Podcasts about fierce marriage podcast

GIVEAWAY!!!!!!Today's episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen to help financially support this show monthly. And since today is my birthday I want to try something a little different. If you sign up today to be a part of our faithful patron team, at any level, you will be entered for a chance to receive a copy of each of our marriage books for free and will also be added to a special list of people who will get one of the first copies of our newest book coming out later this year title The Marriage Gift: 365 Prayers For Our Marriage.This goes for anyone who is already a faith patron team member. If you are currently on the team you will be automatically entered for a chance to win all our marriage books including a copy of our newest book releasing in the fall.We will announce the winner in the next episode so please sign up today and not only support this podcast and our free daily prayer emails but also be entered into this fun giveaway.Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of knowlege. We pray we would be people who seek and pursue knowledge. We pray we would be humble and recognize that there will always be so much more to learn and grow in. We pray we would seek to study our spouse and know them well. We pray we would be always learners of your holy word. Please help us to experience growth in our relationship with you as your Holy Spirit teaches us. We pray your will is done in us and through us as you shape and mold our characters In Jesus' name AMEN!

Todays episode is brought to you by our free 30-day marriage prayer challenge. And our free 30day parenting prayer challenge.When you sign up for either of the challenges or both you will receive an email every day with scripture and topics for  you to pray for your spouse and you son or daughter.We hope to inspire and encourage a consistent and robust prayer life with this challenge and want to invite you to sign up for free today.Simply visit http://marriageprayerchallenge.com/ or parentingprayerchallenge.com and sign up for free today.  Dear Lord, Thank You for the people you have placed in our lives who have shown us ways we should be walking, encouraged us to live according to your word, and has been by our side through hard times. Thank You for the ones who have mentored us in marriage and parenting. Thank You for the ones we have had the opportunity to mentor and pour into. We pray you continue to use us in this way to lift up the younger generation and please keeping putting people in our life who we can learn fromIn Jesus' name AMEN!

How do you determine what's important in your marriage? How do you navigate marriage when you have different interests and hobbies than your spouse? Today we are going to explore the art of learning alongside each to grow in the things we love, sharing in the experience together and nurturing our marriage relationship by choosing to like what each other loves. Today's episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen to help financially support this show monthly. Here is a shout-out to some of our most recent patrons. Lakesha LRachel SJoy CDebra CWe thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing 10's of thousands of couples with free daily prayer emails and this weekly podcast.If you have been blessed by our free Marriage After God content wed love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron

In this weeks episode we would like to invite you to invest in your marriage in a meaningful way and by doing so you will also be helping support this podcast.simply take a moment and head over to our online store shop.marriageaftergod.comAnd grab a set of our devotionals or prayer journals. Here are some of the resources we have written for you.The Ultimate Marriage After God Growth Bundle (30% OFF) 5 of our most popular books31 Prayers For My Son & Daughter books bundleAnd for those of you that are engaged our are in a waiting period we have31 Prayers For My Future husband and wife books.

Today's episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen to help financially support this show monthly. Here is a shout-out to some of our most recent patrons. Jill BChristy HYvonne GMeri UWe thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing 10's of thousands of couples with free daily prayer emails and this weekly podcast.If you have been blessed by our free marriage after god content wed love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron

They say communication is the key to a good relationship…. But what do they say about how we communicate Living in the 21st century with all the technological advances we have? The rapid ability to communicate via phone, text, or email has definitely thrown a curve ball for those trying to bat a homerun in marriage!   The invention of the cellphone, internet, and apps have completely reshaped our culture and how we operate as a society and it all has happened in a very short period of time. Despite the good that can come from the speedy access acquired through technology, there have been unintended and unexpected consequences of the way it is used at times, especially through text messaging. Have you ever sent a text that was taken the wrong way? Are you guilty of ignoring a text or being non-responsive? Have you ever experienced anxiety or hurt from the way a conversation unfolds over text? Have you ever been misunderstood through these short-hand ways of communicating? Today we are going to explore a conversation around the ways we communicate and how its impacting our marriage. 

Intimacy, often we associate this word with Sex or physical connection. these 2 things are infact forms of intimacy but are these the only meaning and purpose for this word? Is it possible that it is deeper and more profound than we have given it credit for? What can we learn from God and his relationship with us about intimacy with Him and with our spouse. If you have been blessed by the free marriage after god content wed love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron

If you have been blessed by our free marriage after god content wed love to invite you to join our patron team. So if you haven't joined the team yet here is your chance.Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron--The Gospel, It's the good news of Salvation to the world. It's good news because it tells us that where we could only fail Jesus could only succeed. It brings us near to God yet while we were far off. The Gospel makes us whole where we were in pieces. But does the gospel only matter before we believe or after also? Once we have stepped into it do we simply leave it behind? Or is the Gospel something that we as believers should cling to in every aspect of our lives?

The word LOVE has been used so often and for such a variety of things. Commonly applied to everything from pets to food, from clothing to cars, and of course in significant relationships. If we love all of our things… then what does it mean when we do tell our spouse, “I Love you”?How are those around us, our spouse, our children, our friends and our family to know the difference between our love for things and our love for them? How can one word have so many different levels of meaning? Has it been diluted through the way we use it?Has it ceased to hold its powerful purpose? And How can we hope to revive the meaning and depth of this word when it comes to those to whom it is to mean the most?--If you have been blessed by the free marriage after god content wed love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron

All of us on some level, desire a transformation in our marriage. Whether that transformation is a small change or a complete overhaul, We want to experience more joy, more peace, more love and more purpose. The truth is….we are always going through some form of transformation, for there is no such thing as staying the same. The question is, are we transforming into what God desires or something else?--This episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team, who have chosen to help financially support this show monthly. Here is a shout-out to some of our most recent patrons. Nicole MitchellDawn GKimberly SKatharine CCandice GRegena JWe thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing 10's of thousands of couples with free daily prayer emails and this weekly podcast.If you have been blessed by the free marriage after god content, wed love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron TRANSCRIPTAaron:Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God Podcast. All of us on some level desire a transformation in our marriage. Whether the transformation is a small change or a complete overhaul, we want to experience more joy, more peace, more love, and more purpose. Jennifer:The truth is, we are always going through some form of transformation, for there is no such thing as staying the same. The question is, are we transforming into what God desires, or something else? Aaron:This episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen to help financially support this show. Here's a shout to some of the most recent patrons: Nicole M, Don G, Kimberly S, Katherine C, Candace, G, and Regina J. We thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing tens of thousands of couples, with free daily prayer emails, and this weekly podcast.If you've been blessed by this free Marriage After God content, we'd love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit Marriageaftergod.com/patron. Jennifer:Well, this has been a whole month now of the podcast. Aaron:We're doing it. Jennifer:It's awesome. Aaron:We are doing it. Jennifer:Welcome to 2023. How's January been for you? Aaron:Well, it feels like we've been doing better because we're better as in, we've talked about, we're getting into routines. The routines look different than they used to, but we're getting some routines and I like it. Jennifer:Yeah, sometimes you just got to reset. Sometimes life forces you to reset. Aaron:Yeah, hence 2020, 2021, 2022. Jennifer:Every year there's been new reset. Yeah, so what's been happening lately since last week? Aaron:Well, just before ... Jennifer:Oh, yeah, I was going to say that. Aaron:Yeah. I walk in, and I wanted to Jennifer look at the notes and she's like, "What notes?" I'm like, "Oh my goodness. Was one of the kids in here?" Jennifer:There was just two sentences and a bunch of gibberish. Aaron:Garbly. Yeah. Jennifer:Did you say garbly? Aaron:Garbly goop. It was, all the notes were deleted, literally. Jennifer:Who was the culprit? That's what I want to know. Aaron:I'm wondering what else happened in our room. Luckily, I was able to restore the notes so we weren't out of luck, but something that is awesome that happened this week is I got to start Jiu-Jitsu. Jennifer:Nice. The kids have been doing it for a year. Did you know that? Aaron:It's been a whole year? Jennifer:I know. Crazy. Went by fast. Aaron:They're getting really good and I was getting jealous, and I'm like, "I got to get good at Jiu-Jitsu so that I can wrestle with them and them not win me every time." I started this week and I think you're a little jealous, because I think you want to start too. Jennifer:I've been wanting to start for seven months. I feel like out of everyone in the family, Mom gets to make those kind of choices last because everyone's got to be okay if I'm going to step out of the house. Aaron:It is true. We need you a lot. Jennifer:Timing was off, but who knows? Aaron:I think we might try it this week though together, on a date night or something. Jennifer:I think we're going to try it on a date night. Aaron:We should do it. Jennifer:It's just a fundamentals class, so there it'll be easy for me, I think. Not easy, but I'm not going to do what you're doing. Aaron:Straightforward. Yeah. To be honest, it was one of the most rewarding and intense workouts I've had in a very long time. I walk out drenched, soaking. It's disgusting. I'm so wet. I was getting in the van and I had to look for something to sit on so I wouldn't get the seat all wet. Jennifer:That's gross. Aaron:It was really gross, and I'm also really sore. To be honest, I felt really good after the first class. I was like, "Dang, I'm not that bad. I did awesome." Then the second class, I realized everyone was probably being really nice to me because I'm not good at all. That was awesome, actually. Jennifer:Does that make you want to go back? Aaron:Yeah. It was still a lot of fun. No one was mean about it. Everyone's so nice and they want, everyone wants to get good together. Yeah, it just made me excited. Jennifer:That's good for this episode. Get good together. That's what we should call it. Aaron:Get good together. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to growing in it. Jennifer:Cool. Well, something that's been interesting for me was a little bit unexpected, just because we've had conversations about it, but ... Aaron:Privately. Jennifer:The kids started praying for me crazy ... Aaron:Out of nowhere. Jennifer:... that I would have another baby, and it really warms my heart. Aaron and I have talked about this in the past. We're like, we look at Edith, she's two, almost three, and she's been our baby for so long that it's like ... Aaron:Is this the longest gap we've had so far? Yeah. Jennifer:WI think to myself, okay, well if this is all the kids that we have, I'm totally content and happy with where our family is at. Then there's this piece of my heart that I'm like, but if I did have another, that'd be awesome. Aaron:Our hands are always open in that sense. We want God's will. At the same time, we're praying and asking God to bring us along with them. Our kids started praying for it. Jennifer:Every day. Aaron:At Bible time, I'm like, "Who would anyone like to pray?" First prayer, God give mommy a baby. Then Elliot just came up randomly, me and you were talking this morning, just about the day, and I can't remember what we were talking about. He just comes over and puts his hands on both of us and looks at us and starts praying for a baby. We're like, okay, I guess you guys want a baby. Jennifer:That's just been going on a week. Aaron:We will see if you guys get an announcement at some point this year about a baby. Jennifer:Stick around if you want to hear it announced on the podcast. Aaron:You will hear about it if that happens. Jennifer:We shall see. Aaron:For this topic, transforming your marriage, it's hard to say that. Transforming. Jennifer:No, it's get better together, or what'd you say? Aaron:Yeah, let's do this together. Get better together. Transforming your marriage together. We wanted to bring up some ideas, and we actually have seven of them for you. What inspired this idea for you, Jennifer? You kind of wrote down some of these ideas that we've been building off of. Jennifer:Yeah. Well, the initial just idea of, hey, let's talk about transformation for a minute. Marriage came because of a conversation that we had back in December. I was having a hard time dealing with desiring change and wanting change, and being frustrated over things not changing, Aaron:Which also has been the theme for this whole month. Jennifer:Yeah, yeah. I remember calling you, and we were having a conversation about, well, I was letting my emotions out and you, you're being a good listener. Then you said, "Let's transform together. Let's be transformed together," or something like that. Aaron:Yeah. Well, because you felt like you couldn't. I don't know how to do this. I can't do this. That's why we've been talking about this in various aspects throughout this month, but we all feel that way. That's why I shared it. I feel like there's things in my life that I can't break out of either, that I can't change. Then I was just saying, "Well, we have to be transformed."That's the only way we have true change in our life is if there's a transformation. We can't be the same person but act differently. We can't be the same in the same place and yet be in a different place. We have to change. We have to move. Jennifer:I think the tension of the agony in all of our lives when it comes to transformation is we're on one side where we desire the change, because we're frustrated over the results and things happening because of where we're at ... Aaron:The consequences of where we're at. Jennifer:We also know that to get to the other side of change, it just requires a lot. Aaron:It's painful. Jennifer:It's painful, and it's hard to make those changes and those habits, and redefining rhythms and routines, and things that will help make all of that happen. Aaron:I think an encouragement also about transformation, because it's easy to say, we got to be transformed. It's like, well, yeah. How? I think the first step, and it's something that we've been trying to reiterate, is that first of all, we can change. If there's areas in our lives that we don't like, or that we know God wants change in us, we have the ability to, because God's putting his spirit. He's put his spirit in us. It's not impossible, and they feel that way, but the reality is we, are being transformed.Like we said in the beginning of this episode, all of us are being transformed into something. Either we're being lazy or we're being lax, and we're being transformed into something that we don't want because we're just letting it happen, or we're following God, we're putting our eyes on him. We're seeking first his kingdom. We're letting his spirit work in us. We're not fighting it, and we're being transformed into his likeness. Jennifer:The lie is that we're stuck. Aaron:The lie is that we can't change the lies is that there, that we are what we are. Jennifer:We're here in our heads. We'll never change. That's what I was getting stuck in, is like, no, I'm never going to change. You see yourself one way, and it gets really hard to see yourself in a new way. Aaron:Yeah. Believing that we can, like you said, but then also believing what God says and believing that he has something for us. Jennifer:The reason why we wanted to bring this up to you today for those listening is because we kind of had this conversation going on in our marriage, and we know that we're not the only ones who have struggled with desiring change in marriage, or in parenting, or in life, in so many different areas of life. We want to encourage you guys, if you're in that place of desiring change and transformation, we hope that today encourages you.Maybe what we share, not every single bit of it will stick with you or be something that you feel like you need to work on, but I'm sure there's at least one or two. Aaron:Well, and the point is, there's this saying that it says, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Well, if you think about the whole thing, you're like, it can. The goal is taking that next step, just moving forward, asking God, saying, "God, help me get to the whatever the next footprint is." Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:Not trying to look at the goal a thousand miles away and saying, "I can never get there." Just realize there's a journey that we're all on. We hope you feel the grace and the mercy that God's been showing us is that it's okay that we're on this journey, and that we sometimes don't know what we're doing. Transformation and change feels hard because it is, actually. We all can do it because we have Christ. Jennifer:We're going to share seven ways that you can transform your marriage with your spouse. Some of these are practical, some of them are just good old fashioned truth from the Bible. We hope that these stick with you guys and encourage you toward that change you've been yearning for. Aaron:A lot of these things are things that we ourselves have recognized helped us or will help us as we have been trying to implement them more. It's not like we've just came up with these for you. This is things that work for us too. Jennifer:Our experience. Aaron:This first one, I've mentioned it so many times in other episodes, but it works so well for you, Jennifer, but it also works really well for me. Jennifer:For us. Aaron:For us. Jennifer:We get to see it together. Aaron:What is it? It's write it out. It's very practical. The idea is write it out. This first one ... Jennifer:Not ride, write it out. Aaron:Not ride it out. That is a good tip, actually. Just get through. No, write it out, W-R-I-T-E. There's something really powerful about writing things down. Jennifer:We've kind of been doing it all week with the growth spurt, if people have been following along. Aaron:We got our own cards out. The fact that I wrote it down and put it on the refrigerator ... Jennifer:Makes you think about it every day. Aaron:I see it, and I realize I'm like, oh man, I'm not following through with that thing that I said I'm going to do. I'm looking at the clock right now actually. The thing I wrote down was I'm going to be in bed by nine, and I did it last night just about. Jennifer:You're not supposed to talk about it yet. Aaron:Sorry. Jennifer:That's the notes on there for later. Aaron:Yeah. Okay. Jennifer:You guys have to listen to the rest of the episode today to hear more. Yeah, I'm going to cut you off. Aaron:The idea behind this is meet together to write down some goals you have for your marriage. Jennifer:Sometimes we don't even know what it is that we want to change into or be transformed in unless we get it out of our hearts, get it out of our heads and see it on a piece of paper. You go, "Oh yeah, that's what it is. That's what I want." Aaron:These actually, they could be large goals, but something things that are practical, especially when you start talking together, you start realizing like, oh, there's some disparaging thing. Well, you have this goal and I have this goal. How can we meet in the middle? How can we figure that out? What's awesome about that is you figure that out. Jennifer:Compromising. Aaron:Yeah, compromising. Then also finding out, well, what are some large goals we have that we can write down and shoot for that might take years? What are some short term or smaller goals that we can start focusing on now? Jennifer:It sounds like more though, that's more for a couple who wants to dream together. If this whole episode is about transforming your marriage, we're talking more relational goals here. Aaron:Relationship, home life, spiritual walk goals. Goals. You can also break them up, goals for your walk with God, maybe individually and together; goals for your marriage. What do you want your marriage to look like? What do you want to represent? What do you want people to say about your marriage? What do you want to show to your kids in your marriage?Then the next one would be goals for your family. What do you want your family to look like? Represent? How do you want it to operate? For us, we've talked about this. We used to do bible time very consistently every day. A goal for us would be like, "Hey, let's get back to that consistency of doing Bible time every day throughout the week." Jennifer:Then asking each other, "What's the best time to do that?" That's where that compromise comes in of like, okay, well, for me, it'd be this time and let's work that out. I also want to just add right here that my encouragement would be, don't go list 25 ways you want your marriage to improve.Pick one or two, because you want something that you can work towards and feel good about when you're actually feeling the success of it, when you're feeling the change coming and you're making those decisions. If you overwhelm yourself with a lofty list, then your mind and heart's going to freak out because it's going to be hard. Aaron:Yeah. Some of the ways, I just want to mention one more thing. When we write these things down, you kind of said a second ago, it gets things that we may not know how to verbalize them in the moment, or they're things that just have dwelled in our hearts. Maybe those things have turned into anxiety or frustration or bitterness, because we don't see them happening, but they're also never being voiced in a real tangible way.It gives it a place to live. It makes it from this internal secret thing to a real life thing that can be looked at, evaluated, calculated, remembered, and even held accountable to, because it exists. Jennifer:Also just to add to that list, a repetition of seeing it helps you remember about it. There's so many things that we've talked about, and then it's like, once we've talked about it's gone and you forget so easily. Yet if you write it down and you see it constantly, in that repetition, you're forming that memory in your brain to be on it. Aaron:A couple of things this does for you in your marriage. If you guys plan a night to sit down, maybe it's at a date night, which is often when Jennifer and I do it, or after the kids go to bed, or in the morning after breakfast. I don't know, whatever works for you guys. You guys start getting into a habit of planning things together. Hey, we're going to do this together now. It's like, it's not just, oh, let's hang out and talk. It's a let's be specific and focused. It also gives you an opportunity to figure out life together.Now, you're building this bond of like, hey, let's talk about things that are important to us and what that looks like. The third thing is it brings accountability. Like we said, Bible time. Jennifer, you look at me, you're like, "Hey, remember we decided we're going to do bible time?" Jennifer:Oh yeah. Aaron:I'm like, "Yes." Then I stop what I'm doing because she knows that's the moment that we would do it. I sit down. Now we can help each other because we made that agreement together. We wrote these things down together. Now that bond and that commitment is all really good stuff that happens in your marriage. Jennifer:Let me ask this question, if that's all really good, especially if you're on the same page and there's unity and oneness toward working towards some of these things. Let's say you are listening right now, but Aaron, I'm posing this to you. If you're as a listener and you're thinking, okay, well me and my spouse, we're not quite there yet, and I don't know if we'll be able to have that conversation. Is it something you could do individually, separate? Aaron:Well, if ... Jennifer:For a time while the Lord's working on both of you. Aaron:Yah, maybe there's a relationship where it's not as tight and maybe that wouldn't be this season right now, they're not going to be sitting down and writing goals together. Yeah, absolutely. Again, we believe in the Holy Spirit. We believe in what God tells us. A wife or husband, if you're the one wanting to do this, I would say start, your planning and goal setting should be a regular prayer for your spouse.Lord, help me to grow in my love for them. Lord, help them transform into the man or the woman that you have made them to be. Seeing look more like these prayer goals for your spouse who maybe not be on the same page with you to be drawn into it more. Jennifer:That's good. Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:All right. This next one, we're on number two. We're only on number two. Number two, how to transform your marriage. We're going to take it back to Sunday school. Okay, guys. It's because, if we're honest, we don't always operate this way. Aaron:No. We want others to, but we don't. Jennifer:Okay. Number two is the golden rule. Aaron:Yeah. If we can incorporate the golden rule into our marriage, into our life, oh, man. It would literally would change everything. Jennifer:You're saying. Intentionally do it like it. Well, because we do probably generally think about this at some point, but maybe not. I don't know. Aaron:The golden rule. If you don't know it, Matthew seven 12, Jesus says, "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them for this is the law and prophets." Jennifer:Okay, so question. Do you operate in this with me? Aaron:I would say I try to on a regular basis, but I would say the times that I don't is not good. Jennifer:Yeah. That's kind of where I land. We need to be better at this. Okay. Aaron:Often, the way my kids put it, because the way they hear this is I'm going to do to them as they do to me. I'm like, "That's not what it says." Often that's what we do. We do. You did this, so I'm going to do it. Jennifer:We just mirror everybody. Aaron:Instead of breaking that cycle and saying, "Oh, I'm not going to do that thing because I wouldn't want it done to me." If we just applied this rule more regularly, if we looked at our life and said, "I'm going to commit, Lord, you helping me to do unto my wife as I would wish her to do unto me," man, it would change everything. If I treated you the way I wanted to be treated, if I don't want you to be harsh to me, then I should be gentle to you, right?I'm going to treat you. I want you to be gentle. I'm going to be gentle. If I wouldn't want you to lie to me, which I don't know anyone who would want someone to lie to them, then I shouldn't lie to you even about little things. It keeps going. If I'm going to want to be pursued by you ... Jennifer:You were going to see by someone else. Aaron:I know. I don't know why I was going to say that. If I want to be pursued by you, then I should pursue you. Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:If I want to be encouraged, then I should be encouraging. I should encourage you as much as I would want to be encouraged by you. The point is, whether or not you do it to me, that's what I would want, so I should treat you that way. Jennifer:Galatians five 13 through 14 says, "For you're called to freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Aaron:If we love each other the way we want to be loved, if I love you as myself, which in marriage you are myself, that's what the Bible teaches, we're one. I'm actually fulfilling the law and it continues on, and it says, "I would never steal from you if I love you. I would never lie to you if I love you. I would never murder you if I love you." You don't break the law. When you love someone, you're actually fulfilling all of the law in it.If we treat each other, golden rule, the way we want to be treated, there'll be so much more joy and peace and power and forgiveness in all the things that we want because we're doing it. Even if only one person's doing it, you're getting 50% more of it than you were before. Jennifer:Right. All right, moving on to number three. Should we say it together? Aaron:Okay. One, two, three. Jennifer:If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Aaron:If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. That's really funny, because it's been our whole life here, right? Jennifer:Yeah. I'm sure everybody. Aaron:My parents always saying that. We always said something not nice. Jennifer:Even still, there's times we want to speak our minds. Aaron:Often, we get angry, we're hurt, and we think that gives us the right to say angry and hurtful things to our spouse. Maybe some of you don't, but we have when we feel justified. Jennifer:I was going to say, because the things that I don't mean to hurt you or be mean, I think I'm just stating the obvious or observing something, or saying something that's true. The way that I'm saying it or ... Aaron:Well, it's the heart and the intention and then the purpose behind it is what's not nice. I was saying critiques are good, this note I put here. When they're brought constructively, so like you said ... Jennifer:Well, not in the middle of an argument. Aaron:Well, and with the purpose of constructive criticism and love, and like you said, not in the middle of I'm mad at you, and therefore, boom. Jennifer:Right. Here's another one. Aaron:We've done it and we do it. If we can practice holding our tongues, meaning being quiet, not saying the thing that comes to our top of our mind when we're in the middle of a heated argument, or we're hurt or frustrated, is so much more fruitful than just letting it out. Jennifer:This is a really big one for making transformation happen in your marriage, because you listed a practical and an action, where it is how you treat each other, but the tongue, you hear that over and over and over again. The things that you say to your spouse, they are not easily forgotten, and they bring up ... Aaron:Especially if your spouse repeats them often, because that could happen. Becoming an echo chamber, here's things that I'm going to continue to say. Sometimes it comes from a heart of I just want, and you've said this, I have to say something because I feel like if I don't, they're not going to change. They won't ... Jennifer:You won't know. Yeah. Aaron:... Deceive that thing. Jennifer:Yeah. All I'm saying is even though it's a small part of our body, our tongues are so powerful. What's that proverb where it talks about the tongue brings life or death? It builds up a home or tears it down. Aaron:He who loves it, eats it, eats up its fruit or something like that. Jennifer:Yeah. We should have put that note in here, but seriously, we could have a great day. We could be treating each other well. We could be hitting our goals, but if we don't practice self-control with our tongues, or thinking before we speak ... Aaron:Well, and to be honest, silence is often better than saying the thing that you want to say. Jennifer:Not the silent treatment, that's different. Aaron:Not the silent treatment. Yeah. Not saying silent as a weapon, but holding your tongue as a form of love. Jennifer:Being slow to speak love. Aaron:Yes, slow to speak and quick to listen is what the Bible says. There's a verse that should put some fear in us about how we talk to each other. It's in Galatians five 15. It's actually the continuation of verse you just read. It says, "But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."This idea of are we walking in the flesh so much with each other, the way we communicate with each other, the way we talk to each other, and we're not loving our neighbors ourself, we're not loving our spouse as we love ourself, we're not doing unto others as we'd have them do unto us, that it turns into this biting and devouring of one another. Jennifer:Like a cycle of just going back and forth. Aaron:I feel like we've brought this up before, but when we are talking this way, even in an argument, we're chipping away at ourselves, because we're one. We're chipping away our teammanship, our unity, our oneness, and our love. Being quiet is so much better than letting it out. Okay, number four. Stop being easily offended. Jennifer:This was a huge one for us. We started out this list by telling you guys this list was based off of our own experience and what we walk through. Aaron:Things that we're actually trying to walk through, yeah. Jennifer:When we came to this realization that, "Hey, we're actually being really easily offended. We need to stop doing this," it was a game changer. Aaron:Really was. This is actually one of the attributes of love. Love is patient, love is kind, and then it says, "Love is not irritable or resentful." Irritable means easily frustrated, easily offended, like bothered. It's like this. It's an oversensitivity. Jennifer:You walk past me, and you've done something that I disagree with or it's frustrating, or you do something differently than how I would do it, and I just respond. I just snap. Aaron:You snap. Yeah. Jennifer:I huff under my breath and I'm just irritated by you. Aaron:A good way of looking at this is when we make people feel like they have to walk on eggshells, that old idiom that says like, oh, I have to tippy toe. If I just slightly crack that little egg over there, you're going to like freak out on me. Jennifer:Another way this happens is by, if one of us wants to share something, and we say it the wrong way, or our intention is well, and we feel like it needs to be said, but the other person is just easily offended, they can't even hear what's being said, because they're just resistant to hearing. That's happened before. Aaron:I think we become easily offended when we get stuck in a place of loving ourselves more than we love our spouse. Jennifer:That's good. Yeah. Aaron:What that means is I love myself so much that I don't want you to step on my toe, or hurt my feelings, or say something that's going to bother me, or do something that I'm embarrassed by, or anything that's going to make me feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced or you name it. Jennifer:Yeah. The question in the head goes, why aren't you doing X or Y or Z? Aaron:For me. Jennifer:For me, yeah. Aaron:You did this thing against me, and now I am feeling this way, or it comes from a place of insecurity. You're ashamed or guilty, or you feel a certain way about yourself. We take that out on our spouse. We make them want them to be at fault for how we feel. Jennifer:Like projecting our feelings. Aaron:Yeah. There could be so many other reasons for this. We're not psychologists, but ... Jennifer:I could say one thing. When you're not abiding in the word and you're not walking with Christ, our flesh gets irritated. Aaron:Easily, yeah. Jennifer:Bothered. We get selfish. We get all kinds of pride. That's just another way. Sorry, go ahead. Aaron:No, but if we truly love, we will not be irritable or resentful. Always having it out for our spouse, like, "Oh, they always are this way with me." A good place to start with this is again, going back to that, writing it down, maybe having, writing down, "Hey, we're going to work on not being easily offended," and then reminding each other in those moments of a quick irritation, a quick offense.Why'd you do that? Why'd you say that to me? Reminding each other that we're working on it? "Hey, remember, we're working on not being easily offended?" Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:If I bothered you, let's talk about it, but let's not be easily offended, and then going back and forth. I think that's a really good place to start. Jennifer:I just want to add, if you're listening right now and there's been tension in your marriage for any reason, start here. Make this one your number one. Aaron:That's good. Jennifer:Yep. Aaron:Number five. This is going to be a hard one for some people and a really good one for some people: more romance and more sex. Jennifer:Okay, Aaron. Aaron:Okay. I could have said more intimacy. That's what I originally wrote. Then I wanted to be more specific because the wife's going to see intimacy one way and the husband's going to see it another way. Really ... Jennifer:I think we all get it though. Aaron:We need both romance and sex. We need the blessing of what both of those bring to our marriage, both the physical and the emotional. That's kind of how I categorize this. Romance is more of the emotional intimacy, that connection, and then the physical is that sex. It's the physical connection where two are becoming one and the bodies are connecting. They're both necessary, both needed, and we shouldn't do one and not the other. Jennifer:Yeah. Anytime we've intentionally focused on this area of our life and just made it kind of a focus for us, it's blessed us. It's helped us. Aaron:Always. Yeah. Jennifer:It's made our relationship feel more full. We feel more unified. We feel more connected. We feel more interested in each other. Don't you feel like that? Aaron:Well, the desire grows the more we work on these areas, the more we want them in our life. I don't know if you've noticed, but the order I put these in is for a reason. They're writing it down. You could take each one of these things and start putting these down as relational goals. Jennifer:That's good. Aaron:Then they're visible. The doing into others, so treating your spouse the way you'd want to be treated. If I want my wife to be more physical and more in interested in me in that way, then I'm going to do things that would be loving to her, massages and other types of physical intimacy that she appreciates and desires. Jennifer:I see. Not being easily offended has to be taken care of before you jump into this next one. Aaron:Exactly. Jennifer:Got it. You should have corrected me when I said you should make number three, your number one. I didn't know you put these in order like that. Aaron:Well, I did because this is actually an area where being easily offended always gets in the way. If we have easy offenses ... Jennifer:Makes it so much harder to get there. Aaron:If I'm desiring one thing, and you can't give that to me for whatever reason, you're tired, long day, sore, painful, whatever, and I'm easily offended by that, rather than loving you and being patient and it messes things up and vice versa. Yeah, I did put these in an order because they matter on some sense to work on each one of these areas in little ways. They will all benefit each other. Romance, I just wanted to pull out some ideas for this section that the ... Jennifer:You're going to give them ideas? Aaron:Emotional intimacy. It's this feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love. That's the definition, in search of romance. It's a quality or a feeling of mystery, excitement, a remoteness from everyday life. Jennifer:I like that. It's cool. Aaron:It doesn't have to be this big extravagant thing. How can you just make the moment with your spouse special? Jennifer:Special. Yeah. Aaron:Different. Take them away from that ordinary just for a moment. That could be a going on a walk. It could be bringing something home that's like, "Hey, I thought about you today." That's an excitement. You actually like that when I, like a simple thing, I call you up and I say, "Do you want an iced tea?" Jennifer:I love it. That's awesome. Aaron:You're like, "Oh," awesome because that's out of the ordinary. I'm not always grabbing an iced tea, but you felt thought of. Then you get a special treat out of it. It kind of breaks up the day. Jennifer:I do love that so much, and it makes me feel so good to feel thought of in a special way that you know me, that you know what I would like, and it just affirms my heart and my love, and makes me feel like you're thinking of me, which is good. It's good for us to recognize those times that our spouse goes out of the box. Aaron:Goes out of their way to ... Jennifer:Go out of their way to ... Aaron:To try these things. Try be more romantic and exciting and different. Jennifer:When they do it to affirm them and use your words and say, "I really appreciated that," or, "I really love that." The more we affirm each other in those ways of being that we want to see more of, they'll continue to happen. Aaron:Yeah. Jordan Peterson as a quote says, "Don't ever punish behavior you want repeated." Even if I don't follow through with or do something in the way that you might want, there's been times I've brought you iced tea that you don't like, because you have a taste for certain types of teas, but I didn't know that. Then I learned it. You could have taken the opportunity to punish me for and be like, "This is what you got me. I hate this." Jennifer:Oh, got you. Aaron:You could be like, "What? This was so thoughtful. Just for future, this isn't my favorite tea, but I'm so happy that you did that for me." Jennifer:I think that's what I did. Aaron:That's what you did. I thought, oh, thank you. I didn't know that, because I actually didn't. Now when I get you tea or do something, I think, oh, where would she like me to get tea? Jennifer:That's awesome. Aaron:It also has taught me to ask you for future, "Hey, where's your favorite place to get this?" Jennifer:It's like a get to know me. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Aaron:Don't punish those behaviors you want repeated, even if it doesn't happen the way you want, the way you expect, but affirm it and encourage it, so that it happens more from your spouse on both sides. Jennifer:I like that you kind of broke romance and physical intimacy into separate kind of categories here, because romance is so much more of that connectedness and ... Aaron:That emotional connection. Jennifer:It's so important. It's an important part of marriage, but so is physical intimacy. I think it's really important for us to remember that our spouses need us. It's weird that I put that in the plural, just ... Aaron:Our spouses. Jennifer:Our spouse needs us and we have needs. Being there for one another and being willing to make the effort and put our hearts and our minds toward that is ... Aaron:Oh, we're talking about the physical side now. Jennifer:Yeah, yeah. In the physical, just as much as the romance are connected side of things. Aaron:Yeah. I wanted to bring up on the physical side of things, because I know that this is a huge area of struggle in a lot of marriages. It was a huge one for us for many years. It's only been in the last handful of years that it's been getting so much better. We've been growing and getting excited about these things and praying about it more. First and foremost, it's a powerful gift. Physical intimacy, sex is a powerful gift from God given to husbands and wives. It really is.We have to change our minds about that. Talking about transformation, we need our minds changed for true transformation to happen. If we can change our mind that sex is a good thing, because I know many people see sex as a bad thing, or a hurtful thing, or something that they don't enjoy. Jennifer:Stressful thing. Aaron:Yeah. It can be all of those things. If we start reminding ourselves and thinking, no, this is a good thing. This is a gift, that'll change a lot of things. Also, it's a command. First Corinthians seven, three, the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. On both sides, it doesn't just say the wife to her husband only, as if every situation is always, the husband needs it more than the wife, because that's not true. There's some situations where it's totally different with the wife and the husband, but it says to both.In other places, it says that her body is not her own. It is yours. Your body is not your own, it is hers. Just reiterating this, the power and the truth behind your oneness. You are one body and you cannot control it and use it and as a weapon. Not only is it a gift, but it's also a command. There's some actual really awesome benefits to sex.If you didn't know this, it helps relieve stress and anxiety. I know sex might gift some people anxiety, and I pray for you that you would, like we said, have a transformation in your mind about this. It does biologically relieve stress and anxiety. The hormones that get released in your body do that. Jennifer:It also helps your immune system. Aaron:It does. Those same hormones that help with relieving stress and anxiety helps boost your immune system. Also, when you have less cortisol in your body, that's the stress hormone, you get sick less because cortisol can actually make you, it weakens your immune system. It helps your immune system. It also brings pleasure and excitement. That's just such a good thing. Jennifer:Joy, yeah. Aaron:We need that in our marriage. We need that connection and that pleasure more. Most importantly, sex reinforces closeness and oneness. Jennifer:Yeah. Speaking of oneness, you brought up earlier, just briefly not using sex as a tool or a weapon, and then you kind of just kept on going. I just want to go back to that really quick. I think sometimes, we don't even realize when we are withholding our bodies from each other because of being easily offended, or thinking that they're not thinking of us. Aaron:Well, they haven't given me what I want yet. Jennifer:There is a list of things that could possibly motivate someone to kind of close themselves off and be guarded. When you say weaponize, and you say using your body as a tool, that's what you're talking about, right? Yeah. Aaron:If you use it in a negative way, it becomes a weapon. Jennifer:It also becomes a roadblock to moving forward, to experience reconciliation and connectedness. Aaron:This is not the kind of transformation we want when we do this, but when we are more free with each other and open with each other in this way. It's good. Now, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be any times that you're like, "Hey, can we forego tonight?" Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:Again, that goes back to the communication, and that goes back to goal setting together and also ... Jennifer:Considering one another. Aaron:Yeah, considering one another, treating each other as we'd like to be treated. Again, there's an order. Okay. Jennifer:What's next in your order, Aaron? Aaron:Invest in your marriage. Okay. I think this sounds obvious, but ... Jennifer:How much money do you have to ... Aaron:Exactly. Well, just having it's almost like if you were to invest in your education, invest in this business, taking one of the most important things in your entire life, and are we ... Jennifer:You're elevating it. Aaron:Are we investing in it? Jennifer:You're saying this is a priority. This is what I'm going to put my effort and my energy and my resources and everything I've got towards, because this matters. Aaron:Investment means I'm going to spend time and money and energy. I'm going to invest. When you invest in your marriage, you're going to get some of the greatest returns you can ever think of. Jennifer:Generational. Aaron:Yeah. You're going to get returns for a long time with your children, because they're going to look back on your marriage and be like, "Wow, my parents, they invested in each other. They loved each other. They weren't perfect, but man, they tried hard." Jennifer:Because of that kind of example, when they get married, they will have the same fortitude and excitement around investing in their marriage. Aaron:At least that's the goal, right? Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:I want my kids to have the same desire. Jennifer:What are some ways we can invest? Aaron:Something we did a long time ago when we were going through some of our hardships, actually, wasn't it right at that end point of things changing for us? Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:We went to a marriage retreat, and there's marriage retreats all over the country. Jennifer:We went to Family Lives Weekend to Remember ... Aaron:Which are awesome. Jennifer:It was actually really cool, because we kind of rededicated our marriage, and our purpose, and everything that we had been walking through just submitted it to God and said, "We're going to keep going." Aaron:You could try Weekend to Remember. That's a family life event. That's a good one. There might be one going on at your church and you don't even know about it. Just look at if you have a pamphlet or a website, or you can Google it. There's a lot of, we'd suggest a Christian marriage retreat, but marriage retreats, that's one really good way to invest in your marriage. What's another one? Jennifer:Reading books together or individually, and just kind of sifting through the notes. Aaron:Talking about them. Jennifer:Talking about them, but there are a lot of marriage books out there. Aaron:Yeah. Do we know any marriage books specifically? Jennifer:No, actually. Marriage After God is one that I would recommend. We have a couple of marriage books if you want to look on our store. Aaron:A few more than a couple, but ... Jennifer:Some devotionals, some prayer books that you guys could do together, which is awesome. Aaron:You can go to shop.marriageaftergod.com to look at everything we have to offer. Jennifer:There's a lot of other good books too, Meeting a Marriage, See Through Marriage, by [inaudible 00:41:35]. Aaron:Sacred Marriage was a really good one. Jennifer:By Gary Thomas. Aaron:Get into books. If you're like me, I like audiobooks. I can consume them quicker, I can also retain them better. Jennifer:I am not an audio person. I have to have the tangible, I can't even do digital. I have to have the book that I can curl the pages back. Aaron:I know. I love something to read too, but also this creates another thing to talk about and to share with each other in growing your marriage, so you're not just investing in what you're consuming, but also what you're discussing with each other. Gives you things to talk about also, which is really good. Regularly planned date nights. Jennifer:Or even double date nights. Go out with another couple, and you'll notice you guys can start talking about marriage. All of a sudden, you don't feel so alone in some of the things you're wrestling in, because ... Aaron:I think we've brought this up in 80 episodes, talking about date night. We say it so often because it's something that we dedicated it to several years ago, how many? Maybe five or six years ago? Jennifer:It was after we had Wyatt, Oliver Wyatt. Aaron:We realized there was a while that had gone by and we're like, "Man, when's the last time we went on a date with each other?" We just put it on the calendar every week, and we figure out a babysitter, and we planned it. Now, that didn't mean we went every week, but just the fact that it was on the calendar, again, the fact that we wrote it down, meant it happened way more often than it would've if we didn't.Investing in that way. Since this is under investing in your marriage, we've talked about in the past that it doesn't have to be something where you go out or spend money. I would say make this an intentional investment of I want to go do something special, even if it's not every time. Jennifer:Catch each other by surprise. Aaron:Yeah. Set a reservation at a restaurant you guys don't go to often. Go throw axes at your local ax throwing place if you have one. Jennifer:Get fast food and go do an activity like some, I don't know, ride bikes or something. Aaron:Invest in a way that's different than normal, if you can. Maybe you have to save for it a little bit, and that's okay. That actually makes it more special. Jennifer:Another way that you can invest in your marriage is find out if your church has a marriage group. Something that really, really affected our marriage in a positive way was the church. Aaron:Probably, I think we often attributed it to saving our marriage. Jennifer:Yeah. We were going to a church back in, I think this is our third year of marriage? We were in California, and they had a marriage group. You came to me and you were like, "Hey, we're going to go. It's on Wednesday night." Aaron:It was terrifying. Jennifer:You need to be there. You need to show up. That was a really dark time for me, and I was resistant toward going and didn't want to do it, but you encouraged us and said, "This is what we need to try." We showed up, and it was scary. There was a lot of people there. When we sat at the table and we started hearing the marriage stories coming up, it was actually really beautiful. Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:Very eye-opening and it had a lot of purpose. You just got to do it. If your church has one, go for it. Aaron:If they don't have one ... Jennifer:Go find one. Aaron:... You should ask them to start one. Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:You never know. There might be 20 other couples that have asked, and they'll finally be like, "Oh, we should start a marriage ministry." Jennifer:Number seven is, is this the last one? Aaron:This is the last one. Jennifer:See your spouse and yourself through Christ's eyes. I mentioned this in a previous episode, I think one or two back. It's really important that we are able to do this. The only way we can do it is if we know Christ. Aaron:Yeah. It also, again, this changes everything. Going back to what you talked about earlier also of what if there's a couple that aren't on the same page? Maybe one's not a believer. Maybe they're going through some really hard things and it's hard to connect. When we can look at our spouse through Christ and say, "Wow, okay, Lord," like we talked about, I think an episode or two ago about them having a brotherly love, a sisterly love, of seeing them in that way. Maybe it doesn't feel like they're my spouse right now because of this or that, because of this pain, because of that hurt.Man, I'm going to try and see them the way Christ does. I'm going to try and love them the way Christ loves them, and stop looking at them from an earthly fleshly point of view of all of the things that you did wrong. Jennifer:Critical. Aaron:All of the things that need to change. Jennifer:I feel like when you look through Christ's eyes, there's like this lens of grace that you could just see not who they are in their sin, but who they are because of the blood of Christ, and what he's done, and become a a new creation in him, and to hope for transformation in their life. Aaron:Yeah. Here's what it says in two Corinthians five 16 through 19. It says, "From now on, therefore we regard no one according to the flesh." This is essentially what we're talking about here. Let's stop regarding each other according to flesh, and let's start regarding each other according to the Spirit, according to what Christ did and who Christ is. Then it says, "Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold the new has come."All this is from God, who through Christ, reconciled us to himself, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Instead of seeing only the flesh, only the sin and the mistakes, and the shortcomings, and the frustrations, and the hurts, we see the one who Christ died for. We see the one Christ shed his blood for. We see the one Christ as reconciling to the Father through his life, death, and resurrection. Jennifer:In our, it's 16 years, right? Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:16 years of marriage. Aaron:We just had that. Jennifer:There have been many times that we've had to intentionally see each other through Christ's eyes, because it's not something we tend to do on a daily basis, although we should, right? Aaron:Yeah. It's usually in those really hard times that we're like, ugh. Jennifer:Then everything just kind of falls flat on the floor and you're like, "Well, grace." That's what he is given to us. Aaron:In our testimony that you share in the Unbuild Wife book, that's essentially what happened. We were on the verge of just being done, calling it quits. I felt the Lord telling me, "Are you going to forgive your wife? Are you going to love her as I did?" He just reminded me of who he is.It made it impossible for me to, because I was either going to say, "No, I'm not going to look at her like that, and I'm over it," or I was going to say, "No, Lord, I love you and I'm going to try and see her that way." Jennifer:Yeah. Some of you listening right now, I just want to encourage you, you may be in a place where you need to pray and ask God to give you those eyes to see through Christ's lens. You might need to pray for that because ... Aaron:We have to. Jennifer:We have to. Aaron:I would say, because I can't do it without him. Jennifer:Yeah. We can't do it in our flesh. Yeah, all of us listening right now, we need to do that. Then I just wanted to ... we kind of summed up all the important stuff, right? Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:I can move on. Aaron:You can. Jennifer:You guys know if you've been listening for a long time, I bring up memes from time to time, and I get stuck on social media in that way. I love those transformation videos where they show you the reel of pictures, where it's like, "This is who I was, but this is who I am." Aaron:Yeah, they're really powerful. Jennifer:A really huge weight change. That's what I'm thinking of right now is just like ... Aaron:Well, we've even seen ones of people that are being changed because of Christ, and they had how they were before, this party, and then all of a sudden, they're totally different. You're like, "Whoa." Jennifer:Yeah. The ones that I'm thinking of specifically are the weight ones and just how dramatic it is. They'll usually show bits and pieces of what it took to get there. Aaron:The progress. Jennifer:The progress, the working out. It just moves me, because I think you don't just get to be transformed. You have to be willing to put in the work. I just wanted to remind all of us that change can happen in us, like you mentioned earlier, through being passive and allowing influences in our life that change us, but we're not going to say that's for the positive. Aaron:Rarely. Jennifer:Rarely it is. Aaron:Accidentally change for the positive. Jennifer:Yeah. The powerful transformation that we are all eager to see in our lives and in our marriages comes from putting in the time, putting in the work, putting in the energy. It's being selfless, it's being sacrificial. It requires much, just like someone going through a weight loss journey and having to do muscle toning. You know that they did everything that they possibly could to get there. Aaron:Yeah. Well, the Lord puts it this way. We got to put to death our flesh. That's essentially what this process is putting behind us our flesh, and designing to walk in his spirit. The things that we brought up in this episode were hopefully just some practical things, but some things that we can actually do and try to do. We hope you enjoyed those. This is the last episode of this month. Jennifer:The last week of the month, where we're talking about this specific growth spurt. Is that what you're going to say? Aaron:Yes. Jennifer:This section of the podcast, we want to encourage you guys to take time to invest, like Aaron mentioned earlier ... Aaron:Write down. Jennifer:... In a personal way. Basically, this one covers everything. No. The goal here is to build trust with your spouse by doing what you say you will. Whatever commitments you've made, we want you to stick to them so that this is our encouragement. The way that we are encouraging that is by taking a post-it note, or a sheet of paper, or a three by five card, and just start with one.If you have more on there, that's great, but you still got a week left to do this. If you want to keep doing this past January, keep doing it. It's just one way that you can experience a maturity and transformation in your marriage. Aaron:Mine is, like I said ... Jennifer:Oh, yeah, we were going to talk about it. Aaron:... Mine's supposed to be in bed by nine. Jennifer:Look, the effort was there, and I just want to let it ... Aaron:It was on the refrigerator, and I even mentioned because we thought this was only going to take us 30 minutes to record. We're wrong. It's 10:19, and so I'm going to forgive myself today, and I'm going to try and be in bed by nine tomorrow. Jennifer:You've been doing great. I put on mine affirm the kids, and it's because as a mom and homeschooling, they're in the home all the time. They're with me all the time. I do a lot of correction and critique, and helping them in their life. Aaron:Yeah, mature. Jennifer:Figuring what mature and what's right and stuff. I just wanted to make sure that I was affirming them. It's like, I don't know. I don't know how things have been, so I just wanted to make sure that I was doing that. I put on mine, affirm the kids, and so I've been doing that. It's actually been really beautiful. I love seeing their eyes light up. It just feels good. Aaron:All right. I'm going to pray. Dear Lord, thank you for the change we have already experienced in marriage. We pray we would continue to see positive transformation on our relationship. We pray for more love, more peace, and more joy. Please help us to be intentional in the way we choose to interact in marriage every day. Holy Spirit, we ask you to help us to not be easily offended by each other. Show us areas of our marriage we can invest in and put the time and energy into making what we have even better.Please help us to see each other as you see us, and help us to hope for the change we desire to see. Thank you for our marriage, and thank you for the opportunities you've given us to make changes in our lives. We pray our marriages continue to mature and that it honors you. In Jesus' name, amen.    

This episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team, who have chosen to help financially support this show monthly. Here is a shout-out to some of our most recent patrons. Deborah SWhitney SValerie BWe thank you so much for partnering with us in blessing 10's of thousands of couples with free daily prayer emails and this weekly podcast.If you have been blessed by free marriage after god content, we'd love to invite you to join our patron team. Also, if you choose to sign up at $20/month you can get a $50 gift card to our online store to purchase any of our books and resources. Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron Dear Lord, Thank you for today. Thank you for speaking to us about the importance of sticking to our word. We desire to have integrity and we desire to be trustworthy. Please help us walk in righteousness, to do the things we say we are going to do, to love others by sticking to commitments made. We ask You to transform this part of us. Give us eyes to truly see how our inconsistencies, our discrepancies, and our failure to do what we say hurts people, especially our spouse. We pray we would be a light wherever we go and honor you by doing what we say we are going to do. In Jesus' name AMEN! 

There is a spiritual truth that goes like this: what we feed will be nourished, what we sow, we will reap, what we pursue, we will find, what we water will grow.…BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DON'T?The opposite is a spiritual truth as well. Stop watering something, and it will eventually die. Stop feeding, and it will diminish. If we don't sow, there won't be anything to reap. If we never seek, we will never find.Our focus today is to examine these truths, hitting home the importance of continual spiritual and relational maintenance.  Today's episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen to help financially support this show monthly. Here is a shout-out to some of our most recent patrons. Freddy SPierre H Shelly BTracy PWe thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing 10's of thousands of couples with free daily prayer emails and this weekly podcast.If you have been blessed by free marriage after god content, we'd love to invite you to join our patron team. Also, if you chose to sign up at $20/month you can get a $50 gift card to our online store on your first renewal! Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron

This episode is brought to you in part by our marriage after god podcast and prayer patron team. These are people who have been blessed by this content as well as our daily prayer emails and have decided to help support the show and our daily emails financially. So if you have been blessed by this show and would like to join the marriage after god podcast patron team, please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron Via Wikipedia: The self-discrepancy theory states that individuals compare their "actual" self to internalized standards or the "ideal or ought self". Self-discrepancy is the gap between two of these self-representations that leads to negative emotions.Essentially it is how we deal with the difference between who we think we should be and who we want to be vs who we actually are.Percent Discrepancy or Error:The discrepancy in a measured quantity for an instrument is the difference between its measured value and true value (accepted value). This difference between these values is known as the absolute error.Absolute error. When I read that I was like….well it is an absolute error when God's word says to be a respectful wife and then im disrespectful. If God's word is the measure by which we live, what is the difference between that and how i choose to respond and act. Google How do you identify discrepancies?Identifying discrepancies in data is simple. You compare two data sets for the same period of time and look for numbers that don't match up. The real challenge is understanding what caused the discrepancies and how to reconcile them.For me when I think of discrepancy, what I feel God wants me to pay attention to … are the differences I see when I compare who I am to who I want to be according to his word. And when i see it i get so frustrated! Understanding and Confronting why there are different things happening and why i am choosing to be the way i really am, frustrates me. This is what got me thinking….How do I reconcile those differences to become one and the same??? The person i really want to be is like Christ, so there is a fight going on inside you….who you CANNOT BE ON YOUR OWN. The who you are now fights who you want to be.  TRANSCRIPT: Speaker 1 (00:05):Hey, Were Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God podcast. If we're all being honest, we would recognize that there's a discrepancy between who we are and who we desire to be. And right now we are going to dive into this idea and find some encouragement along the way. Would Speaker 2 (00:19):You please take some time today and share this episode on your social media? Share it with your friend, share it with your family. Invite them to listen along with you. It'd be an awesome conversation starter. Some people have even taken our podcast and turn 'em into little Bible studies and they meet with a few couples to go through them. And I think you'd be an awesome way to help grow the show, reach of it. And then lastly, before we move on we wanted to bring up a new way that we are inviting people to help support this podcast. We don't do ads. If you noticed the only ads, we talk about our books and our free prayer emails that we send out every day. But one way you can support is you can join the Marriage After God podcast patron team. And what this is, this is a group of husbands and wives all over the country who support this podcast and support our daily prayer emails financially. And if you would like to do that, if this shows blessed you, if you are blessed by our daily prayer emails, we'd love, love to invite you to join the Marriage God podcast patron team by going to marriage after god.com/patron. That's P A T R O N, marriage after god.com/patron. Speaker 1 (01:33):While we are in a new year, 2023, can you believe it? Speaker 2 (01:36):Did we say 2023? Is it 20? 23? 20? Speaker 1 (01:39):Just 23. Speaker 2 (01:40):Just 23. Speaker 1 (01:42):Just 23. Happy New Year everybody. You might be surprised to see us. We're really excited to be here with you guys starting out the new year. Speaker 2 (01:52):Why would they be surprised though? Speaker 1 (01:53):Oh, fresh. I think because when we finished the last season, which was just in December we told everyone to look forward to another season launching in the spring. Speaker 2 (02:05):And it's not the spring, Speaker 1 (02:06):But hey, it's never too early to dive into a good marriage podcast. Speaker 2 (02:10):And we're back and we're excited. Speaker 1 (02:12):Yeah. So instead of doing a seasonal podcast, we thought we'd go all the way back to like we did when we first launched the podcast back in 2018, Speaker 2 (02:21):Which is crazy. Speaker 1 (02:22):We had to go back and look Speaker 2 (02:23):It up. We both didn't realize we started this far back. We thought it was 2019. Speaker 1 (02:27):So back when we started in 2018, we were doing a weekly episode and that was really exciting and really great. And then after, I don't know how, I Speaker 2 (02:35):Don't know, I think it was like 75 plus episode stream. Speaker 1 (02:38):I don't remember. We switched it to doing a seasonal thing, which gave us, in our family a bit of space in between the seasons, which was really great. Speaker 2 (02:45):Lots of new babies between then. Speaker 1 (02:47):Yeah, for sure. So here we are and we're going to try a new thing, a new old Speaker 2 (02:52):Thing, a new oldie goodie thing. Speaker 1 (02:54):Well, speaking of oldie goodies, if you are new with us, you can go back to those 2018, 2019 and up episodes if you haven't listened to 'em. And yeah, Speaker 2 (03:04):There's a check 'em out there a lot for you there. I was just letting Jennifer know some of that analytics cause I like to look at all that data. And one of our episodes, it's called Jesus is our Passover, has had 58,000 downloads. Crazy. So you should definitely go check that one out. And then the last little bit of numbers I wanna throw out there, we've just, I think just last episode of the last season, we broke 3 million downloads of our podcast. That's Speaker 1 (03:29):Awesome. Yeah. That's so cool. Thank you guys for listening. Speaker 2 (03:32):Yeah. This that only happens cuz you all who listened to this podcast. So thank you. Speaker 1 (03:38):Okay, so what can everyone enjoy from us this next year? I should rephrase that. What are people going to want to tell their friends when they talk about our podcast? Speaker 2 (03:48):Hopefully good things hard things sometimes but I think I'd love for people to say that we're real. That we like to be honest, that we're not in any way experts but definitely experts at sharing our story. Speaker 1 (04:04):I was going to say funny. I want them to say, Hey, this podcast is really funny. Speaker 2 (04:08):We do like to laugh a lot. Speaker 1 (04:09):I think I'm funny. Speaker 2 (04:11):Yeah. Words like relatable, truthful those are things that we desire to be as podcast hosts sharing this content with you all. Speaker 1 (04:19):And on a more serious note I would want them to tell their friends what they say doesn't matter. It's what God says through them when his word comes out of them. It's just really good. Speaker 2 (04:32):It's a prayer. I often pray before I teach is Lord let it be your words, not mine. Speaker 1 (04:37):Exactly. If anything, it'll be a good dose when you guys follow along this year of Oh yeah. Or good idea or ouch. I need to work on that for the purpose of encouraging all of us to pick up our Bibles and pursue our spouse. Right. Speaker 2 (04:55):And to be honest, we actually say these things about our own content because when we're preparing these and thinking these are things that we're going through so we actually feel the same way sometimes. So Speaker 1 (05:04):Yeah. Okay, so let's do that now let's get into this very interesting topic we have here today Speaker 2 (05:11):Here and we're in December. And a lot of happened since you Speaker 1 (05:15):Didn't say we're in December. Speaker 2 (05:16):No, we're not in December we're just out. We were out of December. But a lot of stuff's been going on. So since we ended the season, yeah, Speaker 1 (05:25):I will say in December it was challenging for us. We kicked it off with being sick as a family and really sick. Sick, really sick. And that was terrible. What was most terrible about it is it's the beginning weeks of December is like you're just starting to have Christmas festivities. At least I am with the kids festivities. And I was super bummed to miss out on those things. Speaker 2 (05:47):But we got to make some of it up cuz there was some really fun things that we got to do. We got to make sugar cookies always. And we love cookies in this family. They Speaker 1 (05:56):Don't last very long. Speaker 2 (05:57):No eat 'em all cookies the same day. Usually I eat most of the dough before it makes into the oven. Speaker 1 (06:01):I had to wait till we got much better before I jumped into that one. We also, did you already say this? Make gingerbread houses? Speaker 2 (06:09):I didn't say it. Okay. No, but I was thinking of gingerbread men, which we'll talk about a second. We will. Well how would we dress up for the Oh yeah, yeah. Christmas Speaker 1 (06:18):Party. We went sledding Christmas shopping. Speaker 2 (06:22):Yeah, we did all the things even though it was a pretty heavy with sickness, once we got all better we're like, okay, let's jam it all in. We have to get all things in before the end of the year. Speaker 1 (06:32):One and a half weeks go. Speaker 2 (06:33):Yeah. So we went to a Christmas party. Speaker 1 (06:36):It's an annual party that we like to do with our friends Speaker 2 (06:38):And this one did. We don't always dress up. We was this a special one this Speaker 1 (06:42):Year? We just decided, we called it nacho average Christmas party. And it was just so fun. Speaker 2 (06:48):Yeah. It was what I dressed up as a, you dressed me up as a Well Speaker 1 (06:53):We wanted to go as a couple. And so I was like gingerbread. That's awesome. Speaker 2 (06:57):But what? You were a Speaker 1 (06:58):Pinata. I was a pinata gingerbread. And Speaker 2 (07:00):You, your costume, it took you days to make. Cuz she literally glued all this burn. What is that stuff called? It's like streamers. Streamers all over her dress. And then I was a ninja bread man Speaker 1 (07:12):And we were the greatest couple of all time. So Speaker 2 (07:14):It was amazing. Anyways, that was a lot of fun. Speaker 1 (07:18):We played Family Feud, we played some Minute to win at games. The candy cane drop. There's some good Speaker 2 (07:26):Ones. There was, there was a really fun, oh anyways, there were fun games. Oh, the box grab. Yeah, the box grab one was fun. There was a one Speaker 1 (07:33):Except you were supposed to let me win and then didn't Speaker 2 (07:34):One of the wives there was so fast. She was so fast. She beat everyone. Speaker 1 (07:38):Okay, we need to move on here. Okay. Okay. Amid the hustle of the season and experiencing joy, which we hope you guys all enjoyed over holiday break, we also encountered some back to back hard marriage moments some ways of responding to each other. That's Merry Speaker 2 (07:54):Christmas does. Speaker 1 (07:55):No, it was hard. And more so I just wanna personally admit that the Lord revealed to me how I was being disrespectful to you Erin and how I was communicating and I hurt you. And in the midst of those things happening, I also was reminded by looking my journal that I hadn't been abiding in reading the word consistently throughout December. And I know that that plays a huge role in how I feed my flesh instead of walking the spirit. And so there was just a lot of ups and downs emotionally and some 10 moments of tension within our relationship that kind of just influenced our experience. Speaker 2 (08:45):And it didn't help that I was also not abiding in Christ really well this last month in the month of December. And that made my responses not so great to how you were responding to me. Speaker 1 (09:00):We were both irritable and just sloppy in our relationship. Speaker 2 (09:05):It wasn't good, Speaker 1 (09:07):But the Lord's good. And he showed us and reminded us that we need to have grace with one another. That reconciliation is so important. And we came back together and got Speaker 2 (09:23):Through these things. We are reconciled and and God using that situation he has in the past with other situations to show us that there's change that he desires in us, that he's not okay with where we're at because he desires better for us and we're not okay where we're at because we desire better for us. Speaker 1 (09:40):It was during those was it like a week and a half, two weeks of mm-hmm. Being up and down together that the Lord simultaneously put a desire in our hearts to switch the podcast from being put off till spring to, to launching it in the new year and doing this weekly thing. And I think that's, I was going to say funny, it's not funny, but dealing with shouldn't communicate, shouldn't crisis well dealing with communication issues and then going, Hey, let's be professional communicators just about Speaker 2 (10:09):Our marriage that we're having a hard time Speaker 1 (10:10):With you. And I always see in hindsight a lot better. But I was telling you this Erin, that once we made that decision to launch the podcast, being reminded that we have an enemy that doesn't like what we're doing, he's like, Uhuh, I'm going to sabotage that one. Speaker 2 (10:28):Well all the more why we're called to put on the former of God and to not be mm-hmm lax in our vigilance, in our faith to Speaker 1 (10:35):Guard ourselves better Speaker 2 (10:36):And our marriage and we and I wasn't you and the fruit of that was evident. Speaker 1 (10:42):So being professional communicators here, we are not exempt, exempt from the ways of the flesh just because we run a podcast. There's times that Aaron and I are mean to each other. There's times that we can be selfish. There's times that we, I am disrespectful or struggle with submission and struggle with the things that I want versus what you want. And we Speaker 2 (11:04):Clash, both of us just struggling with Speaker 1 (11:06):Irritability, Speaker 2 (11:07):Being Christian, just walking in God's spirit and being more fleshly than spiritual which comes out of us when we're not abiding in Christ and when we're feeding the wrong thing in us, as everyone listening would understand cuz we all do it. So yeah, we're not exempt at Speaker 1 (11:27):All in recognizing that we struggle with communication At times I get down cuz I think there's no way we can do a podcast. Yeah. We're not worthy. We share with others that unworthiness thing to which you and others in my life say because God doesn't use perfect people. That's true. And you reminded me of what Paul said in one Corinthians 12, nine. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Speaker 2 (12:00):Which is funny cuz often we don't boast in the weakness. We boast about being strong and then when we feel weak we're like, oh we can't do Speaker 1 (12:07):This. So here we are confessing that we're weak and we desire the power of Christ to rest upon us. That's the only reason I know I can sit here and be doing this right now. Speaker 2 (12:19):Well and it's good because we need people to know that we too them need Jesus. Speaker 1 (12:25):Yeah. Always. All Speaker 2 (12:26):The time. Speaker 1 (12:26):Yeah. I also wanna admit that this is hard for me, the tension of perception and how I want others to view me as if I am perfect. If I am going to do this podcast and I'm going to be sharing with people, then I want them to see me as someone who does walk rightly or does know what she's talking about Speaker 2 (12:43):And doesn't make mistakes. Speaker 1 (12:44):It doesn't make mistakes. But the truth is, the reality is I am still learning and I am still growing. We are. And we're still have great days and we still have harder days. We still walk in righteousness and we still are confronted by our sin. Speaker 2 (12:59):Well and God also used these moments, this time of struggle between us to remind us that one of the things that we prided ourselves in the beginning of this ministry, starting the unveil wife years ago and later on husband revolution, is that we would share the reality of our life and not try and make it sound perfect, but actually show what God's teaching us through our imperfectness. That was something that we prided ourselves in and we get reminded of it in the middle of our brokenness and we're like, oh, that's what we need to be open with that stuff. Speaker 1 (13:37):So I guess that's the first little bit of discrepancy right there. But we're, we're going to talk about that in a minute. Speaker 2 (13:43):Before we move on any further though into talking about the main topic, I just wanted to remind everyone again one more time if you enjoy this episode, if you l any episode actually instead of just leaving a review on the podcast for the podcast as a whole, which I'd love for you to do if you wanted to we thought it'd be awesome if you guys would leave us reviews for individual episodes. Let us know which one you love, why you love it, what maybe if there's something in it that stood out to you. And I just think that would add a lot of value to people reading the reviews and looking for why they should listen to these podcasts. So if you could do that, if you could take five minutes today and do that, we would really appreciate it. Speaker 1 (14:23):I wanted to share something that we experienced kicking off the first week of January with our church family. Was it the first of the year? It was the first of the year. Speaker 2 (14:32):Yeah, it was. It was the first Sunday of Speaker 1 (14:34):The first Sunday, first day, first of the year. We thought it would be cool to, well all the men decided to come prepared to share desires that they had, hopes that they had for our church. And we do home church. So we've talked about that in the past. And so we have an intimate group of a handful of families with a lot of children. We Speaker 2 (14:56):Have about 10 Speaker 1 (14:57):Families. And so we just popcorned around and different people shared different just heart's desires to see growth in our church. Some said to see more dedicated prayers of first response to circumstance resting in the Lord regardless of circumstance. So being able to have that peace and that rest. There was a ton of affirmations of giftings and roles that people have that we see in each other. There was a desire for more growth and maturity and there was this a remembering that we have influence and a role to fulfill within the body. And I think that it was so cool as a church to be able to walk through all of that and hear what everybody thought about fellowshiping together and what they hope it looks like in the future. And Speaker 2 (15:49):Yeah, it was, do you love it? It was really encouraging to hear from the hearts of everyone there, all of our friends, but our whole church of what they want to see from themselves, from our church, but really what is God doing with us? What does he desire from us as a church? And so that was really encouraging. We got to pray about it as we went. So someone would bring something up, I'd love to see this, I'd love to see our fellowship operate this way, or the men do this or the women do this, or whatever it is. And then we would just stop and pray about it and say, okay, Lord, show us. Reveal these things to us. Give us wisdom and lead us essentially Speaker 1 (16:26):What I loved about the experience is usually at the end of the year we'll talk about our dreams and our hopes for our marriage or our business this time, but our church did it this time. And it just felt really refreshing I Speaker 2 (16:39):Think. Well, and it's encouraging too to know, it was cool to hear everyone's hearts like, oh wow. Yeah, everyone's in some levels aligned and then on others' like wow, we, there's some things that we can grow together. And Speaker 1 (16:53):It was super cool. Well, I kept personally hearing this word. I just felt like God was encouraging me with this one word. Speaker 2 (17:02):This is this idea. A lot of people have of a word for the year, that Speaker 1 (17:06):Sort of thing, which I've done in the past, but I don't do it every year. But I kept hearing this word and I, I'm like, okay God, why don't you just walk me through this one this year? But the word became the theme for today's episode and the words discrepancy and just, I don't know why I've been so sensitive toward this word, but it's been really cool to dig in and say, okay God, what does it mean? What does it look like in my life? And why is it important? Speaker 2 (17:34):Yeah. And this word came out of a, I don't know what you were looking for, but you were doing some sort of research probably for this episode or for yourself. But Speaker 1 (17:44):I think it started because I was trying to look up bible verses that have to do with discrepancy, but it didn't quite turn out that way. And then I went on a rabbit trail. Speaker 2 (17:52):But it was cool, you came across this article about this concept of self discrepancy theory. And you read me some of the stuff from the article and you told me, I was like, wow, that's a really cool thought. The way they describe it Speaker 1 (18:08):On Wikipedia, it states that according to self discrepancy theory, that individuals compare their actual self to internalized standards or the ideal or odd self. So self discrepancy is the gap between two of these self representations that leads to negative emotions. Speaker 2 (18:26):So that's the definition of self discrepancy theory, which we're not necessarily going to dig into this specifically, but it got us on this journey of, okay, what discrepancies are there between the two selves of us who we desire to be in Christ and who we are today? Who Speaker 1 (18:46):We actually are, Speaker 2 (18:46):Who we actually are because how Speaker 1 (18:48):We Speaker 2 (18:48):Operate. That's where this word discrepancy comes in is for you might see yourself as supposed to be or want to be this one way, but then a different person comes out in the day to day. And the same for me. I see myself or want to be this way or should be biblically this way and yet I'm this person over Speaker 1 (19:11):Here. And that gap or that tension, the definition was saying and leads to negative emotions. Those negative emotions can be depression, anxiety or struggling in that space of thinking I'll never change. And that's frustrating, Speaker 2 (19:25):Which we feel because I mean that's what you feel. I felt, why do I keep doing this? Why does this keep happening? And we've all asked these questions, I've tried so hard and I never change. Why can't I be this person? Speaker 1 (19:39):Or maybe you do experience incremental changes but not in this one particular area Or maybe or you have experienced a lot of change in a lot of different areas, but then it comes back and you're struggling again and it's just hard Speaker 2 (19:55):Life. Well, and this is normal for the human condition and we're going to get into this more a little bit, but God knows this about us because we have ideals or versions of ourselves that we believe should exist in the real world. But yet we are who we are now and it's not that person. Speaker 1 (20:18):And I was going to add to that by saying perceived perceptions projected when we're in front of one group of people or someone else but at home where someone else, Speaker 2 (20:32):Well, and this is probably going to be, we're going to talk about later episode or we might talk about this, but that when we pretend to be that projected person, that person over there, that's hypocrisy because we aren't that person. We act like we are, but we're not. Yeah. Speaker 1 (20:50):Okay. So another definition from Miriam Webster says an instance of disagreeing or being at variance. Speaker 2 (20:57):Being at variance. Speaker 1 (20:58):I know these are kind of more technical terms, but I kind of taking things like this and applying it to spiritual well Speaker 2 (21:05):Being at variance there, I just literally thought of this it made me think of how we're supposed to be one. But when we are at odds with each other, we're at variance with each other. We're not unified and there's a discrepancy, there's a like, oh we're not, we're split versus fused. Being balanced or balanced in harmony. Speaker 1 (21:28):Disagree. This was something else I looked up in my little search. Percent percent discrepancy or error. The discrepancy in a measured quantity for an instrument is the difference between its measured value and true value. The difference between these values is known as the absolute error, which I love that absolute error. That's true. When I read that, I was like, well it's an absolute error when God's word says to be a respectful wife and then I'm disrespectful. Speaker 2 (21:56):So something should weigh X. But when it's measured, it's measured at Y. Speaker 1 (22:01):So yeah. So if God's word is the measure by which we live, what is the difference between that and how I choose to respond and Speaker 2 (22:09):Act? Well, absolute error. Speaker 1 (22:10):It's an absolute error. Yeah. Speaker 2 (22:12):Well I love that. This is why where the gospel comes in when we recognize we are actually in absolute error because we are not living up to the standard, the actual true measure, the true value which is Christ. Which is Christ we we're in absolute air. That's really good. Speaker 1 (22:32):All interesting things here guys. Okay, so Google, when I Googled sometimes they have these questions pop up, it said, how do you identify discrepancy? And then this was the response, identifying discrepancies in data is simple. You compared two data sets for the same period of time and look for numbers that don't match up. So again, kind of technical, but let's dig a little deeper here. The real challenge is understanding what caused the discrepancies and how to reconcile them. Speaker 2 (22:57):No, we just wanna see that there Speaker 1 (22:59):Is so Speaker 2 (23:00):Because that's too much  Speaker 1 (23:01):With Speaker 2 (23:01):The Lord. How do we get to that number Speaker 1 (23:03):With the Lord? Putting this word discrepancy on my heart, this is where I'm at for the year. The challenge for me is to understand what causes the discrepancies. Well I guess identifying them, but what caused the discrepancies? And then how do I reconcile them? Speaker 2 (23:16):Which this is a good question for all of our listeners and a good recognition. We all can see easily the discrepancy in our walks. I know when I'm not in the word like oh there's a discrepancy, I believe the word, but I'm not in it. Like you said, you know, should respect and submit to me based off of what the Bible says. But there's a difference in how we respond. I know I'm supposed to love you sacrificially and I don't. So that's easy to see. But like you said, the why does that exist and how did we get to that point and Speaker 1 (23:54):How do we move Speaker 2 (23:54):Past and how do we reconcile the numbers on the sheet? Yeah, Speaker 1 (24:00):That's Speaker 2 (24:00):The harder thing for sure. Speaker 1 (24:01):Something I think God wants me to be paying attention to are the differences I see when I compare who I am to how I wanna be according to his word. And when I see it, when I see it, I get frustrated. I don't know about you, you said it's easy to see. I'm like, I get it so frustrated cuz I'm like that's who I wanna be. Speaker 2 (24:20):This goes back to that discrepancy theory. How you respond to the discrepancy is based off of whether you have an ideal or an odd. And I think you see that person as an odd, I should be this person but I'm not. Why not? And so you're frustrated and an anxious about it. Speaker 1 (24:37):So I wanna answer the question, how do I reconcile those differences to become one in the same? Speaker 2 (24:44):I think when you were asking me this question earlier, I was thinking, well if we have the wrong definition of the person we're trying to be, then we'll never be able to. No, that's true. Reconcile. So if I'm like, well I need to be this person, Jennifer b Jennifer, version B is who I need to be. But reality is Jennifer B doesn't exist without Christ. So there is no Jennifer B in the picture unless there's Christ in the picture. And so like you said, when we're not inviting in Christ, when we're not seeking that image, when we're not seeking his righteousness and his kingdom and those things, then there can be no reconciliation. So I think it's first Speaker 1 (25:28):Recognizing if the person that we want to become has nothing to do with God's word, if it's not defined by God's word, Speaker 2 (25:37):Then we're, it's always going to be redefined every moment. But if we define it the correct way, then we can at least know what we're shooting for. We we're shooting for the Christ and his perfection, which we understand we can't attain on our own. We need him. Speaker 1 (25:59):And when we were talking about this earlier, you said to me well there's a fight going on inside of you and who you want to be. You cannot be on your own. You can't Speaker 2 (26:11):Do it. Yeah. Cuz you're constantly the who we are today is constantly fighting who we want to be to be tomorrow. So I think the general solution to how do we get from A to B, how do we fill that gap? I think it starts with a surrender. Our current self has to surrender to Christ the future self and say, okay, if this is the true value what you say, then I need to surrender to that. And that's, that's how we shrink that gap. Cuz there is no perfection to be attained. And I hope that's an encouragement everyone listening is we're not talking about, hey, we can't actually get there. No, I think one day, well when we were with our father in heaven, there's going to be with him and Speaker 1 (27:00):Life is and him and life is the journey and the process every day inching closer to Speaker 2 (27:07):That. Well and I think even just a revelation I just had is instead of trying to constantly be the better me tomorrow that the journey is are we're constantly moving toward Christ Speaker 1 (27:23):Or recognizing his power in us. Speaker 2 (27:27):So instead of always feeling a failure because we didn't live up to whatever we're trained to imagine, we're just constantly moving toward him. Paul says it really good in Romans seven, verse 24 when explaining this dichotomy between our flesh and the spirit. And he says, wretched man that I am, which is how we all feel. So Speaker 1 (27:49):You're saying now, oh I suck. Speaker 2 (27:51):Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. So he's showing this di dichotomy of I want to serve the law, but I also have my flesh. And he says, who's going to deliver me from this problem? And he says, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ. Speaker 1 (28:19):I really think you should keep reading cuz moving on into eight. It really, Speaker 2 (28:23):So in verse in chapter eight, he says, therefore, or there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Speaker 1 (28:32):Which pause. There's been so many times that I've felt just the guilt of the shame and the full weight of my sin. And you've repeated this verse to me so many times. So husbands, wives, anyone listening, tuck this verse away for when someone needs it. Go ahead. Speaker 2 (28:50):Well, in verse two, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death for God is done with the law. Weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son and the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. The law of the spirit when we walk in the spirit is freedom. We're set free in Christ Jesus from this bondage that you feel that I feel of, oh, I'm not performing right, I'm not fulfilling the law. I'm not being the person I'm supposed to be. Right? No, we're set free from that bondage of that. But when we walk in the spirit, we actually produce the things that the spirit produces, which is good. Speaker 1 (29:46):Yeah. There was a few other verses that came to our mind when considering discrepancy and what does the Bible talk about and how to identify that in us. So one of the first ones was Matthew seven 15 through 20. Do Speaker 2 (30:02):You wanna read that? Yeah. And it starts off talking about false prophets, but I want to get to the point here. So it says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles even so every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them. The point here is it's showing that on the outside, like I said earlier about this hypocrisy, these people show one thing, but on the inside or something else, God's telling us when we walk in the spirit, he changes the inside even before the outside represents what's on the inside. And so to bear good fruit, we must walk in the spirit which God uses to change us from the inside. So instead of trying to find this, seek this outward thing, we should be seeking that inward transformation, which then does actually change us. Speaker 1 (31:16):Another one is also James three, nine through 12. It says with it we bless our Lord and talking about our tongue with it, we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God from the same mouth come blessing and cursing my brothers, these things ought not to be. So does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and saltwater. Can AIG tree my brothers bear olives or grapevine produced figs? Neither can assault pond yield fresh water. Speaker 2 (31:46):Yeah. This is talking about our tongue and our words, but it's showing the discrepancy between things we say on one side of our mouth and things we say on the other side of our mouth that we bless God and we curse our brother. We have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in our hearts, yet we boast about our altruism and our love for our brother. This is discrepancy. This is something that we deal with. So the fact that sometimes we like, oh, I want to be this kind of person, but over here we're not okay with using, having a discrepancy in the way we speak and the things we say. And that's where, this is another thing where looking at the true value, the true value is what God says. And as the word says right here in James, these things ought not to be so , a discrepancy that needs to be a gap that needs to be closed there. Speaker 1 (32:38):Just going a little personal, is there anything that you've recognized that is, is there discrepancy in you or in something that you've recognized lately? Speaker 2 (32:50):One of the things that you haven't have had an issue in the past and something that you're recognizing is how you communicate To me, I've had the same issue with, you may not be in every circumstances, but when you're having a hard Speaker 1 (33:03):Time, your issue is how I communicate with you. I'm Speaker 2 (33:05):Kidding. No. How I communicate with you, how I respond to you When you communicate to me a certain way instead of me being self controlled and doing the right thing, I just do the wrong thing also this Speaker 1 (33:16):Cycle. Speaker 2 (33:17):But I also, I've realized that, and it's something I have grown in, but I have a problem with the way I've talked to my communicate children way I can communicate to my friends. But Speaker 1 (33:28):You've gotten better at Yeah, I have. But just to affirm you, you have grown in that Speaker 2 (33:32):And I appreciate that. But that that's something that God has showing me through this thing that's been going on with us and just saying, okay, God wants to deal with this discrepancy. Speaker 1 (33:42):He wants to chisel it out of us. Speaker 2 (33:44):He wants to cut it out. Yeah. There's just kind of highlighting more of this. I've been, I been listening to a new podcast called Hidden Brain and I'm really liking it. It just talks about these concept of how our brains work. And he was talking with a guest, the main host, and she said something that reminded me of this. She said, there's two versions of ourselves existing at the same time who we desire to be and who we are and that's why we've been talking about this. But she called it the present self and the future self. And often, Speaker 1 (34:17):Do you ever catch yourself talking to yourself in that way? Speaker 2 (34:21):I don't. No. Speaker 1 (34:21):Do you do that? No. I mean, I'm not going to admit it now. Sure. Not. Speaker 2 (34:25):No. I don't think I talked to my future self, but she said something that was pretty profound that we often make our future self pay the consequences of our presence. Self choices. Speaker 1 (34:37):Well, that's true. The donuts I eat today are going to affect me. Speaker 2 (34:42):So your future self has to pay the consequences of that current and this now this podcast at all. But she's saying things, I'm like, oh, that's exactly what the Bible says. Talking about how when you want to be healthy, you want to lose weight, you want to whatever your future self desires, but you're like, you want this momentary, fleeting thing. You're like, well, I'm going to sacrifice my future self's problems so today can have the pleasure instead of sacrificing the pleasure today so that you can enjoy the pleasure later. So I just, it's good. It was reminding me of everything that you were talking about with this, and then I heard this episode and I was like, that's exactly what we're going through is we often, we sacrifice our future selves. We make them pay the consequence of our current actions. Speaker 1 (35:32):And just so I don't sound crazy, I immediately got that thought in my mind of how people write those letters to their 17 year old self. Or going back Speaker 2 (35:40):Into, oh, talking to your past self maybe, or Speaker 1 (35:42):Going back and forth. Speaker 2 (35:43):What I You look crazy. I'm sure there's a lot, everyone listening, there's probably a bunch of people like, Speaker 1 (35:46):Yes, I don't talk to myself. Speaker 2 (35:48):No. But having conversations with your future self, I don't know. Speaker 1 (35:51):It's interesting. Speaker 2 (35:53):I don't usually think that far ahead, but that's also a problem. I need to think a little bit further ahead. Think ahead. Yeah. Speaker 1 (35:59):All right. Where are we at? Speaker 2 (36:00):Well, so we're getting closer to the end of this, but I think the idea, what I love about God and his word is the Bible is very clear and honest about who we are as humans. That's Speaker 1 (36:13):What I was going to say is honest. It's Speaker 2 (36:14):Honest, it's it. It's a mirror. It says it's sharper than any two edge sword cutting through the bone of marrow. No one's hidden from it. And you read the word, when you truly read it and you look at it, you see your truest self. You're like, oh my goodness. I like when we just came out, oh, I'm absolute error. That's the truth. Speaker 1 (36:35):But you also see the truth of who you are in Christ. Speaker 2 (36:39):Well, and that's what I'm saying is God created us and totally understands that we go through this stuff. (36:47):And what I love is it tells us that Jesus himself, he was tempted in every way, common demand. So all these things that were tempted with, tempted with feeling guilty about this or that tempted with knowing that we who wanting to do something this way, he's felt those temptations. No he didn't sin. He understands us. Romans seven 18, here's a good example for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Again, this is Paul talking about this. The Bible knows that there's nothing good in us in our flesh alone, but we do have the desire. God's like he sees this split, he sees this chasm. But what's awesome is with Christ Speaker 1 (37:38):We Speaker 2 (37:39):Can, yeah, Christ even says, he says, it's good that I go away because if I go away, then God will send you the helper, his Holy Spirit. He sent him specifically to be our helper because he knows we need help so much with everything in life. Speaker 1 (37:56):And when we yield to his authority and we yield to his headship in our lives, we do see transformation. Aaron has to remind me of this because sometimes I get cloudy and my woe is me. I'm so sad that I haven't changed yet. And you remind me of the good that's come. You remind me of the transformation that we've already made. Speaker 2 (38:16):Well now remind you that you have changed. Yeah. That who you are today, that's Speaker 1 (38:19):Not who Speaker 2 (38:19):It was, is a stark contrast to who you were 10 years ago. And you, you'd be proud of the woman you are. Yeah. But it's so hard for us to see. Clearly. We think we do, but we don't see. That's Speaker 1 (38:32):True. Marriage tip number one, we don't see clearly. Okay. So with this being a word that I'm going to be committing to dwelling on this year, a few questions came to my mind. And I don't necessarily have the answers to serve alongside these for you just yet, but more so I'm just posing the questions and asking God to help me dig a little deeper in order to be refined or chi. And Speaker 2 (38:53):These are questions we want them to Speaker 1 (38:55):Consider. Yeah. Why don't you guys take the opportunity to just let it soak in and ask yourselves the same thing. So the first one, is there a discrepancy in my spiritual walk between the things that I say I believe and what I actually believe? And this is where doubt really gets at me. This is where I know that I, it comes out in my actions because I'm going to do what I believe. Speaker 2 (39:23):And so it's different. Believe, yes. But I do this other thing. Really. I don't believe Speaker 1 (39:27):That. Exactly. And that's a problem. That's identifying, Speaker 2 (39:31):That's a discrepancy. Speaker 1 (39:32):Interesting. Yeah. Okay. , another question is, in my marriage, do I have a double standard? I love you or serve me, but I can't serve you. Do I have that mentality? Do I make commitments and say them to you, but don't carry them out? Discrepancy in marriage. Do I perceive myself to be a submissive wife? But do I have that integrity in me to be able to answer that truthfully? And then the last one is, when it comes to parenting, am I, Speaker 2 (40:10):That's a good one. This is convicting for me. Speaker 1 (40:13):Am I telling my kids to be kind, but I'm not being kind? Or even in small things? No, you can't have that or you can't watch that TV right now. And then not following through, through and immediately letting them. So that's just silly examples. But it happens. So oh, the other part of parenting is, am I sharing with other moms examples or, Hey, you should try this or do that. But I myself am not doing that. And it just makes me think absolute error. Speaker 2 (40:45):Well, and these questions are good for the husbands to be asking also. I mean, they just need to change some of the details. But we should be asking these questions of ourselves. Speaker 1 (40:55):I have one more. I skipped over it. In friendships, am I paying attention to what I'm saying and what I'm doing? Do I view myself as a good friend, but really in my actions I'm showing something else. Speaker 2 (41:08):So it's a good thing for us to ask the Lord, say, Lord, show us. See if there's any wicked way in us as David prayed. Find those things in us and help us change God, help change them in us so we can be more like your son Jesus. Speaker 1 (41:25):And then, so that was kind of the group of questions for relationships that I'm dealing with. And then bottom line is, how do these discrepancies hurt myself and others? And I think that's a really important question to ask because obviously we don't wanna go around hurting our spouse or hurting our children or hurting our friends. Speaker 2 (41:46):Well, Proverbs 11 says, the integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them. Speaker 1 (41:54):I love that contrast of having integrity versus not, and how obvious it is what we Speaker 2 (41:58):Should choose. One's straighten upright and one's crooked and treacherous. So when we don't walk in integrity, when we have deep discrepancy, cuz we, again, we're, we all have discrepancy, we all have a distance between who God wants us to be and who we are today. But there are things that we can recognize, those questions you asked that can actually bring immediate integrity and uprightness into our relationships versus not having and just staying more atten and it causing brokenness and anger. How does it make you feel when we end up in these areas where the discrepancy's actually hurting us? Speaker 1 (42:40):I usually feel discouraged and disappointed and disparaging just, well, what's wrong with me? And I get in my own head and I get down on myself because Speaker 2 (42:49):Remember are telling me in the middle of that the discussion when we're trying to work through it. Like I feel like I never change. And I'm like, well, and that's what I was encouraging. I was like, well, you have changed right now. You don't feel like it, but you have. Yeah. Speaker 1 (43:03):I think one of the biggest problems is that I'm just looking at myself in those moments. I'm looking at myself and how much I failed. And when we end up staying up late to talk about these things, and you remind me of Romans eight, one and the comfort and peace that I get from having anxious thoughts to relying on God's word and letting it seep in night and day Speaker 2 (43:28):Difference. Well, and I just to close out what we're talking about a discrepancy in my life, I'm just thinking about what those questions you asked being convicted lately. I've always encouraging others in the podcast and my relationships with my kids, with my friends to be abiding in God's word. And then I myself don't aide in it that well. I go long periods of time with not getting deep into the word. Speaker 1 (44:00):It's like you do, but you don't. Speaker 2 (44:01):Yeah. I said this at church on Sunday. We know when we're abiding and when we're not like, ah, maybe I was this week. No, we know. But that's that right there. Abiding with Christ means that we're next to him. So as he walks, we walk. When he sits, we sit. When he stands, we stand. And so if we want to shrink that discrepancy, then let's walk with Christ. Let's abide with him. This is the lifelong solution. It's what God desires. Speaker 1 (44:38):What's really cool about what you just said is I got this picture of earlier you were talking about version A and version B of Jen. If I'm only looking to myself and what I'm capable of as my version B, Jen kind of silly to think about that way I'm never going to reach that. And I'm going to feel that discouragement come on because I'm never meeting that Speaker 2 (44:59):Because you never get to Speaker 1 (45:00):Be here because I never get to that. But what I hear you saying is I'm not looking towards version bk. I'm supposed to be looking towards Christ. And he is my picture. Yep. He is the one. Speaker 2 (45:13):Well, and like you said, in one way, Speaker 1 (45:15):It's not a version of me, it's a version of Speaker 2 (45:16):Him. And in one way you're looking yourself only the other way you're looking at him. Yeah. Good stuff. So why don't we give them their new Speaker 1 (45:26):We're done already. Speaker 2 (45:27):Yep. Oh Speaker 1 (45:28):Man. I wanna keep going. Speaker 2 (45:30):All right. Well, they can keep Speaker 1 (45:32):Going. Okay. Let this growth start. So we thought it would be fun, since we kicked this off this new year with coming at you every week we thought every month we would add a new growth spurt section to the end of our podcast. And so what we mean is for four weeks, it will basically stay the same. And so we called it a growth spurt because we wanna encourage you guys this year to take those extra steps toward growth in your relationship with God, growth in your relationship with your spouse. And so for the month of January, we're going to focus on building trust and building integrity Speaker 2 (46:11):By doing what you say you Speaker 1 (46:13):Will, by doing what you say you will. And it kind of goes into that whole new year commitment thing. I know people do resolutions and things like that, so we wanna kind of tag along for this month, but we want to encourage you guys to do what you say you will Speaker 2 (46:27):Do. Let your yes be yes and no. And Speaker 1 (46:30):This is the first step towards getting rid of that discrepancy in your life. If you're someone that struggles in a specific area with discrepancy, let this be one action that you can take to try and close that gap. So it's really easy. You just get a note card or post it, put it somewhere where you're going to see it every day and write an area or a sentence on it or whatever a word, whatever you think is going to help you remember something that you struggle to commit to and just make a commitment to do it. Do you wanna give a couple of examples just that will be easy Speaker 2 (47:07):For husband's, wives? I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of people that are committing to diets and exercise. If you say you're going to get up up you give an example of if you say you're going to do something with your kids, do it. I told Wyatt tonight, he always wants us to snuggle him. And I said, I can't tonight. And then usually I say, and he's like, well, can you do it tomorrow night? And I'll say, maybe. But tonight I was like, Wyatt, I will. Speaker 1 (47:33):So now you gotta stick to that Speaker 2 (47:34):And I'm going to stick to Speaker 1 (47:35):Aaron. We know what Aaron's going to write on his little post-it note. Okay. Another one might be like, if you say you're going to be home at this time, be home at this time. If you say you're going to, Speaker 2 (47:43):That's a big one in marriages, I think it Speaker 1 (47:46):Could be. Yeah. Yeah, it might be. Anyways, you guys get the idea. This is to encourage you with doing what you say and closing that gap on discrepancy. Awesome. The last thing that we wanna do, which we always have done, which we love doing with you guys, is closing out with a prayer. So please join me, us. Dear Lord, thank you for our lives. Thank you for this new year, and thank you for all of the opportunities you will give us this year to grow, to love, and to honor you. We pray we would be paying attention to the ways in which your Holy Spirit is leading us throughout each day. Please help us tune our ears and our hearts to hear your voice. We pray we would take seriously the commitments we make and strive to live with integrity. We pray we would understand who we are in you, and may our choices reflect our belief that you are transforming us. When we realize a discrepancy in our lives, please show us the way to reconcile how we feel and what we choose to do. Lord, please help us to walk uprightly, to honor our marriage and to fulfill your purpose for us. In Jesus' name, amen.  

This world is full fo discouragement, and we personally are really good at feeling shameful, weak, useless, and unworthy. Fill in the blank with all the negative things we think and say about ourselves daily. We all can use more words of encouragement and affirmation. So let this episode be an encouragement and reminder for you to practice finding things to affirm your spouse with on a daily basis.--This episode is sponsored by our newest book, Marriage After God. In this book, we have laid out for you a treasure map that leads your marriage to the greatest treasure of all, which is to know beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly why God has brought you and your spouse together.This book is meant to take you on a journey of discovering the unique, deep and powerful purpose God has for your marriage. The world and your flesh will tell you that the greatest end to be reached is happily ever after, but we believe that that is in fact not at all the end to which we are to pursue. Instead, God intends for you to pursue His end and for your marriage to be a powerful tool in His mighty hand to bring about glory for His Son and to grow His kingdom. If you are ready to say yes to this journey, then please head over to Shop.marriageaftergod.com or amazon.com and grab your copy today. --HERE IS THE LIST OF AFFIRMATIONS I TOLD MY WIFE IN THIS EPISODEYou are one of the most thoughtful and caring people I know. You are always considering how other people feel and what they might be going through. Your heart is always to comfort and include. Your heart is easily burdened for those of our friends who are burdened. These traits that God has given you are a powerful spiritual gift that our church, friends and anyone else that comes into our life get to be blessed by.You are an incredible mother who desires to be the best mother she can be. You teach our children diligently and with determination. You are creative with them and desire that they have many different outlets for growing in knowledge and skill and giftings. You are constantly growing in your patience and love for our children and you desire to be the best you can be for them.We are going to be married for 16 years on January 6th 2023. And I want you to know that I am thankful that i have had the privilege of having you as my bride, my friend and my lover for not only the last 16 years but also for the rest of our lives. And just like the bible says. You are a blessing and a gift to me and I am excited to continue to discover who you are each and every day of our lives together.You are my favorite person to spend alone time with. Going to a movie, dinner, fishing, hiking, bike ride. Whatever it is it will always be better when you are with me. You are my best friend.Just as i said when i asked you to be my wife, “whatever we do I want to do it with you and for God. I love building our life, business and family together.You are a godly woman who desires to grow and mature in your walk with Christ and your love for God is an inspiration not only to me but also to our children and to all our friends.Lest one! You may not believe me, but I think you are one of the bravest and strongest women i know. Following me to africa, starting businesses with me, doing our own marriage retreat, writing not just one book but 12. Having 5 children with me, and doing any of countless other things we have done in our life together. You are brave. And strong. And i admire you for that bravery and strength. Phil 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Ephesians 4:29 “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” READ TRANSCRIPTJennifer (00:09):Hi, and welcome to the Marriage After God podcast. Aaron (00:12):We're your hosts Aaron, Jennifer Smith. We Jennifer (00:14):Have been married 15 years and have five sweet children who are growing up way too fast. Aaron (00:18):We love God and we love marriage Jennifer (00:20):And we love to be honest about it all. Aaron (00:22):Marriage is not always a walk in the park, but we do believe it has a powerful purpose. Jennifer (00:25):So our goal here is to open up the conversation to talk about our faith and our marriage, Aaron (00:30):Especially in light of the gospel. Jennifer (00:32):We certainly don't have all the answers, but if you stick around, we may just make you Aaron (00:35):Laugh. But our hope is to encourage you to chase boldly after God's purpose for your life together. Jennifer (00:39):This is after God. Hi, and welcome back to another episode of Marriage After God. We're back Warrior Host. I'm Jennifer. Aaron (00:54):I'm Aaron. Jennifer (00:54):And we're happy to be here. We took another little break, unexpected, spontaneous break. We Aaron (01:00):Did not do it on purpose. Jennifer (01:01): life happens and for getting back into podcasting this season, I felt like we did really great. We were really strong. And then we had the break cuz you left. And then we came back and then we had to take another break because we were working on edits of the book and which Aaron (01:19):Turned out really well. Jennifer (01:20):And then there was Thanksgiving and then we got hit with sickness like bad Aaron (01:25):For over a week. Jennifer (01:26):It was rough. Aaron (01:27):It was like we had Thanksgiving and then boom, we're sick. So we had to take the time out. We couldn't do anything. Yeah, it was, we were, oh man, it was horrible. But we are back and we're going to do, we have two more episodes Jennifer (01:38):In this season. This is number 11. And then we have one more. So Aaron (01:41):We're going Jennifer (01:42):To do this. That wraps up the season crazy. Aaron (01:44):And then we get to practice and be better at next season because we have time Jennifer (01:50):To plan. excited about it. But in today's episode, I actually don't know what we're going to talk about cuz for some reason Aaron wanted it to be a surprise secret or maybe, I don't know why Aaron (02:01):I'm surprised that you're letting me do this , because you don't like to be surprised. That's true. And you don't like to not know what's going on. But this episode you listening, you know what the episode's about because the title, Jennifer hasn't seen the title yet. Jennifer (02:17):He's kept everything Aaron (02:17):From me so she doesn't know what it's about. And so we'll get to that soon and I hope it's good help. See. So before we get into that, this episode is sponsored by our newest book. When I say newest book, this book came out in 2020. Jennifer (02:34):2019 I think. 19. Yeah. 2019. Aaron (02:37):Oh, I think you're right. Okay. It's still our news book. We have one coming out next year, which will be our newest, newest book. But this one, marriage After God. This is one of the pinnacle works that we've done. It doesn't just incorporate our life, but it incorporates so much of what God has shown us and taught us about the purpose in marriage and why he created it. In this book we've laid out for you a treasure map that leads you your marriage to the greatest treasure of all, which is to know beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly why God has brought you and your spouse together. This book is meant to take you on a journey of discovering the unique, deep and powerful powerful purpose God has for your marriage. The world in your flesh will tell you that the greatest end to be reached is happily ever after. But we believe that this is in fact not at all the end to which we are to pursue. Instead, God intends for you to pursue his end and for your marriage to be a powerful tool in his mighty hand to bring about glory for His son and to grow his kingdom. If you're ready to say yes to this journey, then please head over to shop dot marriage after god.com or amazon.com and grab your copy today. Jennifer (03:43):Well babe, that was a really great ad for our book. I feel like you could just read a snippet from the book and then wrap it. Wrap it up. Call it an episode. Aaron (03:52):I could. I was going to do that actually. I was actually going to read some of the book, but I didn't. You gotta go get the book yourself. Jennifer (03:58):I'm also just nervous about today's topic cuz I don't know what it is so well Aaron (04:02):Here. Before we Jennifer (04:03):Just giving you another idea, Aaron (04:04):Get you warmed up. Before we get into today's secret topic why don't we talk about a little bit, I know we kind of went into it just a second ago, but what's been going on the last couple weeks? We had a few big things. One was a sad wound. We lost one of our chickens. I mean, we have a lot of chickens and so it's kind of makes sense that there's so much nutrition, Jennifer (04:26):Very new at this. And so everything's a learning curve. Everything's a process of trying to understand what it means to be a chicken mama and Aaron (04:34):Papa . And we have 20 plus chickens. Yeah, I think we're down to 20 now. Yeah. But we, so we tried everything we could actually with this little girl. And I even took her to the vet just cause I wanted to learn. I was like, okay, what? What's going on? What can I look for? It was too late. But you did learn tis. I did. And I got some useful tidbits that now I can go actually check all of our other chickens and be like, oh, these ones are healthy. This one's not healthy. Yeah, I know it looks like now. So that was actually really valuable for me. But sad. Sad nonetheless. But we're learning and it's actually been fun having chickens. Our kids are going out there feeding 'em, taking care of Jennifer (05:09):'em. Lots of Aaron (05:09):Responsibility. We're sitting down as family guys, we have animals we're responsible for, we need to make sure they stay alive so they have to have water and food and lots of other things. So that's actually been really good for our family. Jennifer (05:22):On top of that, we had family out, which was really great for Thanksgiving. It was such a joy just to see them. That was nice. And then we got sick, which we already mentioned that was not nice. I mean, hammered sick. I was usually, Aaron (05:34):I you're in bed for a whole Jennifer (05:35):Week, four or five days. Usually I don't get sick. Usually I help everybody else while they're sick. Aaron (05:40):Well and all more usually we, if we do get sick, we'll get it lightly. Jennifer (05:45):Or a tag team where I get sick first and then you get sick. Aaron (05:48):But this one you got sick and then I was sick and then the kids were sick and we were all sick at the same time. I don't think we've ever experienced that before. It was miserable. That was hard. Just doing anything. But Jennifer (05:57):We survived it. But we survived it because we had help too. That's true. We had friends nonstop. Hey, can I pick anything up from the store? Hey, how are you guys feeling? How can we come for you? Can I drop dinner off several times? We got dinners that Aaron (06:11):Week. We have lots of dinners, lots of Jennifer (06:12):Leftovers. So thank you everybody who helped. We love you. Aaron (06:15):And we were just so blessed and I all that to be said, there's huge power in close Christian community. And this has been true from Pentecost till today, that this is how God intends it. He intends the people of God to be in unity and together and helping each other. Jennifer (06:35):Plus it just feels good to be used too. I've been on the other end where someone's sick and I get to bring their family a meal. And I love being utilized in that way. I feel like it's me. Aaron (06:45):So quick off the topic encouragement for you for listening. If you don't have close Christian friends, we just wanna encourage you to go get some . And we know that could be hard for some people, but pray, ask God, say God, bring us some Christian relationships, Christian friends that we can get close to. You have to be in community. What God has for us. I think it's his God. It is God's plan for his people that we're all in community together. So I mean, we're going to be in eternity forever each other. That's true. So might as well practice it now. . Okay. That's all we have. Jennifer (07:19):Come on, tell me what it is. Aaron (07:21):Intro. Intro. Intro. So I have my phone here because I have my own private notes. Jennifer (07:26):I know I was really confused, Aaron (07:27):But she was looking through these. She was like, so did you write anything down? I'm like, yes. Where I'm like, I'm not telling you. Right. And if you would've looked just one filter back, you probably would've found it. Ah. Did you find an action? No. Okay. Just checking. . All right. So I'm going to share with you some statements, Jennifer (07:48):Oh gosh. Aaron (07:49):Okay. Statements that I've written down. And I want you to let us know me and the listeners, your honest thoughts and feelings about it. Jennifer (07:59):Can I just say true or false? Aaron (08:02):You might wanna say that but I want you to be real and honest. And the reason I didn't want you to know Jennifer (08:08):Is because you're mean. I'm just kidding. Aaron (08:11):Yes. Conniving and no, I think this is hard for a lot of people and it's hard for me, but it's hard to like, okay, you're going to get it Jennifer (08:24):Extra hard on me. Aaron (08:25):Yeah, I don't know. Maybe. Okay. So first of all, what are you thinking about before I go into this? Jennifer (08:31):The first thing that popped in my head was ice cream. Cuz I think it would make me feel better right now. Aaron (08:36):This is not an episode about ice cream and I think we have some, so if you do good, let you have a cup. Ice cream. Yeah. Do you surprises like this? Jennifer (08:45):I like some surprises sometimes. Aaron (08:48):Not Jennifer (08:49):Always this one. No. Because we're podcasting and recording and I just wanna You feel unprepared. I feel like I'm going to trip over my words or say something not so well. Aaron (08:58):To be honest, most of it's probably going to be me, but I do want to hear to engage with you on these things. Okay? Okay. All right. Okay. You don't know what I'm going to say. We're going to start, I think you'll get this after the first or second one. Listening's. Like just do it. Jennifer (09:15):Seriously. Stop Aaron (09:16):Smelling. All right. Okay. Jennifer, Jennifer (09:20):What? Aaron (09:21):You are one of the most thoughtful Jennifer (09:23): Aaron (09:24):In caring people. I know you are always considering how other people feel and what they might be going through. Your heart is always to comfort and include, your heart is easily burdened for those of our friends who are burdened. These traits that God has given you are a powerful spiritual gift that our church friends and anyone else that comes into our life get to be blessed by. That's the first one. Jennifer (09:50):Did you copy and paste that from somewhere? You get Aaron (09:52):That from? I wrote all of these. Jennifer (09:55):That was really beautiful. Aaron (09:57):Oh, is that's your natural first gut response. Jennifer (10:01):Yeah. Was it made me Aaron (10:02):Feel good? Did it? What else do you think about that? Oh, let's go. True or false? Jennifer (10:09):. True. I think that I would also pick it apart to show, but that's a challenge for me. It's hard for me. That's not in my nature. Aaron (10:21):What part of it? Jennifer (10:23):You would have to read it back to me. Aaron (10:25):, most thoughtful, caring people I know considering how people feel and what they might be going through. Jennifer (10:32):So even sometimes I think too much about myself and what I'm going through that I do feel like I miss what others are going through. But then there's times that I actually overthink how people might be feeling to where I start answering for them. Or I overthink what I said to them and it just gets really messy from there. So . Aaron (10:55):Okay, but what about your heart is always to comfort and include? Jennifer (11:01):I think that's true. And I think it comes from a place of always wanting to be included. Aaron (11:06):Love how you wanna be loved type thing. Your heart is easily burdened for those that our friends, the burdens that our friends have. Jennifer (11:16):That's true. And I think it's going back to what you said earlier about being in community. We've lived this way pretty much our whole marriage, where wherever we're at, we immerse ourselves into that community and we build friendships. And we're so close with people that I feel like they're family and I feel like if they're going through a hard time, I don't want them to be suffering. I don't want them to be uncomfortable. And so I do feel that weight. Mm-hmm. True. Aaron (11:43):, the last piece of this anyone who comes into our life is blessed by this from you. Jennifer (11:54):I don't know. Aaron (11:55):What do you think others would say? Jennifer (11:59):Do Jen ? Of course. I don't know. Aaron (12:03):Do you think that they actually feel blessed by you? Jennifer (12:06):I think that I have a handful of friends that I would believe them saying that. Okay, that's hard. Thinking about myself in that way. I don't Aaron (12:18):Know. Okay. Onto number two. You ready? Okay. Jennifer (12:25):, Aaron (12:26):You These might be harder. Jennifer (12:28):I don't know. Aaron (12:30):Okay. You are an incredible mother who desires to be the best mother she can be. You teach our children diligently and with determination. You are creative with them and desire that they have many different outlets for growing in knowledge and skill and giftings. You are consistently, you're constantly growing in your patience and love for our children. And you desire to be the best you can before them. Jennifer (12:54):Who told you all that? So as you're reading it, Aaron (13:02):What was your first thought you had when I said, you are an incredible mother. Jennifer (13:07):No, no, no, no. And then I heard God say, yes you are. Yes you are. Yes you are . But it's weird, the tension I have to battle in my own mind and heart because no matter how good of a day we have, no matter how much I try and pour into my children or being a mom, a good mom, I wrestle with doubt and failure and insecurities and wondering if I'm doing it right or when I'm doing it wrong, how to fix it. Being a mother is pain painful in a way, an emotional way because you just never know. I do. I don't know. Well, Aaron (13:52):True or false, Jennifer (13:55):I'm not going to Sure. False that I think that my heart and my heart intention is to be a good mom. I don't think I'm perfect. I think I struggle a lot. Aaron (14:08):Yeah. I don't think I use the word perfect in any of these by way. Jennifer (14:10):Oh, Aaron (14:11):. Good, Jennifer (14:12):Fine, fair. Aaron (14:15):Okay. Constantly growing in your patience and love for our children. That's true. And your desire to be the best you can before them. Jennifer (14:24):That's true. Yeah. Aaron (14:26):Are you creative with them and desire that they have many different outlets for growing in knowledge? Jennifer (14:31):Yes, that's true. Aaron (14:33):Do you teach them diligently with determination? Jennifer (14:36):Yes. Aaron (14:37):Yeah. Okay. Everyone can't see, but she's got a little bit of tears in her eyes. I did when Jennifer (14:45):You first started reading for sure. Aaron (14:47):Number three. I have a few of these. Okay. I have seven actually. Jennifer (14:51):I feel like this isn't really fair cuz now I have nothing to offer you. And now it has nothing to do with me right now. I know. But Aaron (14:56):This is for you. Okay. Okay. We are going to be married for 16 years on January 6th. Jennifer (15:02):That's right around the Aaron (15:03):Corner. That's less than a month away. It's actually exactly a month away. right now know. And I want you to know that I'm thankful that I've had the privilege of having you as my bride, my friend, and my lover for not only the last 16 years, but also for the rest of our lives. And just like the Bible says, you are a blessing and a gift to me. And I'm excited to continue to discover who you are each and every day of our lives together. Jennifer (15:30):That's beautiful. I love it. Is Aaron (15:33):That your only Jennifer (15:34):Response? Do you wanna know my honest response? Aaron (15:36):Yes. Jennifer (15:38):I immediately thought, well I'm really glad we didn't give up. Aaron (15:42):True. Jennifer (15:43):There were several times in the beginning that we almost gave up. And to look back now after almost 16 years of marriage, it's like, wow, what an incredible journey. Aaron (15:54):I know it's weird to think that we've been married for 16 years. Jennifer (15:57):It's a long time. And you had mentioned the other day, we were talking about something and you said, yeah we've, we've had more good years than hard years because the first beginning we thought, man, this is overtaking everything. And this is, it just felt like a lifetime already in those first four years. Aaron (16:14):And now we've had two lifetimes since then. Jennifer (16:16):Yeah. Crazy. Aaron (16:17):Yeah. Jennifer (16:18):Everyone's like, what? Do your math. Aaron (16:20):Yeah, the math doesn't make sense, but we've how you feel. We've had more good years now than we had bad years leading up to big changes in our marriage. But I just think it's interesting. The reason I wanted your natural responses to these is because we'll get there actually. Okay. Number four, Jennifer (16:42):Keep her in the dark. Aaron (16:44):You are my favorite person to spend a long time with. Going to a movie, dinner, fishing, hiking, bike ride, whatever it is, it will always be better. When you are with me, you are my best friend. Jennifer (16:58):Ditto. Aaron (17:01):Is that your first response? That's Jennifer (17:03):My only response. Yeah. Dito is like, you are my best friend. And same. Well, Aaron (17:07):You never want me Jennifer (17:07):Gone. I never want you gone. Don't ever leave my side. That's true. But seriously, even when I'm out with a girlfriend or whatever, I always think like, oh Aaron would enjoy this. I want you to be there. Aaron (17:19):Yeah. We were out. We just had that men's retreat a month or so ago and the whole time just thinking this would be so much more fun with all the wives here. Jennifer (17:27):It would've been fun with Aaron (17:28):All of Elvis. It would've been. But you know how perfect this stars have to be aligned today. I know. We get all of our friends together without kids. I know. Jennifer (17:36):That's cool. We have a lot of kids. Between us all, Aaron (17:37):It's like there's 60 or so. It's Jennifer (17:40):Say impossible. Many. Aaron (17:41):I think we've done it once for an evening. Jennifer (17:43):We're going to do it again for an evening cuz we have a Christmas party Aaron (17:45):Coming up. Oh. So pray for us. Jennifer (17:47):Pray for, we're going to dress up  Aaron (17:49):Number five. I hope these are good. Jennifer (17:53):These are really good. Aaron (17:54):Okay, Jess. As I said when I asked you to be my wife, whatever we do, I wanna do it with you. And for God, I love building our life, business and family together. Jennifer (18:05):Yes. Yeah. Always . Aaron (18:08):Okay. See a couple of these aren't that hard. Anything you wanna add to that? Jennifer (18:14):Well, we've been talking a lot lately about what's next? What's in the coming year going to look like? What are we moving towards? What are we going to mm-hmm. Trying to accomplish? What do we wanna build next? What do we wanna build or be a part of? What our legacy or what direction are we going? What we always have these at the end of the year where we talk about what the following year, gold casting. Gold casting, which Aaron (18:34):We talked about Jennifer (18:34):Mary God, I think it's chapter 13, dreaming together. Which I love doing with you by the way. It's one of my favorite. Is it a pastime? I don't know. F favorite things to do with you. And so as you're saying that I thought you were going to lead up to and what I wanna do with you this next year, . Nope. But it's more like a dot, dot dot. It's just always Aaron (18:54):Because we haven't figured it out yet. But yeah, you can't write that good. Number six, you are a godly woman who desires to grow and mature in your walk with Christ and your love for God as an inspiration, not only to me but also to our children and to all our friends. Jennifer (19:12):All I heard in the back of my head is I can do better. I can do better. I can. Aaron (19:19):Makes sense. Why does it feel like you have to? Why not have to? But why is that your first response? Jennifer (19:30):I think I go through seasons where I fit seasons where I feel closer to God, chasing after him. Getting in the word constantly and having a very strong prayer life. And then there's other seasons where I'm, I feel farther. I haven't picked up the Bible in a couple of days. And things just feel a little bit more uncertain is not the word, but distant, so to speak. And then there's all the seasons in between that where you're fluctuating back and forth between those. So I think just right now in my current state of life, the things that we've been walking through and life just has felt kind of busy. And I think I've been more sporadic in spending time with the Lord and really chasing after him. Aaron (20:20):Do you believe that all the people in your life see that? Or do you think that they see something else? Jennifer (20:30):I think that, I don't know. It'd be a good question to ask and maybe get feedback on maybe. But I think that they probably just see me and my love for the Lord. Aaron (20:45):So Jennifer (20:46):Do you believe as a general? Yeah. Aaron (20:47):Do you believe though that your relationship and your walk is an inspiration to be able to know you? Jennifer (20:57):I don't know. I hope so, but I don't know. Aaron (21:00):Do you really not know? Jennifer (21:02):I don't know. Or do you just I don't like talking about me. Aaron (21:03):I know. I just wanna know. Do you really not know? You have no idea. Jennifer (21:08):I think that I'm an encouragement to others. I think. Aaron (21:12):Have people told you that they look to you and they they're inspired by you? Yeah. Yeah. So it's not that you don't know . Okay. Jennifer (21:22):I think it, yeah, Aaron (21:25):Say it. Jennifer (21:26):I don't know. I think it's digested , Aaron (21:30):Unwrap it. Peel Jennifer (21:31):Back the onion layers. I was just going to say, going back to how I feel in and out of seasons where I feel either really close to God or a little bit more distant. But when I'm more consistent in the word, it comes out in my responses towards others. Whether it's a girlfriend or a text. And so I get more, get more inspired by the Lord's word being drawn out of me in those ways more frequently when I'm more consistent. And I just feel like lately, maybe it's cuz we were sick, I don't know. But lately it's just felt like off. Yeah. Aaron (22:08):But do you think that offness changes everyone's perspective? Jennifer (22:13):Maybe not. Maybe just mine. Okay. Speaker 3 (22:16):Okay. Aaron (22:17):All right. You ready for the last one? Jennifer (22:19):Maybe? Aaron (22:22):What do you think so far, Jennifer (22:24):The parenting one was probably the hardest, more, most emotional one. Aaron (22:28):And how do you feel overall? Do you feel? Jennifer (22:32):I feel really encouraged. And I don't know why you picked on me for this. Aaron (22:36):Well, you're my closest neighbor, so yeah, I just, yeah, this is the last one. You ready? Yep. Okay. You may not believe me, but I think you're one of the bravest and strongest women I know. Following me to Africa, starting businesses with me doing our own marriage retreat. Remember that? That was crazy. Writing. Not just one but 12 books. Having five children with me and doing any of the countless other things we have done in our life together. You are brave and strong and I admire you for that bravery and strength. Jennifer (23:23):Why are you crying? Aaron (23:24):I'm not. What are you talking about? Jennifer (23:27):I don't know if Aaron (23:28):He's, I'm still getting over my cold. Jennifer (23:30):Yeah. I don't know if you've ever told me I was brave before. Aaron (23:38):Well that's a shame. Oh, sorry. Jennifer (23:42):You've encouraged me a lot in that direction. I'm just saying using the word brave. I don't know. I don't think I've ever seen myself as someone that's brave. Maybe I am. Aaron (23:54):Do you feel like you might be brave more now than you did a moment ago? Jennifer (24:04):It makes me wanna be brave. Aaron (24:06):Well, like you said, you've never heard that. You wouldn't think of yourself that way. But now that it's been said, does it it give a leg to that thought? Jennifer (24:20):Yeah. Yeah. And you giving examples of the things that I've walked with you in, it's almost like in the moment they're easy yeses. Cause I trust you and I am like all Aaron (24:37):Four. They were not easy yeses. Jennifer (24:38):Yeses. They weren't easy yeses and they weren't easy to walk through. But I'm just saying, it's interesting looking at them in hindsight and saying, I was brave. But because in the midst of it I wasn't thinking, oh, I'm so brave, I'm going to do this thing. I was actually terrified and I was nervous and I, but I was with you. And so there was a comfortability in an element of believing that we could, Aaron (25:08):What's that song? You make me brave that. How does Jennifer (25:13):Yes. I just feel encouraged. And I think if we were able to do all of that, what could we do next? Aaron (25:21):What could we, I mean crazy. Almost anything. I think , what else? Jennifer (25:31):I don't know. My heart just feels light. I didn't expect that. Any of it. Aaron (25:38):Well you are pretty brave for having five kids. Jennifer (25:42):I do feel brave for that. Or crazy Both. I'm really, really happy that we had kids early in our marriage. I wasn't like eager to even think about kids. And I didn't know how to wrap my brain around it. Even when we found out we were pregnant with the first one. So to now look back and say, man, we have five kids. And that they're all growing up. They're getting old Aaron (26:07):People with ideas. Jennifer (26:09):It's wild stuff. It's so crazy. Aaron (26:12):It is. They can Jennifer (26:15):Do things, talk back. Speaker 3 (26:16):Yeah, Jennifer (26:17):That's true. Aaron (26:22):So I wanted to affirm you first and foremost cuz you deserve it. You're my wife and I love you. And (26:33):Telling you these things are not fake. They're not to embellish. They're purely to say what's fact and truth, which is what an affirmation should be. True, good things like that. Verse, whatever is good. Whatever is noble. Noble. And so I also wanted to do it for the listeners to hear what it sounds like to affirm your spouse. And also I wanted them to hear your responses to the affirmations because I think they're natural for us. It's hard for us to receive things like this because we have all sorts of thoughts for about ourselves. And rarely are those thoughts affirming. That's why there's this huge self-love movement of self-care and take care of yourself and speak good things to yourself and all these things. Because we don't naturally do that because we see ourselves, we think the clearest like, oh, look at that other thing I messed up on. I'll look at that. How I just did that. Oh, I yelled at the crazy critical I did. Oh, I was angry over here. Oh, I dropped the ball on this plan. I Jennifer (27:52):Feel like we never forget, either we're friends or spouse, they could easily forget that you said that thing or did something that you shouldn't have, but we never forget. And so we carry that around with us. Aaron (28:07):And so what do you think happens when we go out throughout our lives and the affirmations are far and fewer between? Yeah, we say we love each other, we enjoy company. We are nice to each other. All the things that you should be, but you don't intentionally go out of your way. I don't intentionally go out of my way to say and call out the good things in you. What do you end up hearing the most in your life? Jennifer (28:43):My own voice, Aaron (28:46):Which again, are rarely the good things. I have my own voices. I have my own sins that I know full well and the things that come up in my head and the things I say about myself and believe about myself. And then on top of that, we have an enemy who proclaims lies to us and points out things to us. And then we have not just that, but we also have all of the other things that we see in life that we can quickly, instantly compare ourselves to. None of those things affirm us. And so not that it needs to be what I just did. And I just went through seven things with you. We could be that. But if what would happen if everyone listening, every spouse just tried to make it a point to affirm their spouse every day in something. Say, man, you're such a good mom man. I love how you take care of the kids. Oh I love seeing you play and rolling around on the floor with the kids like it. What would happen if we began to speak better words out loud intentionally in front of our kids, in front of our spouse more regularly? What do you think would happen? Jennifer (30:05):I think it would positively reinforce the things that we do and will make us wanna keep doing those Aaron (30:14):Things well. And the true things that actually are there that we may be thinking lies about. Think about, I said you were brave and you're like, I don't think you've ever said that before. And then you said, I wouldn't see myself as brave. But now that you said it, now that you said all the things that I was brave in, I could see it just that one thing, that one phrase can give life to a part of you that you never had life before. And how powerful it is to speak these good words. Affirming words, encouraging words. (30:49):And what's interesting is it hard for us to hear our flesh is against it because we have a hard time believing them because of what we hear most of the time. We hear all the other things, I'm not brave, I'm not strong, I'm not a good mom, I'm not a good dad. So that's where our baseline is. So when we hear the affirm affirmation, which contradicts what we believe in our heads that we've heard and operated in, it stops us. And we're like, wait, what? And so what could happen if we just keep doing it and keep pushing through that? And will the voices in our heads change? Will the words that we hear in our heads change? I could do this. I messed up. I'm going to come back and I'm going to do it better. I'm going to change how I respond. I'm going to actually go and cuz I can do this. That's not who I am. Jennifer (31:47):I know we're recording this episode for our listeners, but I just feel really encouraged and inspired myself to wanna try this. And I'm thinking about our relationship, which I wanna share about in a second, but also just how important and vital this is to bring it to our children. And it makes me think, we just did something kind of similar with Wyatt for his birthday where we all went around and said one thing we love about Wyatt, and I love that kind of exercise or experience. And I think it really does pump them up in an encouraging way. But I'm thinking even just what you did with seven affirmations, but for each child, just making sure that they know without a shadow of a doubt, my love for them and what I think of them and what I perceive to be true in their life and their abilities. (32:42):I just think that's really powerful. And then on the note about our relationship, again, I know we're recording this so that those listening are encouraged, but I just wanna apologize to you for not being one who chooses to affirm as often as I choose to critique or call out things that I justify in my heart as well. This thing needs to be said. He needs to know he will be better. He will grow. If I tell him this thing he's messing up on or doing wrong and I'm very quick to point out the negative instead of saying the positive. And I'm sorry for that. Aaron (33:30):I Jennifer (33:30):Forgive you. And I wanna work on being an affirming wife. I do struggle with Aaron (33:34):That. And that's a good opposite to point out is the opposite of affirmations as critique is just constantly pointing out how we fail or how we didn't line up just right or how we didn't live up to an expectation. And that does the very opposite. That reinforces the negative thoughts, the mm-hmm. damaging thoughts. The lies. Which leads me to my final thought on this world is full of discouragement and we were just talking about we know full well, how shall I say crappy? We are right? Yeah. We know it really well. Mm-hmm. Better than most. We know we're really good at feeling shameful. We're really good at feeling weak. We're really good at believing we're useless or unworthy. These are we. This is not the hard stuff. This is the easy stuff. You fill in the blank of negative things that we think and say about ourselves daily or that other people say to us. Or like you said, that we say to each other when we are critical, overly critical when we're negative. (34:49):And so we have a lot of it like an abundance of accusations against us. It's literally what the devil does. He's the accuser. He accuses us of our failings and weaknesses. And that's that in reality, that is who we are with a sin nature that we have. But Christ has done something different. Christ has given us something more. Christ has made us one with himself. I was reading that devotional from Spurgeon this morning to the kids and it says that the body and the members are of the same substance as the head. And he brought up Nene's dream of the statue where there's the head of gold and then the silver and the bronze and the clay and the iron and all these different parts. And he is, none of those were the same. They were all mixed. The head was the best part and everything else below it was worse. And Spurgeon was saying, but not so with Christ. We are the same as the head. So if the head be righteous, we are righteous. If the had be pure, we are pure. If they had be gold, we are gold. And so that's the difference is there's, there's plenty of the hurtful, hateful, negative lies and destructive words in the world that we say to ourselves, that we hear from others, that we hear from every media outlet everywhere all the time nonstop. And the enemy himself, we can use a little bit more encouragement. Amen. Jennifer (36:22):Yep. Feels really good too. Aaron (36:24):It feels way better than critique. I can tell you that much. Yeah. And so I just, there's a couple of verses. Do you wanna add anything to that by the way? Yeah, it was really good. Okay. Philippians four, eight. It's very well known finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. It's easy to see all the other things. It actually takes spiritual work to see these things. To look at someone and be like, well, where's their praiseworthy things in this person's life even though they've done this, this and this and this. How can I praise this person? How, what's honorable about this person even though they have failed here and have been honorable in this area. (37:15):Ephesians 4 29, let no crypting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear, did you feel like you were giving grace tonight? Because that's what words of affirmation do they build up. The Bible tells us that the power of life and death is in the tongue. It just is. We can bring life with our words or we can bring death with our words. And I wanted to bring you life tonight. I appreciate it. And I want everyone listening to practice this week and moving forward that they would see where areas in their spouse's life that they could just speak life like, man, I love how you said that to our son. That was so beautiful. I love how you just calling out the things that we love in someone. (38:12):Jor. Jordan Peterson says something recently that I was really encouraged by and it said, don't punish an action you want repeated. And it makes so much sense. How often do we punish someone's doing something, they're like, oh, you're bothering me. Stop doing that. When you're being playful with me and I get annoyed and I shouldn't, like I want you to be playful with me. Why would I punish you being playful with me? I shouldn't do that. So let's reward. Let's reward and make known and make visible and highlight and do everything we can to elevate the things that are worthy to elevate. And what will happen, I believe will, it'll actually minimize the things that we don't want elevated. Like we will. We'll see them less and they'll probably actually happened less. So that was the super secret episode. It was to affirm you and it was, Jennifer (39:02):I'll never do one of those again. Yes Aaron (39:04):You will. I hope you do one with me. Jennifer (39:07):That would be Aaron (39:08):Cool. Not the exact same one of course next season, but you could just trick me or Jennifer (39:13):Surprise me or something. Aaron (39:13):All right. Jennifer (39:15):But you like that kind of stuff? Aaron (39:16):Yeah, I do like the impromptu, who knows what's going on. But I Jennifer (39:21):Do, go ahead. No. Oh when you were talking, I wanted to share an experience I had recently. You were talking when you were talking about the lies that we say to ourselves and the things that we hear the critiques and the criticalness that we wrestle with in our internal dialogue. And I just wanted to share, a friend of mine was having a hard day and reached out and said, would you pray for me? And then left this note of the things that she was struggling with, including lies that she was believing about just how difficult parenting is and whether or not she was failing and other areas marriage was on their friendships having a life that's too busy and wanting to slow down and just Aaron (40:12):All the normal things. Jennifer (40:13):It was a lot. And with every word that I read I could relate to and say, yeah, me too. But I just wanna share that because one, I got to pray right away. Two, I got to send a response and encourage my friend and tell her what the truth was. And so I think to your point of we should be people who initiate affirmation. I think that's really important and really good. And it really does feel good on the receiving end to do that. But if you're in a place where you are suffering under the burden of thought of who you are and the things that you are trying to do day in and day out, reach out to a friend, tell your spouse, tell Aaron (40:55):Us. I'm giving it back to the beginning of the episode. I like it. What Jennifer (40:58):Community? Oh yeah, exactly. See I got this. I was just thinking how important it is to say something. Even if you don't wanna expose those lies that you're believing about yourself, it's so important to you because then the truth is revealed. And your friend or your spouse or your parents, whoever you tell, can encourage you in the truth and pray for you. Aaron (41:20):And the truth shall set you free. Jennifer (41:22):Seriously. Sometimes just getting those things out of your mind and helps. And I hope my friend was encouraged by what I shared with her. Aaron (41:32):Well she probably was Sure Jennifer (41:33):I know. , low view of Aaron (41:35):Self. Well I just thank you for letting me do that and indulging me. And I feel like it was really nice and I meant all of it. Jennifer (41:43):You almost got a tear outta me. Aaron (41:44):You teared up pretty good. . Not me at all. You did though. And I just, you listeners, I want you guys to do this week. Ask God to show you. And also I want you to recognize how much you need affirmation yourself, that you need to be reminded that you are loved by God and that you have His spirit and that you you're good. Even though we're bad , you're good cuz you have Christ and he's good. So babe, would you pray for us? Yeah. Jennifer (42:20):Dear Lord, thank you for giving us our spouse and for using them as a tool to grow us and mature us. Help us to encourage and affirm each other more often. Help us to be the tool you use to strengthen our spouse each day. Lord, show us how to see the good and noble and true and praiseworthy in each other every day. I pray that we would not be used by the enemy to speak destruction and death to each other, but rather we would fight against the lies of the enemy and continually believe the truth about ourselves. That you dwell in us and that you have fearfully and wonderfully made us in Christ Jesus. In Jesus name, amen. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. Aaron (43:01):If you found today's episode fun and encouraging, please take a moment to share it on social media or in an email to some of your married friends. Jennifer (43:07):Also, would you please take a moment and leave us a review, reviews help to spread the word about our podcast. Aaron (43:12):Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode, and you can always check out more of our resources @ marriageaftergod.com. Jennifer (43:18):You can follow us on social media from more marriage encouragement on Facebook and Instagram at marriage after God at Husband Revolution and at Unveiled Wife. Aaron (43:26):We hope you have an incredible week and look forward to sharing more with you next week on The Marriage After God podcast.  

This week's episode is brought to you by our 30-day marriage devotionals. Husband and wife after god. These devotionals were written to help you grow closer to your spouse and closer to God. We invite you to join the thousands of other marriages that have already taken the journey toward a deeper and more purposeful marriage.Also, with the holidays coming up, these devotionals will make a powerful and meaningful gift for the other married couples in your life. Get them today at shop.marriageaftergod.com or amazon.com  Forgiveness is the relief of tension in a relationship that has endured offense or conflict. Like holding a band and stretching it across your chest. Eventually, your muscles start to ache When I was thinking of this analogy I also thought…..If someone - we will say the person who caused the offense) is watching me hold this band and I release it to relax my arms. Their state or being is not affected like mine is. I get  relief from letting go. I bring this up because forgiveness in a relationship - although powerful to also be on the receiving end - has a powerful effect on the one who is forgiving. Now consider how Christ our Lord felt when He forgave all for sins. Whoa! We all have had countless opportunities to forgive others - especially our spouse - so let's talk more about it and how to do it when we don't feel like. Why should I forgive when I feel like they are wrong?Why does it feel hard to forgive? Why do I have to forgive? Why don't I want to forgive? How can I forgive if they have not repented?What if I forgive them and they do it again?Why should I forgive if they have not changed yet?If I forgive them then what they did just get overlooked and if it happens again? These are good questions and many we have all wrestled to answer. Let's take a look at one more important question…..Why does Jesus command us to forgive?[Mat 6:12-15 ESV] 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.If forgiveness was a naturally occurring response to being wronged or hurt then there would be no need for the command. But the fact is that forgiveness is a very unnatural phenomenon. It goes against all our natural responses and desires. Forgiveness goes against our natural defense mechanisms and responses. Justice is a more natural response. No, forgiveness isn't something that comes from us at all. It is something we must do in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is something we must do out of obedience to God's word.True forgiveness can only happen when we understand the miracle that we ourselves have received forgiveness for trespassing against a perfect and Holy God.When we realize what it is that Christ did for us on that cross, we begin to see why we must also forgive others.To withhold forgiveness puts us in the place of God.

TAKE THE FREE MARRIAGE PRAYER CHALLENGEmarriageprayerchallenge.com We love friendship. And we have had a ton of different friendships over the years. Just thinking about all of the many places in the world we have had the opportunity to cultivate friendships at different times throughout our marriage blows my mind!It's like no matter where we have been, and no matter for how long, God provided real friendships - deep friendships. But it was up to us to make the choice to invest in those relationships and what they were like.With every one of them, it took time - to spend together and get to know. And there seemed always to be a moment of hard that challenged us and gave us the opportunity to press on in love in those friendships.There were also mistakes made on our part - things we could have done better to love our friends. To make things easier. Just like in marriage, when you are in close proximity to another sometimes there is friction. So we just wanted to touch on today the experiences we have had with friends and their importance.   

Pornography is all too common these days and sadly it is common even among believers. In this episode, we share How Aaron has been able to walk in freedom from this addiction for more than 6 years now and how you can too. We also talk about how you can help prepare and protect your children from this destructive sin. Romans 8:2 “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” Rom 6:6 “We know that our old self[a] 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.” 1 Cor 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” What encouragement do we have for the Church, for those listening?[Tit 3:4-7 ESV] 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.And since this is the truth!Lay it aside! [Heb 12:1 ESV] 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,Flee from it[1Co 6:18 ESV] 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.Kill it dead and gone once and for all[Rom 8:13 ESV] 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.Draw near to god and believe the truth.James 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.Not even a hint of it[Eph 5:1-3 ESV] 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. 3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.Confess & Repentance and prayer.Make it a practice to confess and be honest about when you are weak and struggling. Pray with each other for strength and transformation in that area. And repent fully and truthfully. Repent from choosing this sin. Repent of the desire for it. James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. how to protect our children, how to equip them when it happens, and how to be open to talk about it with them. Talk to them about how to protect our bodies.Teach them how to protect their eyesDont let them have unattended time on devicesTeach them how not to look or use other people's devices.When the time is right tell them about itTeach them about God's design for sexuality.Dear Lord, Thank you for giving us freedom in Christ. Thank you for breaking the bonds of sin and death and for making it possible for us to walk with Jesus and be reconciled to you. You are so patient and kind to us and it is that kindness that leads us to repentance. Lord, help us to walk in purity every day and to grow more and more sensitive to the wicked things of this world. Lord, we pray for every husband and wife who may still feel enslaved to pornography and have believed the lie that they are. I pray they would believe the truth that they are already free. That they can choose to walk in the freedom and purity you died to give them. Open their eyes to the truth. Convince them that your sacrifice, your spirit, and your word are sufficient for us and that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Renew us transform us and make us more like your son Jesus. Lord, tear down the stronghold the enemy has over the porn industry. Bring freedom and salvation to all those involved dissolves the influence it has in the church. Convict the hearts of those who continue to choose this sin and bring them to their knees  before your throne. Lord, purify your church.In Jesus' name AMEN!

This episode is sponsored by our book  Marriage After GodThis is a great marriage resource for anyone or any couple that is looking for something meaty that will inspire and challenge a little. It is a book we wrote together that dips into our story but also gets the reader to search out “what is God doing in my marriage” This book also spends quite a bit of time on finances and marriage, so if you want to dive deeper into today's topic we strongly encourage you to pick up a copy if you have not already! Marriage After God will put you on the path to exploring what God's purpose for your marriage is.Find it at amazon.com or shop.marriageaftergod.com  

If you have been blessed by our podcast, please consider supporting it by grabbing a copy of our 30-Day marriage devotionals.https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/collections/frontpage/products/husband-and-wife-after-god-devotional-bundle How to pace: Don't start out full force - reserve your energy for longevityMake a priority list - to set up for success - cut off outliersInclude rest - or else burnout Be patient - allows for disruptionDon't compare - it steals joy Check expectation - avoid disappointment

In Todays episode we are going to talk about life transitions, unexpected circumstances, and how we can keep our marriage strong during high-stress seasons. This Episode is brought to you by The Unveiled Wife This is our first traditionally published book and in it we share those first four years of our marriage. It was definitely a strenuous and difficult  time of our lives, one of our biggest transitions as we share the details of getting married …and what we faced was definitely unexpected. So in sharing about life transitions in todays episode we also wanted to give a shout out to this book as it dives deep into how we handled it all and how God led our hearts through those tough times. You can get The Unveiled Wife on Amazon.com Topic:So Life transitions.We know a little something about that. I guess we should recap for everyone what we have been experiencing this last year. First…Our last podcast episode was march 2021 so a year and a half ago! Where does time go?? I can't believe it has been that long and were sorry! We know many of you have reached out to us asking about the podcast and wondering when we were going to kick it back up. Honestly, there were several times we thought we were going to be able to do another season and then realized the timing and what we were going through was too much. There wasn't enough of us to go around. We thought we were going to launch a fall of 2021 season but thats right when we were packing up to move out of our house that we sold. Which was the beginning of a very long nomadic stint for our family that we just didnt expect. We were building - having our house built - and things got hung up. We just recently moved into our new house this summer and as soon as we unpacked our office boxes we got so excited to start planning for this season 6 of Marriage After God! We talked about starting the podcast up several times thinking we would be moving in and unpacking. I think we even mentioned it on social media. Then something would stall us. So for those of you who maybe felt like we were stringing you along….so sorry! So here we are at the start of a new season. We had fun brainstorming how to use this time to bless all of you listening. what to expect this season:Did anyone notice we have a new intro song? We just tried to freshen everything up for ya! We have 12 episodes coming your way for this seasonThen we will be back again in the beginning of the year with season 7 Some of the topics include money and cryptocurrency, Our journey with pornography, how to slow down when life feels so fast, and past baggage how it affects marriage. Just a reminder for our listeners that we are not coming at you with authority in these areas of marriage, we are not here to tell you how exactly how to do  X Y Z for a perfect marriage…..we are here to share what we have experienced and point you to the One - capital O - who helps us in our marriage. We hope to be a light in this dark world pointing you to the Christ and His word. We also added a weekly challenge for those of you who want to jump in and have fun with us - we have some creative ways of engaging in marriage. _______________Keeping Marriage Strong During Life TransitionsWhen we say “Transition” we are talking about the process or a period of time where life is changing. That space where there are shifts going on that can be strenuous on a marriage or family.We wanted to start this season off with talking about transitions because we know we are not the only ones who have experienced life transitions in the last year or two. We know many people and families who have been through housing moves, across the country moves, job moves, having babies, losing babies through miscarriage, school changes, and so much more. Some of these shifts may have been micro maybe barely noticed the affects and for others you are still be feeling the affects of. And then there is the transition of summer to fall which we are all in that space. The Season of pumpkin spice or bust.So we'll share a little about our transition and hopefully encourage you with some scripture to give you some tools to use as you endure yours. —We mentioned we sold our house and moved out last October almost a year ago. We have traveled and we have moved around a bit in our town since then. We just moved in to our house we built and have started to feel settled - although im sure to feel fully settled there will take more time. I think we should share a bit about the last 12 months or so. Maybe a quick rundown.Sold our house in April, But moved out in October. Permits took way longer to get than we thought. Then winter hit and slowed the build process down a bit.We traveled Lived in 30 or so different housesStayed with friends Stayed in trailerIt was a long season for us and some of it was unexpected…maybe we should have expected it. What was the hardest part of that whole transition for you? Jen - every time we got to a new place I set it up for our family putting clothes in closetsAnd then when we left a place I felt the need to clean up after ourselves and sometimes those mini-transitions were only a few days apart so I felt exhausted by it Aaron - I think for me the hardest part of it all was the loss of my routine and consistency. I feel like I lost all forward momentum. And it effects every area of my life. Constantly being on the move, in a new place trying to maintain anything that resembled a routine was made very difficult. The one routine that i regret dropping the ball on the most was our family bible time. Also, It was hard keeping the vision for our family in the right place. Because it was so long there was a lot of discouragement at times. JEN: yeah I remember thinking we hadn't been on a date where we vision cast in a while. It was as if all the usual things we did vanished under the change. But in the new year we did choose one things to pursue and that helped us feel like we were working toward something. The new book! Speaking on looking at the goodWhat was a highlight of our transition? Jen - I think God showed me just how flexible our family is and especially our kids. Although there were a few times they were worn out to at the end of it. But we had a blast traveling - 6-7 weeks on the road all the way to Ohio to see family. South Dakota. Mt Rushmore Tenn. Aarkansas. Waco. We all got to do something we wanted to do. Real quick note on transitions and kids - growing up fast almost 10 7 5 4 2 - baby and Aaron sent me a video this am of edie in Zion national park as a baby which just makes me want to have another! Aaron  - My Highlight was seeing how simple our family can live.  WE had to since we didn't really have any place to put anything lolJen - we are actually doing another episode on this living simple idea!Do you think our marriage remained strong during this transition? Jen- yes and no - there were definitely times that I broke down emotionally because I wasnt getting what I wanted - home and homeschool - but you were a pillar of encouragement and reminded me constantly that we chose to make an investment and that it was ok that it wasn't happening as quickly as we hopedA friend of ours also said to me when i was sharing in a text how difficult it was for me - what does God have for you in this? I was not always able to answer that with certainty but it made me take my eyes off myself and surrender to him. Aaron - I think our marriage did remain strong. Even when there were emotional breakdowns or discouragement or even regrets I don't believe those things were evidence of our marriage being weak but rather a test of our marriages strength. We as individuals can have weak moments but those weak moments do not define the entirety of our marriage. Times will get hard. Emotion will be high.Regrets will creep inFears will manifestAnd this is normal and ok. But, if they are walked through with Christ and The Spirit then those moments of weakness become part of the strengthening bond between us. What do you think helped our marriage stay strong during this transition for us? Jen - Prayer, our friends who supported us and let us vent or let us stay at their house and use their showers. Talking about it late nights with you. Crying and knowing it's ok to feel like something is hard and others validating that. But not staying there. Willing to press into the uncomfortable. Aaron - remembering that this was something that we wanted and looked forward to. We chose it and it was a good thing we were working toward. And good things rarely come easy.One of the scriptures I wanted to share about life transitions to encourage you all today is….Ecclesiastes 7:8-11Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools. Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun.Super convicting here. Being patient over proud. I mean….I see pride in me thinking that I needed my life to be a certain way. And angry when that didn't happen. Being stuck in that rat wheel of past days being better. Why did this happen. Even our kids would say I just want our old house. It dimmed the light for us to enjoy or look forward to what would be ours. Another good verse to anchor to in life transitions….Proverbs 3:5Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.Pretty clear. We don't need all the answers up front to move forward. Or know where we are living next :)  But we do need to trust the Lord in everything.AMEN to thatSometimes we look at life transitions and it can be easy to identify what was hard about it because its what we complained about or was our focus of frustration. A good thing to practice though in hard life transition is to take What James tells us to heart. James 1:2-3 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And also what paul tells us in Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.Having hearts of thankfulness and looking for the good will save you from so much heartache and frustration.Isaiah 40:8The grass withers, the flower fades,    but the word of our God will stand forever.I had reposted this verse on insta stories but I shared a graphic poster of it done by scripture_type and oh its so beautiful…..I had a friend come up to me at church and say give it to me as a gift! So now i have it hanging up in my house and I love it. So stalking your friends stories for gift ideas is good :) Our circumstances are constantly changes and shifts happen. What we have no will not always be, but what is faithful to stand forever, what can we trust, the word. We need to be in the word.Family bibletimeJen- i admit i was not good at this and in hindsight i wish i would have poured more into the word during this time. I was in this cycle of staying busy tired busy tired just waiting for circumstances to change so i can implement routine. Don't do what I did. Learn from my mistakes. I think this IS the number one way we can remain constant and steadfast during transitions and life changes. Being constant in The word of God and also prayer. It's feeding our mind and heart and spirit. We cannot hope to remain strong when we are not giving our heart mind and spirit the bread of life. Our strength and ability will only carry us so far. Conviction of not praying constantly for our circumstances. Learned a new lift and my coach encouraged me first - Im going to talk you through and tell you areas you can improve. Don't think about how you are doing it wrong just listen and try to adjust as you go. Immediately thought about God saying to me in this conviction of prayer - don't wallow over failure or what you haven't been doing just hear my voice and obey do the next right thing. Adjust.  As we take those next right steps we encounter growth. We change. We get better. Just like in the gym. And even though we have been talking about life transitions and how circumstances can shift our lives and routines up……other words that define transitions are: growth, development, progress, transformationWhich don't really define how i feel in the midst of a life transition…but i do believe that as we endure through hard circumstances and remain humble and teachable we DO grow in those moments. Philippians 3:12Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.This is the WHY we do what we do as christians. We choose to be faithful and rely on God because Christ has made us his own. So the perspective we hope to leave you with today is seeing how our life transitions transition us move us toward growth as we choose to do what is right as we respond to circumstances. Weekly Challenge:Play a game together - you might have it already, you can barrow it from a friend or go buy it! Chess, checkers, scrabble, card games like war, more active pickle ball or horse or catchPrayer:Dear Lord, Thank You for the transitions of life. Thank You for walking us through different seasons and circumstances to show us areas of our lives You want us to grow in. The varying seasons of life help us to learn to be patient and they also teach us to be content where we are. Lord, we know transitions and changes will always come, some may be anticipated and some may be unexpected, some may even be tragic, but in all these things please teach us to rely on You, to run to You for our hope and to remain in Your Word to sustain us and strengthen us. We pray for the husband and wife listening to this right now. We pray You would be their shelter and strong tower. We pray they would walk in thanksgiving and joy during whatever transitions they are currently going through or about to enter into. Lord, You are good. We love You and ask You to help us keep in step with Your Holy Spirit no matter what this life brings.In Jesus' name AMEN! 

Today, two of my friends, Mike & Lindsey, are joining me in a conversation about marriage.  They've been married almost two years, and share what they've learned in marriage so far, and some bits of wisdom for those who are in a different life stage.Lindsey mentioned one of her favorite podcasts to listen to is The Fierce Marriage Podcast.Join us on Facebook and Instagram: @inallthingspod!Visit our website: www.inallthingspodcast.com

In this interview with Ryan and Selena Frederick, Dave and Ashley discuss the the habits couples need to develop in their homes to create a culture of faith, love an intimacy. Ryan and Selena are the Hosts of the Fierce Marriage Podcast and the founders of Fierce Marriage and Fierce Parenting.Invest in the outreaches of XO Marriage and be a part of rebuilding families around the world: http://xomarriage.com/giveUNBOX LOVE | 10% off | unboxlove.com/nakedHello Fresh: HelloFresh.com/Naked90TOP 30 : Text TOP30 to 31996Check out Dave and Ashley's NEW book here - https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Marriage-Undressing-intimacy-lifelong-ebook/dp/B07HQYWFDY Follow us on Social: Facebook: @strongermarriages Instagram: @daveandashleywillis Twitter: @davewillis A podcast dedicated to undressing the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love. The concerns and questions most couples have in marriage often go unspoken, until now. Hosts Dave and Ashley Willis bring wisdom, vulnerability, and humor to even the toughest marriage topics. Together they have built a strong following, reaching millions of married couples through their blogs, books, and videos. They have four young sons and live near Dallas, TX.

What if we told you that marriage matters more than we realized? What if we told you that whenever you fight for your marriage, you're engaging in cosmic warfare. In this episode, we looked at the magnitude of marriage and looked at three specific battlefronts where we wage the warfare of marriage. We hope this episode blesses and emboldens you! Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

There are times in every marriage where you reach a full stop in your communication. Things ice over and you can't find a way forward. Before too long, your marriage drops to sub-zero temperatures and you're fighting for your survival. In this week's episode, we talked about the nature of communication (what it accomplishes and how) and discussed tangible ways to fight through arctic tundras of verbal/emotional frozenness. This four part series has been created in partnership with Faithful Counseling. Visit https://faithfulcounseling.com/FMP to receive 10% off your first month of counseling. Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

Are you in a codependent relationship? How would you know if you were? In today's episode, we asked questions to help couples identify signs of codependency in their marriage. We then looked at the forms and functions of codependent relationships before contrasting them with the healthier alternative: biblical interdependence. We learned a ton and we trust you will too! This four part series has been created in partnership with Faithful Counseling. Visit https://faithfulcounseling.com/FMP to receive 10% off your first month of counseling. Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

Anxiety is one of the most pervasive and persistent issues in mental health within the church. How does the Bible speak to anxiety? What hope can we have when dealing with an anxiety disorder? Also, how can God use biblical counseling to help couples work through issues of anxiety, stress and worry? In this episode we discuss our own experiences and seek to shed light on how we, as Christians, can navigate anxiety with the help from the Holy Spirit, our spouses, and good counsel. This four part series has been created in partnership with Faithful Counseling. Visit https://faithfulcounseling.com/FMP to receive 10% off your first month of counseling. Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

Today we will share our favorite daily devotionals for moms. My mother and I will take turns talking about favorites, giving a brief exclamation on each and why we like them. We hope you enjoy!Time Stamps:01:28 - What is Devotion?04:38 - What is a Devotional?Devotionals mentioned:- 08:30 Jesus Calling by Sarah Young- 11:15 Hope for Each Day by Billy Graham- 13:36 40 Prayers for My Husband by Selena Frederick Listen to The Fierce Marriage Podcast! https://fiercemarriage.com/podcast- 19:00 Daily Light: Morning and Evening Devotional by Thomas Nelson- 21:47 The Bible App- 24:52 Jesus Calling Family Devotional by Sarah Young- 28:02 The Weekly Prayer Project by Scarlet Hiltibidal 31:20 - Reiterating Our Favorite Devotionals again35:48 - Conclusion

The idea of counseling conjures all manner of reaction. Some couples spurn it, others welcome it. Why? And, can all couples benefit from counseling? In this episode, Ryan and Selena talk about whether or not counseling aligns with God's Word, and if so, how it might help couples, whether they're going through a difficult time or not. We hope this episode blesses you! This four part series has been created in partnership with Faithful Counseling. Visit https://faithfulcounseling.com/FMP to receive 10% off your first month today. Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

The idea of counseling conjures all manner of reaction. Some couples spurn it, others welcome it. Why? And, can all couples benefit from counseling? In this episode, Ryan and Selena talk about whether or not counseling aligns with God's Word, and if so, how it might help couples, whether they're going through a difficult time or not. We hope this episode blesses you! This four part series has been created in partnership with Faithful Counseling. Visit https://faithfulcounseling.com/FMP to receive 10% off your first month today. Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

If you've ever felt discontent with your sex life, you're not alone. in this episode, we answered the oft-asked question, How often should we be having sex? As you'd imagine, we looked at various passages of Scripture and contrasted the biblical view with that of the world. We then ended with three very practical questions for you to ask yourself and your spouse about your sex life together. Enjoy! Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

Should we be the final word on when to have kids? Or should every married couple have as many kids as possible because children are a blessing? Or... maybe these are the wrong questions to be asking in the first place? In this episode, we make an exciting announcement and, coincidentally, it has a ton to do with how we ask/answer the question "when is the right time to have kids?" We trust you'll find our conversation challenging and we hope you find it helpful as well. Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

Your deepest held beliefs, while they affect every aspect of life (including marriage), aren't always biblical. This can make it incredibly hard to discuss sensitive topics or work through deep disagreements in marriage. As we've discussed often, your beliefs always inform your behaviors. In this week's episode we talked about what a worldview is while contrasting biblical Christianity against 5 non-Christian worldviews. You may be surprised how often non-Christian worldviews influence your family dynamic. We had a ton of fun with this one, and we hope it blesses you! Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

This week we recapped a few recent arguments we had to help illustrate how this one ingredient changes everything. While our fights had to do with dinners and sex, they each actually had nothing to do with either. You'll have to listen to the episode to discover what that means! Spoiler alert: the ingredient is super obvious, but how it's added makes all the difference. We hope it strengthens your marriage! Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

Words like vanity, self-love, self-admiration, self-absorption, self-obsession, conceit, self-regard, and egotism all have one thing in common: the self is viewed as the crux of importance. They also describe narcissistic personality disorder. Everyone is selfish to a degree, but narcissists are self-focused at an extreme level. In today's episode we discussed narcissism as a personality disorder, explored ways narcissists hurt their spouse, and revealed why, at its root, narcissism is a rejection of the gospel (which is the only cure). We're not psychologists, so this podcast is an overview based on research done by others. We hope it helps you! Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

Sheridan Voysey and his wife, Merryn were devastated when they realized their dream of having children would never become a reality. After infertility, an international move, and a professional change shook the Voysey's world, Sheridan realised that he couldn’t reconcile his expectations with the life he was living. In today's episode, Sheridan shares their story of heartbreak, despair, healing, purpose, and finally, joy. It was an immensely helpful episode for us, and we hope you can say the same. Sheridan is the author of seven books, the latest being The Making: Who We Can Become When Life Doesn’t Go as Planned, which been featured in publications like The Times, Sunday Telegraph and Christianity Today. You can find all of his resources at SheridanVoysey.com or anywhere books are sold. Thanks for listening to the Fierce Marriage Podcast! If you'd like to support this ministry, please visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage. Our monthly patrons get plenty of perks, including free books, ebooks, silicone rings, and exclusive ministry updates. Patron levels start at just $2/month.

We're opening season 3 with a conversation about marriage, relationships, and parenthood with our friends Ryan and Selena Frederick from the Fierce Marriage Podcast after closing season 2 with and overview of Song of Solomon. Great conversation with great people! Learn all about love, priorities, having kids, and much more.

We tend to be caught on our heels in marriage, reacting to each other instead of loving, seeing, and serving each other in ways that are faith-filled. In today's conversation, we discussed three tangible enemies of faith and how they can be a factor in every marriage. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

Virtually everyone around the world is quarantined because of COVID-19. It's a shocking, fast change, for sure! However, it's also also an opportunity to press into new rhythms and routines that will bring us closer together as a couple, as a family, and as parents. In this episodes we'll share some of our habits and rhythms we've found as people who have worked at home and home educated our children for years. We hope it blesses you! Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

How are we called to make BIG decisions as a couple? In this episode, learn 7 steps of decision making and gain practical tools for working through decisions of your own. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

In this episode, Addison and Julianna chat with the hosts of the Fierce Marriage Podcast, Ryan and Selena Frederick. They share how overcoming a terrifying health scare early in their marriage taught them to love fiercely. Listen in on this raw and honest conversation and learn how to fight for your marriage and create authentic connection with your spouse. To enjoy a month of FREE membership to our All Access discipleship community, please visit: https://messengerpodcasts.com/allaccessSay Hello!@messengerintl on Instagram/Facebook/Twittermail@messengerinternational.org

If you'd rather be at work than at home, then you may not LIKE your spouse... or, if you'd prefer to spend time with others over your spouse, then you may not LIKE each other as much as you realized. The examples go on! This problem is not uncommon among otherwise happily married couples. What's uncommon, however, is when couples know how to get back to a place of friendship even though their friendship has all but died. Listen and enjoy, we hope this episode helps and blesses you. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

What else is there to say? There's nothing like God's Word... for life, for marriage, for anything. In this episode we talk about WHAT the Bible is, why it's irreplaceable, and how to read more Scripture as a couple. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

Division of labor... it has to be done. We must learn to share adulthood responsibilities as a couple. But how can you do it in a way that doesn't cause arguments daily? Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

Speaking truth is important, but speaking truth in love is a command. The trouble is, in marriage we tend to speak the toughest truths the most blunt ways possible. Today we look at three important reminders for why we must master the art of speaking the truth in love, especially in marriage. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If ou

At the root of every healthy relationship lies humility. Why? The most toxic sin (and the opposite of humility) is pride. Pride puffs up. Pride is self-sovereign. Pride is self-seeking. C.S. Lewis once wrote, "For pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense." But there's good news! Gospel-fueled humility is the antidote to pride. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

Sometimes it feels like your "flying blind" in marriage and in life. What should we do when our feelings tell us things that are contrary to God's truth? We must learn to trust our gauges. In this episode, Ryan and Selena discuss three truths about "gauges" and how to trust them when you feel disoriented in life and marriage. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

Many couples get married without really realizing what they've gotten themselves into. When things get tough, they may start thinking they've made a mistake. In this episode, we talk about 4 modern misconceptions about marriage and 3 timeless truths to combat them. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

Not every day/week/month is the same. Some 'seasons' are harder than others. How can we weather them well? Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

Dates should be fun! Sometimes we just need reminders for how to keep them that way. Today we discussed exactly that! Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.

Nothing changes our hearts like praying with the living God! In this episode we talk about the why, when, and how of prayer, particularly for married couples and spouses praying for one another. Thanks for listening! Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review. As always, we welcome feedback... simply go to FierceMarriage.com/Podcast to leave a comment or to ask a question! Become a Patron! Support for the Fierce Marriage Podcast comes from partners like you via Patreon. If our content has helped you, we'd be honored if you'd consider becoming a Patreon supporter! Visit Patreon.com/FierceMarriage.