We’ve all heard, “Marriage takes work” but sometimes once down the road, it’s hard to see how to work at it in an even better way. We share with you four tips for communication as we reflect on our 23rd wedding anniversary. Regardless of where your marriage is at, these will help make your marriage even better. By the choices you make, you can influence a more thriving marriage.

Main Points From This Episode:

• Start and end each day well together.
• Honor one another.
• Practical insights to breaking negative communication cycles.
• Pursue your spouse regularly.
• Husbands usually need to communicate more than they think they need to.

Scripture From This Episode:

Galatians 6:9 – “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

Matthew 7:12 – “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

Ephesians 5:33 – “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 – “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

Proverbs 27:15-16 – “A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself.”

If The Spirit Prompts You to Financially Support (We are a for-profit, for social good organization.)

Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in.

An uncertain.

World. Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom.

And I’m Isaac from Resolute Man.

We’ve been married for 21 years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let.

The culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are.

Walking away from their faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting and following. Welcome back to the podcast.

We’re so glad to hear, especially if you’re new. Thanks for joining us.

Hey, guys. So today we are going to be talking about very I think timely is always timely. Yeah. Conversation on marriage. We’re going to be talking about practical strategies for better communication in your marriage. This is something that we have been really proactive and growing and learning over the years. Isaac and I have we’re not perfect at communication. I don’t think any couple is perfect at communication, even the ones that probably say they are. And so I say that because I think it’s really important that we all always have an attitude of wanting to learn and grow in this area.

Absolutely. We, like anybody, can get better. But we have learned a lot and we’ve noticed a lot, too. And it seems to be an epidemic of bad marriage communication, maybe not even just bad, maybe just a lack of marriage. Communication is a better way to say it because there are things that proactively need to be talked about so that things go better. The family unit runs better, relationships are improved. There’s not misunderstandings, even exterior relationships to the immediate family. It misunderstandings and a lack of communication can really hurt those.

You know, it’s interesting because over the years, as we’ve I mean, we’ve done a lot of things actually, as I’m thinking, you know, people are always asking about our past. I get messages, which I love. I love getting messages going, hey, hold on a second. You went on a three month RV trip with your kids and I’m like, Oh, yeah. And it just brings up all those those memories that love sharing about them. But one of the things about Isaac and maybe you don’t know, is that many years ago we used to do marriage seminars and we loved to to encourage couples and being able to be better communicators and that really like the work that we put in to prepare for those and to teach those things really impacted our marriage greatly. And that was back when we were only married like ten or 11 years. And guess what? You guys today were shooting the podcast on our anniversary. It’s our 23rd wedding anniversary today.

We’re going to after this, we’re going to go hang out for lots of hours.

Yes. We’re so excited. And our kids are really excited to help us be by babysitting so that we can go out. And yeah, we’re really excited, but we thought that it would be awesome to talk about something that is near and dear to our heart. And something that we’ve also seen can be a both a positive impact on a marriage long term to help it be thriving versus surviving. But also when it isn’t done well, when communication is not done well. What we’ve noticed a lot in marriages is that it’s like the thing that creates the erosion and the breakdown that can really cause a lot of pain in relationships, resentment, miscommunication. People start to think that they’re not valued or respected or undervalued, all kinds of things. And so if I have said anything or Isaac said anything in these first few moments of the podcast where you go, Oh, man, that kind of like hits me right here in the heart. Like, I want to encourage you guys because we have a lot of practical tips that we’re going to share with you guys.

And but the number one tip we wanted to get off to you guys is to pursue time together. We were talking before, this is what a what a really healthy marriages do that communicate well with each other. They spend time together. And that is a challenge. Well, I’ll give you a couple of challenges. Being a provider is, for many people, harder as time consuming and harder right now, the way the world is going and the economy, inflation, all these things. Right. There’s challenges with that. And but it takes I think the key is pursuing. There’s always time for the things that matter most to us. And so sometimes we tend to neglect the things that matter most to us because we have those things.

And we take them for granted the things that we’ve had for a long time, it’s easier to take those things for granted, just like it’s easier for some. Maybe you notice this with your own kids, right? If you have more than one child and you have they have a sibling relationship, don’t they take each other for granted? Sometimes. Imagine how much more they would have appreciation for one another if they realized, Wow, my brother or my sister is a gift from God. There are kids that don’t have a brother or sister, you know what I mean? And it’s the same thing with marriage. It’s easy for us, especially when you have been married for a while, to start growing complacent and not try anymore. So when we’re talking about pursuing time together, it’s not just going on date nights that are going to cost you money. That’s not what we mean. What we mean is like pursuing time together, even if that’s like pursuing like stopping everything and hugging in the kitchen. You’re pursuing to be there together and love one another.

In an even means if just chit chatting in bed. Yeah, we do that for long.

Periods of hours every day actually.

It causes us to stay up till midnight sometimes.

But, you know, we’ll go. We’re going to talk more about like starting and ending the day. Well, which is one of our our next points. So we’re going to talk. Here’s the agenda for today’s episode. We’re going to talk about what it means to pursue your spouse regularly. We’ll go into those points deeply. We’re talking about starting and ending each day. Well, then we’re going to talk about honoring one another and what scripture says about that. And then the fourth one we did title. The fourth point be kind, but really it’s so it’s like being kind in all kinds of things, the.

Practical things to.

Do. Yes, yes. And so please stick around for those. But you guys, I just want to encourage you that if you’re in a place of stagnation in your marriage communication, or if you feel unappreciated or disrespected or just undervalued, or if you feel like you have lost that lovin feeling, if you will, you know what I mean? Or if you’re maybe you feel like maybe your spouse has and you’re like, I’m choosing daily to show up, but they are not, if that’s you like I do believe that this podcast will have many nuggets that will be not just an encouragement but an exhortation and give you some good guidance as to some things to do to maybe like liven it up again and, and make the next decade, if you will. Right. Like for us, we’re at 23 years of marriage and we’re looking forward. We’re looking ahead to many, many more as many as the Lord will give us. And that’s an exciting thing. Yeah. You know, and I don’t know how many marriages that have been married for 20 years or more view that idea truly as being an exciting thing.

Absolutely. So we’re just going to take a moment here to share some really exciting things and then we’ll go into those points. But if you’ve been hanging out for a while, you know that God has put on our hearts to impact 10 million legacies as we steward the ministry to do that. It takes effort, takes time, it takes money, finances, actually to be working full time and expanding the impact and the things that need to happen and so forth. And so rather than move the nonprofit direction, we have stayed being a I guess for profit for social good as a way to say it, meaning that we’re not a nonprofit, but we operate very much in the same way. The whole purpose is to have impact for the Kingdom of God. And so we some exciting things are happening. Ways to support that is to be part of the parallel economy and provide things that are valuable to Christians. Give them options to choose that now they’re not supporting some woke company. Instead, they can be supporting this mission. So we recently produced a video of us talking I want to share with you guys. It’s about three and a half minutes. I really we’re putting this in here. We never do this. But it’s super important. Everybody hears this because there’s some changes. There’s a new home website for the entire ministry where there’s access to everything. So you’ll find out about that in this next clip. And we’re also launching Be Courageous Coffee today, so we’re so excited about that if you’re listening on Tuesday, September 20th. And so we’re so excited. Listen to this and I think you’ll love what you hear.

Do you remember when churches.

Were pressured by the government to close their doors during COVID?

Do you remember hearing about pastors going to jail for leading a church service?

And have you heard the stories around the world of churches omitting parts of scripture or facing closure?

And of course, you witnessed big tech canceling people, sharing conservative values.

Truth. Do you ever shop places put in the back of your mind? You realize these people actually need me and they are trying to influence society in the opposite direction of what I believe in. Of what I would want for my children’s future families.

The enemy wants to rid the world of anything godly and has enlisted much of the modern culture to do so.

See, the enemy wants you to believe you don’t have the influence to make a difference.

We certainly remember. We also remember the attacks and cancellation efforts of this ministry.

And aren’t we seeing an unprecedented number of Christian organizations caving to the pressure because they’ve allowed their organizations to be built in a way where there’s a lot to lose.

See, the more dependent organizations are the anti Christian corporations and authorities, the less likely they will stand for biblical truth.

Big tech and cancel whoever they want is it’s their right. Governments can take away nonprofit status as soon as biblical positions about marriage, gender and sex become illegal to preach or write about.

So what should we all do? Well, the Bible says to be wise, the serpents and innocent. Steps.

Taking action and wisdom doesn’t mean you don’t trust the Lord. Let’s not misunderstand this. We need to vote with our money. But there has to be alternatives for Christians to log into and to purchase.

So here’s the opportunity. There’s a parallel economy that’s needed and already being built by so.

Many our friends at Brave Books. Gap, Rumble, The Daily Wire and so many other companies participated.

But we have to realize that complaining doesn’t help anything and is often a result of someone who isn’t participating in the solution. It’s actually an exciting time for believers to take action.

And we hope you continue to take action with us in more ways.

As the Ministry aims to have an indelible impact on 10 million families and their legacies. We need a new home brand for the ministry, which includes courageous parenting, courageous mom, resolute man and the Be Courageous app. And for what’s ahead.

To now, everything can be found at be courageous ministry dot org. While we are completely dedicated to social good, we will never move to being a non-profit while financial gifts are extremely helpful, especially as we invest for greater impact in this direction, we believe it’s vital to create valuable solutions in the parallel economy that support the ministry.

We’ve been joining the effort to give Christians better alternatives. It’s why last year we launched the alternative social media app for Christians. Be courageous.

It’s also why we launch online stores with gear to wear and use the further the movement.

It’s why we never stop giving our best weekly sharing biblical wisdom on the podcast.

It’s why we’re so committed to the Parenting Mentor.

Program and other courses.

It’s why this year we launched the Kid weekly podcast in the app too.

And that’s why we’re now launching Coffee at Be Courageous Coffee Premium Italian roasted coffee with free shipping to your door.

We are growing part of the parallel economy as a Christian for profit organization to further the 10 million legacies movement.

See, we refuse to be silenced. We refuse to be quietly influenced, to be less bold. We reject pressure, to be passive. Therefore, we continue to move in a direction less reliant on opposing forces together.

Let’s be courageous in raising our children and influencing our culture with the gospel.

Together, let’s work to influence a better future. God chose us for these times.

If you want a better future for your kids, we have to build it.

If you want better coffee, we have it ready for you. Be courageous.

Coffee Rt.com. All right. So, hey, thanks for listening to that. It’s near and dear to our horror. It’s a really important message and go to be courageous ministry dot org as you’re listening or later and check out all the things that are going on go to be courageous coffee dot com check out everything is going on. We would so love it if you at least tried the coffee. People are raving about it. We had a launch team. It’s been so.

Fun. I know Isaac is so funny because in the morning he gets really excited about hearing these testimonials and he’ll read them to the whole family during our family meeting. And the new one that he shared with us was actually from a couple that has just devastatingly experienced a hurricane, right? Yeah. And they had got courageous coffee, be courageous coffee and put it in their survival pack or something like that. Right. The evacuation pack. And they put a they put a testimonial together saying it was great to be able to have coffee when we were evacuated.

It was an important part of their evacuation.

So sweet of them. I’m very humbled by that thought. I mean, here we are like we’re not experiencing the after effects of a hurricane and someone else is. And they’re still, like, taking time to put in a testimony that just blows my mind. So if you’re listening and that was you. Thank you so much. I’m, like, blown away by that. Well, atrocity.

Let’s get into it. So our first tip is pursue your spouse regularly. And of course, we have the days like we are experiencing today. They anniversary the special, special days for special.

But the milestones.

We’ve got to make lots of day special in small, little and unique ways. I mean, what can you do to make sure your spouse is feeling pursued? I think that is that feeling is what needs to not ever die.

Yeah. And this is not necessarily when we say pursue your spouse regularly, I’ll just share with you guys. When I was first putting together that part of the outline, I had put date your spouse regularly because that is part of pursuing your spouse. But it’s more than just like we had to change it from date your spouse regularly because now that’s like a sub point underneath this because it’s like a daily pursuing. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like it’s a heart connectedness where like on a daily basis, otherwise you just start to feel like, oh, it’s Friday. So they’re trying hard that one day of week, you know what I mean? And for at least for women, it can feel that way. If they’re women are the ones that are at home maybe doing more of the mundane things and they’re really struggling in their marriage. That can affect the atmosphere of the home, it can affect the culture, it can affect the desire to even want to serve in the home, actually. And so if men if you’re listening and you’re like, why is my wife struggling so much with like wanting to be at home? Sometimes I’m just going to give you a little tip. Not always, because she’s responsible for, like, choosing joy in the moment and pursuing God and finding that purpose and that identity there for sure. But there’s also this element of like, it’s so like, isn’t it better when you want to do something because you love someone and you want to do that thing for them because you love them, because you also feel loved and appreciated as well. And that comes from that daily pursuing. And when that is missing, then it’s easier for the wife during the week to be like grumbling while she’s picking up laundry or cleaning bathrooms or whatever, you know what I mean? And so this tip is really like when I when we say pursue your spouse regularly, it’s like a daily pursue your spouse regularly throughout the day if you can.

I remember in our premarital counseling, if you call it counseling, what you call it, and.

That’s what they called.

It. But it was meeting with another married couple. Yeah. And by the way, on that note, I remember I shouldn’t have been doing this, but I had a new business and I was working six days a week. I shouldn’t have been doing that anyways. I just remember being so exhausted going to these premarital meetings because before church, wasn’t it?

Yes, we go very early.

And then we go to church. Yeah. And I’ve been hustling for six days in a.

Row or working like 80 hours.

Oh, my goodness. But I remember this thing that stuck out, which was don’t get stuck in maintenance talk. And so often the normal rhythm of communication just becomes maintenance things. Oh, I need to go to the grocery store, and I need this. Oh, hey, I need to go fix this. Oh, hey, this about this kid and this, this, this. Oh, the calendar.

Bills and the.

Bills. The finances.

And the garbage.

All all those things. There’s. There’s an endless supply.

Of.

Things, things to talk about that are just maintenance and those need to be talked about. But if that is 99% of your communication or 100% in some cases, there’s a problem like we need to purpose to pursue each other in relationship connected words, relationship connected communication. And that is really important. And sometimes when there’s a lot going on, we have to just we have to with. Ward some of the maintenance stuff. So there’s room for enjoying each other and having good communication with each other.

It’s interesting because we have talked about in depth with people, with other couples and kind of like in our mentoring with them said, hey, the, the business meetings, if you will, right. Are important, but don’t let every date night be that like maybe make one of four in a month, be a business meeting and really hash it out, be super productive, and then have your other three things be completely different things where you’re not even allowed. Like you put boundaries around that and you’re not talking about business stuff, right? Because you and I, we had to do that with ourselves. Yeah. And it became like, I can’t even tell you how life giving it was to be with your spouse without the expectation of needing to go over all the hard things that haven’t been covered that week, but instead putting them on a shelf and going, They’re not eternal. They will be there tomorrow or they will be there next week. It’s okay. And then really like engaging with one another person to person, enjoying one another person to person without all of the other things and without the other people, without the other stories, without the other narratives. Right. And I think that there’s when you make a purpose to like go, okay, so obviously we need to have business means maybe you can even work it out where you have like a certain two days a week at night where you sit and you talk for an hour, but then your date nights are never that whatever works for your family, right? Whatever works for you as a couple.

But like the point is, is communicating about not mish mish mashing in so that it’s always something that is on your mind, right? That can be huge. Another thing is getting time to communicate alone without kids. And so a minute ago I just shared like pursuing your spouse regularly, for example, like even just getting time where you hug in the kitchen and you make eye contact and you just say, I love you, right? Or you’re just like engaging where it’s just the two of you and that can be special. But like, you also need to be able to have time where you can communicate about things where little ears are not listening, where little mouths are not putting their $0.02 in, if you will, where there’s not extra ideas or Oh, and I need this to being tacked on to whatever the communication is, because that can become overwhelming for a couple when they’re already talking about something that’s like difficult, right? You have other people interjecting or interrupting.

One of the recent ones that we’ve enjoyed is garden time. So Angie would be out there. It’s more Angie that works in the garden. I usually have Zander in the backpack and I’m walking him around and chit chatting with Angie as she’s doing that. That’s been fun. We just put two chairs in there, so I’m looking forward to more of that. We also take walks together. Sometimes we hope to do even more of that, which is getting out of the house. All the kids stay in the house and and we’re out now. We have older kids. I understand the seasons and sometimes you can’t leave Littles alone and those kinds of things and those seasons, it was all after ours. We put the kids to bed and.

Then we really we had our.

Time. We really had that time. And sometimes I remember I’d be so exhausted from work and I would be, Oh, let’s watch a movie or something like that, and we would do that. But I think sometimes we would go, Well, even though we desire that, let’s actually spend some time talking to each other first. We put that movie on later and we’re not at all. And sometimes we would just end up talking and there would be no movie at all.

And it’s interesting too, because I feel like things have changed so much for us to where there’s just like today in today’s culture, there’s just not anything worth really watching very much that it’s not that big of a temptation. Actually, as far as changes go, things have changed so much in 23 years of marriage. And so I would just challenge you guys to to like have especially if you have littles, if you are one of those people that just have littles, like when we had our oldest and we didn’t have olders to help with the kids, we were very routine, focused and always had our kids in bed by 730 to remember that and we’d go sit on our front porch. Yeah. And we lived at the time we lived in a neighborhood and we had three kids under five. And I remember neighbors walking by at 730 and here’s Isaac and I sit and just chillin and they got kids in their stroller and they’re like, Where are your kids? And we’re like, Oh, they’re in bed. And they’re like, What? And we’re like, We need our time. Like they can go to bed early. And they were just shocked by that night.

Because kids get up early regardless of what time they go to.

Bed. Exactly. So we just found that like for us, that was what worked. And then Isaac wasn’t as tired because it wasn’t like 10:00 at night. And of course, there were some days where he was working later and we had later nights. But typically speaking, if you have little kids, it’s a good idea to have routines where you have nap time and you have bedtime routines where you can put them down and you can know that those are two times that if you need to have like. A phone call with your husband while he’s at work where good little kid’s ears are not listening. Do it during nap time so that when you are together you can see each other. Or maybe vice versa, because sometimes hard conversations need to be face to face, making eye contact. Otherwise, like texting, I never recommend hard conversations for, but those are just a few tips anyway.

And it’s so important to dream together, you guys. You’ve got to have dreams. You’ve got to talk about the future. The future propels us forward and makes the mundane more enjoyable, like thinking about having goals and working towards something. Of course, that’s a vision for your kids lives and your legacy and and them being, you know, launching and being strong believers and having families. And we’re starting to experience that. We just our first grandchild just came.

That’s actually a new fun announcement for today’s podcast, is that she wasn’t born last Tuesday. That’s true. Yeah. So our grandma a little here’s a little plug. Our granddaughter was born on the 15th of September. She’s so amazing. Her name is Quincy and we’re so excited to have her in the family. Yes, her initials are cute. Ha, ha. I love that.

She is amazing. It’s just when you’re holding your grandchild, it is next level. Goodness, it.

Is. It is like tears in your eyes can’t hold back. And yes, for those of you who are listening, who maybe read Redeeming Childbirth, my book or gone through my Christian postpartum course, I was so honored, so blessed by Caroline and Austin that they invited me to be a part of the birth along with her mom, and we got to be the part of the birth team, and that was super special.

So on this dreaming together, you know, obviously that is probably the most important aspect of dreaming together, just how the legacy is going and how to help it and encourage the kids and all these things. But there’s other things too. There’s things about your marriage. There might be a trip you want to go on, there might be a business you guys want to do together or a project around the property or the house that you want to do or, you know, maybe it’s you’re going to flip a property in the future or these kinds of things. It can be years out, but big things don’t happen unless you’re thinking years out. And so you’re thinking about the ideas and these things and interest. Or maybe it’s moving somewhere, you know, eventually having a vacation property somewhere. You could literally have just enough to pay the bills right now and still dream about having a vacation property somewhere or doing a vacation or eventually having the ability to do an RV trip. You know, we had a dream of doing aa3 month RV trip, you know.

Years before we it was like a decade before we actually did it, you know, as before we bought our RV. And I remember thinking like, Oh, won’t it be fun when our kids are all older and we were able to, like, make history come to life in geography, come to life as we’re driving around the country and we’re showing them these places that they’ve been learning about. Right. And then all of a sudden, we blinked and our oldest was about ready to go to college. This was almost five years ago and it was four and a half years ago, you guys. So I’m telling you, don’t blink. Yeah, but we literally looked at each other and it was the worst of circumstances. So if you’re sitting there going, there’s no way I could afford to take off three months. There’s no way I could afford to do a three month RV trip. Where would you get the finances for that? Let me just share with you briefly for a second. This is the power of dreaming together, and this is what we’re talking about. Isaac and I had a dream that we wanted to do something like this with our kids so many years ago when they were little, little like Kelsey was seven, eight years old. And then ten years later, when she was 17, about to go to college, we were like, It is now or never, what can we do? But we had just experienced a business failure and we had a lot of debt that we were trying to pay down and we were working hard.

We were a couple of years into paying off that debt and we just decided, you know what, you can work from the road, praise God. So let’s downsize and let’s sell as much as we can in a garage sale and build a little nugget to help pay for the trip. And so we did. The kids all worked super hard together and we did this. And it’s an incredible story. I’m not going to go in depth into all of the things regarding the trip, but the point is, if we didn’t have that dream, it wouldn’t have come up and gone, Whoa, wait a second. That was something that was super important to us. We need to do this. And you guys, it wasn’t just like the fact that it was an RV trip. It was that it was a legacy building relationship building trip. Like the trip had a bigger purpose behind it than just seeing things. Although that’s super cool. It was more about relationships and experiences and building memories with our kids, and that was what our hearts desired way back when. And so you can make those things happen, Lord willing, but it doesn’t start without a dream.

You got to talk about it. There’s an interesting thing that happens. Your mind. In your relationship and your sense of teamwork orientate into a direction that you communicate about. And if you don’t communicate about it, it might take years for this to happen. But those little steps, those little decisions on the way, oh, we don’t want to get into debt because we have this vision for this. Oh, no, let’s not do it because of that. Oh, yes, let’s add this tool because it’s useful now. But also it’s part of that vision in the future that we hope to be able to do, whether it’s maybe it’s remodeling and flipping a property. So then we need this tool for our house to do something here. But we also could be used in the future and then therefore, you know, so that’s it really does orientate and I find people don’t tend to do those dreams if they weren’t talked about years in advance.

No, it’s amazing. And I think that that’s part of what keeps your marriage alive, actually. Right. Is that you’re not looking back because you’re so focused on being purposeful in the present and moving towards a goal in the future. And when you have those two things in your equation versus looking back like I think of looking back as like a minus sign or even a division sign in a in an equation, right? Versus multiplication. When you’re looking forward to the future and you’re thinking legacy, that’s like multiplying, right? And so you guys, when this is literally a game changer for couples and I think that what we’ve witnessed over the years with many different marriages just in proximity with people, is that there is a difference between those marriages that are thriving and the ones that are just surviving and the ones that end up failing. And unfortunately, we’ve been married long enough to see the ones that fall away after seven years of marriage, ten years marriage, 11, 15, 20, 26. And it’s devastating. It’s devastating to their families. It’s devastating to their their friendships, to their church communities. And it’s it’s not God’s will, actually. And so you have to put up these safeguards. And but but at the same time, you also need to want to pursue one another. Yeah. And so dreaming together is just part of pursuing your spouse. Right. And growing together, which is another aspect of this is growing and learning together. That is a really fun thing to do on your date nights.

One thing that I was thinking of when Isaac was sharing about this concept earlier today, I want to ask you ladies a question. This is and it is for guys can listen to it, too. But really, I think that women’s groups are a really popular phenomenon in churches where there’s women’s Bible studies, everywhere in churches, am I right? And it’s easier to find women who have been a part of a women’s Bible study than it is to find men who’ve been a part of a solid man’s Bible study for a long period of time. I’m just going to be honest, this is sad to me, but my question is this Are you more intimately sharing what you are learning in the word and the ways that you’re growing and the things you’re passionate about? Are you sharing more of that with the women in your Bible study than you are with your spouse? And if that is off kilter, if that is weighed in a wrong way, if you were to put on a scale, then something needs to give. I’m not saying you need to walk away from your Bible study. What I’m saying is you need to prioritize and put effort into pursuing your spouse and you need to communicate those things first with him, actually. And I would say the same for the guys as well. Like if they’re they have friendships that they’re learning and growing from more that are brother relationships versus like a spouse. There’s something.

Off. Yeah, it’s going to be your spouse first. And you know, how many spiritual conversations do you guys have together? Do you talk about doctrine? Do you talk about what you’re learning in the Bible? Do you talk about questions you have in wrestling with Scripture together and these kinds of things? Or are we just relying on Google podcasts and other influencers we have never met? And so it’s really important that podcasts like this are extra to, you know, learn to communication with each other. And it’s really, really important. And that’s our second point is start and end each day well together. And I think that that’s got to have some spiritual activity going on, like praying together. It’s, you know, and if you guys have never really prayed together, it can feel awkward. And so I want to encourage you to do what’s hard and to make a better marriage. And so sometimes we have we go, wow, I wish my marriage was like this or I wish I wish this was easier. And I would just say, no, I think you should wish you were better. And I know that’s a hard word, but that’s how I think about myself when I when I think in my mind about something, I think I wish this was easier. I’m like, Well, no, how can I do better? And I think that’s the most productive thing. We always it can be easy to go, Well, how could they can be better? And these kinds of things know how. I be better. And if both spouses start thinking that way, even if just one at first starts thinking that way, it rubs off on the other one.

It totally does.

How can I be better? I wish this was easier. No, how can I be better? I wish this business was easier. Well, how can I be better? I wish this ministry was easier. Which it’s not. Right. How can I serve better in this ministry? How can you know what needs to happen?

Understanding that your marriage is your first ministry actually is a huge thing. And I think that you both will be if you both view your role in your marriage as your ministry like I view my role as Isaacs helped me to help encourage him as he’s leading. And I do that, by the way, that I am like how I’m present within the family. But I also do that with the things that I say or with the position that I allow him to walk in, that I try not to overstep. But I also do that in like through when he comes to me and he’s, he’s brings a sermon that he’s been working on or thought that he’s thinking on, and he’ll go, What do you think about this? Right. And so, like, even just sharing within our ministry, like when we have posts for courageous parenting, like we always talk about them before they’re published. Yeah. And I love that, that there’s a respect and a collaboration and a team effort that is there. And part of that is this concept of like debriefing one another, right? Or downloading what we’re learning together in the word. And then that leads the other person towards the same thing regarding God and what He’s called us to. And yeah, it’s so powerful.

Like, I really appreciate how you encourage my leadership versus discourage it. I think that there can be a competitiveness in marriages sometimes, and I do feel like you encourage me in that leadership. And but at the same time, just because God made men, leaders of their families, that servant, I mean, that is like serving, not lording over lording over would be sinful. So I think that the lording over leaders tend to not communicate as well their marriages decisions. They just make decisions and these kinds of things. We’re making some generalizations here, but I think that we want to be aware of that and wary of that. And I learned so much from Angie. I’ll run something by her and she’ll bring an essence to it. Then I’m like, Oh, that’s really helpful. You know something I’m missing or some other slant to the scripture where these kinds of things and I just really appreciate that. And I think that that’s how marriage is supposed to be. We’re supposed to sharpen.

Each other one, right? Like and I think that there’s an accountability in that, but there’s also a sharpening, like you’re saying, when two people become one, it’s not like that one that is the head is more than the other person. It’s that two individuals who have intrinsic value, who have personal relationships with God, who have brains, who think and have knowledge and understanding, they come together and there’s even a stronger it’s harder it’s harder for them to be broken apart. Right. Especially when it’s regarding growing in the Lord together. And I think that this is literally at the core. I think of all the things that we’re talking about today, this concept of like I’m growing in the Lord, you’re growing in the Lord and we meet at the Lord. Yeah. Like this concept of a pyramid, right? Like Isaac’s in one corner, I’m in another corner. We’re like moving towards the Lord and we meet together at the Lord. Yeah. Like that is actually the picture of walking in a Christian marriage together. And if you’re doing that, if you’re pursuing God, then all of these other things should be added unto you. It’s kind of like that verse that we love, right, that says Seek First the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.

If you are seeking first the Kingdom of God and you’re seeking God, you’re going to be seeking the Bible. And then all of these things that we’ve been learning over 23 years as we’ve been seeking God and seeking to grow, they will be added to you as well, because this stuff all comes from the word, right? Which reminds me, let’s jump into Galatians chapter six, verse nine, it says, and let us not grow weary of doing good for a new season we will reap if we do not give up. And I am so encouraged by this, but I’m also reminded and disheartened, heartbroken, really, for the couples who did give up. Don’t let that be you don’t give up on your marriage. Don’t give up on the Lord. You guys, this is what God is literally commanding us. You are going to reap what you sow. And so we today, wherever you are in your marriage, if you’ve been married six months, if you’ve been married seven years, if you’ve been married 11 years. If you’ve been married 40. Seven years. You have the opportunity today to sow righteousness, to sow kindness. You have the opportunity today to sow grace into your marriage, and you will reap from those things that you sow.

Well, hey, starting and ending each day together, everybody has different schedules and different things going on. One of the things we like to do, and you can fit this in or apply this however it works for you guys, but we’ll do a debrief in the morning, not all the time, but when we do, everything goes better. We debrief a little bit about the day and then we spend time with the family. We eat breakfast. Either Angie or myself will make breakfast for everybody and we’ll sit there and I’ll lead with some scripture. We’ll talk about the day, we’ll discuss the scripture. And I think that’s really important. And when we debrief before that meeting, it’s way more helpful. So, you know, how could that happen with your schedule or does that need to happen in the evening and talking about the next day? That totally works, too. That’s really good. And I think praying together, family that prays together is is a healthy family. You know, marriage is to pray together is healthy. I think that’s important. Getting the download from your wife husband’s at the end of the day is so important. So if you’re driving home from work, one idea is that you could give her a call and get a download before you step into the door. That could really help. So you can reinforce some behavior issues. You can reinforce and acknowledge the good things that happen and the kids did in front of their mom. You’re anchoring that good behavior and so forth. You can share your hearts. Maybe, maybe the wife, maybe it’s easier to talk over the phone because there’s less distraction. You know, it might be hard for the wife, but with kids around. But, you know, you can try things.

One thing that might be helpful on that, too, because sometimes I know that as a wife, that’s like when men are coming home from work after. Like for most people it’s usually dinner prep time and then things are a little bit can be chaotic in a home when you have a lot of kids. So one thing that’s been helpful for me is utilizing like audio messaging with Isaac and that’s something that you can do. I mean, I don’t have to do it as often now because he’s here, but that’s something that you could do when you do have kids down for a nap. If something big that he needs to know if you have special intel that God enlightened you to regarding your child’s heart intentions or a circumstance or situation that happened that you feel like he needs to know about and he needs to pray about it. And then he also needs to help you with confronting it. Give him an audio message while the kids are napping and he can listen to those later when he’s driving home. As long as you guys have communicated about that, sometimes wives want to a response right away, but you guys need to have grace with each other and communicate about expectations regarding when they’re going to listen to it. But that would be a good time to do that because they’re like downloading from work and they’re like, okay, I have to get into the dad mode. I got to get into the home mode now and to hear that intel of like, Oh, today so-and-so lost their tooth in this person, this happened. But then there is this, this big deal.

I know that it helps me to lead into to have a knowledge about what’s going on and to reinforce what’s happening and to be an influence. A dad’s influence is paramount. And it’s hard to influence if I don’t know what’s been going on, if I don’t know what to influence because I haven’t been there. And so it really is a wife. It needs to do that. It’s super helpful, but the husband needs to be receptive and want that and actually use it. If husbands don’t use the intel and she spent all that time giving it, then that’s going to be demotivating from continuing to give it. If someone works from home too, you could always make a little debrief meeting your most important meeting in the day. Maybe you have all these other meetings and work and then you’re like, Wait, I’m going to catch up with my wife for 15 minutes before I’m off. Hey, text her. Yeah. Can you come into the office and you guys could debrief real quick before you go into the family? It’s just super, super helpful to do those things.

I think another aspect is that sometimes women think that there are certain things that they need to do that they shouldn’t be asking for help with because they feel like it lands in their jurisdiction and then they keep doing those things right. And depending on what they’re going through in their life or life transition, they can they can just feel guilty for asking for help. This aspect of starting and ending your day. Well, if there’s something like that where you need to ask for help, you have a doctor’s appointment or something like that. These are the times when you’re going to have that opportunity to ask for help, because parenting is supposed to be a team effort and you guys both need to help one another to also take care of yourselves. Well, and so communicating about the dentist appointments, doctor appointments, chiropractor, whatever it is, or just even needing like 5 minutes when you get home to go for a little walk to blow off some steam and then come back and serve dinner, whatever it is you guys need to communicate about those things.

Well, hey, we’re going to Lightning Fire over these next three points. There’s a lot of practical stuff in that fourth point. I just want to invite you real quick to the parenting mentor program at Courageous Parenting. Go check it out. Over 2000 parents are raving about it. It is literally changing the way they parent strong Christian parents to new believers to that are parents alike from waiting for the first child to large families and all in between lots of mid-sized families in the program and what a powerful community to you get that for free for a bit. So I just wanted to share that. That is a major part of what supports the ministry too. So you can check that out. Also, by the way, as you know now you can go to be courageous ministry dot org and get to courageous parenting to OC. So there are third point is honor one another. This is so important. I have a scripture for you, Matthew. Let’s see here. 712 So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them for this is the law and the prophets. So the meaning of that is to how do we like to be treated? Well, that’s how we want to treat others. But to take that even a little bit further. Usually, not always, but usually people marry people a little bit different than themselves, wired a little bit differently. One might be more detail orientated, the other one is like forgets details quickly. Okay, so but they might be more visionary or something like that. We’re all a little different, right? And so we need to not just think about how we’re wired, we need to think about how God wired our spouse. And we need to stay who we are, but we need to honor who they are and how we communicate. So it’s just really important to think about that. We could do a half day training session on this, this one.

Thing that we used to.

But but but what? But I want when I want to tell you is just to start thinking about that. Do I honor her in the way I communicate? I like everything. Short soundbites and to the point and quick. Am I? I do this. I make this mistake. Do I expect this out of my wife, Angie, who actually likes to hear more details, who actually likes to know the information? Most of it, maybe not all, but most of it until it’s not necessary information. Right. So it’s really important to understand who you’re communicating with and honor them. Maybe you need to share more details. I think so many husbands are like, we just keep things in. We just we’re like these smiley bound, you know, self preserving protectors of the family, but non-communicative. I know not every dad’s like that, but there’s a lot of people like that. And I think we need to work that communication muscle and talk about things that maybe we don’t think are important to talk about but are vital to the marriage. And so what are those things and are you honoring the other person? I think that’s.

Important. Yeah. The other aspect about honoring one another is understanding that there are some very basic design differences between men and women, for example, just even the sheer amount of words that a woman puts out or could be putting out on a daily basis. Now I get that not every woman is wired exactly the same, just like Isaac was talking about that. But typically speaking, there are a whole ministries and books written about how men are typically more likely to put out about 10,000 words in a day, and women are somewhere around 30,000 words in a day. So understanding that there are design differences between men and women and adjusting our expectations of our spouse so that they’re more realistic of them, it’s going to be super, super important for being able to have understanding with them, living with your spouse in an understanding way. I know that the Bible talks about that. And first, Peter, right. It warns men that they need to live with their wives in an understanding, way less their prayers be heard. Whoa. That’s huge. Right. And I just even think, like, how many times do women want to share their hearts, right? Kind of like they do at a women’s group. And they maybe try, but their husbands aren’t living with them in an understanding way. So they cut them off or they’re like, Are you done yet? Or they’re just like, They lose interest and they start looking at their phone and scrolling or like their body language will tell them something different or their facial expressions tell them something different than I’m interested in what you’re saying and I care. And I think that it’s super, super important that you understand that, that that is part of living with your wife in an understanding way, that there is this need for women to feel a connectedness from heart to heart, where they feel loved and cherished is actually going to come from if they feel like they’re heard.

And so in husbands, you want to be respected, right? So well, cherish your wife and you’ll be respected a whole lot more. We as leaders, we need to be the initiators. We need to initiate our part and just watch how beautifully your wife will respond. It’s so amazing. It’s. It’s if I cut Angie off and I’m short with her, you know, it’s going to be hard for her to respect me. But if I understand. That she just wants to share her heart and to communicate. And getting the words out is makes her feel understood and cared about and loved and cherished. She’s going to respect me more. It’s going to be easier for her to respect. So let’s make it easy for our wives to respect us. That’s really important. Ephesians 533 talks a little about this, which is pretty cool. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So love. If you love someone your wife as yourself, then you care so deeply how she’s doing, right? So it’s super, super important.

And you guys, I mean, we don’t have enough time on the podcast to really go over that entire scripture. But if you want to read more, actually Ephesians Chapter five, that entire chapter is about walking in love and wives and husbands, and then it goes into children and parents. And this is just a really good scripture for you guys to study together. But we also wanted to share with you from First Corinthians Chapter 13, because our next and final point is be kind. And I know we named it something simple, but we’re going to rattle off a bunch of different ways that you could potentially be challenged to be more kind. And here are just a few eye contact.

Wow, that’s important.

I know that there are times when I feel like the person is not fully listening, whether it’s Isaac or one of the kids or a friend. If if they’re not making eye contact with me, I’m like, Are you actually hearing me or are you just hearing half of my words? I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation like this before where maybe you give some kind of instruction or you ask someone to do something and then they do it halfway. And you think back to the conversation and you remember them being distracted, not making eye contact. That’s even more infuriating. Right. And so one of the ways that you can really honor one another and be kind to that person is by making eye contact with them and really trying your best to listen.

Yeah. Another one is don’t be distracted. Stop what you’re doing. Go do the eye contact and communicate. That’s more important than ever. There’s so many distractions, digital distractions. Also, we are so used to getting stimulated so quickly by being sound bites entertained. Information, news. I know for me.

Everything is fast.

I do enjoy understanding what’s happening in the world and these kinds of things. But I have to be disciplined. I have to not let that take over. The most important thing to me. But sometimes we don’t act out what’s most important, which is actually listen to your child, to actually listen to your wife eye contact, these kinds of things.

So another one is your tone of voice. I mean, obviously, like, yeah, think about that for a second. Is your tone of voice kind or is it harsh or is it impatient or is it does it tell your kids, hurry up, I’ve got more important things to do, right? Like I just even think about this as a mom. And so all of these things that were going over could easily be applied to your parenting to like Isaac just mentioned. But put think about this in regards to your marriage, is your tone of voice towards your husband one of respect? Is his tone of voice towards his wife, one of really loving her and understanding her and having that same kind of respect where it’s an equal love for one another. And then the tone of voice in my mind just kind of goes along with also evaluating our body language, right? Because you can tell if someone has crossed their arms, right? You can kind of tell their posture, gives you a an opinion about their their heart posture, really. And I think that there is an element where we can really tell what someone’s heart, where their heart is postured towards based upon their outward body language and their tone of voice. Those two kind of go together and so are we being kind with those things.

Also, the eyes, are they showing annoyance, haughty eyes, frustrated eyes? I have good frustrated eyes, angry eyes. Right. If you’re watching a.

Rumble I struggle with you see, with struggle struggling. I struggle with this sometimes too. I would say for sure. Like when I think about it, if I’m scolding a child for doing something dangerous or and I like, it’s always in my face, you guys, my eyes. And so I always it’s interesting. I have this little saying no mean eyes and I’ve used to brush my toddler’s little eyebrows up. But then I realized, Oh, I need to make sure that I don’t have those little crowl lines on my forehead when I’m older from scowling.

How about not talking down to each other? Don’t assume you know what they’re thinking. Just because you might be right, it doesn’t mean that they don’t want to communicate their whole sentence. We’ve got to be able to allow each other to finish sentences. It’s really tough if that’s not allowed. Right.

Don’t nag. Here’s a verse for you guys for the nagging one. I love pulling these out. It’s interesting how much God talks about all these things. If you wanted to look up something about body eyes, by the way, just go to Proverbs chapter six, verse 16, because 16 through 19 talks about all that. Got to teach that for kids. Yeah. So Proverbs 27, though, verses 14 through 16, it says whoever blesses his neighbor with a loud voice rising early in the morning will be counted as cursing. So obviously, like your husband is one of your neighbors, right? Is your first neighbor. And so rising early in the morning, you don’t want to be like blessing your neighbor with a loud voice. And that’s that’s convicting for me. I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes, like when Isaac and I are up in the morning, like, I’m, I’m like, hey, come on, get up. We’ve got to be up together. Let’s go. You know, and I tend to be like a quick person in the morning that gets up quick. And so this is something for us to be aware of. It will be counted as a curse. That’s not okay. Verse 15 A continual dripping on a rainy day and a quarrelsome wife are alike.

And whoa, that’s.

Convicting.

We’ve got to have grace for each other. And I would say we develop rhythms of communication and ways of being with each other. You are around each other more than anybody else, I hope, and it’s important that we understand that we have to break the cycle. Sometimes all these things we’re talking about are breaking negative cycles. If those things aren’t, if you’re not having eye contact, if you’re being distracted, if you have a bad tone of voice by body language, all these things you’re in, if that’s normal, sometimes when you guys are having conflict or hard communication, then you have to break the cycle and not have the bad eye contact more. Have good eye contact. You can’t control the other, but you can control yourself. Start with yourself. Start influencing by doing the right things and you’ll watch the cycle break. Because we have rhythms of communication and we take each other for granted and we make assumptions based on seeing a body language and that can trigger us to believe that they’re coming from a certain angle. So we have to purpose to change those things and the other person has to not be quick to judge. This is one of those times they’re being critical or whatever the thing is, and we have to break those cycles. So what cycles do you need to break in your marriage communication so that you have a more harmonious, peaceful, loving communication even when you’re talking about things you disagree on?

I even think about when you’re talking about breaking negative cycles and not judging the other person wrongly. I, Isaac and I have talked at great length, even with our children, about allowing one another to grow right over the years because it’s easy to build a reputation with one another. And it’s the same in marriage. It’s easy to build a reputation or like he’s saying, get into a way of talking to one another or communicating with one another and having to choose to break that cycle. Well, it’s easy to to build a reputation with one another. It’s harder to let the other person grow. But that’s the biblical thing that we need to do biblically. We need to have grace with one another and allow one another to grow over the years, to change, to master things that maybe have been a struggle for even 40 years. Amazing, right? Because that’s the power of our God and that’s the the God that we believe in, that he brings healing, that he breaks bondage, is that he is the one that will set people free from strongholds. Right. And so if there is something that has been in your spouse’s life that has been a hang up, something that has irritated you, having grace with them is actually allowing them to change and grow and at the same time expecting virtue. This is something that we talk about a lot, right? Like just even communicating in a way where we expect virtue from the other person.

Assuming the best from each other is so important and final encouragement is draw close to the Lord. If you’re in the Bible, then you’re going to be prompted by the Spirit. You’re allowing the Spirit to influence you at a greater level, and it’s going to be a lot easier to have good eye contact, to be patient and have the right body and language and to be give grace. If we’re not walking strong in the spirit, guess what? You’re walking in. There’s only one other option. You’re walking in your flesh. And the Bible says, Do not walk in your flesh. And if you have.

Two people walking in their flesh.

Oh, good luck.

No, you’ve got to be walking strong with the Lord.

Yes.

Don’t be nominal Christians. That’s a hard word. But nominal Christians means nominal marriage.

That’s a really good word. We’re to wrap it up with First Corinthians Chapter 13. You oftentimes probably hear this at weddings and it’s for good reason. Verse four says, Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love, bears all things, believes all things, hopes, all things and endures all things. So you guys, as you’re communicating, imagine how different your communication could be if you communicated with love, you communicate it. That means you’re communicating patiently, you’re communicating kindly. You’re not being jealous of one another. Oh, he’s going off to work and I’m here with the kids. I’ve struggled with that in the past. That is not the right way to think. You’re blessed to be at home with your children. Love does not is not arrogant or rude in how it communicates. Loves not insist on its own way. There are so many things guys like Isaac was saying, if you just read the word, it literally changes your perspective on how to love one another, which should impact the way you communicate. Well, we hope this has been an encouraging podcast that you’ve taken some tips away, some exhortations and some challenges maybe to hope to see you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program. Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

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