. And yeah, God wants me to be happy so I'm out. But I just knew that wasn't true. How many times we've been unfaithful to God just in our walk with him and He just doesn't bail. There's just no way around it. And he says to, you know, love your spouse that way. [Aaron] Which is crazy. [Laila] I just had nothing else I could do and I knew I couldn't change Jerrad. I could beg and cry and you know, hey, don't be a jerk. But there was just nothing I could do. We were just in a bad spot and I'm sure I was not always pleasant for him either. But I just had to pray to the one who I knew could change Jerrad's heart and it certainly wasn't me or any made up God who looks like me. But just, like you said, the power of the Holy Spirit, that was it. And I prayed a lot. [Aaron] And he's doing it. There's people listening right now that are probably gonna be finding freedom and restoration in their marriages just because of this testimony. So thank you for your openness. [Laila] And to be honest, there as a lot of eye-rolls for me when people would say, just pray about it, just pray about it. I hated that because I wanted some action, you know? But we were just at the point that I thought I literally have nothing else I can do and I would set my alarm in the middle of the night and get up and pray. It was just. I dunno. I'm tellin' ya. I really didn't like when people told me, just pray about it. But I did it because I was just that desperate and it was those prayers have certainly been answered. [Aaron] Well I think of, so our pastor always says, "Prayer isn't the preparation for the battle. Prayer is the battle." That's how we war. And the Bible tell us to pray about all things and for everything and in every place. And when we don't just. The prayer that you're talking about isn't just, "Okay, Lord, just fix the situation." It's "Lord, what do you want? Lord, where do you want me? What do you want me to do? How do you want me to pray?" Man, and just in another encouragement, I love it, the Bible tells us when we don't even know what to pray for, that the spirit prays for us. And then on top of that, Jesus is at the right hand of God right now interceding on our behalf. Which is amazing. That you could sit there in bed and say, "I have no clue what I'm doing Lord, but I need your help" and Jesus is praying for you and he's saying, Lord help them. Give them strength. Give them courage. So I would encourage everyone too. That that's a great encouragement. Don't just pray. But pray with anticipation of what God wants and His will. So I want to ask you guys another question. You know, we're talking about going through struggles. Jennifer and I, that's kind of where our ministry was born from, was struggles we were going through. It sounds like the DadTired ministry and what you guys are doing was born out of some issues you guys were going through. But another thing we talk about in the book is that having a good marriage is not the end game. Having a healthy marriage is not the end game. Getting to the word of God and knowing the God is not the end game. These things that we're talking about is to do something. That there is an end in mind. How do you guys see that, you know, the word of God changing you, you guys walking in obedience to the word and finding that restoration in your marriage, where you're at now, how has God used all of that stuff and your obedience for his sake? [Jerrad] Yeah, I think that, just kind of going back to what we were just talking about. I think that when we live out what we see God being like, we give everyone around us a glimpse of that God that we see in the Bible. And so when Laila was faithful to me in that season, she gave me a glimpse of the gospel. When she was faithful. When our kids see us be faithful to each other even when we're not happy, but we continue to pursue each other relentlessly, we continue to pursue their hearts even when they're disobedient, we continue to forgive, we give them glimpses of the gospel and the good news of God. And then our neighbors see that. The people around us see that. It's living out what we see the God of the Bible being like that gives the world a glimpse of who God is. So yeah, I think that's what God meant when he said, be salt and light, and to represent me to the world. And so anything other than that is really telling a lie about God. Had Laila bailed on me, then she would be teaching our kids that like, hey, you can just get out when it's easy, or when you're not happy, or when it's hard, I'm sorry. And when you're not happy. And that's not who the God of the Bible is. And so it would be a lie about His marriage covenant, the whole reason of a marriage covenant was to, like you said, it wasn't for the purpose of us just being happy and building our own little family for the sake of joy and having a nice little neat marriage. But it was to give ourselves, our kids, and the world around us, a glimpse of who God is. That's the whole point of marriage. And so, we don't want to tell a lie about it. We want to represent that original intent well and to show off to each other and to the world who God really is. [Aaron] That's beautiful. [Jennifer] I have tears in my eyes. [Aaron] That was really good. [Jennifer] That was awesome. [Aaron] How would you encourage those listening today to get even closer to the word of God? You know, not just like, here's a set of rules, here's your reading plan. But like, why? Why should they be closer to God, God's word? [Jarred] I think that I would probably just go back to what we were just talking about at the beginning of the conversation and what we've hit throughout this conversation and that's that, man, I don't care if you've grown up in church since you were born, if you were born in a baptismal, you know? Or like you just gave your. That's a joke, by the way. Nobody's hopefully born in a baptismal. Whether you're born in the church or you just gave your life to Christ today, we are all susceptible of just making up who we want God to be. I've been teaching the word of God for a decade now and I still do it. I still want God to be, look like I want him to look. And I'm still confronted by the scriptures and the truth of the scriptures every single day. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jerrad] We literally just read a verse this last week in II Timothy that says you're always learning but never arriving at the truth, or you know, at the knowledge of the truth. And it's like, well crud, that's convicting because I'm always learning. I feel like I'm learning and yet am I actually getting closer to Jesus? Just don't be arrogant enough, even subtle arrogance to think that you know you can wrap your mind around this God of the universe. He is way to big for you to understand fully. And it's just vital to continue to understand who this God is and to chase after Him. The other thing I would say on that is Proverbs 1 says, I think it's Proverbs 1? It could be Psalm 1. One of the Ps. One says that if you, a man in the word of God is like a tree planted near living water, right? [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jerrad] And so we all can tell when trees are planted near water. They're alive, they're producing fruit, they're green, they look healthy. And the ones that aren't? It's really easy to tell. Hey, that tree could use some water. It's dead. It's dying. I could probably push it over right? And you can tell people, Christians, who aren't near the word of God. They look tired. They look stressed. They look like they're burned out and it's like bro, it's not that you need to have this huge crisis and figure things out. Just go plant yourself near the living water which is the word of God again. [Aaron] Yeah, and I think of the parable of the seed and the sower and the different soils. And we wanna have the soft soil where when the seed is planted, which is the word of God, it goes deep into us. And if we're not, like you were just giving that analogy of the tree. We actually had a tree die a couple years ago because we had a dry winter and we didn't realize we were supposed to water it when it's so dry. And the ground was all cracked and it started dying from the top down because the roots were, it was probably like got some sort of root rot, but because the ground was dry and the water didn't go deep, the roots didn't go deep. And so it's the same with us. If we're not in the word of God, if we don't know the word of God, those roots are going, they're shallow. And we think we're going to survive on that as a Christian in this world. So that's a good reminder. Thank you for that. [Jennifer] This has been really great talking with you guys. We have one more question and it's something that we're asking everyone throughout the series and it's, in your own words, what is a marriage after God? [Laila] A marriage after God. I would say just remembering that your marriage isn't just for your happiness. I know we hear that a lot. Marriage isn't for your happiness. It's for your holiness. But that's just really true. Jerrad's not here to fulfill me and make me happy because I would have bounced a couple times and I'm sure he would have been happy to do the same on a few occasions over the years. But just remembering that our marriage is to point each other, and our kids, and our neighbors, and just the world around us, back to God. That's what I'm to do for him and he's to do for me. We just point each other to Jesus, make each other more like Jesus through prayer and just trusting in God's spirit and just praying that, over each other and for each other. [Jerrad] I would agree with all of that except that I would have never left you. [Laila] I know I feel bad because we keep talking about how I could have left, I could have left, but I'm sure I'm not always a peach. I don't always make you happy but thank you for sticking around anyway. [Jennifer] Well thank you guys so much for being on the show today. We are just cheering for you as you pursue the ministry that God has for you and your marriage and also online. We would like to encourage everyone to take a moment and pray with us and then Aaron will close us out. Dear Lord, thank you for your word. It is living and it is active, sharper than any two-edged sword. Lord, you created everything by your word and faith comes by hearing your word. You tell us that man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of your mouth. We pray that as husbands and wives who love you and are chasing after you, that we would be men and women of your word. That we would make it a priority in our lives. That we would read it and meditate on it. That it would be our sustenance. That we would allow ourselves to be transformed by it and renewed by it. May our marriages be transformed by it. We pray that our lives would represent what your word says. We pray that we would take the sword of the spirit, which is your word, and use it to fight against the schemes of the devil. Lord, your word is good and a gift for everyone. May we read it, may we know it, and may we live it out every day. In Jesus name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen. [Jerrad] Amen. [Jennifer] Amen. [Aaron] Okay, so, everyone listening, we thank you for joining us on this episode with Jerrad and Laila Lopes. And I just want you all to go check out his podcast. It's called "DadTired" and you can get it anywhere podcasts are available. So iTunes, just search for Dad Tired. Podbean, Castbox, wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find him. And can you let us know if there's anything else that they can get from you guys, how they can connect with you guys? [Jerrad] Super grateful again to be here. If they just go to DadTired.com, we've got a free little eBook that we give away to guys on just trying to help them figure out how to lead their family well and there's a community to jump in to which a lot of guys in our DadTired community are also part of the Marriage After God and Husband Revolution family. [Aaron] Awesome. Thank you guys again for being on the show and we have 12 more episodes coming up in this series, tons of more awesome interviews, so we want you guys to stay tuned and we'll see you next week for next week's episode. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if 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.

Get the Husband and Wife After God 30-day devotionals today. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/husband-and-wife-after-god-devotional-bundle Quote From Husband After God on page 16 “Marriage is an opportunity to bring glory to God as you share with the world His testimony by loving your wife the way Christ loves the church.” Quote From Wife After God on page 117 “Being a submissive wife is beautiful, as it reflects God’s divine order. When a husband loves his wife like Christ loves and a wife submits to her husband, that reflection clearly represents God’s grace-filled love story. The benefits in a marriage like this are extraordinary. Why its important to do a marriage devotional together: Cultivating oneness and intimacy Get on the same page Growing in the word of God together Stimulates conversation Being ready in and out of season give an answer for the hope that you have Investment for marriage Example for our children you have something to pass on suggesting do this... Firstly, we wanted to share this information with you today because we are going into a Podcast series starting next week about our upcoming book Marriage After God! We hope you are pumped for this, we are and we cant wait for this book release! This series launching next week will give you insight into the book and of course, leave you with wanting even more! So before we get into that series, we thought we would dive deep into our devotionals for husbands and wives BECAUSE those of you who have already been through them have asked us what's next...which was a catalyst for us to write the marriage after God book...and also for those of you who havent had a chance to go through these devotionals yet or any of you who want to go through them again, we wanted to let you know that right now is the perfect time to do them leading up to the Marriage After God book release. We have about 4ish months till then which is ample time to get through the 30-day devotionals. A few things people have said about these devotionals: "Life changing - This book is truly a godsend! My marriage is better using the books! My husband and I read them daily and it’s helping us to grow in our marriage and closer to God! We were just recently baptized December 31, 2018 and this has been an awesome read for us to continue to have God at the center of our marriage. Daily this book hits home and I’m learning more about being a good wife!! Thank you so much for this book and I truly hope all Christian couples read these!" - Diamond S. "Just what our marriage needed! Awesome! It brought us closer together while also enhancing our individual walk with God. Opened our eyes to things we were and weren’t doing and being accountable. Very powerful devotionals! Highly recommended! A+++++" - William M. "Simply AMAZING I bought both bundles; Husband/Wife After God and 31 Prayers for your husband/wife and my husband and I are doing both together. OMGOODNESS, it really is good. Very well written and when I say these will open up your eyes, I'm not kidding. And get your steel toe boots on. These two books have helped us start off in a place where God can show up and take over. We have only been doing these less than two weeks, and God shows up every day relating these books to our daily lives. God speaks through people and uses people to minister to others and boy has he here. If you want God to show up and you really want to love God through your spouse and how to do it. These books right here is where you start!!" - Krystal W. *Dear Lord, Thank you for creating marriage. Thank you for considering our counterpart and complement. Thank you that we do not have to endure life alone. Not only do we get to live with the presence of Your Holy Spirit and our spouse, but we also get to benefit from living in community with other believers. May we walk together in unity as You have always intended us to. Please continue to draw us closer to Yourself and closer to each other. Continue to transform our hearts and our minds, so that our character reflects your character. Help us to intentionally invest in marriage by learning how to fulfill our roles as husbands and wives. Thank you for revealing to us why You created marriage and the purpose it has in this world. May this purpose motivate us to walk righteously every day. Remind us daily that our marriage is a symbol to this hurting world of Your powerful and unconditional love. We pray that as Christian husbands and wives, we aim to minister to one another in our marriages by being obedient to all that You have commanded through Your Word. May we be prayer warriors who do not neglect to pray for one another. We pray that as we make ourselves known to You and to each other, that we experience extraordinary intimacy. We pray for your will to be done in our marriages and through our marriages and may You be glorified. In Jesus’ name, amen!* READ: [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 importance of doing a marriage devotional together. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. Love. And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey, as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us this week. We wanna invite you, as always, to leave a review on the podcast. The reviews, the star ratings, those all help other people, other marriages, find this podcast and get the content,. So if you enjoy what you been hearing, and you haven't done it yet, would you leave us a review today? That'd be awesome. [Jennifer] Also, if you've been enjoying this podcast, we would like to encourage you and ask you to shop on our online store as a way to support this podcast. So if you go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, you can see all of our resource there. We just want you to know that we wrote those for you guys, but also it helps support things like this podcast, so thank you so much for shopping with us. Also, I'd just like to highlight the discussion that we're going to be talking about today happens to be on marriage devotionals. So be sure to check out Husband and Wife After God. [Aaron] Yeah, those are our two devotionals that we wrote for husbands and wives to go through together. They can go through them separately, too, right? Yep. But we'll talk about that. [Jennifer] But if you're shopping on the store, you can check those out, and there's more information there for you, specifically on those devotionals. [Aaron] Awesome. So, icebreaker question, all right? [Jennifer] Dun dun dun. [Aaron] What is your definition of "and they lived happily ever after?" [Jennifer]Okay, so, we've talked about this before, but we're not really into this phrase. It's a hopeful and a happy phrase, for sure. [Aaron] Yeah, it's-- [Jennifer] But at the end of my book-- [Aaron] It's got a dead end on it, I feel like. [Jennifer] Well, I think at the end of my book, the end of our story, I'd much rather hear the line, and "they entered heaven, "and God said with a smile on His face, "well done, my good and faithful servants." To me, that's more powerful. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Than happily ever after. Which means that we used our marriage for His purposes, and not just our own, and in the process being happy is a byproduct of Yeah. serving Him. Yeah, just, it-- It might mean-- It feels one goal focused, and word focused of we're just going to be happy for the rest of our lives, and I don't, first of all, it's not even possible. The Bible tells us that we will endure trials and things like that, so when I think of it, I actually wanna reword it and say, "and they lived joyfully ever after God." [Jennifer] Oh, there you go. [Aaron] Like as a marriage, we're chasing after him. [Jennifer] Kinda the same thing. [Aaron] Yeah, but its with joy, which is more of, it's something that exists even when we're not happy. Because when things aren't easy and hard, we can have joy, but instead of just "happily ever after" like the white picket fence, just the American Dream, or just things going well for the rest of our marriage. We have a bigger purpose of, it's not just to make us happy, but it's to pursue God and what He's doing in His kingdom, so I would just change. Yeah, we've never really liked that phrase. It's not that it's a bad phrase. [Jennifer] No. [Aaron] It just doesn't feel deep enough Or complete. Or long, or long-lasting enough, yeah. [Jennifer] It's not complete. [Aaron] Alright, we'll move on to the topic. That was an okay question, we'll have a better question next week, one that's funnier I think, 'cause those are usually funny questions, huh? [Jennifer] Not always. [Aaron] So we're gonna be talking about our devotionals a little later, but we have some quotes from them to start off the episode with, and this is a quote from my devotional Husband After God. It's on page 16, it says, "Marriage is an opportunity "to bring glory to God as you share with the world "His testimony by loving your wife "the way Christ loves the church." [Jennifer] Okay, and I'm gonna share my quote from Wife After God, it's on page 117. "Being a submissive wife is beautiful, "as it reflects God's divine order. "When a husband loves his wife like Christ loves, "and a wife submits to her husband, "that reflection clearly represents "God's grace-filled love story. "The benefits in a marriage like this are extraordinary." So they kinda mirror each other, they go hand in hand. [Aaron] Well, now that's the reason we wrote the devotionals, was to highlight for the husband and wife, why they're married and why God has His order and His ways for us to follow. It's because we have a message to proclaim. [Jennifer] Mm-huh. [Aaron] We have a purpose in this world. Which again goes to the bigger picture of what we wrote Marriage After God for, which comes out in June, which is just that. That our marriages are a ministry and that when we walk the way the Bible calls us to walk. We actually proclaim His message to the world, which is pretty incredible. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] To think about that, our marriages have much more to do in this world than just make us happy, which goes back to our question, really. But let's start off the topic with why it's important to do a marriage devotional together. 'Cause I'm sure there's a lot of marriages out there, people listening, that are wondering like, "hey, we do our devotionals separately, but what benefit could it be for us to do one together? [Jennifer] Or maybe they're not doing any together or any at all, and they've been waiting for something, they're looking for something. We're hoping that this catches their attention and maybe inspire them to get started on one today. [Aaron] Yeah, so let's talk about some of the benefits, some of the things that come to mind that could be, that could come out as fruit, [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] from doing a devotional together. [Jennifer] So the first thing that comes to mind is just cultivating oneness and intimacy from the experience of doing it together. Right. So, focusing and being intentional in the act of doing something together like a marriage devotional. [Aaron] Right, 'cause usually, if we have books that we read at night, often it's just to ourselves. It's, we're the only ones benefiting from it, or enjoying it, but a devotional that we can do together. If it's in the evening or in the morning, or in the afternoon, whenever that works. It's an intentional time to be together in the Word of God. It requires conversation, introspective thinking, dialogue, lots of stuff that would go on, that which cultivates more and more intimacy. Yeah. Right? Instead of us just, I work, come home, how was your day, awesome. We actually can go deep and say, hey, what did you think of that scripture or how does that make you feel or hey, that reminds me of when I was a kid and... [Jennifer] Yeah, and just to take it one step further, when you consider a devotional, you're usually gonna find those kind of journal questions or discussion questions or, like you said, to think introspectively, that you can use as conversation starters. 'Cause some people, they want to share their hearts with their spouse, but they don't really know how to-- That's a good point, yeah. or where to start, and so a marriage devotional will usually take the hardness out of the equation and say, here talk about this. Right. [Jennifer] And both people can look at the paper and go, oh! Or look at the book or look at whatever they're looking at and say, that's what we have to discuss, so we're gonna talk about that right now. [Aaron] Yeah, so they could stretch our intimacy muscles. How deep can we go in the conversation? The things that we could talk about. Those questions are usually formulated to cause deeper discussion than you would normally get into. It's a good point, and you know what? Growing spiritually is a very intimate thing. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] The deepest part of us is our spirit and we're cultivating that with each other. Praying with each other is an extremely intimate thing. We're entering the throne room of God together, we are praying together, we are lifting each other's hearts up, we're hearing each other's hearts, and then discussing the Word of God together, those are super intimate things. [Jennifer] Yeah, growing in the word of God together, that's a powerful thing for a marriage to be doing. I think that we all should be doing that. [Aaron] Okay, well, of course. Like as Christians, we're called to grow and mature, but as marriages, as a single unit, as one, we should be growing and maturing together also. Not growing and maturing separately only. That should be happening, but growing together, and I think what's awesome about doing a devotional together, also allows us to be accountable to each other. Yeah. Right? If we've been discussing, self-control, or our anger, or anything that this devotional might be calling out of us, we can actually pay attention together instead of me trying to work on it privately, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] and you don't really know what I'm working on. We actually could say, hey, remember the devotional last night we were just talking about this, like hey, let's working on that. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] And I feel like you might've forgot the thing that we've committed to because of that question we answered the other night. So it helps us to be working on similar things throughout the day and keep each other accountable, and look out for each other's growth and maturity. [Jennifer] Another benefit is being an example for your children, and when those children become adults and they're married, you can say, have suggestions for them. Hey, we did this marriage devotional, we did that together. You and your spouse should try that. [Aaron] Yeah, and then they also see us, especially if we do visible, like in front of them, periodically, maybe not every day, but, hey, mommy and daddy are gonna do our quiet time together now, you guys can look at your books or go play quietly with your legos, and they know that that's an important thing to us, that we separate time to be in the Word together. It actually kinda convinced me thinking about it right now, we should do that more. [Jennifer] Yeah, we should. [Aaron] We should be getting away more together, so let's start doing that. [Jennifer] Okay, deal. [Aaron] I was gonna say, another thing I think about is, again, going back to the main purpose why we, our marriage exists, what God wants to do in us, is that there's a message to be proclaimed, there's a mission to be accomplished. I think of that scripture that tells us to be ready in and out of season, it tells us to be ready to give an answer for the hope that we have in us, and doing a devotional together and growing together on the same page, in the Word of God and learning what He has to say to us and what he wants to do through us. It helps us be ready for when our neighbor says, "hey, what's so different about your life, "why do you believe in this God of yours?" We're prepared together, instead of maybe you not-- Not knowing or... Not being ready or me not be in the same place. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's good. [Aaron] Yeah, but we would both be prepared to give an answer for our faith. [Jennifer] Yep, and the last thing I think of with all of these things that we've already shared about the importance of doing a marriage devotional together is simply that it's investment for your marriage. So, the quality time you're spending together to do it, the intimacy that you are cultivating when discussing difficult things or very deep things, and, like you said, being ready to share the hope that you have. All of these things are an investment into the marriage relationship, and when you invest into your marriage, you're growing in that relationship, you're building trust, you're building closeness, that bond between you, and I feel like that will strengthen a couple to go even further. [Aaron] Yeah, and keep going. [Jennifer] Like year after year after year. So I just wanted to make that note. [Aaron] That's good, so and the end result of pursuing God together, growing and maturing together, growing the Word of God together, doing a devotional together, all of these things to cultivate the oneness and intimacy and strength. The benefit and result is becoming and living as biblical men and women. [Aaron] We become more like what the Bible says. We represent that more, which has benefits also. When we just become the kind of people God desires us to be. There's benefits, and what are some of those? [Jennifer] So, you know, I just think of advancing as a Christian, and we get to do that together. So we see areas of our life that are weak, and maybe doing a devotional together could point to an aspect of our lives that needs to be transformed or worked on or practiced. Or cut out altogether. [Jennifer] Or cut out altogether, and we get to see us take steps towards growth in those areas. So we're moving forward not backwards. [Aaron] Yeah, when we walk in the way that the Word tells us to and calls us to, we experience more love, we learn about it more, we're filled more with God's love in us. So our marriage, we benefit from that, and our children benefit from that. [Jennifer] Totally. [Aaron] And our neighbors. The people that we interact with, there's more joy, more love, more peace. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] All those, you know, fruit of the spirit is in us. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's good. [Aaron] And that's a huge benefit of walking in obedience to the things that the Word calls us to. [Jennifer] Yeah, some other benefits are just, when you're working on areas of yourself to be more like God, I feel like He draws things out of your heart that need to be worked on, like being healthier with choices that you make, or being wiser, you know, like those kinds of things. [Aaron] Be better stewards of our resources, our money. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Which all benefit our marriage, our life, our relationships, and then the most important thing, and we brought this up a moment ago, is the Gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ and what He came to this Earth to do for us is spread because we are in His Word and we're growing. And we look for opportunities to talk to people about God, and to love on people for God, and to share our story with people. That's the fruit that comes out of us, it's an overflow of what God puts in us. So we're talking about the benefits of doing a devotional, of getting into the Word of God together, but is that, I think of the devotionals we made and how can we share with them more about our devotionals and whether or not they might wanna jump in today. Just getting in the Word of God. 'Cause even if you don't get our devotionals, ever, or anyone else's devotionals, being in the Word of God together is more than adequate. It's what God wants us to do, Yeah. invest in His Word. [Jennifer] And we don't have to over complicate it, like seriously, just open up the Bible, read a chapter or two and talk about it. Ask each other the simple question of what stood out to you, start there. [Aaron] Yeah, and we try and do that. Sometimes, some nights I just read out loud. We don't talk about anything, we just, I read out loud until Jennifer falls asleep, or until we're just like, okay, awesome. And usually it ends up in a really great conversation about something that was triggered by what we read. You know, oh that made me think of today when, or last week I forgot to mention, and we have these really good conversations around the Word of God, but you know, we've had a lot of people over the years ask us about devotionals and want things to do together, and we made two devotionals, Husband After God and Wife after God, separate ones, because there are some marriages where the spouse isn't in the same place and so, we've had many people just buy just the devotional for themselves and start going through and start praying for their husbands or getting into the Word of God. [Jennifer] Or sometimes they buy the bundle in hopes that the other person will read theirs. [Aaron] Yep, we've seen that a lot also. We've actually seen people say, "hey, I didn't think my husband was gonna do it," And then he did. and then he totally started doing it. But the main point is that you do it together. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] You get these devotionals, you read through them, and so let's talk a little bit about these devotionals. Why don't you start off and then we'll just dig in to some of the information about them and maybe people will love the idea. [Jennifer] Yeah, so like Aaron said, our biggest thing here today is just to give you guys a little bit of insight to our marriage devotionals, but overall just encourage you to be doing something together, because it will cultivate that intimacy and oneness. But we wanna give you some insight into our devotionals, just to give you an option and show you what's out there. So, I wrote Wife After God. The subtitle is Drawing Closer to God and Your Husband. It's a 30 day marriage devotional. I wrote this back in 2013, right after I had Elliot. That was a long time ago. [Jennifer] Yep, and, I wanted something that a wife could hold in her hands that would help her better understand God's purpose and design for marriage and her role as a wife and to see that reflection, that picture, that's talked about in Ephesians 5 of Christ's relationship to the church. [Aaron] Yeah, it started off with, we wanted to, you wanted to show wives the ministry they had in their marriage Yes. toward their husband. Yes. [Aaron] Which is what the Bible shows us on both sides that the husband has a ministry to his wife and the wife has a ministry to her husband, and the symbol, like you said, it shows to the world. [Jennifer] So I'm just gonna read couple of these, I'm not gonna read through all of them, but these are just some of the chapter titles, so that they can get an idea for it. God's Purpose for Your Marriage. The Need for Companionship. Ministry of Reconciliation. Perfect Posture. [Aaron] That's a good one. You actually get a lot of comments about that chapter. I do. Wisdom Calls Out. Who You Are Called to Be. The Parts of Marriage. Fruitfulness. Intimacy With God. Love Letter to Your Husband. That's what it ends on, which I love that one. But that's just a handful of them and we'll get to the Husband After God. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] After we kind of, summarize Wife After God, 'Cause I want the guys to hear what's in yours, which is, Yeah. it's just as good. So anyways, the way that I outlined this is share about a page to a page and a half of whatever that topic is. [Aaron] And it's usually story-driven, it's either from our life, or another story we've heard to illustrate the point. [Jennifer] Yep, and then it goes into a prayer for that day specific to that day, and then you'll see a challenge, which is usually a challenge for you and your relationship with God or you in your relationship with your husband. So hopefully those inspire you guys just to do something you either have never done before or maybe haven't done in a really long time to cultivate that intimacy. Then there's the status update, which I don't know if a lot of people see in books, but we've decided to put the status update challenge in there for people who want to share this message that they're learning with people on social media. That's another way that this message of Wife After God gets out. It can be a catalyst for people to ask, hey what are you doing? What is that thing that you keep posting about? And it just gives a real quick glimpse in one sentence of that day's topic. [Aaron] Yeah, it's also a way of solidifying and vocalizing some of the things you're choosing to walk in. So you're stating it publicly. I'm going to be or I'm going to do, and then it makes it a real thing. Instead of it just in your mind, you're like oh, I'll work on that some day. [Jennifer] And what I love seeing is when people tag me in these and they post a picture of their wedding day with it, or a recent picture. They do that a lot. They post pictures from their wedding day, which is awesome. [Jennifer] Or a recent picture of them together. [Aaron] Yeah, I love that. And it encourages other couples, they say, "oh what is that?" And they want to be a part of it, and it's just a neat way of spreading the Gospel, spreading the message of being a godly wife, being a godly husband and what that means. [Jennifer] And each day has specific scriptures that support the topics that we're sharing, which I don't want to skip over, but just so you guys know, the reason we didn't quote the scripture in there is because we want you to get into the Word of God yourselves, so we just list the scriptures. [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause people always ask, "what version of the Bible did you use in the verses?" All we say, well, we just put the references, not the actual scriptures, so it's all our content, and what's awesome is it requires you to open your Bible. [Jennifer] Yep, and-- [Aaron] Which is the focus. [Jennifer] The last thing I wanna share is one of my favorite parts of these devotionals and it's the journal questions after each day's, at the end of each day, and you can use these. We gave space under each question that you can fill it out right then and there or you can use them and fill it out in your own personal journal, or you can use these as discussion questions either in a group setting. So if you're doing this with a handful of other wives, or you can use them as discussion questions between you and your spouse to answer. [Aaron] Or all of the above. [Jennifer] Or all of the above if you wanna, that'd be awesome. [Aaron] So, I'm going to go through the Husband After God and pull some of the points. It's formatted exactly the same way, but the content is complementary. It's different content focused on the husband with some different topics, but some of the topics are similar, but with different content, if that makes sense. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So you could totally do this with your spouse and you would have different questions that you can go back and forth on. You would have different stories and different points to pull from, even different scriptures, but the themes might be the same in some areas, so I'm gonna read some of the topics. Marriage By Design. Lead By Example. Your Wife is a Gift. Sacrificial Love. Set Yourself Apart. Be Brave. The Good Fight. Pride. Everyone loves that chapter, I think. Forgiveness. Words Matter. Prayer For Your Wife. Avoiding God. Walk in Victory. And then the last one is The Husband Revolution, which is a fun one. It's proclaiming that mission that we have as husbands and that ministry we have. But yeah, there's a point in the beginning, a couple, a page and a half or two pages, and then there's a prayer for that day, specific to that topic. There's scripture to read. There's questions for you to answer. There's a status update, like this one says, "I will strive to reflect the image "and character of God in my marriage." That's status update, so it's like a statement. Statement, yeah. I'm going to do this and you're telling all your social media friends that you're gonna do it, and then it also let's people know, wait what is he doing? It says #HusbandAfterGod, what is that? [Jennifer] Yeah, what is that? [Aaron] Yeah, there's a challenge on every chapter. This one says share and discuss with your wife what you are learning about the purpose of marriage. So boom, right there, there's an intimate moment that I get to have with my wife where I share with what I'm learning, what God's teaching me about the purpose of marriage. 'Cause imagine if I sat down, or you sit down, husband, with your wife, and you say, oh, you know, I'm learning that God's purpose for our marriage is that I would love you like Christ loves the church. She's gonna be like, what, that's amazing! [Jennifer] And yeah, imagine what that would do to a wife's heart? I know personally, it just makes me feel like, oh my goodness, he cares about me, he loves me, he wants to do this with me and with God, and I don't know, I just love that. [Aaron] I wanna read another challenge. This one's from, what chapter is this? This is from day 21, Prayer For Your Wife, and the challenge is this. Spend time praying for your wife. Share with God why you are thankful for her. Lift up any needs she may have. Pray for her character to reflect Christ, and petition God to protect her. So, the challenge is go find some quiet time and just pray for your wife. [Jennifer] Which we all need those reminders. Every single one of us. [Aaron] So that's the Husband After God devotional. And the topics in each one of them are focused on the wife's role, scriptures that are aligned with that, and then the husband's role and scriptures that are aligned with that, but at the end of the day, what they're doing is they strengthen the marriage overall, making the ministry of that marriage more powerful, and more focused on what God wants for it. [Jennifer] And there's 30 days or 30 topics, so you could easily do this in a month's time. [Aaron] Yeah, well that would be the challenge, is do it every day for a month, for 30 days. [Jennifer] Yep, so I just, real quick, wanna jump into a couple reviews that people have left for these specific devotionals, just so that you guys get an idea of the kind of impact that it's making from other people, and other people's lives. So Aaron, you wanna read the first one? [Aaron] Yeah, this one's from Diamond S. and it says this, "Life changing! "This book is truly a Godsend. "My marriage is better using these books. "My husband and I read them daily and it's helping us "to grow in our marriage and closer to God. "We were just recently baptized December 31st, 2018," which is incredible, [Jennifer] Wow, recently! [Aaron] Yeah, "and this has been an awesome read "for us to continue to have God "at the center of our marriage. "Daily this book hits home and I'm learning more "about being a godly wife. "Thank you so much for this book "and I truly hope all Christian couples read these." [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] Which, I was like, yay, makes me feel good. [Jennifer] Okay, I'm gonna read the next one. It's from Crystal W., "Simply amazing. "I bought both bundles, Husband and Wife After God, "and 31 Prayers For Your Husband and Wife, "and my husband and I are doing both together. "Oh my goodness, it is really good! "Very well written, and when I say these will open up your eyes, I'm not kidding. "And get your steel-toed boots on, "these two books have helped us start off "in a place where God can show up and take over. "We have only been doing these less than two weeks, "and God shows up every day, "relating these books to our daily lives. "God speaks through people and uses people "to minister to others, and, boy, has He here. "If you want God to show up and you really want to love God "through your spouse, and how to do it, "these books, right here is where you wanna start." [Aaron] That one's a good one. I like that one, she said "put on your steel-toed boots." [Jennifer] I know, it's great. [Aaron] Alright, so this last one is from William M. "Just what our marriage needed, awesome! "It brought us closer to God while also enhancing "our individual walk with God, opened our eyes to the things "we were and weren't doing and being accountable. "Very powerful devotionals. "Highly recommended. A++++." [Jennifer] Awh, some people are just so kind, and it always encourages us and we feel like, awesome. We have given couples a catalyst to get into God's word together and to do something that's impacting their relationship, and I'm just praising God. [Aaron] Yeah, and our goal all along, has not been to replace the Bible. Our purpose of these books was to point people to the Bible. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Always pointing back to the Bible, always pointing back to God. [Jennifer] Awesome, okay, so I wanna move into this next, sort of, sessions. [Aaron] These are kinda like questions, Q&As. [Jennifer] Yeah, Q&As on... [Aaron] Oh no, they're FAQs, that's what it is. [Jennifer] Okay, on the topic. So, can these be read together at the same time or not? [Aaron] Both! We recommend them being done together. They could be read separately, or they could be read together, taking turns, but our sentiment is, hey, do them, and then come together and discuss the chapter for the day, discuss the thought for the day, how you answered the questions, do the prayers together, pray- [Jennifer] Sometimes they pray the prayers out loud, too. [Aaron] Yeah, so I would say both. Like we said earlier, there's some marriages where the husband or the wife are not there, they're not doing it. So the other spouse is just doing it on their own. [Jennifer] And the great thing about these devotionals is you can utilize them more than just once, go back through it again, you know? It's really good content, so it's not wasted, just keep going through it again. [Aaron] Yeah, they're good reminders of what the Word says about who we are and what God's called for us. The next question is can they be used to lead a small group? [Jennifer] And the answer for that is, yes. So, some tips for this. If you're gonna do, host small group, let's say that you have five other wives who wanna go through Wife After God together, we would suggest everyone gets a copy, just so that they can go through it on their own throughout the week, and then meet up, once a week for a month or two, depending on how you want to do it, and just use the journal questions, in the back of each day as the discussion questions to talk about. [Aaron] Yeah, and you might be able to break up the chapters, so like the first four chapters on week one, and the next four chapters or five chapters on week two. [Jennifer] Yeah, and you don't have to use the journal questions, You can just simply say, okay, what have you been learning? What stood out to you? That kind of thing. [Aaron] Ideally, they would, whoever has these devotionals, the people listening, if they have these devotionals or if they're going to get them, when they're done going through them, they should invite married couples over to their house, and start a little marriage Bible study with those couples. [Jennifer] That would be awesome. And here's the other tip, if you guys were to do this soon, there's even enough time, by the time you finish that small group, Marriage After God will be out. The new book, yeah. The new book, and then you could do that same group study With that book. With book. [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause that book is significantly different than these devotionals. [Jennifer] Okay, so I want to give one more tip and this is just a fun thing to do with your group, if you're gonna do a group. I did a small group, which actually led me to writing this devotional. I did it for three months with a handful of wives from my church, we were all young wives, kind of in the same season of life, and-- [Aaron] No one had kids yet, back then. [Jennifer] No one had kids yet. One friend had one young, young baby. So, anyways, we got together weekly, once a week, for three months, and the second to the last, or maybe the third to the last one, we made handmade invitations for our husbands. [Aaron] Oh, this is definitely a good idea. [Jennifer] We planned and prepared a dinner that we were gonna host for our husbands on that last evening and talk about the discussion questions and what we learning on that night with everyone. And so we thought it was gonna be fancy, we thought we wanted to dress up, we thought we all wanted to cook together. So we made these handmade invitations and then a couple weeks later, we all got together, we got there early, set the table, got flowers, made the dinner, and all the husbands showed up, dressed super nice, we were just at a friend's house. [Aaron] That, I remember this. That was a lot of fun and I felt really honored. [Jennifer] Everybody just, everybody felt honored. Everybody had smiles on their faces and what's really cool about that night is the guys actually, because they knew it was coming, they all talked and prepared on how they were gonna encourage us women and share how they've seen us change over that time we'd been meeting together. So then at the dinner table, everyone went around and shared. It was incredible, it was so awesome. [Aaron] It was really powerful, and very enjoyable, and the food, I can't remember what it was, but I remember it was really good. [Jennifer] Yeah, so you could do something fun like that together. [Aaron] So last question is, why should they read these devotionals now, as a primer for the Marriage After God book coming out in June? [Jennifer] So, first thing you guys should know is, we did write these devotionals a couple years ago, and when we get people who have been through them asking us what's next, we want to give you something. We've been wanting to give you something since they first came out. [Aaron] We've had four kids since then, so... [Jennifer] Yeah, we've been a little busy, but this was a catalyst, you guys asking and desiring this has been a catalyst for why we wrote Marriage After God. So I feel like these devotionals are the brief version. [Aaron] I think they're the first stepping stone. [Jennifer] It's like a stepping stone, because then, I feel like your hearts will be ready. More unified. And more unified for jumping into the message that is in the book, Marriage After God. [Aaron] Yeah, the Marriage After God book. You're going to be hearing a lot about this, so we're starting to talk about it more because as it gets closer to launching, we want you all to know what it's about, and why we wrote these books. And we wrote Marriage After God as a culmination of everything that God's been teaching us over the years about the ministry that God has for our marriages. And so these devotionals are step one in that. [Jennifer] Yeah, they'll get you thinking about the purpose of your marriage in light of God's Word. [Aaron] Yep, and by the time the book comes out, you'll be ready to take that next step into what God has for your marriage and where He wants to take it. 'Cause that was the whole purpose of writing the book was, we want marriages all over the world who claim the name of Christ, who love God, to recognize the power in the ministry that they have in Christ as a marriage, as one. And so we're super excited about that. [Jennifer] Yeah, I think another thing is, is if you do these devotionals together, it will start to build that habit of spending time together and reading together and asking each other some deep questions. So that when the Marriage After God book comes out, that habit will already be there and you'll want to replace the devotionals with the book. So I think that it's just a natural step. [Aaron] Yeah, and I wanna go, I got really excited about something. I wanna go right back to the small group subject again. I love that idea, and I actually wanna challenge our listeners. We weren't planning on doing this, but I want to challenge our listeners to get a copy of our devotionals, the Husband and Wife After God devotionals. Go through them, and at the end of the 30 days, during the 30 days, be praying and asking God, what other couples are in your life that He wants you to invite to a study at your house, a Marriage After God study? And then invite them to get the books. It could be two couples, it could be one couple, it could be five couples. I wouldn't do more than maybe six couples, that's a lot of people. Do multiple studies, maybe, but I just wanna challenge you to be praying through the books as you do them, and asking God who it is. You might be thinking right now, oh my gosh, I have this friend, these friends, they would love to do this with us, and start a Bible study and walk through these studies, these books together and see what God has for all your marriages. What we're trying to start here is a movement of marriages after God, of marriages who desire to grow the kingdom of God, to see Him move through their marriages, and that we would use our marriages for ministry for Him. That's why we started the podcast. That's why we started our blogs. All of this goes back to that, that we're moving the kingdom forward with God, and that we see our marriages as the ministries He's given us and the tools that He's given us to serve Him. [Jennifer] Mmm, that's good. [Aaron] So would you agree with that challenge? [Jennifer] I agree, I like that challenge, and just to simplify it and make it easy for them to understand. Just tell these people it'll be four or six weekS, whatever you want the timing to be on it, which is not a long time to meet together. It's not at all. [Jennifer] It's once a week, for four weeks, or once a week for six weeks. [Aaron] Try the four weeks, I think the four week one, just one month to see if it works, see if you're like wow, this is awesome. And but first, I would say you go through the devotionals as a couple first. And during that 30 days, you pray, and fast if need to, and you ask the Lord. Say, Lord, reveal to us, who is it? And I know the Lord will. The moment we ask God, like God use me, He's like okay, He wants to use us. [Jennifer] Marriages need it, you guys, that's why we're doing this, because marriages need the support, the encouragement of other believers, they need to know why God has them together. [Aaron] The reminder of not just happily ever after, but it's that we're chasing after God together, that we're building His kingdom together, that we have a mission in this world and our marriage is the tool to accomplish the mission. Yeah, and going back to the message of the Marriage After God book, that's what the whole book's about, what is the mission God has for us? [Jennifer] And if you guys have already been through these devotionals, and this is old news to you, because you've already been through these, I want you to go dust them off, go get them, and go do exactly what Aaron is challenging you to do right now and consider- [Aaron] Let's start our movement. [Jennifer] Yeah, consider who you can invite over to go through them with you. [Aaron] Ooh, how can they let us know if they're doing it? 'Cause actually I would love to know. I'd love to see the groups-- Groups, a group photo! We wanna see a group photo- Tagged! [Jennifer] @MarriageAfterGod. [Aaron] Yeah, tag @MarriageAfterGod and #MarriageAfterGod, and we will look 'em and actually I think we'll repost them. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Not all of them, but we'll repost a lot of them. So if you do this, please let us know. We'd love to be praying for you, being part of it, and we are praying for you, but if you're going to be doing a group, we want to pray for your group, we want to pray for your Bible study. I'm getting all excited, okay. [Jennifer] Okay, so last note before we go into the prayer for this episode, and that is, get ready, because we have 16 weeks ahead of us of a book series for Marriage After God that we're going to be diving into starting next week with the introduction. [Aaron] That's true, and you know what's awesome? We forgot to mention this, this is episode 52. This is, we've been doing this for one year. Woohoo! Today. [Jennifer] Thank you guys for following along, and listening, this is awesome. [Aaron] Yeah, so for the next 16 episodes, we're going to be talking about content from the book. [Jennifer] And it's actually 17, 'cause it's 16 chapters, plus the introduction, so 17 weeks. [Aaron] So you're going to be learning a lot about the message of the Marriage After God book, which is essentially of the Marriage After God podcast, and how our hearts is to start a movement in Christian marriages around the world. And we'd love for you to be a part of that, and to take ownership in that, and know that God's gonna do something amazing. And we're excited to see what that is. So before we close, as always, we've dedicated to pray for you and your marriage and for what God's doing, and so Jennifer would you like to pray for us? [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for creating marriage. Thank you for considering our counterpart and complement. Thank you that we do not have to endure this life alone. Not only do we get to live with the presence of Your Holy Spirit and our spouse, but we also get to benefit from living in community with other believers. May we walk together in unity as You have always intended us to. Please continue to draw us closer to Yourself and closer to each other. Continue to transform our hearts and our minds so that our character reflects Your character. Help us to intentionally invest in marriage by learning how to fulfill our roles as husbands and wives. Thank you for revealing to us why you created marriage and the purpose it has in this world. May this purpose motivate us to walk righteously every day. Remind us daily that our marriage is a symbol to this hurting world of your powerful and unconditional love. We pray that as Christian husbands and wives, we aim to minister to one another in our marriages by being obedient to all that You have commanded through Your Word. May we be prayer warriors who do not neglect to pray for one another. We pray that as we make ourselves known to You and to each other, that we experience extraordinary intimacy. We pray for Your will to be done in our marriages and through our marriages and may You be glorified. In Jesus' name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen, thank you Lord. We're excited to see pictures. We're excited to see what God's gonna be doing in your marriage through these devotionals, through the Bible study that you're gonna start, I'm making it a definitive. [Jennifer] And tag @MarriageAfterGod so we can see and cheer you along! [Aaron] Yeah, and just start praying and asking God how He wasn't to use you and your spouse. That's our heart, that's our goal, that's why we do this, is that you would recognize the place that you have in the body of Christ, and that it's a significant one. Doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter where you live, God's got a plan for you, He's got a purpose for your marriage, for your life individually, and you are a part of the body of Christ. And God's got work for us to do, [Jennifer] Let's do it. [Aaron] as his children. Yeah, so let's do it and we love you guys. We thank you for joining us on our 52nd episode, one year in, here's to another year, and we'll see you next week! Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

NOTE: We don't share any graphic detials in this episode but this is not an episode to listen to around children. To support this podcast please pick up one of our marriage books at https://shop.marriageaftergod.com In this episode, I share my history with an addiction to pornography and how it affected Jennifer. Jennifer And I both discuss how it made her feel and how it affected every aspect of our marriage but ultimately how the Lord freed me from this sin. Our prayer is that by being open and vulnerable about this sensitive and taboo subject that a light would be shown and that many other men and women would find freedom and healing. READ: [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 personal journey with pornography in our marriage. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith everyday. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. Love. And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Thank you all for joining us this week on our podcast and we just wanted to invite you to leave us a review. This is just one way to help us get the word out about the Marriage After God podcast and let's other people find us and we really appreciate it, it just encourages our hearts. We love 'em. [Jennifer] So if you could just scroll to the bottom of the podcast app and leave us a review. [Aaron] Yeah a star rating is the easiest way to do it. All you have to do is hit a star, but if you have extra time we'd love a text review as well. [Jennifer] Thank you guys. [Aaron] Hey we wanna thank you for joining us and we also want to invite you if you've been enjoying the podcast to consider supporting our podcast. And the way that you do that is go to shop.marriageaftergod.com and pick up one of our books that we've written. The ones we wanna talk about today is our 31 Prayers for My Husband and 31 Prayers for My Wife bundle. We call it our prayer challenge and we encourage couples to do it. Thousands of couples have already gone through the challenge and they've loved it. They go through it multiple times actually a year so go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, pick up a copy of our 31 Marriage Prayers Challenge and that would support our podcast, thank you. [Jennifer] Okay moving right along, we are gonna jump into our icebreaker question, which is which one of you said I love you first? [Aaron] That's an easy one. [Jennifer] Give them a second to guess. You guys guess. Jennifer. Who is me. I couldn't wait any longer. [Aaron] Did I actually say I love you back? [Jennifer] So what happened was we were, I don't know if we were on a date or just hanging out but I remember I was getting out of your car-- [Aaron] I'm up in front of your house by your red mailbox. [Jennifer] No, actually Aaron has a terrible memory. [Aaron]Oh, it's not right there? -We were-- Where was this at? [Jennifer] It's okay honey. I'm not mad. We were in the church parking lot. Oh, oh. I was getting out of your black Honda, and I was getting into my car. And I got out, and I stood up-- I remember now. [Jennifer] And then I leaned back in, and I said, "Oh, by the way, I love you." 'Cause I was waiting, waiting-- Did I skid away, and the door slammed shut, or? [Jennifer] No, that didn't happen. But you did let a very long pause happen before you said anything, and it made me feel super awkward, and I said, I might have even said, "Okay, I'm gonna go now," or something like that, and then you were like, "I'm just kidding." You start laughing and you're like, "I love you too." Almost as if I had already known, but you never said it. [Aaron] Well, you did already know. [Jennifer] Yeah, I did. But it was-- That's really funny I made you wait. It felt good to have said it, and I'm glad I said it. I don't remember-- Yeah and we say it a lot now. Yeah, I do love you. And I won't make you wait. I'll tell you all day every day. [Jennifer] All day every day? [Aaron]Yeah. Oh good. So Jennifer said I love you first, and then I made her wait a few seconds-- [Jennifer] Super awkward. Super long seconds. And then you laughed, and then you said I love you back. [Aaron] Yeah. All right. So why don't we do a quick quote from a book. Okay. And this book is your book. [Jennifer] Yeah, we chose one from The Unveiled Wife, so it's not a typical quote that we've kind of been sharing with you guys. It's a little bit more personal. Okay this is found in The Unveiled Wife on page 153, and it says, "We were devoted to making ourselves "known to God and known to each other. "I finally felt free from the bondage "that was holding me captive. "I could breathe deeply without fear "of someone finding out who I was "because I had chosen to make myself known." [Aaron] And this was a part of our story where we were divulging to each other our deep dark secrets. Where we were sharing our sins, things we were struggling with. Actually, divulged everything. Talked about everything in our hearts. That was a pretty pivotal moment in our marriage. And that goes into what we're gonna be talking about, that's why we picked the quote because we're gonna be talking about that season of our marriage, we're gonna be talking about a pretty large season actually, of my life, and it has to do with pornography. [Jennifer] Yeah, which I actually, well we both didn't wanna do this episode. [Aaron] We've been putting it off for months. [Jennifer] Because I don't know why, it's just, I think it's one of those topics that's hard to dive into and expose, but like that quote said, I chose to make myself known, in our marriage, you've chose to make yourself known, and I've, I believe that that created a safe place for trust to be built, and I think it's really important for husbands and wives to hear our story and to hear, just to hear how we've exposed our hearts to each other, and hopefully they could do that too. [Aaron] And not only have we exposed it to each other, but we've exposed it to others. We've exposed the things that we've gone through, our dark secrets to other believers and through our platforms, there are ministries of the world. And one of the things that I love about how we are, you use the word expose, I love that word. The Bible tells us to drag that which is in the darkness into the light because that which is in the light becomes light. And that was our sin. The more it was hidden, the easier it was to keep doin' it. And so we've been draggin' it out ever since and keeping it out in public, keeping it out in the light so that it doesn't live in us. So I wanna start off by reading a scripture. And it's in Ephesians five verse three. It says, "But sexual immorality and all impurity "or covetousness must not even be named among you, "as is proper among saints." Paul's telling the Ephesians, you're saints, you're saints of the most high, and sexual morality and impurity and covetousness, they should not even be named among you. Meaning not even a little bit. In other translations it says there shouldn't be a hint of sexual morality. That's insane. Because in our current culture, in our current world, in my own life experience, I had not just a hint of sexual morality in my life, I was drenched in sexual morality. And Ephesians five verse three is very clear and it's, this isn't the only scripture that talks about this, that there shouldn't even be a hint of it among Christians. [Jennifer] Which is so weird because I mean, through our online platforms, we've shared about the topic of pornography before, and people even Christians, have shared their acceptance of it. And I think we're living in a culture, in an age where it's widely accepted even if people aren't talking about it. [Aaron] Yeah, we're desensitized to the grotesqueness of our sin. [Jennifer] Which is another reason why we knew we had to do this episode. We need to be willing to talk about it. [Aaron] Yeah, pretty much every time we've ever posted about pornography and how it's wrong, and shouldn't even be in a marriage, and how, and not that we're coming from perfection, we're coming from, well actually no, we've experienced this, it's wrong, and the Bible says we shouldn't do it, and God hates it. Christians, people claiming to be Christians in our comments will say, "Well, you're wrong actually, it's fine as long as." And then fill in the blank. And I'm like blown away. But we shouldn't be surprised by that 'cause the world's being, the world's gonna be deceived. So our heart today is to expose our story, and I hope my, our prayer we just prayed before this is that you listening, if this is your story, would begin to walk in freedom today. So that it, that sexual morality and impurity and covetousness might not even be named in your marriage. That there would be no hint of it. And so let's start, we're gonna start with my experience, and there's a bunch of questions I'm gonna answer and, but before we go to some of the questions I'm gonna answer about my experience with pornography and where it came from and how I walked in it and my story behind that, I just wanna read a letter I wrote to pornography in 2014. And it's on my blog, and it says this. "Dear pornography, "We have known each other since I was a child "and I feel as though I can tell you things "that I can never tell anyone else. "You know all my secrets and all my fantasies, "and you have been by my side "in the good times and in the bad. "You spent time with me when I was lonely or bored, "and you comforted me when I was angry or hurt. "It feels like you have always been there for me, "but I need to get a few things off my chest. "You promised me that after I got married, "I wouldn't need you anymore. "You made me believe that what we had was just a fling. "I realize now that you never loved me. "I am finally seeing your endgame. "You have stolen a piece of me like a master thief. "You wanted everything from me, not just my eyes, "but also my mind, heart, soul and strength. "You have promised a world to me that doesn't exist. "You have threatened my marriage and my children. "You have hurt my friends and family, "you have destroyed the lives of girls, boys, men and women "all over the world and used me to help. "All the while assuring me that no one would get hurt. "Our relationship has been nothing but lies. "You are not, nor have you ever been my friend. "You are the reason I have lived "with so much shame and embarrassment. "You are the reason my wife has been so hurt. "You have warped my perception of women in the world. "I needed to write you this letter "to let you know that it's over. "I would tell you in person, "but that would give you too much satisfaction. "I have found a true friend, his name is Jesus." I wrote this letter a long time ago and posted it. It resonated with a ton of people. It got 4,000 shares. And it was just me verbalizing out loud the relationship I had with pornography, so that I made it real. I was like oh, I don't wanna pretend like, oh, I'm just struggling and this that, like I actually verbalized what it was that I, how I related to it. [Jennifer] It actually makes me really sad just hearing you read it out loud, 'cause it makes it even more so feel like such an intimate thing, such an intimate relationship that you had with this thing, and I just, I, makes me heartbroken over the many people who are doing it, who are addicted to it, who have this kind of relationship with it. [Aaron] And it's true it's a lie. And it, in reality, it destroys us, it leads to death, and it destroys the people that, were, are being consumed by it, in the images. And it, do we care about those people? Do we care about ourselves, do we care about our families? And we need to consider those things. So I'm gonna be getting into some information about kind of where it started with me, and if you have questions as we go, Jennifer, you can ask me. How old was I when I was exposed first to pornography? I actually don't know. I feel like maybe seven, eight years old. I can't, I don't have a very good memory of my younger years. But I do remember one of the first experiences I had with it was I was walking home from school and I found a, it was like a playing card on the ground with a nude woman on it, and I remember keeping it. And I remember that being my first experience with it. I don't remember how I got connected on the internet with it, I don't remember how I've seen it on TV, but I've been exposed to pornography for many, many, many years. And not just exposed to it, but I've exposed myself to it and craved it, and sought after it since a very young age. And it went with me, I literally thought when I was younger that all I need to do is get married and it would fix my lustful cravings. 'Cause it, what they did was they, being exposed so young and right at that, puberty, when I'm already gonna be naturally more hormonal, and more testosterone, and all those things that come with puberty, I, it was heightened, extremely from a young age. And it just continued on until even, into marriage. [Jennifer] I actually remember before we got married, we did talk about that aspect of feeling like, 'cause you admitted to me that you struggled, pornography, and I also wrote it off as like well doesn't every guy do that? That was my perspective of it. And we both believed that it would be like a non-issue when we got married, that it would just go away. [Aaron] Right, so while we were dating, you had no red flags about it. [Jennifer] I mean, I hated it then and it hurt me then, but I figured marriage would be the solution. [Aaron] Well what you said was that you thought, well, I guess every guy struggles with that, and we'll just, when we get married we'll walk together and we'll figure it out, and it'll be fixed. And I actually believed that too, but I was so entrenched in it that I couldn't imagine men not struggling with it, and I think there was two reasons I did that. One, pretty much everything I heard from other believers, and pastors, and mentors was like, well yeah, everyone struggles with that and there's that book, Every Man's Battle, like we, that's the thing we've heard about this, so I just believed literally every man struggled with it and it was normal. Yeah, it was wrong, and we shouldn't do it, and I felt shameful, and I should be better at it, but I wasn't actually ever told by anyone that I didn't have to do it, that I wasn't slave to it, that as a believer I could walk in freedom from it, and that it was gonna destroy me. I don't remember hearing that ever. I remember how it made me feel. [Jennifer] How did it make you feel? [Aaron] Well,it made me feel gross. I hated that I couldn't stop it, probably like any addict. Like why do I keep doing this? Why can't I stop? I feel like I have no control. But then at the same time, I wanted it, I enjoyed it, I loved it, I couldn't say that out loud. When I would talk about it, it was always like, "I hate this, I don't wanna do this anymore." But internally, I really did love it, even though I didn't recognize that back then. And I can't remember ever having a real conversation about sexual purity. I remember being told I shouldn't have sex before marriage, I remember being talked about it a little bit, but I don't remember purity discussion. I remember being caught a few times with pornography and having a short discussion of how it's not good and we shouldn't do that, but I couldn't, I don't remember having these serious discussions of this can't happen. It is going to destroy you. You need to stop. I don't remember that. And it maybe did happen, but I don't remember it being, it wasn't memorable for me. It wasn't something that changed my direction from anyone, my parents, from pastors-- Youth pastors, yeah. [Aaron] Friends. In reality, even when I would try and, ways I would try and deal with it was just abstinence. Like, well I'm just gonna try and go, oh, I went a month. And I didn't mess up, was my term. I would have accountability partners. That's what we all do. But all my accountability partners also struggled with pornography and weren't changing. So all we would do was come together and commiserate and say, "Well, God's good, grace of God." Those kinds of things, but no one ever changed, no one ever had authority in my life to say like, "Hey, I'm walking in purity, you should too." I didn't, I actually didn't know anyone. I've never met someone back then that walked in purity, that didn't struggle with pornography, which gave me a very small world view actually. 'Cause I thought, I literally thought everyone struggled with it. And I'm sure there's people listening right now thinking like, "Well doesn't everyone?" No, everyone doesn't struggle with it. Many do, but it's a lie from Satan to believe that it's just the thing that everyone's gonna struggle with. [Jennifer] Well if we believe that everybody struggles with it, it just makes it more normal and then, like it's just-- Yeah, why change? [Jennifer] It's another justification for it, yeah. [Aaron] I would confess to God all the time, and just remember that God loves me, and remind myself. I would read scripture that would make me actually feel more shameful because I'd be like, "Wait a minute, why don't, why doesn't my life "line up with what the Bible says?" Like shouldn't it? Shouldn't, when I read this, oh, that's what a believer is. I would have to in round about ways work around what the Bible says to be who I was, as a quote unquote, Christian. Which is wrong, 'cause we're supposed to align our lives with what the Bible says not with how we feel, and then try and make the Bible fit into that, which is what I had to do because it, my life didn't line up with it at all. [Jennifer] So then we got married, and it didn't stop. [Aaron] No, it actually, I feel like at times, it got worse. [Jennifer] Well just to catch people up on our story, the first four years of our marriage, actually it's kind of humorous now that I think about it with your addiction, our biggest struggle was-- Sex. Sex. And-- Yeah, I remember telling God like, "God, just give me a wife, "I just wanna be able to have sex with my wife, "and I'll stop doing this." And then,gettin' married, and it's literally-- [Jennifer] The hardest thing possible. [Aaron] The thing that we can't do. [Jennifer] So I experienced excruciating pain every time we tried, and so for four years, our marriage just got tougher and tougher as far as our relationship because of this issue. And because we weren't coming together and being, experiencing that part of our relationship, you dove even further into-- I-- Pornography. [Aaron] Definitely used it as a excuse and a justification. 'Cause I thought to myself, like well I can't even have the one person I should be able to have, so, I got this over here. And it was wrong, completely wrong. But looking back, God absolutely used our struggle with sex to show the depravity in my own heart, and yours-- I was gonna say both of us. About lust, pornography, and these things-- [Jennifer] I'm like a lot of that is sin. Sexual, yeah lots of things. But He's, He was definitely saying like, "I don't want any of this." And He was willing to discipline us, and I believe that's what it was. I believe that that season of our life was discipline because He's like, "You're My children." And He says, "I discipline those who I love, "and I love you." And I, He was done with us walking our own way, and walking in that sort of sin, and, now I can't say like, we walked free from it, and then boom, we were healed. It was much more complex than that. But looking back, I know that's what God was doing in us. [Jennifer] So are you saying that we struggled with sexual intimacy because you struggled with pornography? [Aaron] I believe so, I believe that God was disciplining us, He was disciplining me. I told Him, the one thing I wanted was a wife I can have sex with, and He's like, "That's not gonna fix it." And it, and He, and I should be able to walk in freedom with Him, regardless if my marriage is perfect. I, it's not a justification, having a broken marriage, having a broken sex life, having these things that I think give me permission to break His heart, and His laws, and walk opposite of how He's called me to walk, when my greatest relationship should be with Him, which is what I've always said I have, like no, everything is about God, and I love God. And He's like, "Well," as Jesus says, "if you love Me, you'll keep My commands. "If you love Me," In 1 John, He says, "Those who practice righteousness "are righteous." And I wasn't practicing righteousness, I was, I had no integrity. When I was alone, I knew what I was gonna do, and you knew too. [Jennifer] I didn't trust you. [Aaron] No, I didn't trust myself. [Jennifer] I'd just go back to that point though, I wanna talk about trust, but I wanna go back to you saying that our, let's call it a drought, 'cause that's what it was, it was a sexual drought, and our marriage was correlated with this addiction to pornography, 'cause as much as I see that, I also know that it was layered because He used that time for so many other things, to reveal a lot to us. And I don't want that, I don't want them listening just to go, oh, that's kinda strange, but a cool little revelation, there was a lot more that-- [Aaron] Well of course, like God is infinite, and He orchestrated a lot of things in our life, for many purposes, to put us on this journey with this ministry, to make us, our unity and our oneness stronger, to use us in the lives of others, like lots of things to teach us things. [Jennifer] To teach us things, yeah. [Aaron] But it tells us that the, in the Bible that that our Father in Heaven disciplines His children. And if He didn't discipline us, we'd be illegitimate children. But because we're His children, He disciplines us. I just wanted to highlight that to show that we, in going through those things, that what our heart should be is to recognize what God's doing and that He loves us, and that He cares for us. It's that quota, He loves us the way we are, but loves us too much to leave us there, and so He changes us. And He draws us to Himself, and He makes us more like His son, Jesus. [Jennifer] He definitely used that time to do that in our life. [Aaron] Yeah. What for you, Jennifer, 'cause I brought this into my marriage, and I didn't know if you struggled with anything at the time, early in the marriage, but what did my addiction to pornography, how did it make you feel? How did you deal with it? What were some of the highlights, or lowlights, I should say-- [Jennifer] Yeah, I'm like, there were no highlights. [Aaron] From our, from that's part of our story? [Jennifer] Knowing that you struggled with this was painful, and I felt betrayed, as your wife. And there was a lot of deep hurt, a lot of pain, but what's interesting is also wrapped up in a lot of insecurity, and I felt like it was pointed back at me, as if I wasn't good enough for you. And so on top of the pain of betrayal and mistrust, there was also this layer of, "I'm not good enough for you and it's my fault." [Aaron] Right, like you're causing me to like, well, if I was prettier, or if could give him this-- [Jennifer] Or if my-- Part of my body. Yeah, if my body actually worked-- Yeah. [Jennifer] And we were experiencing an awesome sex life, maybe he wouldn't, maybe marriage would have fixed it. So then I felt at fault for it, and that was really painful. And so anytime that you confessed to me, or that the truth was exposed, I felt just as at fault for it. [Aaron] Yeah, and I remember you would say those sorts of things and I would try and like comfort you, and be like, "No, no, no, not at all, not at all." But what's unfortunate is I was only comforting you back then and trying to help you back then for the sake of my own shame. Like I didn't like that I made you feel that way, I didn't like that you responded that way, but instead of changing, I just tried to help you cope with it. Which is wrong of me, I wasn't a very good spiritual leader back then. [Jennifer] Well we didn't know back then, where I feel like spiritually, we were so immature that we didn't know how to navigate this right. [Aaron] We didn't have much close fellowship back then. We've talked about that in past episodes. Which would have helped us see it sooner probably, if we had people closer to us, knowing us. Not just people but spiritually mature people. People who would challenge this area of our life. But again, we have to expose it and we have to tell people how we're struggling if we want that kind of correction. Yeah, and we kind of-- Which most people don't. [Aaron] Kept it to ourselves. [Jennifer] So I also remember anytime that you would say, "Hey we have to talk," my heart would drop, 'cause I'd be waiting for the bomb, the truth bomb of like, "I have to confess again." And I hated that feeling, and my heart also ached with anxiety every time I left you at home alone because I just knew. [Aaron] You knew it was gonna come when you got back, yeah. [Jennifer] And when I did come home, and you told me you messed up, like you said you would say, it just affirmed my distrust in you. [Aaron] Were you ever surprised? No. Yeah, 'cause you knew I was gonna, which is such an unfortunate thing to make my wife only know that about me. That I'm not a trustworthy person, that I have no integrity, and she's gonna feel small, and insignificant because of something I'm choosing to do. And I think the reason, no I don't think, the reason we are getting real with this stuff, is because these are the things that aren't said to us. And so we can easily minimize what we're doing. I minimized it a lot with you. I would just be like, "Well it was only for a little bit here, "I, it was, like, it was nothing, it was not a big deal." And like, all I ever tried to do when I was apologizing to you was minimize the shame and the guilt that I saw in your face. And I deeply regret that part of our marriage, and the things that I walked in, that I didn't believe the truth that I've seen and read in the Bible that I thought that was for other people, not myself. I believed I was still trapped by it, even though I was a believer. I believed that I was still trapped in my sin. I believed that it had power over me that it didn't actually have. And I let it into our marriage. And in the Bible it tells us to keep the marriage very pure, and I didn't. And so I thank God that He showed me these things and He was patient with me because half the time, you feel like, "Man I'm surprised God just didn't strike me down." 'Cause like He's sovereign, He's a good God, but He's a just God, and man I justly deserved not what I've been given. The patience, and the reconciliation, and a wife who remained with me when you probably had a good reason and a good right to leave me, for breaking our vows so many times. Because the next truth we wanna make everyone listening realize is that pornography's not just, like oh, this little sin that I did over here, and like it's not a big deal, it's not attached to anything. The Bible tells us clear that sexual sin is special. It does something different to us because it's against our own bodies, and especially in marriage when you and your wife are one. [Jennifer] I was gonna say, it's against your oneness. [Aaron] It's against your body. It's against my wife, and this is the truth bomb, pornography is adultery. It's adultery. I was a cheater on my wife. I broke her trust time and time again. I broke faithfulness with her, and that's the reality, and if anyone's, that's listening right now is walking in this and is telling themselves, "Well, it's only every once in awhile. "It's not that big of a deal. "I can stop anytime." Whatever we, words we use, we are committing adultery on our spouse, and we are not practicing righteousness, and we are not walking in light as He is in the light. And those are truths that we need to say out loud, and we need to recognize them for what they are. [Jennifer] I just wanna be honest, this episode has been so hard for me, and I just feel like I, there's things that I wanna share, and then I get this lump in my throat, and my eyes start watering. We've had to stop three times just to pause so I can breathe. But pornography hurts. Pornography kills, and it kills oneness, and unity in marriage, it kills trust, it kills love, it kills-- [Aaron] Faith. [Jennifer] Faith, and-- [Aaron] It severs our relationship with the Father. [Jennifer] Yeah, it severs our relationship between husband and wife. Like our relationship was crumbling because of this. And I just, I feel so emotional I think, even sitting here listening again to our story because I know we're not the only ones who have been hurt by the pain of pornography. There are so many husbands and wives, maybe them listening right now, have walked this, or experiencing it, or maybe just last night, they had that hard conversation where they're in tears over it because they want it gone so badly, and it just keeps coming, and keeps coming, and keeps coming and it's gonna keep coming-- Or if they're about to have the conversation-- The enemy-- Today. The enemy hates marriage. The enemy hates what we're doing, and it's going to keep coming because he knows that it will destroy what we have. [Aaron] And I wanna, your words are powerful, but I wanna remind us that our words are powerful. And you keep saying "Pornography, it's coming, it's coming," as if it's something coming at us, and this is one of the lies I believed, that pornography was something happening to me. And when something happens to us, it's out of our control. Pornography was not happening to me. Yes, the same issue kept coming up and we had to keep dealing with it, but, and I'm not correcting you, Jennifer, but I want the people listening to not take anything we say and say, "See? "There it is, it's coming at me." [Jennifer] No, and when I said it's coming, I mean the enemy is dangling that temptation in front of us because he knows our flesh is weak. And we have to be willing to stand strong against it. [Aaron] And so if we think it's something happening to us, we'll never walk strong. It's something I believed. I believed it was a outward force that I had no control over. But it is not. 'Cause if that was the case, then no one's free. And the things that the Bible tells us are lies. Our encouragement to those listening is to believe the truth. Proclaim the truth, so confession, which is saying what's going on. Saying what you're doing. What you are choosing to do, which is the key. Not coming like, "Oh, it happened again. "Oh, I messed up again. "Oh, "I slipped and fell into this thing again now." Confessing that you chose again to cheat on your spouse, that you chose again to walk in unfaithfulness with your God. That's true confession. And then repentance is to turn the other way. I am no longer gonna choose to walk in that. Because if it's something that we accidentally fall into, if it's something that happens to us, then there is no need to repent because you don't know if you're gonna slip. You're walking on this journey, and you're just gonna fall into the pit by accident, and that's just your destiny. But that's actually not true because that goes against everything Jesus came to do on the cross. He came to set us free from the bonds of sin and death. And the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that will bring life to our mortal bodies. That's what the Bible tells us. And in a little bit, we're gonna get through more scripture just so you listening can hear the truth about this. And I wanna bring up something, you said, Jennifer, that pornography hurts us, and it destroys us, and I wanna highlight one more truth, it was something that I never realized until I started walking in purity. And God was revealing to me who I was, and the things I was doing, is that pornography doesn't just hurt us, the ones consuming the pornography. We are literally condoning and cheering on, and paying for things that we would never condone, or cheer on, or pay for a Christian to do. And a lot of these men, women, whoever's in these videos or photos, many of them are forced into it. And even the ones that choose it, were literally saying, "Yeah, keep doin' that. "Keep doin' that." We're choosing to hold hands with someone to Hell, by the thing we are consuming. And if Christians would realize that, if I would have realized that earlier, would I have stopped? Maybe. If I woulda realized like, man, I'm actually like, partaking, participating in someone's journey, to a journey away from God. And it's easy for us to think like, well they're just things, it's just a video. Well no, those are people in those videos. Real people that are made in God's image. And I just hope that this is hitting home with those listening, I hope that people are hearing our hearts of concern and love, and are also being, having their eyes opened, and their hearts opened, and that true Godly repentance would come from this. [Jennifer] So I remember there was two pivotal moments in our marriage, that stand out to me. I think you'll know what I'm talking about, but they are pivotal because they helped you change in this area. And so I wanna share 'em so that those listening can be inspired by it and hopefully it, this, hopefully this moment right here becomes a pivotal moment for them. [Aaron] Amen, yeah. [Jennifer] So I remember it was just after we had Elliot, he was just a little baby, and I was sitting in a rocking chair midday, trying to rock him. And you were sitting at the desk in our bedroom, and you started telling me and confessing how you had-- -Again. [Jennifer] Messed up again. And normally, I mean, list an emotion, and I've expressed it. Tears, uncontrollably, like just all of it. Sadness-- All rightfully so, 'cause of what I've done to you. [Jennifer] But this time, I just sat pretty much gripping Elliot's little body, and patting his back, and my heart was just so burdened for you. And I remember-- It was actually your first time thinking about me in that way, because of what I was going through. [Jennifer] Yeah, yeah, like if tables were turned, yeah, putting myself in your shoes, but I just, I questioned you on your faithfulness to me. Because on the outside, we were Christians moving forward in our marriage and at this point, we actually had already been reconciled and determined to stay together. And you messed up again, and I questioned you on your faithfulness and I reminded you what scripture says about it being adultery, and I know you have already mentioned that today, but I remember just reminding you in this, in that moment that you were committing adultery against me. And I questioned how you would want our future to go, I questioned how you would want our son's future to go. [Aaron] I remember all this. You asked me if I actually feared God. You asked me if I actually loved God. You were challenging me at the core of what I was doing. Not just this one event, oh, I forgive you for the event, you told me like, you need to realize what you are doing Aaron. And I remember it was like, shocking. It was like oh my gosh. This is different first of all, 'cause usually I'm like looking forward to you, not looking forward to it, but I'm expecting an outburst, a reprimand-- A reprimand, yeah. [Aaron] "What, you did it again? "Don't you know how this makes me feel?" But you went from, you actually loved me, selflessly, 'cause even though you were totally hurt, you instead told me the truth in love. You said, "Aaron, you are committing adultery." And I think that was actually the first time I, we recognized that's what I was doing. I'm laughing 'cause I'm embarrassed. That was a pivotal moment, and that began actually, over the next few years, me walking in-- [Jennifer] The start of the true change. [Aaron] Like it, I did still have-- [Jennifer] A weakness. [Aaron] I still fell back into it, I don't wanna say fell back in it, I still chose it, but it was, it became much less, and much less, and then what the next event that happened was the straw that broke the camel's back. Like the, the like it was the thing like, so you opened my eyes to like, "Man, I have to change. "This is not okay what I'm doing." And then this next moment, I'm sitting in my car with our pastor and mentor, and he's, and we just had dinner and we were hangin' out, and he said, "Aaron, are you walkin' in purity?" And I said, "Well, no, recently I did this." 'Cause I wanna be honest, that I'm tryin' to walk in repentance and openness and light. And he says, "Well Aaron," he's like, "nothing's gonna change "until you believe the truth." He's like, "You need to believe the truth." And I said, "Well, what do you mean?" Because the way I talked was, oh, it happened to me again, I fell into, I stumbled into, oh, woe is me, like as if something was happening to me, so, 'cause I was still not thinking clearly about this even though you challenged me correctly. I still wasn't thinking clearly. And he said, "You are not a slave "to your addiction to pornography. "Pornography is not something that has control over you." Which I didn't believe when he was saying it, 'cause I believed it controlled me. And then he said, "And also, Aaron, "you need to admit and confess that you love your sin." He said, "You need to say it because you do." And I said, "I don't love it." And he's like, "Well, your actions are proving different. "You say with your mouth that you don't, "and then you say with your actions that you do." And it went right into my heart. And it was the first time in my life that I was able to say with my mouth out loud, that I actually loved pornography. And what that meant was is I actually was able to fully confess, 'cause before I was confessing about the fruit of my sin, not confessing the sin that I loved my lust. [Jennifer] Which if people are wondering, my response is I hate hearing it, I hate knowing it, I hate, I hate all of that, but I think it's necessary in order to overcome-- [Aaron] Well, a true confession is necessary, I had to be able to admit the truth, 'cause I was walking in lies. And the lies were keeping me in the darkness, and the lies were keeping me trapped, when the trap was my lies, it was, there was no trap. There was no chains, 'cause God broke those chains on the cross. And he's like, "You need to recognize that, "that that is the truth. "You have not stopped sinning because you love your sin." And so I, once he said it out loud and once I said it out loud, I realized, wait a minute, I don't want to love my sin. And so I confessed, "Lord, forgive me for my love of my sin, "and change me." And that was the last time. I think there was one other little time after that, that was, and I'm not trying to minimize, significantly different kind of sinning, but in the same area. And I confessed that out loud to Matt, and to you, and that was it. And it's been how many years now? [Jennifer] Five. [Aaron] Five. But those are the pivotal conversations, was you telling me the truth in love, and then another brother telling me the truth in love. Not, "Aw, sorry, yeah we all, we're all gonna struggle. "Let's just get back up, "and let's just try harder next time." But that's not, that is not what God's asking us to do. He's not asking us to try harder, He's asking us to walk in the truth. And the truth is, let's read some of these verses. The truth is, Galatians 5:1, "For freedom Christ has set us free; "stand firm therefore, "and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." And that's what I was doing, I kept submitting to a yoke of slavery that didn't exist. I was allowing a yoke to be put on me that didn't need to be there. So I'm free. That's what Christ came for, freedom. Would you read Romans 6:6? [Jennifer] "We know that our old self "was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin "might be brought to nothing, "so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin." [Aaron] Oh, so it's not that I have to try harder, I am not enslaved to sin. So I need to walk in the actual truth-- [Jennifer] Which is 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. "The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." [Aaron] So am I walking in this old self while pretending to be a new self? [Jennifer] Talk about a marriage fixing things. [Aaron] Yeah, and the marriage doesn't fix it, Christ has already fixed it. [Jennifer] No, the marriage of Christ, the being one. Oh, yeah, we're being one with the body of Christ, we're His bride, and it says that He's gonna come back to a pure white, and without blemish bride. That's who, that's what I'm a part of, that's who I am. That's who you are listening. [Jennifer] Yeah, how dare Him come back to a bride that's been-- [Aaron]Dancing in the mud, with her dress. [Jennifer] Sad. [Aaron] So those listening, your old self has been crucified. It's been crucified. Christ set us free on the cross. Ephesians 4:17 through 24, "Now this I say and testify in the Lord, "that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, "in the futility of their minds. "They are darkened in their understanding, "and alienated from the life of God "because of the ignorance that is in them," that was my life, I was walking as, He's telling Christians to not walk as Gentiles were, I was walking that way in my ignorance. "Alienated from the life of God "because of the ignorance that is in them, "due to their hardness of hearts. "They have become callous "and have given themselves up to sensuality, "greedy to practice every kind of impurity. "But this is not the way you learned Christ, "assuming that you have heard about him "and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, "to put off your old self," Aaron, put off your old self. "Which belongs to your former manner of life "and is corrupt through deceitful desires," I, that's crazy that it uses the word deceitful desires. They trick us, they're desires that are deceitful. "And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, "and to put on the new self, "created after the likeness of God "in true righteousness and holiness." So my trying harder is actually just putting on the new self. Christ's likeness. 1 John 2:1, "My little children, "I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. "But if anyone does sin, "we have an advocate with the Father, "Jesus Christ the righteous." What's awesome about that is when we're walking in righteousness, and we stumble because we've chosen to, or we haven't, we weren't walking in the, we weren't walking in the Spirit, but we were walking in the flesh, we have an advocate. But the things that we're reading right now have been written so that we won't sin. So that we will actually walk in the truth. 1 John 2:28 and 29, "And now, little children, "abide in him, so that when he appears "we may have confidence and not shrink from him "in shame at his coming. "If you know that he is righteous, "you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness "has been born of him." I love that it says practice first of all, 'cause that that means is that we are not yet righteous, but we are becoming righteous. And as we practice it, we get better at it. So am I practicing my sinful desires and getting better at those things, or am I practicing righteousness and getting worse at my sinful desires? And that was, that's my life now, is I'm getting worse at my sinful desires and I'm actually getting better at avoiding temptation, and knowing what temptation is, and being strong under the temptation, and fleeing from the temptation, and talking about the temptation. And now encouraging others to do the same. [Jennifer] So actually I was gonna mention that, how you walk in authority now and challenge other believers, and I can be confident that you're gonna walk our children through these things, that you can teach them, and I don't know, I just, I love that you have this authority that you can say, "I've overcome this, you can too." [Aaron] Which is amazing, because when we see other people overcome something, it makes it that much more believable that we can. And so you're listening to this, and if you're thinking, "Man, I can't do that." Stop believing the lies, you have been set free by Christ. You have the power of the Holy Spirit in you. You've been given everything that pertains to life and Godliness, just like I have. I'm not special, I haven't been giving, given something that you haven't been given, Jennifer hasn't been given something that you haven't been given. We have Christ in us. We have, we could put on the new self, created after the likeness of God. [Jennifer] Something that we mention in our book coming out, Marriage After God, is that Jesus didn't come back to kind of save you, He came back to save you. [Aaron] He came back to fully save us, today, when Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, He says, "Thy will be done on Earth, "as it is in Heaven." Which is cool because we can actually have His will on Earth, in our life. Now we haven't, our bodies are still gonna decay and we're gonna still see death, and these bodies are gonna fall apart because they're not yet redeemed. But you know what is fully redeemed? Our spirit. And He's renewing us day by day, and He's giving us a new mind, and new spirit, and He's, and through His word, and through walking in community, and through being, walking in light and truth, we can actually walk the way God has enabled us to walk. It tells us in Malachi, that He will write His laws on our hearts, on tablets of flesh. They're no longer on stones that can be broken, they're on hearts of flesh. His laws are written on our hearts, and not only has He showed us in our hearts how we can, how we should walk, but He's empowered us to do so through the power of His son and His spirit. I don't know, I hope that was vulnerable enough, and again, our prayer is that those listening, you, would not be freed from this addiction, and this struggle with sin, and pornography, but that you would recognize that you are free, and that you do not have to choose to be submitted to it. You don't have to choose it. You can choose actually to walk away, you could choose actually to turn the computer off, you can choose actually to put your phone down, you can choose to run away as fast as you can. We can choose that, and we are empowered to do so through the Holy Spirit. [Jennifer] So if this episode encourages them to go have a conversation, and there's confession and reconciliation, do you wanna share some things that we've learned over time that could help them? [Aaron] Yeah, I will say on my part, or for those that are going to do the confessing, and we talked about confession in one of our episodes, and they should go back and listen to that actually, don't minimize, meaning, well, it was just this, it wasn't as big as deal you think, it was only for a moment. Just say I did this. And then the second thing I would always try and do that I shouldn't do, was I tried to control your reaction. Please don't be mad, I know that I was wrong, please don't be sad, please don't be frustrated-- Or why are you crying. [Aaron] Or why are you crying. And so I, when I started walking in purity, I purposed that if I was gonna confess to you, I was just going to tell you what I did, when I did it, and then I was gonna be quiet. [Jennifer] And so on my part, I mean, as the person receiving the confession, something that I've learned is, well the first thing is, God created us with a lot of different range of emotions, but He created us with emotions. And so the first thing is acknowledging that you feel, and the second one is you're still called to have self-control in those feelings. And-- And you're allowed to have the feelings. And you're allowed to have those feelings, so you may cry, you may get angry, you may get all of the things, but you still are required to have self-control in them, and that doesn't mean that you just shut it off and you don't express those emotions, it just means that you don't sin in your emotions. And so I just wanted to share that as the counterpart to what you-- [Aaron] And on the person receiving the confession, the other spouse, your job is to not just love your spouse, but to speak truth in love. Like you did that day. You very calmly and lovingly said, "You are walking a very dangerous line. "You are committing adultery, "and you are harming our marriage, "and what you're doing will destroy us. "And you must change." [Jennifer] And then the biggest thing after all of that, is reconciliation. It should always be for the purpose of reconciliation and we hope that it's for reconciliation in your guy's marriages. [Aaron] And reconciliation can happen even though trust is still broken. Because the reconciliation is knowing that hey, we are still one, but we are going to work on this trust thing. Because you have hurt me and we're gonna walk it out together, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna avoid being healed, but it's going to take time and that's gotta be okay. Because it's not like a switch that gets flipped. There's been unfaithfulness, there's been brokenness, there's been sin, and there's consequences to that sin. But as a team, you walk towards healing and restoration, on both parties, and you do that by prayer, you do that by fasting, you do that by walking faithfully-- [Jennifer] And abiding in the word of God. [Aaron] And abiding in the word of God, and you also do that in community. You don't do it alone. If you're a brother dealing with this, you find other brothers that are gonna say, "Dude, stop it." That have authority in your life because they walk in purity also. If you're the wife, you find girls that are gonna be like, "You can't do this. "You need to walk in purity." And the goal is oneness, unity, healing, righteousness, holiness for the purpose that we always go back to is that God has a job for our marriages. He's got a ministry for us to do, and we will not be able to do it if we're stuck in sin. [Jennifer] Yeah, we need to be pure, and we need to present His bride, pure. [Aaron] And that's what we get to do, we get to purify ourselves, we get to practice righteousness, and we get to chase after God every day, and I just pray that this brings freedom today. I pray that hundreds, thousands of couples today would find not just healing, but realize the freedom that they have. And that they would be the ones that people look at and say, "I didn't know you could walk in freedom like that." And then they'll say, "Actually, this is what the Bible says." And they'll be able to help other Christians walk that way as well. [Jennifer] What an incredible ripple effect for the body of Christ. Oh yeah. [Jennifer] Well thank you guys so much for joining us on this episode. It was, it was vulnerable, and I appreciate you sharing, Aaron. And I can see that there's probably gonna be a lot of questions, probably come up from this. Probably. [Jennifer] And we might have to do another episode, but that's okay. But we do wanna invite you guys to pray with us, and close out the episode with this prayer from Aaron. [Aaron] Dear Lord, thank You for Your loving patience and kindness towards us. Thank You for Your mercy and forgiveness. Lord, I pray as Christian men and women we would practice walking in righteousness. I pray we would pursue purity, as You are pure. I pray that as Christian men and women who proclaim You to be Lord in our life, that we would not walk in this sin anymore. Change us, transform us, and cut out any dead flesh and wicked way that is in us. Help us to fear You and love You. Help us to see the truth about pornography, that it is destructive, sinful, immoral, and that it is adultery. Your word tells us that there should not even be a hint of sexual morality named among us as Christians. Help us to live with integrity, help us to be transparent and honest in marriage, help us to choose reconciliation over isolation in marriage. We are Your saints, and I pray we would walk in a manner worthy of Your call in our lives. In Jesus name, Amen. Thanks for joining us this week, and we look forward to what the Lord's gonna do in your life. And the testimonies that are gonna come from the truth that people heard today. [Jennifer] We'll see ya next week. [Aaron] Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

If you would like to support this podcast please consider picking up one of our marriage books. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com DESCRIPTION We think every married couple would agree that a little encouragement goes a long way! Marriage can be difficult and the enemy is good at convincing us that we should shrink back in our issues, isolate from one another, and try and get through it on our own strength. But we need to be reminded of who we are in this world, that we are loved, and that our marriage is valuable. We need to be reminded that our marriage has a great purpose for God's Kingdom. Every marriage needs this. That is why we are giving you 7 ways to encourage your married friends in this week's Marriage After God Podcast episode. We share a handful of ways you can be reminding your married friends that their marriage is worth fighting for, that they should be drawing close to God, and that they are being prayed for by you! As Christian husbands and wives, we should be encouraging other Christian husbands and wives, our dear friends, and the very people who are part of the same body, one body, Christ's body! Let's be the kind of friends that are loving, sacrificial, and willing to serve. Let's be light in people's lives. We hope this episode inspires you to reach out to your friends today, let them know they are not alone and that their marriage is valuable. The Lifegiving Table: Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time - by Sally Clarkson -> https://amzn.to/2Vn2xpS READ: [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 seven ways to encourage your married friends. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life, [Aaron] love, [Jennifer] and power [Aaron] that can only be found by chasing after God [Jennifer] together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us for the first episode of 2019. [Jennifer] Woo hoo! [Aaron] Yeah. And we just wanna invite you to leave a review. If you've been enjoying this podcast since last year and are just loving the content, if you wanna help get the word out, one of the best ways to do that is to leave a star rating, which is super easy, you just scroll to the bottom of the iTunes app, if you're listening on iTunes, and you hit a star rating, that's enough. And if you want to do more, you can actually leave a text review, and we read through those all. They're really encouraging and yeah. We'd just love to invite you to do that. [Jennifer] We'd also like you to know that one of the ways that this podcast is supported is through people like you shopping through our store. So if you would like to check out just the resources that we've created for you for your marriage to encourage you guys, go to shop.marriageaftergod.com. [Aaron] Okay, so let's start off with our icebreaker question. Jennifer, what is one thing you are passionate about? [Jennifer] Well, something I don't know if they know about me is I'm very passionate about art. I love all things art, but specifically painting and restoring furniture. So like, I just got an old desk for Olive and it was multicolored and had designs on it and-- [Aaron] It was unique, yeah. [Jennifer] It was very unique, very bold dark blue and green. But I just, I covered it all with some chalk paint and did this kind of antique finish on it. It turned out really great, went to Hobby Lobby, got some knobs for it, so just doing kind of creative things like that, I love jumping into projects like that. [Aaron] Yeah, and you're good at it, too. [Jennifer] Aw, thanks. [Aaron] You should actually post some pictures from old art projects you've done in the past, like the blue lady-- [Jennifer] Maybe I'll do that. [Aaron] And I'm thinking of the Jesus painting you did a while ago. You're actually really good at it. [Jennifer] Thanks. What about you? [Aaron] Yeah, something I'm passionate about, I'm actually passionate about, and this wasn't planned, but I'm passionate about helping people with their businesses. Maybe people don't know this about me, but I do a little bit of consulting here and there. I don't do it publicly necessarily, but like, lots of our friends I've helped with their businesses, with their websites, with the creative, the marketing, I actually really love it. [Jennifer] Yeah, you're good at that, too. I feel like you have just something unique about you where you could just seriously look at any kind of business project, any goal that someone has and go, oh yeah, this is what you should do to make it awesome. [Aaron] And sometimes it works. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, but that's what I'm passionate about. I like the one on one consulting-- [Jennifer] The going back and forth. [Aaron] The going back and forth, the brainstorming, the ideation. [Jennifer] Ideation, that's what you're good at. That's awesome. [Aaron] So that's what we're passionate about. There's a lot of things we're passionate about, but those are some specific ones that people might not know about us. Okay, so we have, before we get into the main topic, we have a quote from the book, The Lifegiving Table, by Sally Clarkson. [Jennifer] This is a really great book if you guys wanna jump into for, well the subtitle is Nurturing Faith through Feasting, One Meal at a Time, and she talks a lot about just creating your family culture around the table and she gives ideas on how to do that. She even gives recipes in the book, but on page 219 she says this: "Having deep, meaningful relationships "is not just a pleasant addition to our lives, "but an element essential to our identities." [Aaron] That's good. And it's about what we're talking about today. [Jennifer] Yeah, so we're gonna be talking about friendships and specifically your friends who are married and engaging in community with them. [Aaron] And specifically on how your marriage can be an encouragement to those other marriages. Because a part of being a marriage after God is not that it's just about us and what we're doing in the world and God's using us for, but that we are walking with other Christians as the body of Christ, for his purposes, for what he's doing, and one of those things, man, the New Testament, I feel like almost everything that's said in the New Testament is about our relationship with one another. You know, especially the Book of Ephesians, which is the relationship book, it's about our relationship with God, our relationship with each other as husband and wife, with our children. And so God loves relationships. [Jennifer] Yeah, he does. [Aaron] He came because of relationships. He died for relationship. [Jennifer] And Sally actually mentions just before that quote that I just read, she mentions how God created us in His image, and if He's a relational being then we are as well. [Aaron] Yeah, and that's exactly what we are, and I feel like one of the things the enemy does is makes us wanna be alone, wants to get us away from community with other believers, makes us feel like we're the only ones who think the way we think, or every time I get close to people, I get hurt. Which is funny, 'cause that's exactly how relationships work, they're sticky. [Jennifer] They're messy, yeah. [Aaron] They're messy. And you're probably not close enough to someone if you're not feeling hurt sometimes. Doesn't mean that we should be hurting each other, but it's just, it's natural for that to happen. But the enemy doesn't like it. He doesn't like us being connected with one another, closely tied together, 'cause we're stronger together. It's true in every aspect of life. You see it in the animal kingdom, you see it in the human kingdom, and when we're together, when we're unified, when we're one, when we're walking together, we strengthen each other, we're less prone to being attacked, we're less prone to falling, and when we do, we have someone to pick us up. Right? And so we're gonna talk a little bit about how your marriage, you listening right now, can encourage other marriages. [Jennifer] And it's so important 'cause I mean, when I think about some of the kingdom work, the things that God has us purposed to do, I think about evangelism and I think about telling, sharing the gospel with people who don't know Him. [Aaron] Yeah, the lost, yeah. [Jennifer] Right, the lost. But it's also so important to remember that even as Christians, we need to be reminded of these things, we need to be reminded of who God is in our life and how He's working and how He's moving in our life, and I think that's such a great thing about friendship is we can do that for each other. And that's why I'm really excited about this episode, 'cause we're gonna give you some kind of practical things and just encourage you to be those type of people in your relationships with your other married couple friends. [Aaron] Yeah, and if it wasn't for other marriages encouraging us, we would not be here today. [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] As in, we'd probably be divorced, but we had couples who loved us enough to dive into our messiness, to peer in, to say hard things to us, to encourage us, to be there late into the night. You know, we've talked about this in past episodes, you talk about it in your book, but just all the tears, all the laughter, all the late nights, all the food. There's all these things that were incorporated into our relationships and people loving on us and walking with us. [Jennifer] And we all need that. Like, even those listening, they're probably going well I need that. I just wanna encourage all of us to be the people that we need in our lives. [Aaron] That's a good one. We need to be the people. Yeah, we need to be the example, we need to. And you know what? Sometimes we don't feel like we can be that person, but we still should be. Because it's the times that you feel like you can't be it that you probably need to be it. [Jennifer] So this is really funny, it reminds me of growing up, my grandma used to say 'cause we'd all eat a bunch of food when we got to her house and then we'd all just wanna like, lay around on the couch and she'd go, 'kay it's time for a walk, 'cause that's the best time to take a walk, is when you feel like you don't-- [Aaron] You wanna go to bed. [Jennifer] Yeah, when you feel like you wanna go to bed or when you feel like you can't. [Aaron] And hasn't science like, proven that now? It's like, it helps with digestion to go for a walk after you eat? [Jennifer] I don't know, I just remember my grandma always saying it. [Aaron] Grandma knew things. Yeah, so-- [Jennifer] So here's our encouragement to you, to go take a walk. No. [Aaron] Yeah, go get some food, take a walk. No but, I feel like this is important to, 'cause we all have friends, but how many of us have friends that we know intimately, that they're more like family to us? And I think it needs to be happening more in the Church. If we realize that being a part of the body of Christ literally means that we are unified with other Christians, not just well yeah, I go to church with so-and-so and oh yeah, they're nice but they don't know anything about you and they're never in your life. And we can't do this with every single Christian, but we can do it with some. [Jennifer] Yeah, and those who are already closest to us. [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, so why don't we just get into the seven ways? [Jennifer] Let's do it. Okay, you wanna start with number one? [Aaron] Yeah. You mentioned a minute ago about the gospel and how in evangelism, preaching the gospel to the lost, but when I read the Bible, when I read the New Testament, it's all about reminding the believer of what the gospel says. It's pretty incredible if you think about it. Doesn't mean we shouldn't preach the gospel to the lost, that's what we preach the gospel for, is for salvation, that Jesus would be preached and that people would turn their hearts to him and that they would join the body of Christ. But those that are in the body of Christ, I believe we need to be preaching the gospel to each other more often, not just assuming like, oh everyone, yeah, we're saved, we got the gospel. The gospel is the power of God. It's the thing that changes us, and many of the hard things that we walk through in life and like, our sins and things that we might have a hard time escaping, is because we haven't, either we've forgotten the gospel or we haven't truly understood it. Because the gospel is the thing that saves us, it's the thing that transforms us, it's the thing that makes us be like Christ. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Yeah, so I wanna read this scripture, it's Romans 1:16. Paul says this, he says, "For I am not "ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God, "for salvation to everyone who believes, "to the Jew first and also to the Greek." And so in encouraging our friends, I think one of the most powerful things we can do is constantly be reminding them of the gospel, that we were once sinners lost in our sin, deserving the wrath of God because he's a just God, but because God loved us so much, John 3:16, he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him will not perish under the wrath that we deserve. Jesus took the wrath we deserved, and if we believe in him and we follow him, we actually receive salvation and grace. And our relationship with God is made new and that's the gospel. [Jennifer] Preach it. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] It's so good. So here's the thing that I know that this episode is for us to get our minds on our friends and how we can be a vessel of God's love and grace toward them, but when we say what you just said, when we have a heart directed towards our friends in reminding them of the gospel, what does that actually do for us? Like what's, there's benefit there. [Aaron] I think it's like, practice first of all. Practice preaching the gospel. You know, sadly I believe many Christians don't even know what the actual gospel is. And so saying it over and over again, it not only reminds us, but it gives us practice on how to preach the gospel. And you're preaching it in a safe environment 'cause you're preaching it to someone who already believes it. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] And you're reminding them, so you're loving them and you're saying hey, brother, sister, all these things that you're walking in right now, filter them through the gospel. Remember that we actually, what we deserve is eternal punishment. And but because God loved us so much and he sent his son to die for us, we don't get eternal punishment, we get all of the benefits of being a son of God and a daughter of God, which is what the Bible teach us, that is the gospel. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I just feel like if we're sharing the gospel with our friends, if we're reminding them of who we are in light of God's love story, then we're gonna be reminded of that constantly. It's gonna be on the forefront of our minds. [Aaron] Exactly, it will. And I think about when you have a brother and sister walking in sin. Like let's say you have a married couple, friends of yours, and the husband's not necessarily loving his wife as Christ loves the Church, which is what Ephesians five teaches us. Or you have a wife not walking in reverence or submission to her husband and you say hey, I just wanna encourage you guys, do you remember what the gospel says? Like, if you recognize what we should've gotten but what we do receive, it actually brings us back to a place of healthy reverence and fear for the Lord and it reminds us of his goodness. And then you know what? It often brings us to repentance. Lord, you know what? I'm so sorry. Change me and make me like you want me to be because I love you and you've given me everything that I don't deserve. It reminds us of how we can be and who we should be and who God's made us to be and who He sees us as already, which is awesome. So the gospel I think is the most powerful thing we can continually be doing in our friends' lives, and like you said, it reminds us, too. [Jennifer] Yeah. Okay, so moving on to number two, and when we were going through the notes, I actually asked Aaron, isn't that the same as number one? And so I'm gonna let Aaron explain it, but it's share with them the truth of God's word. [Aaron] Yeah, so it definitely is. The gospel is a part of that, but there's often just practically, think about how many times for you, you've been going through something and I remind you of certain scriptures-- [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] That are truth and promises, and instead of you walking in the feeling, you're like, oh I can actually look at that and start thinking on that and dwelling on that. [Jennifer] Okay that's good, and I've had other friends reach out to me through a text message and you know, share a verse with me and just let me know that they're thinking about me and praying for me, and that is really powerful. So sharing God's word-- [Aaron] Yeah, there's nothing more powerful than the word of God. [Jennifer] Yeah, so sharing God's word with them, and practically, it could look like a phone call, a text message, a card, you know, all those things. Word of mouth, when you're sitting in front of them with coffee. [Aaron] Yeah, a little note on this, we've gotta be in the word of God. [Jennifer] In order to share it. [Aaron] To be prepared to share it, 'cause our friends might come to us and just mention something that they're going through or the way they're talking you just think like, oh man, I think they need to hear this. They're not thinking about this correctly. And then finding that scripture and saying, hey can I just read something to you? What's awesome about the word of God is instead of it just being my opinion, I think you should do this. Even if my opinion is founded in the word of God, it's still just me. But I can say hey, I just want you to know that like, lemme read this to you. Now what has to happen is they have to argue with the Bible. [Jennifer] Yeah, the authority of God. [Aaron] Yeah, as long as we're coming in a heart of love and encouragement, and our heart is to help them grow and we're gonna treat them the way we wanna be treated. Man, scripture is powerful. The Bible tells us that the word of God does not come, it goes out and does not return void. Meaning it's going to accomplish what it's going to accomplish. [Jennifer] Yeah. That's really good and I was just thinking, if your friends are married, chances are you, even if you don't know the specifics of what they might be going through in that week, you know that marriage can be difficult, and so you can just find a verse that's gonna encourage that. Like, does that make sense? [Aaron] Yeah, and you could be sending them like, large portions of scripture. Be like, hey can I encourage you today to read this chapter? And just say, look out for this word or look out for this. You know, I feel like God's heart for you is He wants you to know this about Himself. He wants you to know this about yourself. And on top of that, encouraging your friends to be in the word of God. Saying hey, are you guys reading? [Jennifer] Yeah that's huge. Challenge them, yeah. [Aaron] Jennifer we talk about this often, the times that we feel ourselves slipping into this routine of a little bit of bickering, which is totally sinful, we've talked about this in the past. [Jennifer] Just poor attitudes. [Aaron] Poor attitudes or just bad perspectives, discontentment. We realize man, we haven't been very consistent in the word of God. We've gotten out of sync, because the word of God puts our minds on the spirit rather than the flesh, and when we're not in the word of God, our natural tendency is just to walk in the flesh. So just continually reminding them. [Jennifer] A couple weeks ago I had, we were over at some friend's house and I was sitting on the couch with the wife and I asked her, I said so you know, have you been reading lately? Are you getting into a routine of being in God's word? And she shared with me that she had but it was kind of a struggle, and so I got to encourage her. And then she goes, what about you? And I was like, oh man, this is so good that I asked that question because I needed it myself. And I had just-- [Aaron] And you're like no. [Jennifer] No I was honest with her, I go you know, it's been really hard for me to get up in the morning and I wasn't doing that and so it challenged me to then change. And so I just think you know, being willing to even go to those hard places and ask those hard questions knowing they're probably gonna ask you back, it's good, it's all good. [Aaron] And you bring up a really good point. I think this is why a lot of people avoid saying things, because we know internally that-- [Jennifer] It's gonna come back to us. [Aaron] Well, the moment we say it, either we're lying or we're a hypocrite or we're doing it. [Jennifer] But this is also why we need that. Like, we need this. [Aaron] Yeah, walking in light as he is in light, as Jesus prays for us in John 17 and in first John, chapter one, he says if we have fellowship with God, then we have fellowship with one another. And if we walk in the light, then we, we'll have fellowship with one another. So the light that we walk in is doing and saying the things that God wants us to do, even if it means that we're going to also be told the same things. And that's the point of it, is that we're growing together and being built up together. And so man, you're right, saying something means you're gonna be vulnerable and have to be told the same thing or at least hear the same thing because you're saying it out of your own mouth. [Jennifer] Yeah. And just a practical note for this portion of this episode, what are some hard questions that they can ask their friends besides are you in the word? 'Cause I know another one is hey, have you been submissive to your husband? How are you guys doing in that department? [Aaron] That's a hard one to ask, right? [Jennifer] Well I know you and the guys usually ask, what do you guys usually ask? [Aaron] We ask each other does your wife feel cherished? And often the question is, and we wrote this in our book, my pastor always brings it up, could your wife say today that she is the most cherished woman she knows? And so for the husbands listening right now, I have a question for you. Is your wife the most cherished woman she knows? Could she say that? And if you can think to yourself I don't know if she would say that, you need to ask yourself that question. You need to figure out how to walk the way Ephesians 5:25 tells you to walk. [Jennifer] And then when you're catching up with your friends who are also married, who are also husbands and wives, be willing to ask each other hard questions like this, because this is what's gonna encourage us but also change us. [Aaron] And if someone who says they're your friend says it's none of your business, then you should ask yourself if that person really sees you as a friend. [Jennifer] Or be praying for them even more. [Aaron] Because it should be our business. I think of Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother Abel, this is in the beginning of the Bible, and God comes to Cain and says where's your brother? And he says what, am I my brother's keeper? And the point was is God asked him where his brother was at, which means God was asking him where his brother was at. So do we know where our brothers are at? Or we can just say like, I'm not my brother's keeper. And in reality, that's not loving our brothers at all. [Jennifer] Right, if we love them we'll know where they're at. [Aaron] And we're actually supposed to be keepers of each other's hearts and relationships with God, and we walk with each other and it's safe, and so yes, we are keepers of our brothers and we just have to realize that. And so, that means I'm accountable to other Christians. If they ask me hey, is your wife cherished? I'm responsible as a believer to say truthfully yes or no, not get out of my business. Because if I don't want another Christian in my business, then am I a Christian? Because we're all a part of the same body. [Jennifer] Right, it's all one body. That's really good. So for those listening, if they have been resistant to let people into those intimate parts of their lives, this is a challenge for them to hear, to give maybe not everyone, maybe just a handful of people that permission. [Aaron] Yeah, and for those that are feeling that, like oh maybe we're not letting people in, go read Proverbs 18:1. It's a good scripture to talk about that kind of person who does that. [Jennifer] Yeah. Okay, so let's move on to number three, and it's be friendly. Proverbs 18:24 says, "A man who has friends "must himself be friendly, but there is a friend "who sticks closer than a brother." [Aaron] That's powerful. Like, it seems totally simple, right? But if you wanna have friends, we gotta be friendly. Like, so are we just being friendly, are we reaching out? Are we opening up our hearts? Are we laughing with, or are we just like sticks in the mud, which is how I can be sometimes. [Jennifer] Are we being vulnerable? [Aaron] Yeah, are we being vulnerable? [Jennifer] Are we being truthful? Because sometimes you can be in a room with people and you can kind of just tell, you know, they're not-- [Aaron] Yeah, we're surface level. [Jennifer] They're being surface level or they're not being open with me. [Aaron] Yeah, and friendly is like not, like we just kind of were talking about it before, not being afraid to let people in, not being afraid to be seen and known. [Jennifer] Yeah. I feel like being friendly also comes with thoughtfulness. Like, you have to be thoughtful of each other and maybe even what each other likes. Like, I have a handful of girlfriends who I know what kind of coffee they like and I can randomly drop it off for them when I know they're having a hard day, or you know, just little things like that. I think thoughtfulness is such a big part of friendship. That can be an encouragement. [Aaron] And I think of friendly, there's a word I also think of, of light. Like, are we light around our friends? Do they feel like it's always this work to be in our presence? Or is it light to be in our presence? And that's kind of what I think about friendly. We've had relationships in the past, Jennifer, that they always felt heavy. Not that they were necessarily going through heavy things, it just felt like work to be around those people. And we made it a point to like, not be those people. So there's times that we'll ask hey, how are we being as friends? Are we easy to be around or are we hard to be around? [Jennifer] I also wanna make a note that we never let those relationships go just because they felt heavy. We felt it was our responsibility to be accountable to them still and to love them still and to be-- [Aaron] Took more work. [Jennifer] It did take more work, but I just wanna encourage those listening, if you have relationships, be praying for those couples and maybe talk about this, you know, with them, but don't give up on them. [Aaron] Or even say the hard thing and have them over for dinner, have no kids around and say, can we just share with you something? We love you, but you're hard. That's the truth of it. Hey we love you, but it's hard. Like, there's these things that have happened, and can we work on this together? How can we help you? How can, is there something you haven't recognized? But having those conversations means that you're being friendly. Like hey, we want to be in this relationship with you. We don't wanna just, 'cause the easy thing to do is you just write it off. And some people say let's dust our sandals off. That's the easy thing to do, but that's not what we do to the others in the body of Christ. We don't just dust people off. [Jennifer] Yeah, I would say a marriage after God is loyal and faithful and loves deeply and cares about the hearts of those people. So we don't just walk away from them. [Aaron] Now there are, we're not gonna get into this, but there are biblical reasons to cut off relationships. [Jennifer] Well, if you and your husband have set boundaries and those boundaries are being broken, absolutely I feel like that's necessary. [Aaron] Or if there's unrepentant sin and it's been called out but is not being, and those people aren't being willing to change, then the Bible tells us to avoid those people. But we're talking about normal Christian relationships, friends, not someone who's walking in unrepentant sin. [Jennifer] Okay, so be friendly. Aaron, do you wanna hit number four? [Aaron] Number four is be hospitable. This one could be hard, especially if you want your house to be a certain way all the time. [Jennifer] Like you have expectations. [Aaron] Yeah, or the people that you might, the friends you might invite over have more kids than you do or older kids or younger kids or, there's lots of scenarios that could be-- [Jennifer] Different dynamics. [Aaron] Difficult to say let's open up our home and have people over. But man, the Bible, God, the word of God tells us that we should be hospitable people. First Peter four, eight through nine says, "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, "since love covers a multitude of sins. "Show hospitality to one another without grumbling." So there's, I mean those are two verses that are super powerful in themselves, like love covers a multitude of sins? Which means if we can love with a Christ kind of love with our Christian brothers and sisters, there's a lot of things that that covers. It's pretty incredible. Now again, if someone's in unrepentant sin, that's different than someone who's come to you and repented of their sin. But our love can cover it, but the showing hospitality to one another. [Jennifer] What does that look like practically? [Aaron] Practically it means, hospitality means to open up what's ours. It is available. What I have is available to you. [Jennifer] And I wanna encourage people on this because sometimes we can look at a situation and think well, we don't have enough, and then therefore you're not gonna be hospitable in that moment, but how many times have a friend texted us and said they're in town, can they stop by for dinner? And I kind of like, I look at everything and it's halfway made and I'm thinking that very same thing, I don't think that there's enough, and then they get there and I spread everything out and it was a perfect amount. It was like exactly what we needed. [Aaron] Well and also just on that side of things, like of not having enough, the reason for having them over isn't because we have enough, it's to-- [Jennifer] It's because we wanna share it with them. [Aaron] It's because we're gonna share what we do have. [Jennifer] What we do have, yeah. That's good. [Aaron] And so we can, this is practically for us in the way we think and for those listening, hospitality is not sharing what you don't have, it's sharing what you do have. And so being willing to share, it's as simple as hey, you absolutely can come over, we would love to have dinner for you guys. We may not have enough to make you super full, so if you have anything you wanna bring, do it. But otherwise, just come and we will share with you what we have. [Jennifer] Now, there's other hospitality, too, where you kind of plan and prepare for it, knowing that you wanna bless this family or that family or that couple. [Aaron] So you save up for it. [Jennifer] And you save up for it or maybe they have a bigger family and you don't have enough utensils, go and get some plastic and just have a nice dinner on paper plates and plastic utensils. [Aaron] And there's something beautiful about having a little bit, too. And there's nothing wrong with having a little bit. You mentioned the bigger family thing. That's actually a good thought, 'cause sometimes we can feel, we can evaluate relationships and say well, me and you, we only have one kid, so we don't need to invite the family over that has four because they should do the opposite, like it's gonna be harder for us to accommodate a family of six because we're not used to that, so therefore, someone else should do it. But in reality, there's something beautiful about inviting that big family over because how often does that big family get invited to places? [Jennifer] That's true. [Aaron] We've actually had a situation in our own fellowship of big families saying we'd love to be invited over, we'd love to be thought of that way. [Jennifer] Yeah. So I have another example, when we were first married and we were in Christian community, we actually expected people to be hospitable to us because it was just us, and we could easily just come over and spend time with families. [Aaron] Yeah, we did have a one-way expectation. [Jennifer] We had a one-way expectation because we didn't have any kids and it was just easier, that we never invited really people over. I mean maybe a handful of times, but not-- [Aaron] Yeah, you're right. [Jennifer] Not very often. And I just thought about that just now, and so I just wanna encourage those listening who maybe they don't have kids, all the more be willing to open up what you do have and share that and build those relationships with people in a different life stage because there's good in all of it. God has created us to be able to encourage one another no matter where we are in our different life stages. [Aaron] Yeah and I think on the other side of that, we also didn't have much, we had not a lot of money, we didn't have a lot to give, we didn't have like, 20 plates and all these things, right? So we had this mentality of like, well since we have less, people that have more should take care of us. But Jesus points out the woman who gave her last mite, and he says she gave more, 'cause she gave out of her poverty, than that rich man who gave out of his wealth. And so there's something spiritually powerful about having the heart of hospitality even when you have little. [Jennifer] Yeah, and not letting expectations trip you up or stop you. [Aaron] No, but just out of a heart of like, God, I don't know how we're gonna bless these people but we'll share what we have. And invite someone, they may say no, but open up your home and open up what you have to other believers. And you never know, you might, we've seen this before. There was a time that me and you, I'm not trying to just toot our own horn, but we blessed a friend of ours who was in a much different financial situation than us, and it blew their mind. Because they're like, why would you give to us? We could've totally taken care of this and we're financially stable, when we were not in that place. And it actually totally ministered to them and showed them a level of generosity that's never been shown before to them. Just because we were obedient, we didn't think like, well they have enough, we don't need to help them. That's not how we were thinking. [Jennifer] No, we felt like God was telling us to do this and we were just trying to be obedient. [Aaron] Yeah, we were like hey let's bless so-and-so with this. And so the hospitality part of this is just a, it could be a powerful ministry tool to grow the Church, to build each other up. So why don't you do number five? [Jennifer] Okay, number five is be sacrificial. [Aaron] Which kinda ties in. [Jennifer] Yeah, I mean, I was telling Aaron, being sacrificial is kind of required with all of these. Whether it's time, energy, resources, whatever it is, but we just wanted to point out that a marriage after God, when it comes to their friendships and their married friends, they're sacrificial. They're available to other couples. They can be inconvenienced by them. [Aaron] Which is a sacrifice of our comfort. [Jennifer] And our time. [Aaron] Like getting a call in the middle of the night to help someone. Being up late with a couple to cry with them, to pray with them, to read to them, to support them. There's many ways, sacrificially, financially. Like oh, this person, so-and-so needs rent or groceries or whatever, or a date night. So yeah, just sacrificing our time for them, our talents, our energy, and just realizing that what God's given us isn't just for us, it's to be used for the body. [Jennifer] Yeah, John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this, "than to lay down one's life for his friends." Are we doing that? [Aaron] Yeah, do we lay ourselves down or do we think like, well I would've done that but that was too inconvenient. [Jennifer] So I want those listening to do something real quick. Just the first couple that pops into your mind, your friends, your close friends-- [Aaron] Ooh, I like this. [Jennifer] Who are married, when was the last time you were sacrificial for them? That you expressed love in a sacrificial way? [Aaron] So just think about it, and then I would take it even a step further and say call them, text them. And as a couple, do something for them. [Jennifer] Find a way to love them. [Aaron] Yeah. Just go out of your way for that couple. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to number six is pray for them and with them. [Aaron] Ooh. Praying for them's easy. [Jennifer] Sometimes not. [Aaron] I guess you're right, yeah. [Jennifer] Sometimes people struggle with prayer. But Aaron and I, a large portion of our ministry is to encourage you guys with prayer to pray, to be warriors of prayer, and this is important. [Aaron] I think of the scripture that says, it's the greatest commandment. The Pharisees came to Jesus and they said Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? And he tells them, he's like you tell me. And the Pharisee says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. And in that situation, the Pharisee challenged him and said well, who's my neighbor? Well, we know who our closest neighbors are, it's our spouse. And then our other neighbors are brothers and sisters in Christ. And then there's our physical neighbors that live nextdoor to us. So we know who our neighbors are. But loving your neighbor as yourself, how many listening wouldn't love someone to pray for them? We get messages all the time of saying could you pray for me? Can you pray for my marriage? So if you want to be prayed for and prayed over and prayed with and thought of in that way and taken care of in that way, then love your neighbor as yourself. [Jennifer] Yeah, be those people. [Aaron] Pray without ceasing for your brothers and sisters in Christ so that they won't stumble, so that they will be encouraged, so that they will be strong and walk in purity. And be encouraging in the word of God and strengthened to do ministry and be healed and blessed and like, all the things that you would wanna be prayed for, pray for them. [Jennifer] Yeah. And sometimes you can go out of your way to ask them hey, what do you need prayer for? Hey, I'm praying for you right now, what can I pray for you? Text them, ask them. You know? It's powerful. [Aaron] A pet peeve of mine is, and we all have done this, I'm gonna pray for you and then don't pray. So make it a point. I've made it a point any time I tell someone I'm gonna pray for them, if I text it, if I, I stop in that moment and I pray. [Jennifer] Yeah, me too. [Aaron] I've just made it a habit because I didn't wanna be that yeah, I'll pray for you and just, now it's now a phrase that we say. Of like, I'm thinking of you. No, let's be in prayer for each other, because this world is wicked and the enemy wants to destroy us and to steal from us, and we just need to be battling for each other. [Jennifer] I was just thinking like, there's a whole spiritual battle going on and obviously the enemy hates marriage because God created it and God loves it and God uses it-- [Aaron] He hates everything God made. [Jennifer] Yeah, which means that all of our marriages, not one of us is outside of this truth, and that is that our marriages are under attack constantly. [Aaron] Yeah, and our faith and this, and Christ's Church just as a whole. So we need to praying for each other. You know, you pray for us, we'd love that. Pray for our marriage. [Jennifer]Thanks. [Aaron] Pray for our children. Pray for our families. So prayer is one of the ways you can encourage your, oh and then praying for them, like with them. Be in the presence of your friends and say we're gonna pray for you right now. [Jennifer] Yeah, maybe when you have them over that week for dinner, just set some time aside to say hey, we'd love to pray for you. [Aaron] Speaking of prayer, I was just at a friend's house today and he was telling me how his wife's just dealing with headaches, and I said let's go pray for her. And so before I left, me and him went down and we prayed for her. [Jennifer] That's awesome. I didn't know that, that's cool. [Aaron] And why don't we do that more? Like, why don't I do that more? And I'm talking to myself right now. We need to get in a spiritual habit of just praying for each other. I think a lot of things would change in our marriages. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to the last one, number seven. [Aaron] Serve your friends. Serve 'em. I think if the scenario that Jesus did when he was in the upper room before he went to go die on the cross and he geared up his garb, wrapped it around his waist, got a bucket of water and a towel and he walked around and he scrubbed all of his disciples' feet. And he says do this, what you see me doing, do for one another. So, do we serve each other? Now, speaking allegorically about the feet, are we willing to touch our friends' dirty feet? What I mean is like, are we willing to get dirty with our friends and get into the muck and the mire of life and the painful things and serve them? [Jennifer] I know you said this in the beginning, but had our friends not done that with us, the people who became our friends by serving us, if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be here today. [Aaron] And Jesus wants us to do that. He wants us to be willing to touch our brothers and sisters. Like spiritually, physically, emotionally, that we are part of their lives so close that, and for the purpose of cleaning and washing and purifying. [Jennifer] As you're saying that, cleaning and washing, I'm thinking like, we are all part of one body, okay, and if, let's take my body. My hands don't say I'm not gonna touch your hair, I'm not gonna wash your hair, and so I just go without washing my hair for a year, that would be really nasty. [Aaron] Yeah, if you had off-balance hygiene, you would not be approachable as a woman. [Jennifer] Well so take it in light of the body of Christ and his bride, who he's coming back for who should be spotless and blameless-- [Aaron] Is going to be. [Jennifer] And beautiful, then we should be willing to serve different parts of the body for this reason. [Aaron] And this doesn't mean that we serve the ones that can serve us back and serve the ones that we click well with and serve the ones who are easy to be around. We serve all of them. [Jennifer] So I keep going back to this picture of a body, I know it's funny, but-- [Aaron] That's what the Bible uses! [Jennifer] As you're talking I'm like you're right, so like, my hand can reach back and scratch my back but my back can't really do much for, [Aaron] Your back can't do much for-- [Jennifer] For anything. [Aaron] Yeah, your hands do that. [Jennifer] But it is holding me up, so. [Aaron] There you go. [Jennifer] This is just really interesting. [Aaron] But that's what we do, so are we servants? Are we servants? Christ, he says he didn't claim the royalty and the fame that he could've. Instead, he came as a servant, humble, as a child. [Jennifer] And the Bible tells us to walk as he walked. [Aaron] Yeah, so do we have that heart? Is our heart to lay ourselves down for our friends? [Jennifer] So hopefully those listening are just right along with us going yes, we're gonna serve our friends today. What are some practical ways? What does this look like, what are some ways that they can serve? 'Cause maybe they want to serve but now they're just wondering okay, how do we do that? What should they know? [Aaron] Well, I think of just some simple practical things, helping them. Do they need help with anything? [Jennifer] Well you have to know their needs. [Aaron] You have to know their needs. So shooting a text. Last year I tried getting in the habit of randomly texting friends from our community, just saying hey is there anything you need? Often they say no, but then there's time where they're like actually yeah, like we could use this or we really need a date. We've just been in the thick of having new children and we have not had a date in weeks. [Jennifer] So babysit your friends' kids so they can go have a date. [Aaron] Yeah. Maybe they're just, maybe there's some sickness. Hey, can we come over and just clean your house? Just wanna, we're gonna clean your house. You relax, we're gonna bring you food and I'm gonna scrub your toilets and I'm gonna clean your floorboards, and I'm gonna do your dishes, and just relax and you don't have to worry about it. Those are physical needs, those are just things that all of us would love. Like, if someone just came over and cleaned our house sometimes, I would be so-- [Jennifer] Or yard work. [Aaron] Or just came over and I'm like hey, so-and-so's in the backyard mowing the lawn. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] That would be so cool. [Jennifer] The other day, we've been trying to consider what we can do for our neighbors and how our neighbors are just right there-- [Aaron] Yeah, our actual neighbors that live nextdoor to us. [Jennifer] Every day, that we see. And we were leaving our house and there was a little bit of snow that piled up on the driveway, and one of our nextdoor neighbors was push brooming the snow out of another neighbor's driveway, she's an elderly woman, and I just thought how cool, he's amazing. Like, way to go. And that inspired Aaron to then go to her nextdoor neighbor and do the same thing for her. [Aaron] Well, you did actually encourage me to do it, which is good 'cause we're a team. And I went over there and it took me 20 minutes to go sweep her, the snow off of her driveway, and it's another elderly lady, and she was actually walking out to go to her mail and it was, her driveway was so slippery. [Jennifer] Oh, really? [Aaron] Yeah, and so I was like hey, can I just take this to the mailbox for you? It was like, right across the street and she was like yeah, absolutely. It was awesome. It was just a little thing. [Jennifer] So when we serve people like this, it brings blessing for those who are on the receiving end, but it also sets an example. It inspires people, it makes others want to do nice things and be thoughtful and serve and be the hands and feet of Christ. So I think that all around, it's so important to be servants. [Aaron] So I just wanna end with one more scripture to close out this topic before we pray for them, and it's the reason why we would want to do any of this stuff for brothers and sisters in Christ. For our married couples that we're friends with, for those that love God and are part of the body. In John 13:35 it says, "By this, all people will know "that you are my disciples "if you have love for one another." And in first John, John says, "Do not love "in words only, but in deed and in truth." So we show our love by the things we do for each other. And that kinda love should be so supernatural that when the world sees how we love each other, they will know that we're disciples of Christ. [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] And in John 17, Jesus says, "The world will know "that God sent me by the love you have for each other." So not only will they know we're disciples of Christ, they'll also know that God sent Jesus. [Jennifer] So we have to be doing this. [Aaron] It's the ministry that we have in the world. [Jennifer] It's the ministry. [Aaron] It's what our whole book's about, actually. [Jennifer] Yes, yeah. Which, a great-- [Aaron] Not to plug it, but I'm plugging it. [Jennifer] No, but since you went there I'm just gonna say, it comes out in June, you guys, and a great way to encourage your married friends is go through this book with them. [Aaron] Ooh, that's a cool idea. [Jennifer] I know they can't do it now, we're gonna be going through a series leading up to the book launch, but I just feel like if couples can be going through this book together and asking each other questions about it and saying what ministry are we doing for God's kingdom? Oh my gosh, I just, my mind is blown by just-- [Aaron] The movement that would start. [Jennifer] Yeah! Yeah, it's incredible. [Aaron] We're excited about it. We thank you for joining us today. I pray that these seven ways to encourage your married friends blessed you, and I pray that it charges you or excites you or it gets you moving in the direction of unity in the body. More and more marriages and Christians in general would just be unified in loving each other in this way. [Jennifer] And don't wait. It's not next week or the week after-- [Aaron] Today. [Jennifer] Start today! Just do it. [Aaron] Alright, so before we close out, we've been committed to praying for you at the end of each episode, and so we're gonna pray for you. [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the friends in our lives. Lord, give us a heart of encouragement for them. Give us words that will affirm them and give strength to their marriage relationship. Show us how we can love our friends better and help them know You more. May we be witnesses in this world by how we love one another and walk with each other in truth and in light. Help us be more vulnerable and open with our friends. Help us to create an environment where our friends feel safe being vulnerable and open with us. May we use what You have given to us to bless them. Inspire our hearts with creative ways we can serve them and confidence that our purpose as friends builds Your kingdom. Please keep the enemy and his evil schemes away from our friends. Do not let his plans of destruction prevail. Protect our friends' marriage and fortify them, O Lord. Give us hearts to see our married friends walk strong and faithful. In Jesus' name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. Alright, so we thank you for joining us this week, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Join us as we discuss how God has been showing us His desire for us to grow in our spiritual stamina in our prayer life. Prayer should be a normal occurrence in the believer's life and it has been a foundational element of our marriage over the years but lately, we have been feeling that God is desiring us to pray more. In order to grow our stamina, which is the ability to handle more, in our spiritual life is by doing it more. -- Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle -- FOR MORE MARRIAGE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution READ [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 Spiritual Stamina and Prayer. 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, [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] Okay, before we get started on this week's episode, I just wanna invite any of you that have been subscribed to our channel and enjoying this content, if you would just take a moment and leave us a star rating and a review. If you don't have time for a text review, you can just leave a star rating also, but when those reviews get left, they actually help our podcast get seen by a lot more people so we'd really appreciate it, if you have a moment to leave a review, that would be awesome. [Jennifer] Also, Aaron and I would like to invite you to support this podcast by shopping through our store. So if you go to marriageaftergod.com/challenge, you can check out our resources on prayer and take the 31 day challenge, pray with your spouse through those resources and that, shopping through our store helps support this podcast. [Aaron] So let's just get into the content now. You know, we're gonna be talking about spiritual stamina, which is a term that I brought up this last Sunday and we'll talk about where it came from but I believe it's something that God's walking us through right now. There's several things that we're gonna talk about today that were brought up recently, over the last few days, and we're just thinking, "Man, we should talk about this." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] For this week's podcast. [Jennifer] Yeah, I feel like it's a necessary message, not just for our hearts and the things that we're walking through but hopefully it'll inspire everyone listening. [Aaron] Yeah, and then our heart for this podcast is always to inspire and encourage marriages out there who love God and who wanna know His will for their life and marriage to move forward and that's what He's doing with us, it's our journey, it's their journey, but this word 'stamina', it's something that I think about often when it comes to my workout in the mornings at the gym, which this morning's was super hard and I had almost no stamina. I could not keep going, I almost quit halfway through the workout. [Jennifer] I've been there before, pretty much any workout I've ever done. [Aaron] And the idea is that we, as we work out, or as we exercise or we build muscle, our muscle in our body and our system gets better at doing that and it means we can handle more. And this week, on Sunday at church actually, I was thinking about it. Actually church service was awesome, I walked away feeling so blessed and that just, the Lord was speaking to our hearts, but a thought I had was, "Man, I wonder if we could handle more as a church body?" [Jennifer] Like go longer? [Aaron] Yeah, go longer. Like, it was actually a really good service and several people spoke and talked and we sang a lot of awesome worship songs and just, it was a really good morning. There was tons of prayer, but then I just had this thought of I wonder if we could handle more. Could we go longer, or is it, we just cap it a certain amount or time and this was, I don't believe anyone was, I actually didn't tell anyone this, there was no problem, it was just, I was just thinking, like, I wonder what it would take if we could do more, if God wanted us to go further, if we could, would we be okay with that. Have you ever thought about that before, Babe? [Jennifer] When I think of stamina, I think of my time spent with the kids and kind of just doing our daily routine and the kind of stamina that a parent needs, to be able to do that, to last the whole day. That's a good illustration. Fulfilling their needs and being their encouragement and their comfort and just be that person in their life to guide them and it requires a lot, and so when I think of the word 'stamina', that's what I think of. [Aaron] Well, that's a good illustration, actually. So your stamina from one child to your stamina to two children-- [Jennifer] It grows exponentially. I feel like each time, every time we have another child, I do feel like, kind of like you were talking about, growing and as you exercise and building that muscle, I feel like I'm building that muscle as a parent. [Aaron] Right, in every aspect, not just playing with our kids but in discipline-- [Jennifer] And teaching. [Aaron] In teaching, discipleship, all these areas. So another area that stamina came up was in prayer, recently, and we're gonna talk about that and actually at the end of this episode, are we gonna pray for the marriages that listen? [Jennifer] Yeah, when we were talking about what we would share today, I've actually been asking you for a couple weeks now, hey, we need to an episode just on praying and pray for the couples who are listening because we know how powerful prayer is and our heart is to pray for you guys, and so we thought we could just enter into a time of praying and I'm really excited to do that today. [Aaron] Yeah, and we'll do that towards the end so stay tuned. I did a live video today on Instagram and got people's prayer requests so we're gonna go through some of those, Babe. Oh awesome. [Aaron] But we're just gonna pray generally for marriages who listen to this, marriages and the church and so that's gonna be awesome, but prayer was a part of the spiritual stamina we were talking about. Jennifer and I have made prayer a main theme in our marriage since the beginning. It's been a main theme in our ministry online, it's been probably the most popular books that we've had, is our prayer books. [Jennifer] And I would say that it's not because we're good at it, it's because God's constantly calling us to do it and I feel like that's been an area of our life that we constantly come back to and need to be reminded of and so I think that's why it's such a big part of our ministry online, is because we know that if it's hard for us, it's probably hard for other people. So, just wanted to-- And I feel like recently-- Share that. [Aaron] We've talked about this a bit, Babe, is that God's actually asking us for more. It feels like He's saying, "Hey, I want you to pray more." That there's more to be prayed about, that I want more energy put into prayer and so that goes back to the stamina of well, what can we handle? And you actually, you just asked God recently, you said, "Okay Lord, what's next?" And I feel like what's next in our life is more prayer, more of the word of God, more spiritual growth, more fellowship, all of these things that God, that we experience God in and how we know Him and I think that's what He's calling us to. [Jennifer] So, real quick, you had mentioned that on Sunday specifically, you were kind of wrestling with the question, can we handle more, and I know that the night before, you had started a new book and so do you wanna share a little bit from that? [Aaron] Yeah, so not only was this idea on Sunday of like, can we handle more? Can we pray more? Can we read more? What could our church handle? Could our spiritual stamina be built and grow as a church as a whole but also as individuals in our marriage and then the conversation continued and then that night, I read this book at night. It's by Francis Chan, it's called Letters to the Church, I just got it and he talks about prayer in it and it was pretty powerful, I just wanna read a little bit of what he said. This is on page 67 and he's talking about prayer and the church and he says, "Years ago, my friend from India "drove me to a speaking engagement in Dallas. "When he heard the music and saw the lights, "he said, 'You Americans are funny. "'You won't show up unless "'there's a good speaker or a band. "'In India, people get excited just to pray.' "He proceeded to tell how "believers back home loved communion, "and how they flocked to simple prayer gatherings." First of all, this story itself shocked me and I was like, oh! Like, I've never thought of that and do we do that? Would we flock to a prayer meeting? Do we crave prayer? The Bible is just so adamant about prayer, God's so adamant about our prayer life. Jesus dying on the cross tore the veil from top to bottom so that we can actually have direct line of contact with the Father Himself. That we no longer need an earthly priest, we have a high priest, Jesus Himself, who intercedes for us and gives us direct access. [Jennifer] Which is incredible, do we take advantage of that? Yeah. We should be. [Aaron] And I think this started a really long conversation, actually, right before bed, but later on in the chapter he says, "It is His desire for all His children "to experience the fullness of Him through the church "and has given us His word to show us how. "Let's dream of trembling believers on their knees, "speechless because they grabbed the weight "of speaking to Yahweh. "Let's picture small groups and large crowds "coming with eager expectation just to pray. "This is possible." And so, this book, I'm really liking the book. There's a few things that I've wrestled with but this prayer stuff, we talked for probably an hour, just about our spiritual stamina, our prayer. Like, are we even giving prayer the time of day that it deserves in our life? So, Babe, when I read that, because I read it out loud to us in bed, and just how he was dreaming of believers on their knees praying and speechless and eager expectation just to pray. How does that make you feel? [Jennifer] I think it draws out of my heart just this eagerness to do it more. Sometimes we have these emotions and feelings in our hearts and we can't even put words to them until you read someone else's writing and then it's like, "Oh, that's what it is." And I've been feeling this way for a while and I feel like that was, his words, like, just hearing you read them out loud, was like, "Yes, that's it." Like, we need more of that and earlier you had mentioned that we had been praying for what's next and that specifically came from when I had gotten away for a couple days for a women's retreat and there was 15 of us and we each took turns sitting in what we called the hot seat and it was just a chair in the middle of the room but each one of the women there basically just shared a prayer request and then we all prayed specifically for that woman-- One by one. One by one. Every single woman. It took us, like, three hours or so to get through and when it was my turn, I remember just thinking like, I feel ready for what God has for, for whatever's next for me and for us and so that's kind of where that came from and I'll tell you what, the experience of that prayer time was so powerful, not just in my life, but in all the women's lives there and it made me, when I got home, it made me think of how when you're gone at a retreat or you're gone at a conference, there's this spiritual high. That you walk away feeling like you're just so close to God and you really experienced something truly miraculous and what I felt like God was sharing with me about that specifically is that it was because we devoted time to Him. We sat for three and a half hours and prayed over each individual person, in prayer talking to God, like, petitioning for these prayer requests and then we expect in our daily life to just go through whatever we have, whatever requirements that we have on our day to day agendas and we think that we're gonna experience God the same way without going to our prayer closet, without being on our knees, without lifting up those requests to Him, without being thankful for things and just talking to Him and sharing our heart with Him, we expect the same spiritual high. [Aaron] Yeah, and God doesn't want us to have spiritual highs and lows, He wants us to be consistent with Him. What's funny is you said, so you planned that whole retreat and all the women just raved about it and you were telling me, though, you were like, "I planned all these great things "and they were all fun, like these games "and these conversations and they were great, "but the most powerful thing we did was the prayer." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And it was that you said, "It felt miraculous, "it felt like we were in the presence of God "as women coming together for the purpose "of praying for each other," and as we talk about this, I feel like the thing we've been feeling is that we're missing something. Like you said, we expect to experience God in the same way in those dedicated, devoted times as we do in our every day life when we don't dedicate or devote time. And so, the stamina side of that is we need to devote time to practicing and walking in those things. You know, at bedtime. One thing that we've realized is we could be spending more time in prayer. Are we cultivating an environment where we get to bed early enough and even if not, early enough, and prayer is a priority at bedtime, together? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Praying for our kids, praying for our family members, praying for our church, and I feel like that's where the stamina comes from, is the devotion and the time that we set aside for it. [Jennifer] And I feel like, as we practice it and we stretch that spiritual muscle, we'll get even better at it. [Aaron] And that's the goal, right? That we get better which means we're closer to God, we're closer to Jesus, we become more like Him, more transformed into His image and so that's what we're talking about today and what's funny is, it's not like we have done this yet, right? Our heart is that we're gonna start walking in this ourselves and start examining areas of our life where we need more spiritual stamina. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] You actually challenged us this morning-- [Jennifer] Well, because this has been a conversation with us. You do Bible time every morning with the kids, which I absolutely love. I love seeing you lead in that way and you read through a chapter and you put it away and we went to go pray and I'm like actually, I think we can handle more. And you said-- [Aaron] Yeah, going back to our Sunday conversation. [Jennifer] Yeah, and so you said, "You're right," and so you pulled it back out and you just told the kids, "Hey, we're gonna read a little bit more today," and you read a-whole-nother chapter. [Aaron] Yeah, and I will say it was in Luke chapter 21, was the first chapter we read and then chapter 22 was significantly longer, but we did it and the kids totally handled it. Yeah, they got a little squirmy and even in my own flesh, I could feel myself feeling like, okay, this is just going long, but that's the only way we're gonna do it. Didn't we, when I started doing Bible time, wasn't it just a verse? [Jennifer] It was a couple verses, it was so brief, yeah. I feel like it was five minutes, max. Maybe if that. [Aaron] Probably a couple minutes and now we're at a full chapter, so just for those that are listening or wondering about family Bible time, start small and build up the stamina. Build up your ability and your kids' ability to listen and hear more and handle more time in the word of God. [Jennifer] And I just wanna add something specifically for kids, because when we build our spiritual stamina, they're seeing our example and the way that we lead in that way. Oh, that's good. And that's gonna help them as adults and so I just wanna encourage those listening with kids that it's our job, it's our privilege, it's our obligation as Christians to lead our children in this way and I'll be honest, sometimes I lean heavily on my husband to lead in this way and it's like I think, we already did Bible time and so therefore when I'm doing school with them and Aaron's off to work that I don't need to pray with them, or at least I think like, check off the box, that's already been done, but if I wanna build their spiritual stamina, I'm going to go into prayer or read the Word or teach whatever I need to teach of God's ways at any time throughout the day and that's kind of been the blessing of being at home to homeschool them but today, specifically, as this theme has been playing out in our lives and we've been thinking about spiritual stamina, I, during school, stopped and made the kids sit on the floor and we all held hands and I said, "We're gonna pray. "We're gonna pray specifically for some friends "that are going through a hard time right now," and each one of the kids prayed and it was really incredible. [Aaron] And that's good and that's building our stamina and how could we ever expect our children to fall in love with the word of God, grow spiritually, love God if they don't see us walking in those ways? We can't expect something different from them that we wouldn't expect of ourselves. And so the desire that we have to grow spiritually, to get better at being in the word of God and to get better at prayer. Not that these things commend us to God but they make us more like Him and because our heart is like, "Man, Lord, we wanna be like You, we wanna walk with You, we wanna know You," that's where this desire is coming from. This craving of getting stronger and more fit in the word of God, activating the things that we're learning, walking in the ways that we're reading in the word of God. [Jennifer] So we were dong family Bible time this morning and you wanna share about what we read? [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause again, there's this theme. There was Sunday morning, there was Sunday night in the book I was reading and then this morning, Monday morning, we're reading in Luke and it's Luke chapter 22 and it's just, this is about Jesus praying. He's about to go to the cross and I just wanna read the scripture verbatim and then we'll talk about it. It's in Luke chapter 22, verse 39, "And He came out and went, as was His custom, "to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed Him. "And when He came to the place, He said to them, "'Pray that you may not enter into temptation.'" I just wanna stop right there for a second because you actually pointed this out this morning, you're like, "He asked them to pray "not to enter into temptation?" Jesus loved his disciples and He asked them, He said, "Guys, pray that you don't enter into temptation." Especially knowing that Peter was about to be tempted to deny Him. He knew he was gonna deny Him, three times, and Jesus was like, "Hey guys, "pray so that you won't enter into temptation." He's like, it's not just a warning, it's like a hey, this is what you can do, this is what you should do so that you won't do the other thing. [Jennifer] And this is the same, this is true for us. Yeah. Right? [Aaron] And then he says in verse 41, "And He withdrew from them, about a stone's throw "and knelt down and prayed, saying, "'Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. "'Nevertheless, not My will but Yours be done.' "And there appeared to Him "an angel from Heaven, strengthening Him, "and being in agony, He prayed more earnestly "and His sweat became like great drops of blood "falling down to the ground. "And when He rose from prayer, "He came to the disciples "and found them sleeping for sorrow. "And He said to them, 'Why are you sleeping? "'Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.'" [Jennifer] Okay, so hold on. So, Jesus was in agony and He kept praying. [Aaron] He prayed more. [Jennifer] He prayed more, more earnestly. So, that shows some stamina and I think that this moves my heart so much because I think of everybody going through hard times, everybody goes through, in their own way, they have to face circumstances, conflict, whatever it is. How can we have the stamina to face those things earnestly through prayer, if we're not doing it when times are easy? [Aaron] Yeah, and it would be easy to say, "Well, like, he's Jesus," but the Bible tells us that Jesus was like us. He was tempted in the same way, He had physical limitations and weaknesses in the flesh but without sin and so it says that he was in agony, sweating as it were drops of blood, that's how much agony He was in, knowing what He was about to face on the cross. But yet, He prayed and said, "Not My will be done but Yours." And so the template we get here is that we pray God's will for our life, that we do it even when we're in agony and more earnestly and I just like He says, He says, "Why are you sleeping?" And I feel like us, it's almost as if we've been sleeping and God's looking at us saying, "Wake up. "Wake up, the time is drawing near, "get on your face and pray." do you feel like that, Babe? Yeah. Do you feel like He's telling us to wake up? [Jennifer] Yeah, I do. I mean, I feel like in a lot of ways, we do fulfill these scriptures and we do try and walk in righteousness and walk in the ways that He's called every Christian to, through His word but yet so often, we neglect it or we forget or we think we're doing fine until we read things like this and it hits us head-on that Jesus Himself was in agony and He continues to pray earnestly, and that's our example. And are we doing that? [Aaron] Yeah, and I think about, He says, "Rise up and pray that you may not enter into temptation." I think of the normal temptations to sin, but how often are we tempted to just not pray? To not be in the word of God? [Jennifer] To do something else, to go on social media? [Aaron] Gosh, that's like, my story. It's everyone's story. I go to bed and I'm like, "Oh, I'm gonna read the Bible," and then, boom, I'm on my phone. [Jennifer] It's everyone's story right now. [Aaron] Yeah, so let's wake up, Christians. We're gonna do this with you. Let's wake up from our spiritual slumber and our lack of fervor for spiritual things. The Bible tells us to desire that which is from above, Heavenly things, and I want that. I wanna pray more. I wanna be in the word of God more. I wanna be in close unity and fellowship with other believers more. If in prayer, and in the word of God, I'm thinking about this Sunday in teaching on this idea and practicing it and just reading through several chapters in the word of God, just to get our stamina for the word of God. [Jennifer] I think it's important, I think we need it. [Aaron] Yeah, and so we should try that. Remind me to do that this weekend, I'll prepare something. So that was the scriptures that we read this morning to our kids, again about prayer and just seeing Jesus's example in that. And then I just wanna, really quick, this is to emphasize that I believe God's just hammering home in our marriage currently, this idea that God wants us praying. So last night, I could not sleep. I don't know if you know this or not but I literally was dreaming all night and when I dream, I don't feel like I've slept at all. I remember waking up at 12:00 and then 1:30 and then 3:30 and then at 4:30, finally, I woke up, and I started praying for the person I was dreaming about. I was like, "Okay Lord, I had this dream "about a friend of mine and I had the dream all night "and it was really distressing to me," and I finally just woke up and I just prayed for him. I don't think the dream is true but I believe that he needed prayer, and so I just started praying for him. And then I had another person, another friend of mine that moved away, and I haven't thought about him in a little while, and so this morning, after I got back from the gym, I just started praying for him. And what's awesome is, he sends me a message, or he actually posted about me today, just saying he wanted to like go do a run with me, or something like that, and I went and I just messaged him and I said, "Hey, how are you doing? I'm praying for you." And he lets me know that stuff's going on in his life, that I didn't know about and I was like, "Man! Well, I'm praying for you, "I'm here for you, let me know what's going on." And I was like, "Okay, Lord." [Jennifer] That's really cool. [Aaron] Like, you want me to pray? Like, I'm gonna pray. And it's not for my sake, it's for others' sake and it's also for just hearing God's voice, which I think is awesome. [Jennifer] Yeah, well I think that when our hearts are yielded in that way and submissive to God in that way, we hear Him and He can speak to us and He can lead us and He can show us things or present opportunities like, with your friend, texting back and forth, would you have even had that opportunity if your heart wasn't tender enough to be praying for him? [Aaron] Probably not. I wouldn't have been thinking about him, I wouldn't have been ready. I might have, like, if I talked to him later, said, "Oh, I'll pray for you," but it encouraged me to know that God had already had me working in the spirit on his behalf. Which I think is a really awesome thing. And think about the body, the entire body of Christ, the church, what it would look like if we were praying like this for each other? Just always in prayer for each other. It'd be powerful. [Aaron] Now, what would it look like in our marriages? What would it look like if I was praying for you every morning? Which I do, I pray for you, but I don't pray for you the way I could be. Do you feel like you feel pray for me like that, and if you don't, what would you think would happen if you were praying for me, just fervently and daily and hourly, sometimes? [Jennifer] Well, there has been seasons of our marriage where I know for a fact that you're wrestling with something or you need help with something or you're down and like, I can sense that, or we've talked about something specific and those are the times that I feel like I really go to God in prayer for you, on your behalf, and then there's other times where I feel like we're good and I'm not in that same heart of prayer. [Aaron] Right, we're good, we don't need it. [Jennifer] Not that we don't need it, but like, I know if someone says, "Prayer is amazing, "you need to be praying," I'm like, "I know." But am I walking in that faithfully, with fervor, with my knees on the ground for you? I don't fight for you like that, like I should be, every single day. [Aaron] Right, and we get reminded in the word of God that the battles that we face are not battles against flesh and blood, but they're spiritual battles, against the powers in the air and the spiritual forces and we get to battle, as our Pastor Matt always says, he says that prayer isn't the preparation for the battle, prayer is the battle. We could be battling for each other. I could be battling for you that God's walking with you and helping you and encouraging you in your faith, in your abilities as a mother, in your strength as a wife and you could be praying for me for being protected from temptation and walking in leadership and getting wiser and all these things that we could be praying for on a constant basis. [Jennifer] What I found to be so impactful about marriage is that when we are yielded in this way, to be praying, especially for our spouse, when I'm praying for you, my heart's not focused on myself, it's not about me, it's about you and if my heart's in that position, then what's gonna happen in my actions as we interact with each other throughout the rest of the day? I'm gonna be mindful of you, I'm gonna be thoughtful of you, I'm gonna be thinking about your needs and thinking about how I can serve you, love you, help you versus the other way around which is me, me, me. [Aaron] Right, and that goes to that scripture, I believe it's First Thessalonians that says, "Pray without ceasing." It's not that we are literally on our knees praying 24/7, it's that we are in constant communion with the Father, who, when we do that, changes us, speaks to us, walks with us, guides us, puts our eyes on the things that He wants our eyes on, puts words in our mouths that He wants us to speak, has us hear things He wants us to hear, and so prayer does that. It turns our hearts to God, which then turns our hearts to what He wants. So I love this. I think that as marriages, we should just pray and we're gonna be doing this, pray that God would give us a heart for prayer. That he would grow our spiritual stamina for the word of God, for prayer and that we would see fruit from it, good fruit. And so I think we should go into a time of prayer. What do you think about that, Babe? [Jennifer] I feel good. I feel like it's necessary and needed and I think that we need to be praying specifically for the body of Christ even more. I feel like we're entering into a season where the body needs it more than ever. [Aaron] Right, so we're gonna go into a time of prayer and I'm gonna pray for some of the things that the community, you guys, gave me to pray for and we'll pray for some other things and then we'll close it out. [Jennifer] We wanna invite you guys to pray along with us and if anything comes up in your heart that you need prayer for or that your spouse needs prayer for, just take a minute and just pray for them. [Aaron] Father God, I just wanna come before You and I wanna lift up marriages all over the world, marriages who love You, marriages who desire to see Your will done in their life. Father, I pray that You would reveal Yourself to them, that You would draw them so close to You, God, that they would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they're Yours and that You desire to use them in mighty ways. Father, I specifically wanna pray for those marriages who are struggling with illness. I know many marriages have real illnesses, real bad things that they're dealing with, hard things, things that they've been dealing with for years, even. I pray, Father, for complete healing. I pray that even if they aren't healed, Father God, that their hearts would be yielded to You, that they would trust You and know that You are doing good things in their life. I pray, Father, that they would lean on You in their weakness because, Father, You tell us in Your word that in our weakness, Your strength is made perfect, and so I pray that in their lives, Your strength would be made perfect and they would know it. I pray that they would rejoice in their afflictions, in their sickness, that people that are watching them and that are wanting to them to be better, Father God, would see their joy, would see their resolve and would know, God, that they are walking with You and that they would be a testimony to people that are watching them. I also wanna pray for marriages that are dealing with infidelity, Father God, and unfaithfulness. I pray Lord that you would convict the hearts of those who are not walking in faithfulness with their spouse; that Lord, You would change them and transform them and rebuke them, if necessary, and that You would bring other Christians alongside them to rebuke them as well; and that they would turn their hearts to You, that they would repent and that they would change their ways and that You would redeem those marriages, Father God. We just, we pray in Your mighty name, in the name that is above all names, Jesus Christ, and we ask, Lord, that you would change those marriages and that they would be a testimony for you; that anyone who would see and hear their story would know that there is a God in Heaven; that they would know that You are the one true God, because they see that Your hand was in their marriage and that You redeem them and save them. [Jennifer] God, I just thank You so much for these marriages, I thank You for these husbands and wives and the purposes that You have for each one of us and I just pray, Lord, that as we draw closer to You, that Your holy Spirit would just continue to guide us and continue to lead us, continue to give us stamina, Lord, for Your word, give us stamina for our prayer life and for talking to You and just coming before You with our requests and our thankfulness and everything that's going on in our lives, Lord, and I just pray that we would have stamina in our family lives, that we would be present. I pray, Lord, that each one of us would know the roles that we have with our children and other people's children, that you would just reveal to us, just how influential each one of us are in their lives and I pray, Lord, that we would have stamina with them, that we would be patient and kind and compassionate and caring as we disciple them and draw them closer to you. God, I thank You so much that these marriages desire to draw closer to You and I just pray that we would all experience more intimacy with You. I pray that we would experience more intimacy in our marriages. God, I pray that every marriage after God would build their foundation and establish it according to Your word, that we wouldn't let a day go by without reading your word. God, please remind us every day that we are lights of Your testimony, especially for this world, this dark world, Lord. I just pray that we would know what purposes we have to fulfill in this life and I pray that we would walk in the ways that You've already established for us to walk. God, I pray against the enemy. I pray against his flaming arrows and the ways that he tries to attack us and I pray that he would not get in the way of what You're trying to do on our lives. I also pray against our flesh and the temptations that come to draw us away from You and I just pray, Lord, that we would be stronger than that, that we would be able to walk righteously and pure and God, I just pray that Your Holy Spirit would help us in this way. God, I specifically wanna lift up some requests that came from the community and that was around job and work and I just pray, Lord, that as people transition in and out of jobs, with changes, I pray that for those who don't have a job right now, I just pray for all of it, Lord. That You would just continue to guide each one of us as we pursue the work that You have for us, and regardless of the circumstances, whether we're in work, in job changes or out of work, that we would continue to be a light for Your namesake, that we would be a testimony to those around us, of faithfulness and perseverance and hope. I pray, Lord, that whatever work that we do, that we would do it unto You. I also wanna lift up finances too, Lord, and I just pray that each one of us would steward well all that You have given to us. If there are couples in debt, Lord, I just pray that You would inspire them to change their ways, that they would do everything that they can to get out of that debt and that they would lead their families well in the area of finances. I pray that we would be a generous people, people who don't cling to what they have but that they're holding it open handed so that You can guide and direct wherever You need those resources to go. God, I pray that You would be able to trust every marriage with the finances that You have placed in their lives and that we would just steward them well, Lord. God, I just thank You so much for our marriages and I just continually ask that Your Holy Spirit would lead us and guide us and draw us closer to You each and every day. [Aaron] Father, we love You and we thank You for the things You give us in our life. The blessings, the hard things even, we thank You for all of it, Lord. You love us, You desire for us to mature and to grow and to become the men and women You've called us to be. You desire that our marriages would be used to grow Your kingdom, to spread Your gospel and Father, we just wanna give You all the glory and all the honor, You deserve it all. You are so good to us, Father, and we thank You for it all and we just pray these things in Your Holy Son's name, Amen. So we thank you for joining us today, I know this was a little bit of a unique episode and we just pray that all of us, that me and my wife, that you and your spouse would begin to grow in our spiritual stamina, that we would fall in love with prayer, fall in love with the word of God and that we would crave more and more of it every day so that God would use it to change us, to transform us, to make us more like his Son, Jesus. And the reason for it all is that He would use us, that we'd be used to point people to Him. We thank you for joining us and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.