5 Communication Mistakes Christian Couples Make (And How to Fix Them)

Do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying or maybe you don’t know what to pray, or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage Gift 365 Prayers for Our Marriage. We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together. Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today.

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Hey, I’m Aaron.

And I’m Jennifer,

And we’re the hosts of the Marriage After God podcast. Our desire is to help you cultivate a marriage that Jesus boldly after God’s will for your life together.

In this podcast, we aim to talk about topics that cover marriage, faith, parenting, friendship, and much more.

Sometimes we study through parts of the Bible and sometimes we discuss more specific marriage issues, but no matter what we talk about, our heart is to always point you and your spouse back to God and His word.

We always try to be real and transparent as we share stories from our own marriage and the things God is teaching us along the way.

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We are so glad you’re here and we pray that our discussion truly blesses you and your marriage.

Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast. Well, we’ve just been racking our brains up here because we’ve been setting up to get started to record, and I kept hearing something sounded

Like a motorcycle or

See to me sounded in this apartment above our garage. I kept thinking it sounded like someone moving boxes in the garage, like a Who’s in the garage? Yeah, so after we heard it a couple of times, we both looked at each other and we’re like,

Thunder,

It’s thunder. It’s thundering outside

Thunderstorms. Does that mean it’s getting close to fall?

I don’t know. I think thunderstorms can happen whenever. Why’d you make that face? Are you sad about it?

I don’t want summer to be over.

I don’t want summer to be over either, but I really enjoy change. I like seasonal

Change. We’re still, at least it’s warm. It’s eighties and nineties still for the next at least few days, but then it gets cool the moment the clouds cover, the sun

Cools. We have the privilege of having air conditioning, so if you’re on YouTube, you see Aaron and I were wearing, I’m wearing a jacket and you’re wearing a long

Sleeve. I know. I was cold in now, so I was like, I’m going to put a long sleeve on. That’s funny. Film like fall, so the leaves are starting to change colors. So we’re officially weather’s

Changing. I saw the red. I get excited.

Yeah, we can’t miss it. We got to, should go do a drive somewhere to see all the trees, changing colors.

Something that we did do today was we took Edith out on a little date. We shared with the kids as we’re leading up to this sweet baby coming to join our family, that it would be fun for mom and dad to take each kid on a little individual special date. It was actually Edith’s idea. She really wanted to go on a date and in

Bathing us

And we were like, actually now’s good timing before the baby because after the baby, we

Just don’t know. Well, we have to do it quick because what if you go to labor soon? We’re getting close. We’re like

A couple weeks away, couple weeks away. So the kids are really stoked about that. We haven’t done dates with the kids in a long time because in summertime we’re just doing everything. It feels like everything together as a family

And then also for the last couple months you’ve been super pregnant, just low energy, but we’re intentionally, both of us are taking one of the kids out and it’s really nice. Go get some food, just talk to them. Edie is like a chatter box.

She wanted to talk to us the whole time talking,

Which was awesome. It’s cute, but she’s just talking to us about everything, so it’ll be nice to have these little dates.

That’s the point.

Make them feel special right before this new baby comes.

Yeah. Something else that I was going to share is that I couldn’t remember if I shared it on the last episode or not, but the ladies in our fellowship in our church decided to do a study over the next probably three or four months on Hebrews, which I did share last a couple months ago that we were going through Esther and I really enjoyed the way that we decided to do that study. It wasn’t that we all had the same material or same book that we were going through. We all kind of picked different things so that when we met, everybody had different insights and different discoveries

Add to the conversation about

Pastor. It was really special, so we decided to do that same thing again except in the New Testament.

Yeah. What book are you guys going through?

Hebrews.

Oh yeah, Hebrews. So you bought these little, they’re like individual books on individual letters in the New

Testament. It’s almost like if you guys think of a pamphlet style

Booklet, they’re a little pretty

A booklet. So they had an ESV Virgin and it’s on the book of Hebrews. So each page is a portion of scripture with a blank page so that you can journal as you go. I just bought them as gifts.

They’re like little individual books of the Bible. So this is just Hebrews with some journaling pages and you got, I think you didn’t You gift all the

Girls. I found out Amazon. They were cheap and it was pretty cute. Pretty, yeah,

And you can get all of them. I think they have a huge set without all the books, separate books of the Bible. It’s a pretty cool little thing. So before we get into the topic, we want to just invite you and people have been doing it. Last time I invited people, there was a lot more people going in and putting reviews and leaving star ratings. Nice. And it was really awesome. I just want to invite you, if you haven’t done it yet, would you go and leave us a star rating and a review? Those reviews just are huge in helping spread the word about this podcast and also encouraging other people that are thinking about listening to the podcast and ultimately also encourages us. There’s a review that we got from a TN four jc. It says, great word, five stars, and it says, I love the 10 Ways to Resolve Conflict in Marriage podcasts. This was the what episode we just did. Some of them my wife and I have already been doing for years. Awesome. You guys are rocking it. Some of them I need to work on. Thank you for sharing these great truths with scripture to support them.

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Cool. These reviews are awesome. We love these. It just encourages us to be like, oh, there’s other people out there like us that are trying to figure things out and we’re like, oh, I have things I need to work on. And so thank you for leaving that review. If you haven’t done so, please do that. Also, we wanted to invite you, if you haven’t already, if you’ve been considering, if you’ve been blessed by our podcast or by our daily prayer emails, if you become a faithful patron member, the Patron team are listeners and supporters of our show who wanted to kind of pay it forward. They want to help financially support our show because there’s costs involved with sending daily emails and hosting this podcast. And if you want to support it financially, you can go to marriage after god.com/patron and you can choose to donate to our show at different levels and it helps us keep the show free for everyone. And so if you want to do that, just go to marriage after god.com/patron and join our faithful patron team.

Awesome.

Alright, now we can talk about the topic.

Yeah, let’s get into it. So Aaron, you came up with this topic for us today. Did you have something that inspired it or,

Well, I’m trying to just get back to what are some things that we deal with all the time? What are things that marriages deal with all the time, especially in Christian marriages, any marriage really, but communication is just

Probably for relationships across the board.

Yeah,

Communication. This would be helpful too

In any relationship. It’s our main way of connecting.

Yeah,

I know. It’s something that seems obvious. It’s like, yeah, of course we communicate, but God gifted us with this ability to communicate and it is the number one way that we connect because we can’t read minds, we can’t understand things outside of, we communicate, we look at each other, we use our words and we can understand those words. And we talked about this in episodes in the past about definitions of words and being on the same page and having all the same meanings, but communication is just like

You

Got to have it.

And so today we’re going to cover five communication mistakes that we often make, but we’re talking about talking to each other or not talking to each other, not necessarily through text or other technologies. Just want to clarify. This list would probably be a little bit longer if we dove into all of the different ways we actually do communicate

Communication. We could do episodes for days on this, but we just want to talk about some five top main mistakes. And I just want to point out that communication is something that was given to us by God.

It’s a gift.

It’s a gift. And to be honest, we got the example of communication from God himself. We were just talking to the kids about this in family Bible time, explaining how awesome it is is that God doesn’t just want us to know about him, meaning we know there is a God because the Bible tells us in Romans that we can just see in nature God’s divine nature. We can see in the stars and we can see in the sky in the trees that oh God exists, but that doesn’t mean we get to know him. He actually sent us his word, he showed us by example. He communicated with us through the prophets, through his word, through his son Jesus, through the Holy Spirit communicated with us. He came to us and told us who he is. And without him communicating, all we would know is that there is a God. We wouldn’t know who that God is. We wouldn’t know who he is. His character, his love for us.

And just to reiterate, you almost made it sound like it was past tense, but he’s still communicating with us, still communicating today through his word, through his word, through his son. And we get to engage in that relationship with God, which is so special and so beautiful. And so hopefully that’s an encouragement alone. Just today, if you’re someone who maybe has been lukewarm or have been in and out in your relationship with God, we just want to encourage you today to set that time aside. Go read his word, go dive in, go talk to him, go talk to him. Share your heart with him. Let him know what you’ve been up to or what you need or what you are thinking these days. He is a very relational God and he loves you and he wants to be hearing from you.

And he’s proven it to us. And he also, he loves it so much like you said, praying. He commands us to, he’s like, talk to me. Come to me. Share your heart with me. Be known by me. And that’s what not only does he want us to know him, but he wants to know

Us.

And I think that’s a beautiful thing. So communication is important, and everything we just said about God and his relationship to us is applicable to you and your relationship with your spouse.

It translates.

Don’t you want to know your spouse, not just know like, oh, I have a

Wife

And there she is and

Not just know

I know about her

Well and not just know, but to know intimately. I think this marriage thing is such a beautiful relationship because you have this layer of intimacy that you don’t get in other relationships. And like we just talked about, our relationship with God is intimate because he knows all and we get to share our hearts with him. And that’s a special place to be in relationship with your creator, your maker. But likewise in marriage, there’s no other relationship on earth quite like it.

And so it would behoove us. That’s a good word, to practice being better communicators with the ones we love, with our spouse specifically, and then our children and then God and God first, of course. But so there’s a story in the New Testament that I wanted to bring up to this idea of communication and also showing how much Jesus loves his disciples loves us. And so in John chapter 21 verses 1517, we have a picture of Jesus coming and communicating to Peter about some really hard things. It says, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? He said to me, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. He said to him a second time, Simon son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes Lord, you know that I love you.

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He said to him, tend my sheep. He said to him a third time, Simon son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him a third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Of course we know this famous time that Jesus comes to reconcile Peter back to himself after Peter denied him three times at the cross. And Jesus lovingly comes to him and he’s like, Hey, let’s talk about this. Do you love me?

Yeah. And I love that the intention was reconciliation. Jesus wanted Peter to know that he loved him and he wanted to give Peter the opportunity to basically share the same thing. And I love this story in the Bible, and I think it’s a really intimate moment between two people who truly love each other and had walked through some hard things together. And even though it has nothing to do with marriage, we can pull from it and see how Jesus walked and lived and shared and communicated. We can take tips from and share in our marriage.

He could have just like I said, well, I know Peter loves me and I do forgive him because that’s what I did on the cross was to forgive him.

Or even just asking him one time he

Had relationship, he had a relationship with Peter, and you’re right, he could have just been, okay, cool. But he’s like, Hey, I know what you did and I want to bring it up, but I want to bring it up in a way to show you, I’m trying to draw you close to me. And I think that’s really cool. And I also love that he does it over breakfast. There’s something about food that helps with communication if you can eat over. That’s why we always talk about date nights. We talk over food often and we have good conversations. So

You

Saying

Setting the atmosphere is

Number one? Yes. Setting a good atmosphere. Food over a fire by the ocean, Hawaii. That’s the best place to have conversations.

There you go. If you need to talk, set a date.

Nailed it. We’re done. Okay. So we wanted to use that story just to show Jesus used communication in his relationships with his friends, and we need to learn to use communication too. Also, communication’s unavoidable. Whether you want to communicate or not, you’re communicating. If I’m playing the silent treatment and I’m not communicating at all or I’m ignoring you, that’s communicating something to you.

Something I always tell the kids because they’re learning body language and all these different things, and I always share with them, everything you do sends a message. That’s kind of how I phrase it, so that they understand

Your face. Your face looks like this.

Your face, your arms sends a message, your entire body, everything that you do, your sending a message whether you use words, the right words, the wrong words. And my question to the kids is always, what message are you trying to get across? Because you say one thing, but you’re showing another. When they go, when I ask them to apologize to each other, fine, I’m sorry.

Well

Wait a minute. That’s sincere. So yeah, I always kind of phrase it, what message are you sending?

And the reasons we want good communication, there’s many of them. We want to love each other better, so we learn to communicate better. That’s going to help us love each other better. We want to be good examples to our kids.

If we can’t communicate, they’re not going to, if we work on it, just the case. If we work on it and we’re intentional or at least repentant trying to show change, they will also be that way.

We also, we desire more peaceful homes, more peaceful marriage. When you can communicate well, there’s more peace. Another thing is we want to be, and this is probably the most important, we want to be good ambassadors for Christ. So what message is our marriage and the way we respond to each other, communicate with each other, interact with each other. How does the world see that? How is it portraying the gospel?

I just had this thought when you just backing it up to when you said, we want our homes to be peaceful. Good. What’s it called? Not test or

Testimony or

No, no, no. If you want to figure out where you are on the spectrum of needing to work on communication. Like a litmus test. Like a litmus test. Yeah. I dunno why pregnancy brain. I was like, what am I looking for? Check to see if your is in a peaceful state. If it is, you guys are probably communicating well. If it’s not, you might have some work to do.

And we all get there. We love cast in our arms sometimes and we’re like, okay,

Well, and the reason I say we test we’re

Weird

That we should test ourselves even is that or at least evaluate where we’re at is because we could deceive ourselves into thinking like we’re fine, we communicate fine. But do you really?

Not always.

Not always.

Why don’t you read this quote from our book, marriage After God. This is on page 220. It’s near the very end of the book when you read this because it talks about communicating effectively.

Yeah. It’s in the chapter titled Stronger Together, and I’ll just read it. Okay. Communication is key for every marriage and yours is no exception. Be people who can communicate maturely, clearly, humbly and respectfully. Communication is a gift from God and a tool that will help you navigate every circumstance you face in life. The story of the Tower of Babel reminds us of the power of communication. In Genesis 11, six, God says, behold, they are one people and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

It’s crazy.

I know. Think about what that means and how it relates to your marriage. Those building the tower were unified and spoke only one language, and God acknowledged that nothing would be impossible for them. Now imagine what you and your spouse could accomplish if you are unified and effective communicators. If there is power in effective communication, this means that the enemy is sure to attack this area of your marriage. So true. So defend your marriage from the attacks of the enemy by being intentional in the way you communicate.

Yeah. I thought that was a good little way of starting off this episode before we get into these five things, is just the power of effective communication. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about five mistakes that we make in communication. Often these things come up in almost every conversation in various forms, and often they derail the communication or they cause heightened emotions or even

Little

Havoc.

So we will start with number one, and the first one is

Failing to listen

What? Failing to listen the best.

So how many times does this happen in

I’m the best at this one.

Most people’s marriages, not ours.

This happens a lot. I think this is number one because it’s probably is the number one that thing where I fail personally in our communication.

What do you think it is that keeps you from listening intently or being more aware?

Just listening in the first place? I’ve easily distracted. Not an excuse, but it’s just I get distracted. So if I don’t give you my attention off my phone and you start talking to me, I have to stop. And I’m like, wait, wait, wait. Go back to the beginning. I didn’t hear anything you said. I do that a lot. You do. That is annoying, but I do it. What

I will say, what adds to the tension is when you’re slow to do that, hold on a second. When you do it right away, I’m like, okay, pause.

When you’ve gone through

Minute and half, half when I’m halfway through a story and then

I’m like, wait.

I’m like, oh, I didn’t hear

Anything you just said.

I usually say nevermind. And you’re like, no, just tell me. Have grace. Basically, you’re like, have grace with me.

But the unfortunate thing with the way my mind works, I can even do this when I don’t have my phone or when I’m driving and I’ll be in the middle of a thought about something and all of a sudden I realize you’re talking to me. I’m like, wait, were you talking to me? And you’re like, yes. I’m like, I don’t know what you were saying. You need to talk to. So just you’re

Not the only one that gets

Distract, distracted listening as in actually giving you my attention. Actually hearing you stopping everything else and putting my attention on what you are saying. That’s probably where I get tripped of a lot.

And we live in a world where we have a lot of distractions. We have a lot going on. We live busy lives, and so we do need to be aware of those little

Things. It’s a problem when companies specifically design products to help people not be as distracted and make money off of that. You’re like, oh, we’re all distracted.

So

I got a question for you.

Doesn’t too hard when

I’m not listening or I’m distracted or I’m not giving my full attention. How does it make you feel?

Well, like I said, usually if it’s a quick, Hey, hold on a second, I think that’s fair.

You’re like, oh,

Alright. But if I’m really into something that I feel like you should be paying attention to, and especially if you’re not doing, if I can’t tell that you’re doing something else important, then I’m like, wait, what? I’m not going to keep trying.

Yeah.

I feel discouraged.

Discouraged, frustrated

Sometimes.

Frustrated sometimes or not cared about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don’t know if we’re going to talk about this later, but it kind of depends on what kind of not listening. Are you legit doing something else or are you just not tuning into me? That also, that’s a different kind of hurt. That’s more like I take that one real personal.

Yeah. Well, and that does go into the other types. There’s the actually not listening, as in, I’m not hearing you because I’m distracted. But then there’s also the more subtle ways of not listening. As in I’m hearing you, but I’m not

Tuning

In listening to you. I’m not trying to get to what you’re saying. All I’m hearing is the words and the tone, and I’m only hearing it from a defensive point of view. What I’m describing in my heart, what

You’re saying. I have an example

How I’m defining

What you saying. I have an example of this, a confession actually. So my problem with not listening is when I’m not interested in a subject and there’s been times you’re trying to engage with me and you’re really either excited or passionate or something, and you just want to share this thing with me,

And you’re allowing all the distractions.

Oh yeah.

And you then Elliot’s talking,

Oh yeah, I’d find anything else because I’m not. Then you

Walk into the room and I’m like, okay, lemme know when you’re ready to listen.

I actually had a friend confront me on this because she recognized and we’re very close friends, and this was a while ago. I think I’ve grown a little bit in this area, but this is why I’m able to tell on myself because I was confronted and I’m working on it

A little bit.

Yes. So this whole not interested thing, she noticed that if I’m talking about a subject, something that I really love, I’m really engaged in our conversation and she is, and it’s all good. If she brought something to the table that maybe I wasn’t as interested in, she can tell I’m checked out. Maybe it’s a lack of eye contact or emotion or all of it, but she could sense it. And so she just really humbly and lovingly came to me and said, Hey, this is what I am recognizing. And I felt so terrible. I was like, I’m a terrible friend because I actually agreed with her. I was like, I do do that.

I tune out. Yeah.

Yes. And so I’ve been working over the years on being more engaged when other people come to me with something they’re passionate about. When you come to me with work stuff or more technology driven stuff,

It’s investing into the conversation.

Yes.

What are we communicating about? And because you care about it, I’m going to care about it right now. Making that active choice. Another way that we can end up not listening in a conversation in any way is, this is something I do. I think we all do this, is instead of listening, I’m simply waiting to speak.

Oh, you already got your next lineup.

Yeah. I’m like, oh, here’s what I’m going to say. So are you done yet? And so I’m not actually listening to people sense

That especially in marriage, we know it’s coming.

Yeah. Well, and often it starts coming out before you’re even done speaking,

Which we’ll get to. There’s

This overlapping,

That’s another mistake later called interrupting.

Yeah. And that’s another way of not listening, because if all you’re doing is waiting to speak, then you’re not even listening. All you’re doing is being fake patient, fake, polite, fake courteous to a person. Well,

I get when you say fake, I get that, but there’s also this part that I’ve experienced where I want to say something and I feel like I’ll lose it or it won’t make sense if I don’t say it in that moment. And if you keep going. So do you see that how it could play on both sides of that?

Yeah. Try not to forget what you said. Our kids are always like, mom, mom, mom. And they’re like,

What? Then we finally, I forget. I forget. I’m like, if you remember, tell me. So there is a part of engaging in conversation where there’s this eagerness of, I don’t want to forget. I wouldn’t call that fake, but there is probably a better way to try and

Hold your thoughts captive. Well, saying I have a thought on what you just said. Do you mind if I share it?

Okay,

Good. A way of

That’s good.

Interjecting and saying, I’m thinking about something based off of what you said. I’m listening to what you said, and I have something to say about that. Can I say that?

That’s actually really good. That’s something that I could probably use to work on because something that I’ve noticed in our relationship, but also in other relationships is I will forget and then I feel discouraged or the time has passed and then I don’t want to go back to it. So I ended up not

Saying Yeah. And then get flustered like, well, it’s not even, I don’t care anymore.

And when we lose our way of communicating in that sense, we feel like unheard, misunderstood or not engaged with in the same way.

Well, and that goes to a part of communicating, of being able to communicate in a way where you’re not just taking all of the air out of the room either side. I’m not going to just say everything without stopping and they’re all running sentences, and I’m just going to keep going and going

And going. That’s a good point going. That’s a point. Making pause and room for people.

Allow, do you actually want conversation? Do you actually want, here’s something I feel.

Yeah.

How do you think about that? That’s good. How does that make you feel? Do you agree? Do you think I’m wrong? So we all struggle. Listening is a hard thing. We fail at times. Truly listening is a talent. It’s not something that we’re, I don’t think it’s like some people are probably actually gifted in it. I would say most people are probably not. So it’s something that we have to actually actively work toward. And there’s going to be Would you

Say that, sorry,

Go. I’m listening.

Just going off that last bit. You just said personality types play a role in probably, yeah. Whether people are more engaged to talk versus

Listen. Yeah, because

You said what makes a good listener. It’s like probably the introvert.

Well, if someone’s more introverted, they’ll probably have a harder time sharing. They’ll probably have, you do have a hard time. If you have a thought and it gets passed over, you don’t have the opportunity. It’s hard for you to go back to it. And so the other person being aware of that and being, okay, I want to hear where you’re at. So share it. But that’s where it takes practice, especially in your marriage, you have the time to do it. You’re married forever. So working on it, getting better at it. And

Real quick on personality types, if you’re married, that was a really good way of describing if you have an introvert extrovert relationship.

Yeah, there’s probably a million dynamics between

I know, but just laying out the two, if both spouses are introverts, your guys’ communication challenge would be initiation probably. And then the extrovert would probably be like if two spouses are both expert

Being quieter, longer,

Quieter, quick to listen and not saying everything that’s probably on your mind.

So Proverbs 18, 13 says, if anyone gives an answer before he hears it is his folly in shame. And so the idea is if you’re going to be speaking before listening, if you’re going to be quick to answer, this happens in our relationship all the time you’re sharing, and I’ll jump in and say something and you’re like, that’s not even where I was going with this. And I’m like, oh, where were you going with this? You’re like, well, why don’t you listen and I’ll tell you where we’re going. And so being practicing actively listening so that you know how to respond so that you can think through and pray through in the moment what you want to respond with. So here’s some ways to fix it. So the mistake is not listening well. Right? So active, active listening, we brought that up. Active listening. This is where you wait until your spouse is completely done sharing. So you let them get to a stopping point and then you take time to repeat back to them some of the things that you heard. So I heard you say this, I heard you say this. Is that what you meant?

That’s good. That shows them that you are listening.

That’s

Affirming.

And then asking clarifying questions. When you said this, did you mean this because that’s how I’m taking it. Am I wrong in the way I’m taking it? Yes. I didn’t mean it that way. Oh, so what did you mean by that? And then what you’re doing is you’re now allowing that person to unpack and break down and digest for you verbally. And so act Go ahead.

If you’re going to ask a question like that, you got to be prepared for more active listening.

But then the other partner, your other spouse, has to allow the same, let you speak and then actively listen and say, so you said this. Was that accurate? Did you mean when you said this?

This isn’t in the notes part of how to fix being a better listener, but going back to being distracted just in those little ways, being quick to say something I feel like is a great way to fix, because you’ve really grown in this area because you’ve learned how to react quickly and say, Hey, could you hold on a second? I am right in the middle of sending this email, or I am, whatever it is.

Yeah. I have to do with my kids a lot. I’ll be in the middle of something and they come in and it takes me a few minutes before I even know they’re talking to me and I’m like, whoa, wait, I’m in the middle of something. I can’t hear you. You got to wait. And so those are all important, just trying to figure those out. And it’s a practice. It’s something that we’re not going to be experts at probably ever. But if we care about it and we’re like, oh, I want to think about this, we will get better at

It. And also, if you are the one bringing the conversation up and initiating, give grace to your spouse and know that you know how heavy the topic is of what you’re about to bring. If it’s a heavier topic and you desire and need them to truly listen without distraction, you kind of do need to set that atmosphere. I do imagine Jesus on the beach with Peter, and I just think he set the tone of that atmosphere and he made sure he had peter’s attention. And we can do the same thing with our spouse easily for them.

Yeah. Peter didn’t feel like he was about to be attacked. Peter didn’t feel like he was about to be squashed. Peter, he had a full belly. He was sitting on a fire with a friend. He had done countless times before.

But if Peter was in the middle of doing something, putting a hook on, I don’t know what they, and

Jesus just walks in and he’s like, Hey man, starts

Talking. Yeah, that’s not really fair.

Why’d you go and deny me?

Yeah. So let’s help each other be good listeners by giving them that place, by saying, Hey, I have something to talk about. Can you make sure that you’re undistracted right now?

Yeah. Well, and also setting the atmosphere of your heart. Why are you, what’s your motive behind it? Is it to bring clarity? Is it to bring reconciliation? Is it to bring healing that’s true. Or is it to bring hurt and pain attack because I’m hurt and feeling pain and attacked, and so having the right heart on it. So what’s the second mistake that we do?

So the second mistake is speaking harshly, and then I put a note on here of the word abruptly or even interrupting. So it’s this tone, but it’s also how we do it, right?

Yeah. You can be harsh in the way you are. Quick to jump on top of it and speak over. And we do this. So it may not always be harsh, like ah, but it could be like, I’m going to try and make sure I’m heard first. I’m going to make sure my voice is over your voice. My thoughts are more important than your thoughts. And so I just wanted to read a few scriptures for you guys about this. Proverbs 15, one, the kids were memorizing this

One.

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs a banger, a soft answer. So when we’re confronted, when we’re come at with conversation, things that maybe hurt, we want to get defensive. Thinking through those responses. How can we give a soft response? How can we give a gentle response rather than a, I’m defensive and now I’m hurt also and now I’m angry. How could you possibly think, how dare you and respond back like an attack?

Well, I think this shows the difference, the contrast between walking the spirit and walking the flesh because walking in the flesh is almost automatic. You don’t even really need to think about the attack is probably going to be right there at the tip of your tongue or on the forefront of your mind ready to go. It’s impulsive.

It’s impulsive. This is how I

Feel right now.

It’s going to come out.

But walking in the spirit takes the self-control to do what this proverb is saying, and that’s to respond with a soft answer.

And walking in the flesh is a common occurrence because no one likes their flesh. The flesh doesn’t like being told it’s wrong. It doesn’t like being told to change. It doesn’t like be told areas of brokenness and issues. So of course our flesh is going to want to respond impulsively

Plus reciprocative beings. I feel like

You come, Emmy, I come at you, come

Back

At me.

I can come back at you. I think it’s a natural thing for us to reciprocate the way that we’re being talked to or talking to. And we see this in our relationship, and we also see it in our children’s relationships and how they respond to each other.

Oh yeah.

If there’s a level of harshness or a level of intensity, it’s usually matched. It’s a screaming match. Yeah, it’s usually matched.

We’re looking for people who have been blessed by this free podcast and our free daily marriage prayer emails and who want to help be a blessing to others. Creating and hosting this podcast and sending out our daily emails do incur financial costs, and we want to invite you to join our faithful patron team to help financially support these resources so that they can remain free for all who need them. Please join our patron team today and become one of the faithful financial supporters who desires to help bless thousands of marriages around the world. Your support will help us pay for the creation, hosting, and promotion of our podcast and daily emails. Thank you. And we hope to see you become a marriage after God patron. Another scripture. Colossians three 19. Let me read that.

Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

This one’s specific to husbands. Do you want to know why it’s specific to husbands? Why? I mean, of course, because

They’re very different.

God doesn’t want women to be harsh with men, but men are the ones that often are going to be, this is going to be an area of impulsive behavior, especially when a wife is coming in because there’s been times that you’ve come totally without any intent to hurt me or be angry at me, and you say something and then my flesh is feeling disrespected, feeling like I’m weak, feeling belittled. And you didn’t mean any of that, but I felt it. And that’s my flesh didn’t like being challenged. And so God knows that God knows the impulses that we have. And he’s like husbands extra focused on how you communicate with your wives.

When I hear this verse, I also think we were designed and built so differently that men’s tone and men’s masculinity is a little bit more harsh just all around. And I don’t mean that as harsh like mean, but just deeper voices. When you compare it to women, we have the softer

Well, and if we come off just, and I do this often just une, emotionally logical

Or matter of fact, yeah,

That could feel, and you often feel like, well, that doesn’t feel emotional enough for me, or that doesn’t feel like you care about what I’m feeling right now. And we’re

Processing so much through emotion that we might misinterpret what’s going on. And often this happens with us. So that’s why I kind of see that this verse is saying that because you’ll say, if I correct, you said something specific to the children or even me, and I’ll call out, Hey, I think that was harsh. You’re like, that’s my normal

Level right there.

And to an extent it’s true in most cases. In some cases it could be toned down a little bit, but it is how you are.

Yeah. It

Doesn’t mean we can’t change that or work through it. But

What I think is interesting about how God speaks directly to husbands, like husbands, don’t be harsh with your wives. And then he calls wives the weaker vessel, as in they’re the fragile dish. Not that they’re less valuable, not, they’re like, we have to always give that disclaimer, we know what God means by this, that you are built differently. And men, we can crush our wives with our words without ever laying a finger on them. We can crack the dish, we can chip the edges. We can take that perfect little beautiful thing that God made and damage it. And then God speaks to the wives and he tells them to be respectful to respect their husbands, which we were just talking about this.

It doesn’t take much for me to say something.

You don’t have to be harsh at all. Most women probably don’t come at their husbands with harsh tones. Sure, some do. But even if you did come harshly and men don’t receive, we are not as fragile when it comes to that level

Of harshness. More what being said.

Oh man, you can say something in the calmest est way and totally

Sticks.

Chip me out of disrespect. God knows these things about

Us.

And so he warns wives like Wives, be this way with your husbands because of I know how husbands are. Husbands be this way with your wives. I know how wives are.

He knows because he designed us.

Yeah, he designed us. So he gets it.

(40:01)
Ephesians 4 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. I think it’s funny because we love this verse, Christians, yeah. Speak good things to me. Build me up the church. I want all these people to come and tell me all these good things and remind me of how good I am and how much God loves me and build me up and don’t speak anything hard to me. And then in marriage, it’s like, no, my spouse doesn’t need that. My spouse doesn’t need to hear things that build them up,

The affirmation

And things that are fitting for the occasion and that they might have grace from me.

Well, I know I struggled with this at times. It’s like, how can I affirm this when this other struggles happening? And I wrestle in my mind of that what you’re talking about.

Have you ever thought to yourself like, oh, my husband should be able to handle this, so I’m going to just give it to him?

Yes, I have.

It’s interesting that we want something different for ourselves, and we want to do that inside the church. Like, oh yeah, we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ. Let’s treat each other. But in our marriage, it’s like, no, my spouse needs something harder. They don’t need the grace right now. They just need the truth and they need to change and they need to. And we forget that it says, don’t let any corrupting talk come out. We shouldn’t be speaking in such a way that’s corrupting, that’s causing corrosion in our spouse. It should be for building up. And also, does it fit the occasion? Are you just going out of nowhere and be like, there’s been times that we’re talking. I’m like, where did that come from? What happened? I thought we were having a great day. Everything seemed fine and then all of a sudden, sudden changed. And I get it. We go through things and hormones can change in a moment. Both husbands and wives and situations can change, but only for what fits the occasion.

What I love about this verse in connection with the quote that I read from our book, marriage After God about the Tower of Babel and how God was like, look, they are on a roll here.

Nothing’s going to stop.

Yeah, nothing’s going to stop. And that was a matter of physically building up. They were creating something together. Change to heavens Well in marriage, man, think about the place that you would be 5, 10, 15 years from now if we did this more often. Building each other, building each other up, affirming each other. Because I know for me, if I feel built up and affirmed, my state of mind is so positive that I do feel like I can more,

You’re capable,

Conquer anything that I’m capable. But when I feel defeated, when I feel like we haven’t had intimate conversations or had those exchanges,

Or if all I ever did was point out failures or remind you of failure,

What you don’t do, but that would be defeating and we wouldn’t be able to get as much done as a couple if we were doing that. So to build each other up is

Important. It’s huge. And just take that to your children also.

Yes,

Absolutely. Are we just building them up? Are we tearing them down all the time or building ’em up? Yeah, that’s good thing to remember. So how can we fix this?

Tell us there.

Yeah. Cultivate a habit of speaking words that build up what you’re just saying. Let’s practice speaking words that build up and not tear down and be mindful of our tone and timing. And for men, practice being gentle in your communication. Women practice being

Respectful.

Respectful in your communication. And gosh, that would change

So much.

Literally everything in our conversations.

Love it.

Number three,

Go ahead.

Avoiding difficult conversations. So this is like,

Who does that?

It’s like the opposite of communication, but it’s communicating something. It’s like, I don’t want to talk to you right now, but we all have difficult conversations. Maybe it’s about sin. Maybe there’s unresolved frustrations that we’ve had. Maybe there’s a hard situation with family or the kids just wanting to avoid those things because they’re too hard and they are.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of, I can’t even put my emotions into words right now. How would I tell my spouse how I’m feeling? But sometimes I’ve noticed in our marriage, just the act of initiating, of trying, even saying I’m feeling a certain way and I don’t even know how to explain it can be so helpful because then you guys can encourage each other. You can pray for each other, and there’s an affirming way of responding to each other in that moment, even if it’s not completely understood.

And I know our generation and also the generation after us, there’s some phrases and some things that causes immediate anxiety.

Like what?

And it happens all the time. You get a text message from a friend,

Oh yeah.

Hey, do you have a few minutes to talk today?

Yeah.

And immediately it’s like, oh my gosh, what did I do? But

That’s not as worse as when they say’s going on. Hey, let’s set up a time. We can talk, how’s Wednesday? Or something like that. And then you’re sitting on it for three days. Don’t do that.

What did we do? Did I, oh, I didn’t answer that text a couple days ago. Oh my gosh. And you go back and, and that happens in marriage too. So we avoid sometimes conversations because it’s like there’s that anxiety of this is going to be hard to deal with,

But relationship is messy and it is hard. So we should just expect it. We should expect hard conversations.

It’s funny. I bet you people are listening right now when I said that, they’re like, oh, I got that person that needs to talk to me. But the scripture reference is Matthew 1815. It says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. What I like about this, and what I hate about this is it’s not telling the one who’s done the sinning to come and reconcile, which they should. It’s telling the one who’s been sinned against, Hey, you’re the one that, and why it says this, how often has someone come to you? And this is why I get anxiety about this. Someone’s like, Hey, to talk. I’m like, oh my gosh, what did I do? And they are offended by me, and I literally have no idea that I’ve offended them. Doesn’t mean I didn’t offend them. Doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to repent about. Just means I have no idea. I’m oblivious that.

But I think in our human nature, we do do things that we’re oblivious to all the

Time. Matthew 1815, it’s like, Hey, your brother may not even know they’ve sinned against you, but if you feel offended, go to them privately and say, Hey, this thing happened. I’m pretty offended by it. Then you can have a conversation. Maybe they can be like, oh my gosh, I had no idea. I’m so sorry. Or, oh my gosh, that’s not at all what I meant. Here’s what I was trying to say. I’m so sorry that I came off that way. And so we’re to go to our spouse like, Hey, I have this hard conversation I need to have with you. I need to confess this sin to you.

And

This is hard to confess, but I need to do it.

I admit there’s been different types of ways. I’ve walked through this in our marriage. There’s been times that I’ve come to you that peaceably and self-controlled, but there’s been probably more times that I feel offended or hurt or whatever. And I come to you in a roundabout way or just not as Matthew is speaking, just not okay.

And my way.

And that makes an explosion, not a reconciliation atmosphere.

And my way usually is I don’t say anything. I forget about things. And then something happens between us. And then I’m like, yeah, this is that thing I’ve been wanting.

Not that you’re intentionally keeping a list, but you kind of are. No,

It’s like, well, you got to call what it is.

Here’s what it is. Have you guys seen, sometimes the kids will be really excited about these things. There are pens you can write with, but they’re like spy pens. So the only way invisible, they’re invisible. The only way you can see it is with another type of pen or a light. A light like a UV light, not uv. What is it? Black light. Black light. Yeah. That’s what it is. Because then I go do something and it shines light on that list that you had forgotten about.

Yeah. That’s a good analogy. Boom, boom. And I’m not intentionally keeping a list, but it happens. I know

We all do to some extent.

Usually they’re shorter term. They’re not long lasting. But it’s like the last few days you’ve been

Treating

Me this way and it, now it’s finally got to me. And you’re like, why didn’t you say something a few days ago? And I’m like, I don’t know.

I do want to speak to, so if you’re offended how you should come to your spouse or whoever, but there is times that you yourself are struggling or wrestling with sin. And sometimes it takes a long time to go to your spouse because you struggle with the guilt, the shame, the fear of like, oh, how are they going to respond? But the Holy Spirit’s pressing on you. You should confess.

Oh yeah, he doesn’t let up.

Yeah. He wants it drug out to the light. And I know that those conversations are really hard. We’ve had them in our marriage, and I just want to share that because I want you guys to know if you’re in that place right now, if you’re listening and you’re holding onto something, you’re struggling with sin and you,

This is right when they turn off the episode. No,

No, no. Listen,

Don’t turn off yet. You stay right here,

Guys. We want to encourage you to take that next step to talk to your spouse, to create the atmosphere. Give them space to truly listen without distraction and share with them what’s on your heart. And true repentance, because that brings so much closeness to each other and reconciliation.

The other said that, so that’s the spouse that has something that they need to confess. Go, and we should be going to our

Spouse. Don’t avoid that conversation,

But I want to ask you and other spouses listening, is it easy for you to proactively come to me and ask me how I’m doing with something that I’ve dealt with or struggled with or have confessed in the past?

So knowing that you’ve sinned or wrestled with something, me coming to you and saying, Hey, how are you doing? How you doing? I’ll be honest

And be honest. I want to know where you’re at. I want to know how I can help. How can I pray? Do you need something to confess to me?

There have been times that I do that, but more so I do wrestle myself with the insecurity of knowing how you’re going to answer. And I don’t always want to know,

But how many times have I told you, I want you to come to me and I want you to know where I’m at, and I want you. And I brought that up because I know other spouses have the same problem. They have the same issue of I’m afraid to go to them, or I shouldn’t have to go to them. They should just come to me. And if they’re not, then I’m going to assume everything’s okay. But that’s not being one. Being. One is we’re going to bear each other’s burden.

We’re just praying for, we’re going to walk with each other. We’re ask you about walking with.

And yeah, how can I battle for you? Because the enemy wants you and the enemy wants me, and he wants to get in between us. And how can I battle for you? How are you doing?

I’ll say this, after 17 years of 17,

18 in January,

18 in January, so almost 18 years, I would say the times that we’re not keeping each other accountable, not checking in, not asking the questions, not confessing, there’s obvious disunity and we feel it most tur. Yeah. And it’s almost like our flesh is quick to respond negatively to each other the times that you’re, what you’re describing of keeping each other accountable, walking in the spirit, walking out, confession and repentance and reconciliation. Don’t you feel so close? I feel so close to you when we do those

Things. Well, it also, as James says, confess your sins to one another that you may be healed. It’s actually, it’s a gift that God’s given us to destroy the works of the flesh.

It’s

Not the only way. It’s one of the ways and often the Holy Spirit, you feel it when we feel this conviction in our heart. It’s the Holy Spirit saying you need to go to your spouse, the one you’ve wronged,

And there’s relief after freedom. Freedom afterwards. You’ve been carrying this weight on you for I don’t know how long, and then all of a sudden it’s gone.

And so why wouldn’t you want that for your spouse? And so I’m just encouraging you if you have sin that you need to confess to go to your spouse and confess and let God deal with their heart on the issue. And spouses, don’t be afraid to go to your spouse and say, Hey, how are you doing in that area? You’ve told me about it before and I want you to be honest and I’m here for you and how can I help you?

It’s good. This whole thing is both sides. This whole number was about avoidance and conversation. And so I know we spoke a lot about confession and bringing sin to light, but in any important matter, in any way of your heart feeling something, your mind, wrestling with thoughts, going to your spouse and having a safe place where you can let those things be known is so reaffirming and reinforces that you are one that you know each other because without sharing those things, do you really know each other? And so we just wanted to encourage you guys to be willing to be open to conversation

And doing that takes away the power that the enemy has that you gave him when you hid in the darkness.

Don’t hide. If you need courage, which we all do, pray about it beforehand, ask God to give you that courage. Ask him for the words to say, ask him for spouse’s response to be grace.

This is the fix by the way, to avoiding is pray about it.

That’s awesome,

Is to seek.

I wasn’t even reading the notes. I was just like,

This is what you need, but you were saying it all. I was like, yeah, is seek the timing, prayerfully prepare your heart and then just do it. Just go be like, Hey, can we talk tonight? I have some stuff I need to share or I have some stuff I want to bring up. Number four, when do you read that?

Assuming instead of asking,

I never. Yes, I do. This is something I do a lot.

You kind of briefly mentioned it earlier, but yeah, sometimes I’ll be sharing something and you’ve already assumed what I’m about to say, and so you either respond or finish my sentence or

Cut in or I assume your purpose behind it, which is a big one. I assume your

Intent

And your intent could be not what I’m thinking at all. I’m just basing it off of I feel disrespected now. I feel caught off guard. I feel offended. So assuming assumptions can lead to misunderstandings, that’s all they are. There’s old sayings about what it means to assume, I’m not going to say it because it’s not appropriate for our podcast, but assumptions are just that their misunderstandings, they lead to more conflict. They lead to feelings that are not true. They lead to conclusions that are not true. And we should not be people who assume we should listen actively and actually seek to understand instead of just assuming we know already,

I told on you, but I should probably tell myself how I struggle with this one. I assume to the point of not asking at all, because I’ve already answered for you in my head, you have that conversation thing going on in my head where if I say this to him, this is how he’s going to respond, and then I’m going to respond like this, and then he’s going to respond like that. So

There and then I look over and I’m like, why are it look like you’re mad at me? She’s like,

No.

I’m like, I don’t know whatcha talking about.

No, it’s just a problem with assuming and then foregoing an entire conversation with you because I’ve already had it in my head, which is

Not Well sometimes it’s probably okay because maybe I don’t want the conversation.

Yeah, maybe.

How’d that go? Cool. Did you get the right answer?

Yeah.

Okay. The rep for the scripture. When do you read that?

Proverbs 25 says the purpose and

20 verse five.

What did I say?

25. But you can say it both ways. I just wanted to clarify.

Proverbs 20 verse five, for those of you taking notes, the purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. I love this verse.

Yeah, so this is the idea is the intent of, I’m going to draw out of you what you’re trying to say, what you’re trying to get at, what your intention is going to dig deep. I’m going to drop that bucket down and pull up a bucket of water and be like, oh, it’s fresh water. Oh, it’s dirty water. So drawing out the understanding, drawing out the truth instead of just assuming which takes active listening, which takes ality, which takes all the things mentioned about. So

How do we fix it?

Yeah, how we fix it. We encourage open communication by asking questions, clarifying, understanding, and not speaking too quickly, not jumping in over, but asking those clarifying questions like digging in and saying, what are you trying to say? What is it you’re trying to mean to me? Instead of just assuming.

Yeah.

So don’t assume anything. Be more curious than

Be more curious. I like that.

What’s going on? It’s a good for sure. Is everything you’re saying based in you’re hungry or did I do something that I, did I do something wrong? Yeah,

That’s good.

Yeah. Number five.

This is the hard one.

Letting anger take control.

Don’t do it.

Oh man. The Bible tells us

Why does it happen so easy in marriage to be angry? Or is it just me?

It’s our impulse.

It’s not just me. Is it guys? You guys have experiences too?

No, it’s not just anyone who has kids knows exactly how easy it is to get angry. It’s like the thing spilled. The clothes are on the ground again. There’s something in us that’s like, you’re pushing my buttons.

Yeah. Why aren’t you doing things the way I want you to do them? Or why aren’t you saying the things I want you to say?

There’s that scripture we brought up I think in last episode, that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. And that’s so true. It’s one thing to have righteous anger, meaning you’re angry for something that God’s angry about, but you’re still controlled in that. But when you’re just angry in the flesh, that’s never good. How many times have you seen my anger if I’m ever angry, turned out to be like, oh, that was a good thing. That was peaceful, that made the day great.

Usually you come back moments later and say, sorry

To I repent. I didn’t have any self-control of my attitude. I’m so sorry for how I responded. If it’s a good thing, you shouldn’t have to repent for it. And so often we need to repent for this.

And that’s the verse that we have for this one is Ephesians 4 26 through 27. It says, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. So it’s kind of like a two-parter. There is that emotion that we are, I want to say gifted because the Lord designed us with the ability to express it and to experience it. And so there’s anger, but he says, do not sin. So there’s a requirement here. Yes, you can feel angry, but you need to have self-control in that anger.

Righteous anger is like there’s things in us that when there’s injustice, we’re going to be

Stimulation

Mad about that, but is the anger in control or is the Holy Spirit in control? So I can be angry and be like, oh my gosh, Lord, I can’t believe this happened. Will you give me the wisdom,

Which should be our response wisdom to

Deal with this. Will you give me the patience to walk through this? Will you change? So-and-so from continuing to walk this way,

So the first part of that is be angry and do not sin. The second part is do not let the sun go down on your anger, which it isn’t like quote, this is a marriage tip verse in the Bible, but

It’s probably used most often for marriage,

Man. Have you guys ever been in that situation though, where

You’re just laying next to

Each especially? Yeah, because we talk at night, we talk in bed, the kids are in bed. It’s so angry, and then you get angry and then it’s like you suffer in it. It’s like especially if you’re not willing to reconcile, we’ve been there before because I get really stubborn and hardhearted, you’re the type of person that wants to take care of things right away where I feel like I need more time to process. But really I’m just holding onto it. I don’t know why I’ve grown in this, but it has happened in our marriage. And when you take the time to not let a day go by where you’re reconciling, oh man, I know it requires a lot. You

Desire to do it quickly because it doesn’t help anything. The whole ruined, you can’t even enjoy your children. You can’t enjoy your spouse. You can your job, you’re angry, you’re frustrated, you’re exhausted. You have all these fight or flight hormones going through your body. Cortisol,

Not to mention when you’re in reconcile, then you’re angry about something. All of a sudden you start seeing all the other things that confirm or affirm that thought about your spouse. And so you just

Get more

Angry. You get more angry. Yeah,

We need to not do that. This happens often for me when I get offended when you talk to me a certain way and usually it’s like a disrespectful way or it feels backhanded. And I’m like, why are you doing that? And it frustrates me. And sometimes that’s when I’m being tempted in my anger of I want to respond with attitude. I want to respond with anger. And that’s when I need to not let it take control because does it ever make it better if I do operate in that? Is there, what are the times that makes you get angry and feels like anger wants to take control of this situation?

I do feel like now would be a good time to encourage everybody to recognize what your triggers are, because there are things that do make me frustrated and I don’t need to sit here and list them out, but everybody’s got their just

List ’em all out.

Let’s

Just clarify.

But in that moment, you’re freaking out about something and you’re taking it out on your spouse because of something else that happened. That’s what gets me is I feel overstimulated. I feel like what’s happening isn’t fair or isn’t right or shouldn’t be, and then it comes out as an expression of anger. I don’t know if any of that makes sense, but

I think all the women understood

Not to sidetrack us, but I had this other thought while you were talking about not to justify what you mentioned earlier about me talking to you disrespectfully or in a certain tone or a certain way that offends you because I know that that’s happened and I know that I’ve repented and apologized and tried to grow in that area of our marriage and when I communicate with you. But I would say that it’s important for us as we’re growing and as we’re trying to figure out, okay, why am I like this? Why do I do that? Because there’s been times

Underlying root causes.

There’s been times where I have intentionally talked to you disrespectfully because I think X, y, Z, and then there’s times that I’m communicating a certain way and I’m being disrespectful or even manipulative and I don’t even recognize it. I don’t even see it. And so even in your anger, you might be mad at me, but because you’re, you say, Hey, this is inappropriate. This is what’s happening. This is what you’re saying and what it’s leading me to understand. And when you can communicate through things like that, oh man, it actually helps me because then I get to say, that’s not what I meant. But then I questioned,

Why am I responding this

Way? Why am I responding that way? And so my whole point is there’s going to be ways of you responding out of your own flesh and what you understand in the world and with your words. And then there’s this layer of, well, what did I see as an example growing up? Whether in your family or in friends or other people or even watching TV or a movie

Or even what is just naturally in us character wise that God’s like, Hey, I want you to be

Worthless. So here’s my point. No matter what it is, marriage is so good at refining us. Marriage is, it’s a gift, but it’s also a tool that God uses.

It sometimes feels like a meat grinder. Yes. Okay. And then other times like a rock Tumblr, where you going to come out a little more shiny?

Yeah, I’d like to think it’s like a spa day. You come out spa some

Days it’s like a spa day.

No seriously marriage. God uses marriage to refine you. And it’s in those moments that are hard and hurt and are frustrating that you walk out going, God, what just happened and what am I doing? And he fixes us. He helps us. See,

It makes me what you just said, it makes me think of God does use your spouse, but he uses people. Now he’s going to use your spouse probably the most around that

Person, the most kids. Second,

He’s going to use your kids a lot. I think of that scripture where Paul, he’s like, I had a thorn in my side and I prayed three times for God to remove this thorn. And God said, my grace is sufficient for you, for my strength has made perfect and your weakness. And many people believe that that thorn was like an ailment. He was sick. He had some issue like a bad eye or some sort of infection. But a lot of people, and I actually lean on this idea also believe that the thorn he’s talking about as a person is someone that’s just, is a thorn in his side causing problems for him, poking him, attacking him, and he’s like, God, can you remove this thorn from me? And God’s like, my grace is sufficient for you. You may feel weak in this relationship, you may feel weak in this position, but my strength is sufficient for you. And so in your marriage, you may feel like, man, how do I get this thorn out of my side? But God’s like, well, no, actually I want that thorn there because it’s going to make you

Humble

And

Most importantly come to me. He wants us to come to him with our marriage issues and with our miscommunications and our longings and our hurts, and he wants us to talk to him about it. And then he wants us to be good listeners and walk out according to his word, what he’s already laid out for us and be good at marriage, which we will get good at right

When we’re like 80.

We have gotten good at marriage

Getting better.

We still struggle, but

We do. It’s like the things that felt big. They just slowly, they feel smaller and they last shorter time. But we still deal with all the same things that everyone else deals

With. I have this printout of art that says grace upon grace in our bathroom, and I love it. And it’s funny, I always want that for myself, grace upon grace upon grace just

For me, but not the,

I’m just reminded about it right now because I’m thinking how often in marriage we just need to give each other grace,

More and more grace upon grace. So just a recap. One, failing to listen, two, speaking harshly or abruptly.

These are,

Yeah, three, avoiding the conversation altogether.

Don’t do

Not having that conversation. You should be having

Be brave

Four, assuming rather than seeking to understand. And then five is just letting that anger, that anger that may be okay, have control. You don’t want it to be in charge.

I forgot to mention

You want to be in charge. I

Forgot to mention something about the anger part, which I know I rambled on about other things in that section, but something that I really struggle with is stuffing things or letting it,

Oh, you’re a stuffer, are you?

Yeah. Letting it build up. And so one of those triggers, remember I said we all have triggers. One of the triggers I have in our relationship is I let it build up and then one thing happens and I am just,

I’m like, where

Did this come from to you? It’s like left field, but to me it’s like this is the time. This is the time that it needs to come out, and it’s always wrong. I always do it wrong. So being aware of things like that don’t do that.

So maybe being too slow to communicate. You should have these conversations sooner,

More often. Sorry.

Yeah. So we want to give a closing scripture. It’s Colossians three 12 through 14. It’s says, put on then as God’s chosen one’s, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all, put above all these put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Those are kind of like the opposites of everything we just brought up, and so we want to seek for these things in our

Marriage. This is the fix guys.

Who doesn’t want this, who doesn’t want these things. So the golden rule do unto others is you’d have them do unto you, I should be treating my spouse the way I’d want her to treat me, which is something that I mention all the time. Are you treating me right now how you would want to be treated? It’s a good calm way of reminding like, Hey, how are we communicating?

How are we communicating? That’s the question of the day. We want to encourage you guys to have a conversation with your spouse about how you communicate. Are you guys good? Are you guys wrestling through some things? Yeah. Are any of these five points we made today a part of the issue? And can you apply God’s word to help you work through it? We want to see growth in you guys and in our marriage, which is why we do this, and so we hope that you felt encouraged by all of this today.

Lemme pray for us,

Okay? God, we just come before you and we just humbly address just this gift of communication that you have given to us in marriage and ask that you would through your Holy Spirit and through your word, refine us, help us to be mature and help us to speak to each other with kindness and humility and love and honor. We pray that we would be intentional every single day to build one another up. If there are things that we’ve been wrestling with, things that we do need to share, thoughts or emotions or whatever it is, Lord, things that we need to share with our spouse, I just pray for that time. I pray for an opportunity. I pray for hearts to be softened and that we would tune into each other in our marriages and really be good listeners for each other, and I pray that we would find just a beautiful unity and growth as we do that, and we just rely upon you for the courage and the strength and the right words to say to each other, not just in hard conversations or in certain times of our marriage, but all throughout the day and every time that we engage.

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We just pray that our communication would honor you and we lift this up to you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Amen. We love you all. We thank you for joining us on this episode of the Mary God God podcast and we look forward to having you next time.

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Do you desire to pray more for your, do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start, or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying, or maybe you don’t know what to pray, or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage Gift 365 Prayers for Our Marriage. We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone, or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together. Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today.

(01:12:09)
Do you desire to pray more for your spouse? Do you desire to pray more with your spouse? We understand that you may not know where to start, or maybe you feel uncomfortable praying, or maybe you don’t know what to pray, or maybe you simply want to add something more to your current prayer life. This is why we wrote the Marriage Gift 365 Prayers for Our Marriage. We desire that it would be used as a daily reminder and catalyst for you and your spouse to grow a dynamic and consistent prayer life together. This book is a compilation of 365 unique and powerful prayers that cover a range of diverse topics that every marriage deals with. You can read it alone, or ideally you read it with your spouse. Also, we hope that the topics that are brought up in these prayers would become a starting point for deeper and more intimate conversations with your spouse and a desire to seek God on these matters together. Visit the marriage gift.com today and order your copy and give your marriage the greatest gift, powerful and meaningful prayer. Visit the marriage gift.com today.