This podcast episode centers on the critical theme of examining the underlying truths and misconceptions surrounding marriage, particularly as discussed by our esteemed guest, Bob Paul. He articulates that many issues faced by couples often stem from common fears and predictable patterns, rather than unique circumstances.

Dick Foth emphasizes the importance of understanding one's own theology and how it influences daily habits, as well as the significance of fostering healthy listening skills within relationships.

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the profound impact of one's theology on daily habits and relational dynamics, highlighting the intricate connection between beliefs and behaviors.
• Listeners are encouraged to explore the commonality of marital struggles, which often stem from predictable patterns rather than unique individual issues, fostering a sense of unity among couples.
• Effective listening is portrayed as an essential skill in relationships, with practical advice on how to engage in meaningful dialogue by asking questions rather than making statements.
• The concept of sacrifice in marriage is discussed, underscoring that true sacrifice enriches both partners and should not come at the cost of one's own well-being.
• The importance of a 'Cherish List' is highlighted as a tool for couples to remember and appreciate the positive qualities of their partners, countering the tendency to focus on negatives.
• The notion that love is derived from God and must be intentionally received and shared is articulated, suggesting that individuals must open their hearts to experience and express love effectively.

Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity podcast.

Excited to have our friend of the podcast, Dick Fote, on another session of Back Channel with Foe.

Then we're going to jump into our interview with Bob Paul on 9 lies that will destroy your marriage.

Dick, welcome back to the podcast.

Thanks a million.

Always a delight.

Looking forward to it.

Dick, two questions have for you today in your life.

How has your theology influenced your daily habits?

In a couple of weeks, I'm going to be 84.

I'm starting my 85th trip around the sun in a couple of weeks, and I have never in 84 years been asked that question.

Interesting.

And I found it challenging.

And, and so.

But I'm going to jump in.

And so my response, I have a question is, wow, which piece of my theology.

Okay.

Influences my habits?

It, it might.

I mean, because am I speaking of theology like in a creed, or am I talking about a theology that's framed by experience or, or as Tim Keller used to say, by existential reality?

It, it might be that we look at it backwards.

If you look at my habits, what kind of theology would you say I had?

Interesting.

And by theology, I mean my understanding and knowledge of God.

That's what theology means.

Just, just by definition.

I looked this up and I think it was AI.

So it has to be right.

And here's the definition of habit.

A habit is a settled or regular tendency, routine or behavior pattern that is acquired through frequent repetition and often occurs unconsciously.

It's a habit.

So it isn't just what is my written creed?

I would say, and we've had several questions in previous, previous programs, podcasts about friendship or about relationship.

And I would say that my theology has influenced my relational habits enormously.

When I was in seminary, had a seminary professor, I heard this from more than one say, do not get your theology from the narrative.

I took that to mean don't get it from the Gospels and Acts.

Get it from Paul or get it from Peter or John or something in the letters.

Right.

You know, and I read the Gospels and I'd say, well, that, that's exactly where I want to get my theology.

You know, Madeleine l', Engle, the author, said Jesus was not a theologian.

He was God who told stories.

Wow.

And, and this idea that it, if it is knowledge of God, then to the degree that I have a knowledge of Jesus and look at how he spent his time, saw people, reached out in compassion, whatever that describes your theology.

I was meeting with some business leaders some years ago, and one of them said, you know, I, I Try to live my life with biblical values.

And I said, well, I don't, I don't know what all those are, but I could tell you this if, if, if you show me, if you show me your calendar and you show me your credit card statement, I can pretty much tell you what your values are.

And I think so.

So with this question, it really, it really is making me think this question.

So thank you, whoever wrote it or send it in is, is that if you were to construct my theology by my, by looking at my habits, that would be a tremendous exercise.

Yeah.

Because theology does influence my habits.

But I have to decide which part, you know, so forth and great question.

So great and interesting question, Dick.

Next question I have for you is listening is a challenge for me.

Any suggestions on how I can be one, a better listener for my husband and also for my grown children?

So listening is a challenge for me.

Any suggestions on how I can be one, a better listener for my husband and my grown children?

Well, my response to the question is, me too.

Listening is a challenge for me.

From age 5 to age 28, I was a stutterer and I couldn't get all my words out.

I think I've saved them up till later in life.

But this idea, if, if, if you study leadership literature, the thing you keep coming back to is that great leaders are great listeners.

And, and when somebody says of a leader, that Guy's got a 10 year, he pretends that he's listening, but he's not hearing you in the way that you want.

So this is where I would start.

It isn't that you can't use words, but how do you use them?

And if you use them for questions instead of statements, you'll always be a learner.

And you know the old saw that says, you know, if I'm talking, I'm not learning.

That's true.

What's interesting about this is this question about listening is that in the Old Testament and the New Hebrew and Greek, the verb for obey, or the word obey is the verb to hear.

How many times as a kid my mother would say, dick, did you hear me?

With that tone?

And she had clearly asked me to do something couple other times.

And instead of saying, you're a disobedient child, she gave me the benefit of the doubt of having a hearing impediment.

Did you hear me?

So my thing would be, it isn't just asking questions, but it's what question can you ask that would put a listener at ease?

You know, if, speaking of husbands, which I are one for the last 62 years.

Ruth and I learned that when I walked into the house after a long day that we just didn't start up right away with, you know, I need you to do this, this, and this and that.

So we'd say, give me 20 minutes or 30 minutes just to sort of decompress here.

Yeah.

But the.

And oftentimes the wife will say, so tell me about your day.

And the guy says, it was good.

Yeah.

But she hasn't been with him for 8 or 12 hours.

And she.

And she didn't marry the dude for him to say, yeah, it's good.

It's all right, you know, because that's a whole chunk of their life that she hasn't hurt.

Anyway, I'm trying to think of this from a wife's position, but what.

What question might.

Might elicit a response that's not hard to get?

What questions do I ask that might lead to other questions?

And Ruth used to say of our children, to our children around the table, so tell.

Tell us a thing or two today or this week at school for which you could be thankful, just, you know, just that it isn't, how did you do in geometry?

Because I probably wouldn't want to go there.

Right.

But.

But I think at the heart of all of my kinds of questions is what.

What questions will elicit the other person's story?

And even.

Even to say to a child, if.

If I gave you $100, like, what would you like to do with it?

Yeah.

Or that kind of thing.

Yeah.

I think it's impressive that Jesus, when he gets done speaking pretty significant truth.

That's an understatement of the millennia, often asks a question or makes a statement.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Everybody has ears, but not everybody is ready to listen.

And people listening as a.

Hearing is a physical thing, even though you can use it in a different way.

Hearing is sound waves hitting the eardrums.

Listening is intentional, learned behavior.

And I have, on occasion, I have somebody in my life who listens so intently and you can tell by body language and face and tone of question, listens so intensely, it just draws whatever it is out of you.

Ah, good word.

Good word, Dick.

Always enjoy our time on Back Channel with folks.

We're going to go ahead and jump into our interview with Dr. Bob Paul on Nine Lies that Will Destroy your marriage.

Well, there's no time better than now to get started.

So here we go.

Greetings, and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

So excited to be here with a new friend that I found out is also a neighbor.

Bob, Paul, welcome to the podcast.

Oh, so good to be with you, Aaron.

Thank you for having me on, Bob.

We got to spend some have a meal together through our mutual friend Jim Burns, who connected us and it was a joy.

And then to find out we didn't live very far from each other.

And I think the interesting thing is I had listened to you on Focus on the Family and knew your voice, but then to sit down and have a meal was a blessing.

So Bob, for those who have never met you or have not read any of your books or your writings, will you share a little bit about yourself before I start asking you some questions about marriage?

Okay.

Well, Aaron, I am blessed to serve as a vice president at Focus on the Family.

I'm over the Focus Marriage Institute and we started a program.

Dr. Greg Smalley and I began a program over 26 years ago that's now called Hope Restored.

And it's an intensive program for couples who are struggling, who are in crisis.

And we've had a very high success rate over all those years.

We've now served over 15,000 couples from literally all over the and we are just blessed to be able to serve God and help Christian couples who are having a hard time find their way to the blessing that God really has desired for them.

Wow.

And Bob, was this like a master plan that you thought when you were 20, did you think this is what you would be doing today?

Or how did God direct you to this point?

This isn't even close to what I thought.

Matter of fact, at 20, I didn't know the Lord yet.

My wife into the Lord right after my 23rd birthday and, and I accepted him as my Lord and Savior.

We got married right at that time and she was an on fire believer and, and I got to watch her and experience God moving me.

I was a musician at the time and for all we knew that was the life we had in store.

But God knew better.

Yeah, he.

He rescued us out of that lifestyle because we did want a family and moved us eventually toward ministry.

I went into full time ministry eight years later and really it's been then the program that we're in now isn't even close to what I imagine God was doing.

It's been quite a journey of just basically saying yes every time he.

He challenged me to accept a change or a move or, or season opportunity.

And it has grown into something so far beyond anything I could have ever dreamt of.

I wish, I wish I was smart enough to be Able to say, I know that my Lord is the one who has all the smarts, and I am just honored to serve him in any way possible.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Awesome.

For sure.

Bob, you write and you shared just about getting the opportunity to walk with people and couples in their marriage.

But one in your writings, you share that marriage is.

The problems that impact marriages are common and predictable.

How are they?

I think sometimes the enemy makes us think that we're the only one that's ever had this challenge.

And so we.

We think it's so unique.

But at least when I. I've listened to you on Focus on the Family and then read in your book, you say it's common and predictable.

Could you share about that?

Yeah.

You know, it's interesting, Aaron, because we have several different programs that we use to help couples who are struggling.

The one that we work with the most is our group intensive program.

So we have five couples that come to work with two of our therapists, and we've got like 100 therapists.

So there's no.

We don't match people with the therapist.

We just haven't.

We have therapists scheduled.

We have couples that want to come, and we just put them in there, and we trust God knows what he's doing, and he puts people together.

The reason I say is because oftentimes they look at one another and they go, what am I doing here with you?

I have nothing in common with you.

Wow.

And we find, you know, I got the design to be part of the design of all of the programs that we run, and the group is my favorite.

And the reason.

And I tell them this, the reason it's so powerful, is when you get down below the surface of what couples are struggling with, that can oftentimes in their circumstances, they can make people look so different from you and make you think you are so different than them.

And we've got nothing in common.

We find that at the core, there's only a handful of issues that couple struggles with.

Excuse me.

And they're all the same.

There's really not many of them.

And when you really get past all that surface stuff that makes us look so different and you get down to what couples really are struggling with, it's always just one of a few different things that are going on there.

And it makes it so we can relate to one another and learn from one another and not have to feel that we're so weird or so, so messed up that there's no hope for us.

Would you mind sharing some of the common things you Said there's this kind of a couple of things.

What are some of the common things that, that you see?

Well, interestingly, one of the most common at the core is that we.

We grow a series of fears in our lives.

You know, and it's not like, you know, a lot of guys go, I'm not afraid of nothing.

But, you know, the reality is we all have fears.

Even if it's like a fear for a man, a fear of failing, something like that, we've all got those and we've developed them over time because we all grew up in this fallen world and there's basically no way to get from point A to point B to make it through this life without getting stung along the way.

No matter how good your family might have been, no matter how good your school situation might have been, stuff happens.

We get disappointed.

We lose loved ones.

We have.

We get thrown curves.

All these things happen and it ca.

It causes bruises and they develop oftentimes into fears, and I use that word very broadly, something that we're anxious about, something we're avoidant of, something we want to keep from happening at all costs.

And we've all got them now.

They're different.

You and I would have different ones, but we've all got them.

And they tend to play out in predictable patterns because when those things, when those buttons get pushed, we react.

And what's weird is that when we're married, if we're anywhere near our spouse, it will tend to push one of their buttons and they will react.

And we're off to the races.

Wow.

And that is something that is true for all of us.

We've all got that in common.

Again, the details might be different, but the cycle itself is identical.

And it's interesting when we are able to point it out for people, they go, oh, yeah, maybe I'm not that weird.

Maybe that I can see how that could be normal.

And you have that too.

Wow.

That's just one of many.

Wow.

And so.

But you're just illustrated there.

So are people aware of their fears or does that take some work to be.

To understand what our fears are?

Or do they naturally make those connections?

Or do they.

Does that make sense or do they have to begin to think about it?

Most of most people who are aware they have any fears, if they're not just completely avoidant or, you know, withdrawal from it, they might be aware of a couple of them.

But a lot of times what we do is we help couples to, to search in a little bit.

We give them a questionnair prayer that has a number of these things.

Have you ever felt this before when you were in conflict with your spouse or in conflict with anybody?

And, and then we help them to see that that's what it is at its core.

And you know, most of us don't have the, the ideal level of personal insight.

Sure.

And we have really discovered that knowledge is power.

And it's amazing how when you and the Lord are able to, when you allow him to help you see where some of those spots are.

And then we can, we can help you get some ideas on how to, what to do with it so that you and he can help you get to a better place and manage it in effective ways.

It can be a game changer.

Yeah, for sure.

And I think the fast paced world we live in, I don't know if we necessarily have.

We're slowing down enough to actually consider and ponder and think about those specific things.

One of the things that I found you share that focusing on happiness can be detrimental to a marriage.

So I think this idea, you want your marriage to be happy, Right.

You're this happiness idea, but you said that can actually be detrimental.

Could you share more about that?

Sure.

And you know, it's, it's not just that, you know, I think most people want to be happy.

Right.

Understandably.

And then we've got that, that little phrase in the Declaration of Independence that we are, you know, we life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It's built into the Declaration of Independence.

And it's interesting because a lot of times people mistakenly might think that I'm anti happy.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I love happy.

The more the better the problem becomes.

When you make happiness the goal or the measure of success in your marriage, it really is a setup because again, in the fallen world there are going to be hopefully plenty of seasons of happy, but there are going to be situations that occur that are anything but happy.

And if you start thinking, wow, the happiness is fading, that must mean the marriage is in trouble or the happiness is gone and therefore the marriage is gone.

You really have the wrong mindset, the wrong, you're focusing on the wrong thing now.

You know, you hear people talk about joy instead of happiness.

I think that's great also that that's great too.

But really what I really want is to be who God created me to be and be moving in the direction that he calls me to, both personally and relationally.

And you know, when I married my wife, I had bought the story.

You know, the, the whole happily ever after fantasy.

And I really did think it was all about happiness.

And at some point, the holy Spirit really gripped me and help me to see that when I was choosing my wife, Jenny to be my, my wife, I really wasn't choosing my happily ever after partner.

I was using my journeying partner.

Wow.

This is the person that I journey with, you know, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, come May, till death do us part.

We're journeying together, each of us seeking to serve Christ well and be more conformed to his image.

And it takes a lot of different twists and turns.

Again, I'll say, I'll repeat, I love happy and I hope for everybody, including me, I just don't judge the marriage by, in any given moment, how happy I am.

Wow.

Wow.

Good word, good word.

You know, when I was a kid dating, my mom said something one time, she said, you know, you always love people, you always love your spouse, but there's some days you might not like them or, you know, I mean, and you know, I was 18, 19 years old, and I thought, I don't know what she means by that.

But it's kind of that, what you're saying, right?

Love the love there, the journeying partner, you've chosen that.

But there's certain days that maybe it's not happier.

You don't necessarily like, like, like them that much.

So anyway, you share about a cherish list.

What is a cherished list and what's the important importance of creating one?

You know, it's interesting how much many people take for granted the things, the positive things in life, the positive qualities and characteristics of their spouse.

We have a tendency for a lot of reasons to focus on negatives.

It's easy to do because it might be the thing that irritates you, the annoyance, those kind of things.

And they're uncomfortable, so they grab a lot of attention.

And we get to a point where, because we don't typically spend a lot of time thinking about the things that are positive that we really love and value in our spouse, and we spend an awful lot of time thinking about the negatives, even if the amount of negatives maybe are 20% of your spouse.

I mean, nobody's perfect.

And there's 80% of your spouse that you value and enjoy.

If you spend 80% of your time thinking about that 20%, it'll seem like it's 80% of your spouse that you dislike.

And most people, when we lean into it with them, they really do.

If we can help them to set aside the things that are struggling, that they're struggling with, that are irritating them, and try and remember the things that are valuable and don't take those things for granted.

Some of your listeners may be familiar with my former friend, the late Gary Smalley.

And I know my buddy Greg Smalley, who I've worked with for a lot of years, has told a story many times about how once his dad and his mom really got into it, and dad stormed off and dad didn't see him for a while, and Greg went to find him, and he found him in his office, locked in his office with door shut and so forth.

He knocked on the door and his dad said, come in.

And he was sitting at the computer, and Greg said, what are you doing, dad?

And he basically hemmed in hot a little bit.

He said, well, you know, I wrote a list of all the things I love about your mother, and every time I get upset with her, I go to my office and I pull it up on the computer.

It's the last thing I want to do, but I force myself to read through this list of all the things that I love about her.

And it helps me put things in perspective in the difficult moments.

You know, it's interesting.

There's a very famous researcher on marriage out there by the name of John Gottman, and he discovered that he.

That he can predict when he watches couples in his marriage lab, he can predict to a high degree of likelihood who will stay married and who.

Who will get divorced.

And what he found is that the couples that are thriving typically have a five to one positive negative interaction ratio.

So they have five positive interactions to every one negative.

And again, it's so easy to think about and to bring up the stuff that bothers us and to not bother to mention the thing or take for granted the things that.

That.

That we love.

And he's basically helping us to see that.

If you really want to do your marriage a good turn, be intentional to remember and think about the things you appreciate.

So that's what the Cherish list is about, Encouraging people to sit down and write it out.

What are the things that I love about your spouse?

And if you have trouble digging it up, don't give up quick.

Stay with it, because you wouldn't have gotten married if there weren't things about your spouse that you love.

Wow.

Good word.

Good word.

One of the other things you, you.

You write about is this idea that the three essential components of a marriage and the lie of one plus one equals one.

Could you share about that?

Sure.

You know, it's interesting.

You know, we get married in the church and we are told appropriately so that we are to become one.

Yeah.

Unfortunately though, due to the fact that the language was translated from another language, we have multiple English definitions for the word one.

And if you mistakenly think the word one means the number one, you really aren't getting the significance of what it means to be successful in marriage.

Matter of fact, I've had a challenge going to weddings in the last number of years because, you know, I'm a marriage counselor and I unravel problems for people all in our culture and in the church that set.

Set us up to fail.

One of the things, Aaron, that I hate is the unity candle.

Absolutely hate it.

It's terrible theology.

And here's why.

You've got these two individual candles.

We all know the symbol, the two individual smaller candles that represent the people getting married and then the bigger one in the center that represents the relationship.

Okay, so what happens is the two people light their candles, then they take those candles and light that center candle and then what do they do?

They blow them out.

That is such a bad setup.

And here's why.

When you get married, you do add a third entity.

You have the husband and the wife and now the relationship.

All of them are important.

But of the three which are eternal.

Well, it's interesting, you know, if you look scripturally, Jesus made it very clear that we will not be married in heaven.

We'll be there, ideally.

Yeah, but we won't be married.

So what that symbol is suggesting is that when we get married, we take our focus off the individuals that are the eternal beings and all on the temporary relationship and we ignore the people.

Okay, that is terrible.

The people are eternal, not the relationship.

The marriage needs to support the well being of the eternal beings.

Now.

The marriage needs to be attended to.

The relationship cannot thrive if it isn't nurtured, if it isn't watered, if it isn't cultivated.

So yes, you put attention on it, but not by blowing out the individuals.

It's interesting.

I watched some of these things take place at weddings and feel like I want to scream and then shut and then walk afterwards and hand on my card and say, hey, you meant you need to keep this.

You're probably going to need it someday.

I don't want.

But I don't want people to be set up to need me later because we're led down a path to ignore themselves and focus on this temporary relationship at the expense of their well being, which nothing in scripture supports that.

I never thought about it in that direction and very, very super insightful.

Super insightful.

So that I guess that goes to one of the other questions I had for you.

This idea of having the building, foundational building block of a marriage relationship is a healthy individual.

To have a healthy marriage, you have to, you need to have a healthy adult.

And you're right about that.

But it's more thoughts on that being a healthy adult and that being a foundational importance for a healthy marriage.

Well, the basis of it is that if you think about it, the well being, the marriage doesn't apart, doesn't exist apart from the people.

And therefore it can't be healthier than the people in it.

It's not this independent thing that doesn't, can never be healthier than the people.

So we want to encourage the people who are God's children.

Yeah, he wants them.

He wants each of us to be well cared for, filled.

He makes it clear that he came that we would have life to the full.

The thief wants us.

The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.

He wants us empty.

He wants us tapped.

But Jesus said, I came that you would have life to the full more abundantly.

That's what he wants.

Just like we want for our children.

If you think about it, if you see your children out there and they grow up and they're not taking very good care of themselves, it breaks your heart.

Yeah, because you want them to be thriving.

Well, our Father in heaven wants that for his children.

He wants us to be thriving.

But then people are thinking, well, doesn't that make you selfish?

If you're focusing on you and it's interesting because we'll say that, you know, let's define selfish for you.

Selfish is when you make your wants, your needs and your desires more important than the wants, needs and desires of others.

Selfish is not when you make your wants, your needs and your desires as important, that's responsible.

Because I am just as important as Jenny.

Jenny is just as important as me.

And if either one of us choose either of us, the enemy wants us to choose either one over the other.

Doesn't matter.

Choose me over her or I choose her over me.

That's the enemy's game.

You choose, you lose.

The Lord wants us to choose both.

Now, basic scriptural directive that is so clear.

When Jesus was asked, what is the greatest commandment, he said, well, actually it's two.

The first is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, with all your Whole being love him.

And the second is like it, many people pervert the gospel by changing that next part.

Practically speaking, what they rewrite it as is to love your neighbor instead of yourself.

But he didn't say that.

He said to love your neighbor as yourself.

In the same way you care.

In the same way I care for me.

That's how I care for others.

I care well for me.

And then he goes on to say, in Mark, there is no commandment greater than these.

In Matthew, it follows with upon this principle rests all the law and the prophets.

In other words, the whole shooting match is based this principle right here.

And the enemy infiltrates so quickly and subtly to get us to think that thinking about ourselves, taking care of ourselves is the, the opposite of being a faithful Christian follower of Christ.

Which is absolutely not true.

Wow.

Because honestly, if we aren't full, whole and healthy, what are we?

What are we proving to the world?

We claim that Jesus is the answer.

We claim that he has everything that, that they need.

And if we haven't taken time to make sure we're full, whole and healthy.

Here's our evangelistic call.

Let's say I'm only half empty.

Hey, you need to come to church so you can be a half empty vessel like me.

And they're going to look at me and say, what do you have that I don't?

We need to be able to prove to the world what Jesus has claimed, what we claim is true with Christ, that in him he is the source and we have all the fullness of life.

And that's what they're looking for.

And if they want it, they can plug in like we can to our Source.

And they can, they can prove to the world like we are, what's possible with Christ.

And that's.

So that's absolutely critical.

Taking care of yourself responsibly is foundational both to a great marriage and to an effective Christian life.

Wow.

So would that go along with the idea that there are no real marriage problems, but problems people bring into marriage?

So if you have two unhealthy individuals in a relationship, then is that, or is that, would that be a different thought?

I wouldn't go so far as that.

There can be very much difficult problems in marriage.

Okay.

But they are compounded by the personal problems.

Any or all of those things we spend time helping in our world.

We spend time helping people to figure out what they need to do to be really fully who God created them to be and filled up, and then also how to then work together to create A dynamic, satisfying, supportive relationship that honors both of them, honors God and furthers his plan and his kingdom purpose.

Wow, good word sound.

That's like I asked a question that was a man with experienced respondents.

So he, he listened to the question and responded accordingly.

So disagreement on what love is, you know, you talked about, you know, Christ is the example of love for us.

That's where we get our affirmation truly from.

But in a marriage, if, if a couple disagrees on what love is, how can that impact their marriage and their pathway forward?

I think the biggest issue is just not understood in understanding love and how it works.

Because, you know, so many people evaluate where their marriage is at based on how much love they feel.

You know, so it's love.

I can't tell you how many people I've worked with over the years that said, you know, I think this marriage is done.

I've fallen out of love with my spouse.

And the, the implication is, and there's no hope left, that Aaron is one of the least concerning comments that anybody can make to me about the state of the marriage.

Because I'm clear about how love works.

And when they, when we understand it, it opens up all sorts of doors.

Okay, so first John 4.

8 says this.

God is love.

Now notice it doesn't say Bob is love.

It doesn't say Aaron is love.

Listening, you can plug your name in there.

It doesn't say that either.

Not only am I not love, but I don't generate one drop of love from within my being.

I want to love my wife more.

I don't just crank up the old love engine and try and create some love.

It's not this magical, mystical thing.

All of every drop of genuine love comes is God and comes from God.

The only question is whether or not I've got the door open, the top door open to my heart to allow him in, to fill me, and then to decide whether I want to open the front door.

Because I am the.

I don't create love, but I am the keepers of the doors to my heart.

Wow.

And, and I have.

If.

If I'm not feeling love at that moment, it's because somehow I'm obstructing God's love from entering my being.

And, and there's reasons why people do that.

I mean, there's all sorts of reasons, but many times they're not thinking that they are making a decision or they're doing things or setting themselves up in a way, or they're afraid, too afraid to open the door or whatever it is.

And they're thinking it's just dissipated and it's gone.

And that's never the case.

Never, never, never.

It's that they said we've somehow obstructed God's love and God's love for our spouse entering into us so that we can experience it and then send it on.

This is a tangential question, but are there com.

Are there common ways that you've seen that people are blocking God's love?

And in that description you just shared about opening your heart and then closing your heart, are there common ways that you've seen that I've seen this but.

Or you've seen that before?

Absolutely, yes.

And again, I think the most common one is somebody does something that upsets us or that scares us, that threatens us, that hurts our feelings, that disappoints us, us, and we react.

And when we get into a position of a fear, of any type of fear, any level of fear, from any mild anxiety to terror, what we tend to do is we go like this.

We take the doors to our heart, we clamp them down and we go into our shell.

And then it can feel at that moment like God is a million miles away.

And the reality is our Lord is such an incredible gentleman that he will never force himself upon us.

He will just stand at the door and knock.

But unless I open that door, he's not going to be in.

And it can feel like he's abandoned us.

But what's really happened is that for oftentimes good reasons, sometimes there's plenty of reasons why we would shut the door.

But we have shut that door.

Not just the front door, but in fear we don't think about it.

We just hunker down in our little cave and hide and hope that things are going to be okay.

Not realizing that we've cut out the Lord.

Wow.

And, and what the, the realities of that is healthy sacrifice in a marriage.

What, what when you, what does that look like when, if somebody bring up that topic and talk about healthy sacrifice, how would you describe it and what would it practically look like?

Well, one of the, the challenges that I see with people with the idea of sacrifice, which by the way, I will, I will tell you, I believe is a very significant part of the Christian, Christian life.

We are called to set to be sacrificial.

I think though that where it gets messed up is that people mistakenly think that sacrifice means sacrificing who you are in your well being.

And it really, it really isn't meant to be looked at that way.

They consider themselves as less than, you know, consider others better than yourself, you know, when there is a scripture that leads us down that path.

But what most people don't follow up with is what Paul said right after, which is, you know, basically don't just seek, not your own, just your own well being or whatever, I don't remember the exact word, unfortunately at this moment, but also consider others.

So it's basically saying it's trying to counter the tendency to become very self centered and wanting us to be both caring for us and for others.

Now in order for sacrifice to be valuable, to be meaningful, to really make a difference in someone's life, you have to first recognize that what you have to give is of great value.

And it's amazing how much what we call lovingly worm theology has infiltrated many in the church to think that I'm, you know, I'm not just this abject sinner, but that my core, I'm worthless or I'm less than or something like that.

And you know, that's certainly not the way our Lord sees us.

And I'm convinced that's not the truth about who we are because, you know, I got a high degree of confidence that our Lord doesn't make junk.

And that when he made every one of us and everyone listening, he went, wow, did good there.

And that's true of all.

We are of high value.

So to be able to sacrifice meaningfully, you have to recognize that what you have to give is in itself a very high value.

Whether it be your time, whether it be your energy, whether it be your love, whether it be your money, whatever it is, it's of great value.

And then you need to manage the asset.

You are the asset.

All the aspects of you are an incredible asset of God.

And then you need to manage it well, to take good care of yourself, to make sure after you give generously and your resources go down, you refill.

Yeah.

And then you give and then you fill and then you give.

And then the last thing of sacrifice is.

Sacrifice at its core is really meant to be an investment, you know, and in all ways investments are supposed to be something that, that don't just land and go nowhere, but they're, they're.

There's something that God uses to multiply his goodness and his grace and his mercy and his life and his love and his truth.

So I'm investing.

If I'm investing in you or I'm investing in my wife, I'm taking something that God has given me of great value.

I'm Taking good care of it so I can invest it strategically as he gives direction in order for it to be used to be multiplied by God.

And that way his, that's the way his economy works.

He wants all of that, what he gives us to be, be invested in a way like the parable of the talents.

You know, the, the, the, the poor steward that buried his talent was really scolded.

The ones who invested it so that it could be used by God to grow and be more.

Those are the ones who were praised.

And he wants each of us to think of sacrifice in those terms.

It's something that we can invest as God directs to glorify and grow the kingdom and his plan and purpose.

Wow, Bob, if there's somebody listening in and maybe there was a season of their marriage where they were that sacrifice and investing in their, in their, their spouse was something that brought, they did, maybe naturally it brought joy, but maybe they're in a season now where that's not, they're having trouble doing that and for whatever reasons.

Any words of wisdom for them?

Yeah, that's a, that's a powerful question, Aaron, because there are so many people we know who are in that season.

First and foremost.

It's so important to, to look to the Lord and to be asking him to meet you in that place of disappointment and difficulty and, and realize that you're not being selfish and self centered to ask him to fill you.

Because, you know, I had to learn the hard way being going into my marriage as a card carrying codependent.

You know, I'm a psychologist by trade and that's a good psychobabble term.

But, but you know, I looked to my wife to fill me up and to bless me and to make me feel good and to make me feel loved.

And I didn't realize that I more or less turned her into an idol.

And you know, I had a friend once tell me, Bob, women make lousy idols and so do men.

To not be looking to Jenny to be my source, but to continue to be looking to the Lord doesn't mean that you don't have genuine sadness or disappointment when things don't go the way you'd like.

But my ability to be whole and healthy, my ability to be filled is not contingent upon what Jenny does or doesn't do.

It's really contingent upon my relationship with God.

Even in the difficult times, he will meet me there always.

And sometimes when I need it most is in those difficult times to just say, lord, I'm tapped, I'm struggling.

Please be with me now.

This is hard, this is disappointing, this is heartbreaking, which sometimes life is just plain heartbreaking and there is hope for that.

Can I guarantee that that will translate into the marriage of your dreams?

No can do.

Every.

Can we help you be empowered to be set up to increase the likelihood that that's possible?

Absolutely, yes.

Can we give you an ironclad guarantee?

Not on this planet.

Not in this fallen world, for sure.

For sure.

Majority of the people that are listening into this podcast, Bob, are involved in some type of ministry, whether that's missionaries or pastors.

And there's, there's many that are not, but a large percentage are.

Any words of wisdom for, because I know focus that has a heart and passion for those that are involved in ministry.

Any words of wisdom maybe for a missionary or a pastor that's listening in on how they can walk out and invest in their marriage in a healthy way for the future?

Well, you know, it's interesting because I get blessed regularly to be able to work with people in ministry and, and I am so grateful because, you know, I work for Focus on the Family, which is a, a parachurch ministry.

Our we, we know that we can't be the answer to this world.

The people on the front line, many who I'm sure are your listeners, have to be the ones that, that are going to make the difference.

They're the ones having the direct contact with the people that are struggling, healing, that are going into places where maybe are unreached or minimally reached for the Gospel.

And Focus on the Family wants everybody listening to know that we want to be a resource for you, that our purpose for being is to support and resource you as people in full time ministry.

Because we know that the enemy has a target.

You know, as soon as you make the decision to follow Christ and to serve him, it's like painting a king sized target on your chest and the enemy's going to come at you because you're a bigger threat by, by deciding to serve Christ.

And we understand that and we are regularly doing everything we can to create support and resources to, to be, be in your back pocket and available to you to help you be whole and healthy as individuals.

Because obviously we need to prove to the world what's possible.

And so many ministers think that they need to focus on everybody out here and ignore themselves and ignore their family, which is a lie from the enemy.

It's a lie from hell.

We need to be whole and healthy for the congregants that we work with, for the people we're serving so that they see hope when they look in our eyes and they see that light of Christ.

They see the, the heart of Christ.

They see the life in us and they want what we have.

And if we don't have it, we can't be that.

So that would be both personally and relationally.

That needs to be to the best of our ability in our families so that we can be a draw to the light and a draw to Christ to be their source.

So we want to support people in every way possible toward those ends.

And we are always coming up with new ways to do that.

Yeah.

Bob, you mentioned, when we were having lunch, you mentioned several different places around the country that offer that possibly people could connect with as far as to help enrich the marriage.

Could you share where those locations are at?

And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you if you'd pray for us.

Sure.

Yeah.

We have a location in Branson, Missouri.

We have a location in Wimberley, Texas.

We have one in Cave Creek, Arizona and we have one in Greenville, Michigan.

Okay.

And we do, we do our, Our Hope Restored intensives for couples in crisis.

And just want you to know that we have a, an immediate discount for anybody that's in full time ministry.

You just have to let us know and we immediately cut the price because again, we want to, we want to support you.

We also do weekend getaways, we do retreats, we pamper you for Friday night, all day, Saturday and Sunday morning.

And we're so committed to people in ministry that if you are a full time pastor or missionary and you let us know, you come for free, you just gotta get there.

Yeah.

Because we, we want to do everything we can, as I said, to minister to those who are struggling, especially those in ministry.

Wow.

Wow.

And I appreciate for 100 your heart for that and heart to encourage marriage.

Bob, it was great to have lunch with, with you and it was, it's been great to spend some time together today.

Will you pray for us?

I'd be happy to.

Lord Jesus, we are just so grateful that we have the opportunity to serve you, Lord.

We know that you don't need us, that you are more than capable of doing it all on your own.

But for some reason you don't want to do it without us.

You want us to be plugged in and be part of the unfolding of your kingdom and your plan and your purpose.

And we are honored to have the opportunity to serve you in that way.

And we are so thankful.

Lord, I just ask that you bless every one of us, Everyone listening, Lord.

Just let them feel you close to their heart and close to their need, Lord, whatever it is that you would guide and that you would encourage, Lord, and thank you.

And we just pray that everything that we do today and going forward brings glory and honor to your name and helps further your kingdom plan and your purpose.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.