Alright…we know couples don’t need help bickering with each other! It can be so easy to get ourselves there. One little snippy comment here and there is a raging fire in our homes. At least it can feel this way! In this episode we discuss how to stop bickering in marriage and how it is damaging to our ministry as a married couple.
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– Hey, we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage after God.
– Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
– And today, we’re gonna teach you how to bicker with your spouse. Hey, thanks for joining us for today’s episode. It’s gonna be a fun one. We just want to, as usual, ask you to subscribe to our channel so you get notified every time we come up with a new episode. So we thought we’d do something a little different with this episode. We’re gonna teach you some of our tips and tricks, our best-
– Tactics.
– Marriage hacks on how to bicker effectively. So we’re gonna give you a few of those, and really, we’d love to get your tactics on bickering, ’cause there’s so many different ways to bicker.
– Let us know what’s effective for you by leaving a comment.
– Yeah, ’cause is really depends on kind of personalities we have. You know, the better you get to know your spouse, the better you can get ’em with those words. So let’s through some of our ideas that we have for them, and we’ll see how they turn out.
– Okay, so when you guys are both climbing into bed at night, and there was a lot of things that didn’t get done that day, make sure that your spouse knows it’s their fault for not picking up their pieces. And if you add that specific tone, you guys know what I’m talking about, you can get that conversation going real quick.
– Yeah, it really elevates my temper when I hear that. You know, I’m getting ready to go to bed and you just, you remind me. I’m like, oh, okay. So that really gets me going.
– Real quick, the other way you could do that actually without even using words, is keep doing stuff while your spouse is getting into bed.
– Oh, yeah.
– Just stomp around the house, just kind of slam doors, you know, that kind of thing.
– Another level to that is that make sure that the spouse that’s in bed knows that they shouldn’t be in bed.
– Yeah, they should be helping.
– They should be helping or something. Yeah, yeah, I get that. So here’s a great tactic. This is for the men, the husbands. So when your wife asks you to do something and you’re not really in the mood to do anything, you know what I’m talking about. Like, hey, I just got done working all day, I’m not in the mood to do anything. Just say something like, “What are you doing?” That usually let’s them know that you don’t wanna do it and that they should do it. Or, if you wanna go, like, I do this sometimes, I like to go really minimalistic. And you just can go And that right there, that one little message.
– Says a lot.
– It says a lot, you know, and it lets them know that you’re not interested and that they should just take care of it themselves. And usually, the conversation just goes from there. It really works really well
– So this is a really good one when the wife is driving and the husband tries at the last minute to say, “Turn right.” Just keep going. Pretend like you didn’t even hear him. And then if he inquires, that’s when you explain that you know a better way.
– Yeah, it usually gets me going. It makes me think like, okay, do you want me to navigate? You ask me to give you directions and you’re not gonna listen.
– Or that I don’t trust you.
– Well, you don’t.
– All kinds of things arise really quickly.
– Yeah, and all those emotions and the kids are just watching. It’s actually really productive sometimes. All right, here’s a quick short one. Always let your lack of sleep and your hunger dictate how you’re gonna communicate. It works.
– Okay, here’s one of my favorites. I actually use it a lot, it’s a fun one. Don’t let your spouse have the last word.
– Never. Okay, here’s an advanced one. This is only for the spouses that have been practicing, ’cause it takes a lot of mental power and a lot of like-
– Manipulation.
– Manipulation. Keep a really detailed list of wrongs that your spouse has done. That way you never lose an argument. You can pull from that list and boom. You’re like, “Oh remember that one time?” Boom. And you don’t lose. It also doubles a great motivation to get your spouse to do exactly what you want them to do. Just make sure, like, “Hey, since you never do that “the right way, why don’t you do it this way? “Remember the last time you did that?” Like, it’s really good. You never lose an argument, but you can also get them to do exactly what you want.
– Okay, the last one we have for you today is never give your spouse verbal affirmation.
– No way.
– They know you love ’em anyways.
– Yeah, they don’t need it. Okay, okay. We’re kidding, we’re kidding.
– That was actually really hard to do.
– It was, we felt dirty doing it. So the reason we were doing this, is because these are actually things that we deal with.
– Yeah. I actually don’t feel adequate enough to be able to share on this topic, because I feel like it’s still something that we wrestle with.
– Yeah, but it’s something that the Lord is definitely convicting us on, and it’s something that we’ve come leaps and bounds. Like, we used to bicker all the time.
– We’ve actually been called out on it several times, by friends, people close to us.
– So we’re driving one time, want me to just bring the story up?
– Sure, sure.
– We’re driving one time, me and Jennifer and a couple friends of ours, and we’re in the car, and-
– We’re just talking.
– You’re driving, I’m in the back seat. We thought we were just normal communicating.
– That was normal for us back then.
– My friend leans over, and he’s like, “Just shut up!” I’m like, “What?” He’s like, “Do you realize “how you’re talking to your wife?” And I’m like, “What do you mean?” I had no clue.
– He laid it on you, like that I’m the gift from God, and all this stuff.
– He got me real good. I was like, almost in tears, ’cause he was so right. And I didn’t even realize, we didn’t even realize it. We just, that’s how we communicated. And it wasn’t until a couple years ago that we were finally walking in a way that we don’t bicker like we used to.
– Yeah.
– We still get in cycles of it, at seasons.
– Well, we get tempted to throw those bones out there.
– And then we have to reset.
– Yep.
– Yeah, and you know, it’s these things that we just talked about. These are tactics that we use, and they cause bickering.
– And it’s all driven by flesh, like, it’s our flesh being aggravated and irritable and just frustrated, because either you feel like your spouse isn’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, or you’re just having a bad day.
– Or you’re not getting what you need in the relationship. There’s other variables that are just… So we aren’t actually gonna teach you how to bicker better, ’cause-
– We don’t advocate for bickering in marriage.
– Here’s the thing, you’re probably already good at it.
– Yeah.
– We’re experts at bickering. We’re actually trying to practice getting good at not bickering, at speaking gracefully to each other and patiently. And so this episode’s not about teaching you to bicker. It’s actually teaching you how to, why we bicker, and how to not bicker.
– Yep.
– And of course, we’re gonna use The Bible, as we usually do, but we thought that’d be a funny way, we were talking about it, like, hey, let’s teach them how to bicker.
– We know y’all relate.
– Yeah, and you’re all thinking, like, “Oh my gosh, we just-”
– “We do that.”
– You know, and just for honesty this week, we found ourselves in a cycle of bickering. And we have to recognize it quick. We’re much quicker at recognizing it than we used to be, but, you know, when there’s enough stressors, when there’s enough things going on, or things taking your time and energy, and you’re tired and you’re hungry and all these things, and then we just say, I’m gonna walk in the flesh. I’m not gonna walk in the spirit. And we say things, and we nitpick, and we throw words out.
– What we have now are little alarms set around the house. They come in different shapes and sizes. It’s our children. They pick it up really quickly, but the moment we start bickering, they’re like-
– “Stop fighting!”
– “Dad, don’t talk to mom like that. “You have to love her.” Or, “Mom, stop.” You know, so they pick up on it very quickly, and they help us to not. We stop.
– That’s a point we weren’t even gonna bring up, but I’m gonna just give it, one good way to practice not bickering is in teaching your children not to bicker, when you do in your marriage, repent to them. And say, hey, Mom and Dad, we’re not supposed to do that.
– Yeah, we’re sorry.
– That wasn’t right that we did that. And that way, they learn that you shouldn’t, and it’s not like a double standard where you do it, but they’re not allowed to.
– Right.
– Man, our kids, they catch it quick. Even if we don’t feel like we’re bickering, and they’re like, “Stop fighting!” We’re like…
– Oh, wow, yeah.
– We are kind of, like, getting on each other.
– We’re aggravated.
– Yeah, we’re aggravated. And so they help us snap out of it. Not always, but we’re getting better at it. And so that was one little tip. That was a free little freebie.
– There you go.
– But let’s start out with why do we fight? Why do we bicker? Where does that come from? I wanna read that to you. In James chapter four, it says this: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? “Is it not this, that your passions “are at war within you? “You desire and do not have, so you murder. “You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.” So this is coming right off the tail end of when he’s talking about how powerful the tongue is, that it’s a small fire that sets a mighty blaze. It’s like a rudder that turns a mighty ship. It’s something that is almost impossible to tame without the Holy Spirit. And so that’s where our fighting comes from. It doesn’t come from anywhere else. It’s not just a, I’m just having a hard day, give me a break. It’s a, I need to recognize, like oh man, I’m irritable. Like I just mentioned this quarrel this morning. Out of nowhere, either I was hot and hungry or tired or all of the above, and I was just irritated. And I was like, okay, I’m irritable.
– I need to step out of it.
– I vocalized it, so you heard. That way you didn’t, like, feel a need to say something to me.
– Or take it personal, and then wanna fight back.
– And I just sat there for a second, and we were all quiet, and I was like, all right. It didn’t change how irritable I was, but it helped me wrap my mind around where I was at.
– Well, I think what’s important too is to know that even in our physical irritabilities, we have a tool that we could use for destruction, that our tongue is that powerful and that our words, we gotta know that they really matter. And that they have an impact on people’s lives.
– Yeah, and another place in The Bible, it says that the tongue, the power of life and death lies in the tongue. That’s how powerful our tongue is, that it could bring life to the home or death. And we wanna practice life.
– And bickering’s the way that people get out those negative words, those things that are, you know, a reflection of their irritability or frustrations, or whatever those negative feelings are that they’re harboring. So earlier I mentioned that, you know, when we bicker, it’s because of our flesh, and we kind of are giving into that temptation. And so I wanted to read just a passage of scripture in Galatians 5.
– This is what we call an anchor verse, Galatians 5. You wanna get to this chapter and not memorize it, but you should memorize it actually
– Yeah, that’d be good. So it’s Galatians 5, starting in verse 13: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. “Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity “for the flesh, but through love serve one another. “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out “that you are not consumed by one another.”
– Stop there. So first of all, it says, “Don’t let your freedom.” We have freedom in Christ. Like, Christ has totally set us free from the bondage of sin and death, right? And Paul’s saying to the Galatians, he’s like, don’t let that freedom be a license to now, like, hey, we’re believers, so it’s not that big of a deal that I’m just throwing whatever kind of words I want out.
– To add onto that, it’s, you know, sometimes in the beginning of our marriage, I had that mentality that, well we’re already married, and you’re not going anywhere, so I can pretty much treat you however I want. I shouldn’t have used-
– Then I’ll get over it.
– I shouldn’t have used that marriage license, that freedom within our relationship, to do that.
– I see what you did there.
– Yeah, mm-hmm.
– So we don’t walk in our freedom that way.
– Yeah.
– Instead, we use our freedom to walk the way Christ wants us to walk.
– Yeah.
– And so it says there, it says, be careful that we do not devour one another.
– That’s all bickering does.
– Bickering is a devouring of one another. That’s one way you literally will chip away at someone’s spirit and heart and character, and your marriage. A marriage that’s bickering constantly is in the process of destroying itself. We were destroying ourselves. Of course, we were going through other things, and that was adding to the way we talked to each other, just because we were so unsatisfied. We were so, just, choosing over and over again to walk in the flesh, and taking our freedom for granted. And so I just want to bring that up, that if you look at your bickering as a devouring that you’re doing, it might help, be like, oh I don’t wanna do that.
– To stop doing that.
– I don’t wanna devour my spouse right now.
– That’s good. Okay, so I’m gonna keeping reading it. Again, it’s Galatians 5. Now, we’re gonna pick up in 16. “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not “gratify the desires of the flesh. “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, “and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, “for these are opposed to each other, “to keep you from doing the things you want to do. “But if you are led by the Spirit, “you are not under the law. “Now the works of the flesh are evident: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, “sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, “rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, “orgies, and things like these. “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those “who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, “kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; “against such things there is no law. “And those who belong to Christ Jesus “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also “keep in step with the Spirit. “Let us not become conceited, “provoking one another, envying one another.”
– So this is a really powerful bit of scripture. Right in the middle, we get this warning of people that do these things won’t inherit the kingdom of heaven. People who do these things aren’t under the law. Okay, so right before that it said that we’re free. So free men do the latter, not the former, right? Walking in the flesh means you’re not free. And there’s, out of that list, what is it, like four or five things that all are wrapped up in bickering.
– Strife, fits of anger, dissensions, divisions, envy. All of that.
– All of those things, those are like, parts of bickering and fighting and quarrels and all of those things. That’s what those are.
– And then, at the very end, it says, “Let us not become conceited, provoking one another.”
– Oh, that was another one thrown in there.
– We should, yeah, provoking, that word stimulates in my mind-
– Which is essentially what bickering is.
– A bickering fight.
– Yeah, like I just have these little biting words, and it’s just chipping away at you, and you blow up, or I blow up, and that’s what we’re doing. We’re devouring each other, we’re walking in the flesh, we’re not walking in the Spirit. And we’ve talked about this many times, how one of the things that we pray almost every morning at the table, is like, Lord help us to walk in the Spirit today.
– Yeah.
– And you know what? There is, we live in an unregenerative body, our flesh. It’s not redeemed yet. It’s not renewed as it’s gonna be. We don’t have our new bodies yet like we’re gonna have in heaven, but you know what is regenerated? Our spirit. We have a completely alive spirit that allows us to walk in the Spirit if we choose it. ‘Cause there’s a action in this that’s taking place. It’s not a passive thing. It’s not saying, “Sit down and do nothing “and you’ll walk in the Spirit.”
– Right.
– No, it says walk. Those who walk in the flesh, meaning you’re actively in the flesh, or you’re actively in the Spirit. And that’s where we need to be practicing, as first John tells us, practicing our righteousness, and saying, okay, yeah, I’m not perfect. We’re gonna make a mistake. But when we catch it, we repent quickly, we stand back up, and we say, I’m going to choose now to walk in the Spirit, because the spirit of God lives in me. And that’s how we walk in the Spirit, by practicing walking in it. And the fruits of it? Read it one more time, what are the fruits, what’s the fruit, it’s actually a single fruit, when we walk in the Spirit?
– “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, “kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.”
– Yeah. All of those things are the fruit of the Spirit. So when we catch it, oh, I’m not being patient with you, and that’s why I’m talking the way I’m talking. I’m not being peacable.
– Gentle.
– Or gentle. Literally none of those things exist when you’re bickering.
– Yeah.
– And it can be felt. It gets felt. It’s corrosive.
– Well, I actually, when I go to bicker, not that I am intending to bicker, but I am intending to provoke you for some reason, because maybe I’m frustrated or irritable or just caught up in my own emotions.
– It’s a good thing you’re being honest about this.
– I am being truly honest with you, because I just realized, that word provoking stood out to me so much that I realized, I want you to hurt like I’m hurting. I want you to be frustrated like I’m frustrated.
– Or irritated like I’m irritated, or annoyed like I’m annoyed, or tired like I’m tired. And we do it. I do the same thing. I may not be thinking intentionally I’m gonna try and provoke you, but I do.
– And our words are like-
– ‘Cause I’m bothered.
– Our words are like, stoking a fire, like eventually the oxygen’s gonna get in there, it’s gonna explode, right?
– Yep.
– It’s gonna build up.
– So that’s the crux of the matter, is like, either we’re choosing to walk in the flesh or we’re choosing to walk in the Spirit. And so our encouragement is to first think that way, and say, okay, what we’re doing right now, is it any of these things that the Spirit produces? And if it’s not, and it’s gonna take practice. I mean, we’re still practicing. We have to catch ourselves. And we have to make efforts to change quickly and to not let ourselves be overly affected by it when it does happen. Be like, okay, this wasn’t personal, we were walking in the flesh.
– Let’s clean the slate.
– Yeah, let’s-
– Start over.
– Wax on, wax off. Let’s make this all new. So that’s what happens, we walk in the Spirit or we walk in the flesh, and so we need to choose to walk in the Spirit that lives in us. That freedom that Christ gave us, it lives inside of us. So what we’re gonna do is, now let’s go into The Bible, and let’s see if we can pull out scripture to help us not bicker.
– Yeah, some solutions.
– Like some ways of thinking, some ways of being that totally correlate with walking in the Spirit. And if we go from one chapter, or two chapters actually, James chapter one, and it says this, in chapter one verse 19: “Know this, my beloved brothers: “let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, “and slow to anger; for the anger of man “does not produce the righteousness of God.” So this is something that I have to often come back to, because I used to have a pretty bad temper, and I still have to harness it and destroy it. It’s a part of my flesh. But it doesn’t get to win, because I have that freedom. And it tells us here that the anger of man, or in other translations, the wrath of man, in no way can ever produce the righteousness of God in a couple ways. My anger, like if I’m talking mad to you, isn’t going to produce in you the righteousness of God. It’s not gonna convince you or force you.
– It’s just gonna, if anything, it’s gonna stir up more frustration.
– It might cause you to stumble, right? And The Bible warns us against causing our brothers and sisters to stumble. The wrath of man in me isn’t going to produce righteousness in me. Me being wrathful and angry all the time about things that are meaningless almost isn’t gonna make me more righteous. It’s not gonna produce righteousness in my children. It’s not gonna produce righteousness in any avenue of our lives. But right above that, it says, it gives us a little tip. It says, hey, what’s gonna help with our anger is being slow to speak, ’cause usually wanting to quickly say what we wanna say helps boil up that anger, especially when the other person isn’t letting us speak.
– And if you’re slow to speak, you can actually have time to consider, you know, are these words helpful or beneficial or loving in any way? Because if you take the time to actually evaluate that, and you’re not quick to just spew ’em out, you might actually have the self-control to stop what you’re about to say.
– So, which is a fruit of the Spirit, self-control. Slow to anger and slow to speak. So like, being quick to listen. So if I just practice listening only, it’d probably stop most of the bickering, 90 percent of the bickering, probably, ’cause a lot of the bickering is the back and forth. So if there is no back and forth, if you say something, and I just… Then there is no back and forth.
– Yeah. I do wanna at a note there, that sometimes in our bickering, I will listen to what you have to say, but the whole time I’m just thinking about what’s my response gonna be? And so I’m not actually listening to you, even though I’m giving you that space to speak. And so I just wanna encourage those listening, that are you practicing listening? Are you actually listening and hearing and understanding what your spouse is having a hard time with, or are you just waiting for them to be quiet, so you can jump in and say what you’re gonna say?
– And so that would be my first tip to you guys, is be slow to speak, slow to anger, and quick to hear. Quick to listen. And like you said, don’t just wait for your opportunity to speak, but actually listen.
– Yeah.
– And that will, I think that will cure most of the bickering, is just stop talking At least for me, I know that would fix a lot of this issue, situations.
– Okay, so I have a verse that I wanted to share. It’s Proverbs 15:1, and it says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, “but a harsh word stirs up anger.” So when you are in the middle of that bickering fight, and you know that the next thing you’re about to say is gonna stimulate anger in your spouse, you need to have the self-control to just stop and go back to this verse, and remember that a stop answer turns away wrath. If your spouse is coming to you within somethin’ harsh, return it with a soft answer.
– Yeah, and I know for me-
– I feel like that could help.
– Many of our little bickering starts with me being harsh with you. You said something, and I was annoyed, and so I just said it right back at you, and you’re like… And then you respond right back at me.
– Well, I think sometimes as humans, I think we were created to reciprocate emotions, and so it gets really easy, where if you come at me, I’m gonna come at you. But we can’t let that justify our responses. We need to still have self-control, and so if we can remember Proverbs 15:1, I think it would help a lot in those moments.
– Yeah. So the next tip comes from Proverbs as well. It’s in chapter 17 verse 14. It says, “The beginning of strife “is like letting out water, so quit “before the quarrel breaks out.” So it’s like this trickling of water, and if you see it, and you’re like oh, let’s not let that burst, because have you ever tried putting water back into a balloon after it’s come out of the balloon?
– It’s not easy.
– No, now it’s going everywhere. So recognizing when it’s starting to build, and I think that’s something that we have gotten better at. We could easily get better at it.
– Yeah, and I would say, don’t rely on your spouse to be the one to initiate that stopping. You be the initiator, you put this verse in the scripture in your heart, so that it’s on your mind, and it’s constantly a part of how you operate as a husband or as a wife. I think both parties should know that they need to be initiators of stopping.
– Yeah, and communicate about this together. Say, hey, we’re gonna be on the same page with this. And let’s figure out ways that we can recognize those things that we do that are like, getting at each other, and just causing us to be frustrated and angry, and elevating our bickering to fights, and even just to stop the bickering from the beginning. If you get on the same page, then you guys can start recognizing it together.
– And I just wanna be an encouragement to have, to encourage you to evaluate, what are the root causes of the bickering? If it’s happening constantly and all the time, there’s gotta be something underlying that is causing that frustration and that chiasm between you two in your intimacy. So it could be the way that you guys are communicating with each other. It could be finances or other types of circumstances that maybe you’re facing right now, and that needs to be addressed before even the bickering. And so I know that sometimes the outside forces can be that cause for bickering, so I just wanna be an encouragement to you to evaluate that.
– You know, you bring up a good point, and I think it’s a great way to end our talk about bickering, is we talked about how it starts, we fight because we’re not getting our way, but let’s talk about the root of where this comes from. And let’s go to Luke chapter 6, and in Luke chapter 6, versus 43 through 45, it tells us where this comes from. It says, this is from Jesus: “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again “does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree “is known by its own fruit. “For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, “nor are grapes picked from bramble bushes. “The good person out of the good treasure “of his heart produces good, and the evil person “out of the evil treasure produces evil, “for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” And so we talked about fruit. You know, walking in the flesh, you produce bad fruit. Walking in the Spirit, you produce spiritual fruit, right? And so the question though, is like, you know, if this is something, we had to do this. The root of our bickering and the way we talked to each other came to a deep part of our discontent with each other, our discontent with God. Internally, we literally were not in love with each other. We were struggling with that. And so I would ask you to evaluate you heart, and say, Lord, actually pray about it, and say Lord, as David did, search me and see if there’s any wicked way in me. You know, what is in my heart? Am I just bitter? Am I just tired, am I just angry? Do I think I deserve something that I’m not getting? Do I believe that my spouse isn’t treating me the way I deserve to be treated or this isn’t what it should be? Is there something that’s causing that to be stored up in your heart, therefore making it all just spew out of your mouth? Because that’s what happens. What we store up in our heart comes out of our mouth. If you store up good things, you know, joy, peace, patience, kindness, you have a hope in the Lord, and you’re patient, and you’re like, you know what? The season we’re in is hard, but I love God, and He’s taking care of me, and He’s good. And that’s gonna come out of us. And so asking yourself and asking God to reveal, what’s in my heart, Lord? And do this on both parts.
– Yeah. And I would just go even farther to say don’t just ask Him to reveal it, but once He does reveal it, ask Him to change you, and believe that He can, because sometimes I feel like we get stuck in a rut and we use justifications like, well that’s just the way I am. Or maybe I say something that, you know, has sarcastic tone to it, and I say, well I was just kidding when I said that. Well, like you said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, and so it is in there. And I think that it’s important that we not only evaluate it, ask God to reveal it to us, but then trust that He can change us, and that He will if we hand that over to Him.
– And, you know, that makes me, you said surgery, or you said having God work on it and change it. I think of when Paul’s talking in Romans and he says, he’s talking about the picture of circumcision in the Old Testament. And he says the spiritual circumcision is the real thing, and he says it’s the circumcision of the heart. And what that is is letting God come in and carve out of us the dead stuff, and to give us a new heart. And so, like, you’re right. Not just asking to reveal it, but asking Him to actually change it, and to cut out the dead stuff, and to fill it with His goodness and His life.
– Yeah. And if there are points in your marriage where you’re feeling there’s lack, like for us it was intimacy. We weren’t being close. We felt like roommates more than anything.
– Which is hard on many levels.
– Yeah, and so we had to ask God to fulfill that part of our marriage, to reconcile us, to bring us closer together, and we prayed for our intimacy. And so if there is, beyond the revealing to you and the transforming of your heart or the pruning of your heart and carving out that bad stuff, also ask Him to restore or reconcile anything within your marriage that needs to be reconciled.
– Good word, babe. So we just pray that this encourages you. We don’t want you to bicker.
– Don’t do that. Stop it.
– Don’t practice the things we talked about in the beginning. Practice the things we read in the word. And ask the Lord to change that area of your life, and learn to have, you may not be perfect at it, but learn to have good words for your spouse, to be affirming and encouraging and loving and gentle and patient and kind and long-suffering and all of the good things that come from walking in the Spirit. And so we thank you for joining us this week, and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today’s show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.
