Marriage After God

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Don't Forget Who Is At Work Within You Feb 08, 2021

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“The beauty of the body of Christ is that each and every part is unique, your marriage included, and God will use your uniqueness for His purposes if you let Him.” - Marriage After God Book Are you a Christian? Do you love God and His Word? Then you are We want to encourage you in your identity in Christ. We want to remind you that you are not lesser no matter what part of the body you are.And If you are struggling with doubt at all we want to encourage you to trust and know that God has given to you just like he has given to every other believer His spirit.READ TRANSCRIPT[Jennifer] Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast.[Aaron] We're your hosts, I'm Aaron.[Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer.[Aaron] We've been married for 14 years.[Jennifer] And we have five young children.[Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God, and closer to each other.[Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together, including our newest book "Marriage After God", the book that inspired us to start this podcast.[Aaron] "Marriage After God" is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.[Jennifer] To reflect His love.[Aaron] To be a light in this world.[Jennifer] To work together as a team.[Aaron] Using what he has given us.[Aaron] To build his kingdom.[Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey.[Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together.[Aaron] This is "Marriage After God." Welcome back to another episode of the "Marriage After God" podcast we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your hosts.[Jennifer] Hi.[Aaron] How's it going? We're so glad you're here. And I just wanted to let we love you. And this episode is gonna be some Bible. I don't know if we, do we ever-[Jennifer] Some Bible .[Aaron] Do you ever talk about the Bible in this podcast?[Jennifer] It's kind of a lot of Bible. Actually, that's a good note. If you wanna follow along in this episode with your Bible, I think it could encourage you.[Jennifer] Yeah, we're gonna be first, not 1 Corinthians. We're in breathing Colossians[Jennifer] 1 Colossians.[Aaron] 1 Colossians. 1 Colossians 3.[Jennifer] So I know, we mentioned that we're gonna be in a lot of Scripture today. I wanted to start with one random scripture that doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about. And that's just because I was really encouraged by it. A friend was sharing from Proverbs:27,17. Which says, "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." And I don't know if I just read the ESV version. Is that right? Okay. And he basically said, it doesn't say iron sharpens wood, or is sharpened by any other means it was the same compound, it was iron and iron. And I just loved that. It was such a small little tidbit of recognizing word choice in the Bible that I thought that's really cool because...[Aaron] What are you-It shows the importance of why we need other Christians in our life. Because we sharpen one another when we believe the same and we operate off the same principles and the same-[Aaron] And we rub up against each other.[Jennifer] Yeah.[Aaron] Being in relationship, and fellowship.[Jennifer] And fellowship and all of that is so important. And it wouldn't work. If it was any other compound. It wouldn't work if those people weren't Christians, if they weren't reading God's word or abiding in Him.[Aaron] They're made of the same stuff.[Jennifer] They're made of the same stuff. The same property, the same people, right?[Aaron] Yeah. I remember what you were talking about. It was really good. Because we need we need people in our life. We can't do this alone.[Jennifer] Yeah.[Aaron] An iron rod just sitting there by itself, it's not getting sharpened .[Jennifer] Right, not gonna do anything, just sitting there-[Aaron] I will actually just sit and corrode and not be useful.[Jennifer] Yeah. So just a small encouragement for... An actually is kind of what we're gonna be talking about today. But it is good to-[Aaron] Oh yeah, look at that.[Jennifer] Be reminded that we need people.[Aaron] I think people are gonna think we planned it that way.[Jennifer] I didn't, I promise. Here I'll throw in a freebie, a different thing. 'Cause I like to start these intros with something fun. For any of you who are parents of small children. I forgot how fun these are, but I grew up on a old telephone with a long cord.[Aaron] The rotary phones.[Jennifer] You know, the kind that plugs into the wall. We're also used to cell phones now. I don't know if people even have phones like this anymore that actually work. But I was at an antique store, thrift store, and I found one for really cheap. And I just thought, "Oh, the kids will have a blast playing with this pretend in the playroom." So I bought one, and Olive won't stop playing with it today. She literally, I'm not kidding you. I was doing some school with Elliot. And she was standing behind you had like this little kids kitchenette thing. And she was on the... It was one of those, what are they called? Rotary phones?[Aaron] The rotary phone, yeah.[Jennifer] And she has-[Aaron] With the cord.[Jennifer] Right, with the cord. And she's got one end up to her ear and she's playing with the cord with her finger. And I look over and she's got a pillow stuffed under her shirt. And she's talking to someone, her best friend on the phone about her pregnancy. And about how hard it's been lately. But she's talking as if like-[Aaron] Who taught her to do the finger twirl thing-[Jennifer] I don't know. It was so funny. So anyways, it was a very cheap piece of fun for the kids and a little bit of history.[Aaron] That's a really funny story. I think Olive's awesome. Getting into the episode. If you haven't done so yet, would you leave us a review today. Star rating a review, we love those. They're very impactful to us. And they help other people find the episode. We'd love if you did that. And one more thing, we've been heavily promoting our marriage prayer challenge this season. It's the beginning of a new year. We're just hoping to get a lot of people just getting in the habit of prayer this year. God wants us to be praying people. So we made this prayer challenge it's completely free, so that it encouraged you and inspire your prayer life for your marriage. It's marriageprayerchallenge.com. It's completely free. It's a 31 day challenge, where we send you an email with a prompt for something specific to pray for, for your husband or your wife. And if your husband and wife are listening, right now, both you go sign up together, it would be awesome, we can be praying for each other.[Jennifer] Do it. Okay, so the title of this episode is, Don't Forget Who is at Work Within Us, within you?[Aaron] Within Me. You.[Jennifer] Were all listening.[Aaron] Yeah. This is for all of us. Because we can forget.[Jennifer] But we're not gonna. Okay. Let's back it up just a bit. We wrote "Marriage After God", which This podcast was inspired because of. But the "Marriage After God" book which came out a year and a half ago now, it was a message that Aaron and I had been learning and experiencing in our own life in marriage. And it was a message we found incredibly impactful. So we wanted other marriages to experience it. So we wrote this book, laid it all out for you. And there's quite a bit to unpack in "Marriage After God". But the premise is that, everyone, everyone, you, me, everyone listening, especially marriages as a unit, we all have a place and a purpose in the body of Christ in the church. Operating in this world, not for ourselves but for God.[Aaron] When you say everyone, you're talking about believers.[Jennifer] Believers.[Aaron] In the body of Christ.[Jennifer] Yeah.[Aaron] Yeah. So there's not some believers that don't have a purpose?[Jennifer] No.[Aaron] There's not like, not like one or two that-[Jennifer] We all.[Aaron] Every single one of us.[Jennifer] This is a quote from "Marriage After God", it says, "The beauty of the body of Christ is that each and every part is unique, your marriage included. And God will use your uniqueness for his purposes, if you let Him."[Aaron] So that's what we wanna encourage you in this episode, is to recognize that you are not excluded from the body of Christ, or from usefulness to Christ in His body. You're a part of it.[Jennifer] God does use our uniqueness for His glory. Another reason why we shouldn't compare, right? Which is something else we talked about in the book. But even though we are all unique and our marriages are too, we are still part of only one body. One.[Aaron] Yeah, the body of Christ.[Jennifer] Yeah. And there's things about us that are the same as others. And it is in those bonds of unity and likeness, that we find camaraderie, comfort, support, as that one body.[Aaron] It's also where you find the message of the gospel of Christ in the church as a whole, but also in our marriages. It's another theme that we talked about in the book is that... I actually talked about this a couple Sundays ago, that our marriage is an earthly symbol of a heavenly truth. And that's what we're trying to get at is your marriage and you individually, what God has put in us and wants to use in us is important and valuable and shouldn't be overlooked. So it's awesome as though all of us may be unique and have unique giftings and talents and resources, and God's gonna use us with those but the purpose is the same, that we're used to share his testimony.[Jennifer] Of Jesus.[Aaron] Of Jesus, yeah.[Jennifer] What Jesus did.[Aaron] Is to be shared with all.[Aaron] Yeah, yeah. Those unifying principles, those bonds that I was talking about, those are the things that stand out in a Christians life. And they're from the Bible, right Aaron?[Aaron] Yeah, the word is living and active in our lives. And what we wanna do in this episode is we wanna encourage you because I've known people that don't feel used or useful. They don't feel capable. They look at other people and they say, "Well, I'm not like them. I don't have their gifts. I don't have their talents. God can't use me. I'm not in that position. I'm not a paid this or that." But that's so far from the truth. 'Cause the truth is that God has arranged the parts in the body as you see fit. And He's given gifts to all of us that He sees fit.[Jennifer] And I also wanna add, you just explained it from the standpoint of someone who may think they've never had enough or to share, or to do, or to participate in that way. And then I've also seen where some people do believe even for a short moment, or even a long moment, that they might be able to participate in the body of Christ but then there're seasons where they doubt, or there're seasons where they're just, don't feel like they're enough, or there're seasons where they are just conflicted in their belief of what is true. So we wanna encourage you guys today, we wanna encourage you if that's where you're at, we wanna encourage you in your identity in Christ in the body and the part that you do play, that you're not lesser. Just because you have a different purpose or function in the body. Right? And if you're struggling with doubt at all, a little bit, or a lot of bit , we're here for you. We're gonna often encourage you.[Aaron] We do this. There's been several times that we asked ourselves, "What are we doing? Why are we doing this podcast? Why are we doing this book?" And we have to submit it to the Lord and we get reminded that it's for Him, and He's gonna use us how He sees fit. And so we get to be encouraged that we're a part of that body, we're part of His body. Just doing our part. Just doing what He has for us. This is what the Bible says, listeners, Christians, about us. Colossians 3:10-11. "And I put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." I just wanna stop for a second. We put on a new self as a believer, there was the old self that's been put away that we constantly are putting to death, that old self. And it says putting on the new self, walking in newness of life, new creation, these are the words words that the Bible uses about the believer. So we put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. So we're being renewed by knowledge. So the Word of God, the Holy Spirit speaking to us working in us after the image of its creator. So the new self that we've put on the image of its creator is what we're being renewed in. And then it says in verse 11, "Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all." So raise your hand if you are part of that all.[Jennifer] I'm raising my hand.[Aaron] Yeah, I'm sure everyone listening .[Jennifer] Nobody's raising their hand babe.[Aaron] I think someone did. So if Christ is all and in all, so for the believer who's put on the new self and being renewed but in the image of its creator, Christ is you and in you because we are the body of Christ. Doesn't matter who you are in the body. This is true for you. It's not true for some believers. This believer over here that does this mighty thing. And this blue bar here that has this big ministry, no, it's true for every believer in the body of Christ.[Jennifer] So when it comes to identity, it's Him. Like, we're in Christ so we're one with his identity.[Aaron] So we put off the old identity that was a child of wrath, the Bible talks about, and we've put on a new identity which is Christ Himself.[Jennifer] Which also means that there's no distinction between who we once were, and who we are now in Christ.[Aaron] Which I think is a huge, like, we have this hard time as believers where we still see the old self, you know? And I think that that struggle happens, that's often where we feel disqualified, or we feel like we can't be used as we see that old self. And who we once were.[Jennifer] Yeah, we start to doubt when we see that person and say, "See, that's who I am." And not saying not reminding yourself who you actually are is in Christ.[Aaron] So we're reminding you that you are in Christ. And so He says up here, "No Greek or Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian." He gives all these categories, these groups of people. And as believers, we're not to dis divide ourselves into these groups. We're not to divide ourselves in any groups based on who we are, we're in the flesh. Instead, we live together with one identity, one identity.[Jennifer] The bride of Christ.[Aaron] We are the bride of Christ. We're his people.[Jennifer] I think we hear in terms like the bride of Christ, or the body of Christ, and we see this picture of a body, but full of people. I don't know if you see it like this, I see it like this.[Aaron] Like, all stacked on top each other.[Jennifer] Yeah, I kind of like just-[Aaron] I've never visualized that. Now I am 'cause you said it.[Jennifer] Sometimes I'd see it like that, which is beautiful. But let's not forget that Christ is the head of that body. We exist because…

Full show notes at the publisher

Are you really loving? Feb 01, 2021

Show notes

In our modern-day culture, the word Love is not as defined as it used to be, or at least it used in a much broader sense and as a result has become diluted. And the love of some things cannot be the same love that we have for people, is it? No. obviously Join the Free 31-Day Marriage Prayer Challenge Today!HTTP://marriageprayerchallenge.comREAD THE TRANSCRIPT[Jennifer] Welcome to the marriage after God podcast.[Aaron] We're your hosts, I'm Aaron.[Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer.[Aaron] We've been married for 14 years.[Jennifer] And we have five young children.[Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story and hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other.[Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together, including our newest book "Marriage After God", the book that inspired us to start this podcast.[Aaron] "Marriage After God" is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.[Jennifer] To reflect his love.[Aaron] To be a light in this world.[Jennifer] To work together as a team.[Aaron] Using what he has given us.[Jennifer] To build his kingdom.[Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey.[Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together.[Aaron] This is, Marriage After God.[Aaron] Welcome back. We're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God podcast. How are you doing Jennifer?[Jennifer] I'm good.[Aaron] Yeah, what are you drinking?[Jennifer] I'm drinking hot chocolate.[Aaron] I got a cup of coffee. This is like our second time now doing like having drinks while we're-[Jennifer] Yeah, last time we both had tea, which was?[Aaron] Interesting.[Jennifer] Fun.[Aaron] I like tea. But I love coffee way more. So I'm having some coffee right now.[Jennifer] Speaking of drinks, me and the kids were learning about water this week, which is just fascinating. I think that if you haven't had a chance to study water, I just want to encourage you that you should, cause it's cool. But did you know that it takes like 45 to 50 gallons of water just to make one cup of orange juice?[Aaron] Are you talking about like from the ground, like the tree?[Jennifer] Yeah, like what's required to produce a cup of orange juice.[Aaron] Oh, the amount of oranges.[Jennifer] Yeah, not 50 gallons of water to mix with frozen orange juice concentrate.[Aaron] So, for the tree to grow the amount of oranges necessary, it takes about 45 to 50 gallons of water. That's actually incredible.[Jennifer] Cause it's over time, that the orange grows.[Aaron] So when I have a couple of oranges, it's like drinking 50 gallons of water. That's my water for the month.[Jennifer] I don't know, I thought it was interesting.[Aaron] That's awesome.[Jennifer] Little tidbit that I memorized this week. But also I gotta say one more thing about water, because as we were reading this book, this orange juice fact was one of them in there, but it also said that, and I didn't know this, Aaron did you know this?[Aaron] Nope.[Jennifer] Let me say it first. That a snowflake, how it's made, and you can look this up, like if you Google the definition of a snowflake. Although be careful, look up the scientific like.[Aaron] Of snow.[Jennifer] Of snow, a snowflake.[Aaron] Yeah, that's funny.[Jennifer] How it's composed is actually ice crystals forming around a piece of dust.[Aaron] Okay.[Jennifer] Okay, and I sat there and I, my jaw dropped and the kids were like, what mom? And I'm like, wow, the Bible talks about how, well, that hymn popped up into my mind, he washes us white as snow. And I thought, you know, the Bible talks about how as people we're made from the dust, Adam was made from the dust. And here's this picture of a dust molecule flying through the air, surrounded by snow, ice crystals, and that's what makes a snowflake. I just thought it was such a beautiful picture. So I had to look it up and Isaiah 1:18 says, "Come now let us reason together says the Lord, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they are red, like crimson, they shall become like wool." And so there's this contrast of what we've done and that color of Crimson, that red, and they shall be as white as snow, pure white, no shadows.[Aaron] It's almost like God designed it that way. He had a cool, these pictures of the gospel.[Jennifer] I know but it's like hidden because no one goes around looking up, what is a snowflake? We all just assume it's snow.[Aaron] I've known about snowflakes for a long time but didn't know that they were formed around dust. I just thought they're formed in the air.[Jennifer] I think it's so phenomenal, I think it's so pretty, I love it.[Aaron] And it is, when the Bible tells us that, he is a hidden attributes, his divine nature is seen clearly in nature. I think that's awesome. And we're seeing little bits of this like these truths that God has in the Bible, but it's also shown in nature, which is amazing.[Jennifer] Yeah, I saw another verse, Hebrews 10:22, not quite about snow or snowflakes, but talking about water. And it says, "Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." I thought that was another really just great verse that happened to pop up when I was researching about snow.[Aaron] And these are good verses to remember as Christians because that's who we are. Because there's times that we don't feel that way. Cleansed, washed white as snow. You know, the enemy comes in and reminds us of our filth, reminds us of our sin, those things the wrong thoughts, the attitudes, and then the Holy Spirit says, well, no I'm cleansing you of that. And I'm growing you, and I'm maturing you. So let's move forward.[Jennifer] Let's be something beautiful, like the uniqueness of a snowflake. Which I love because it's covering the dust. The ice, it covers it. And I love that picture. And a bonus when I was looking up pictures of a snowflake online, and there was these pictures like super zoomed in, on a snowflake, and when light hits it, it reflects a prism, a rainbow, because the composition is still water, and I love that. I love that this whole picture within one of the smallest things that we see with our eyes is a snowflake. And you get the dust molecule, the snow surrounding it, God's promise of a rainbow right there.[Aaron] That's awesome.[Jennifer] I don't know, it was just mind blowing to me.[Aaron] So next time you see a snowflake, think about yourself, think about God making you white as snow.[Jennifer] Yeah.[Aaron] And that's awesome, it's a gospel.[Jennifer] Cool little intro there.[Aaron] That was a really good intro, yeah.[Jennifer] You're welcome.[Aaron] We just wanna invite you if you have not done so, but many of you have, so we just wanna thank you. Many of you have left reviews and ratings for this podcast, and you've done them in various places wherever you listen to this podcast, you've left reviews and we love that. But if you haven't yet, if you haven't given us a star rating or review and you've been blessed by this podcast, would you do that today? Would you bless us by leaving a review that helps people find the podcast? It helps all the algorithms know how to rank our podcast. And it helps people that, when they find our podcast to know what it's about and what peoples testimonies are.[Jennifer] It's also kinda like a virtual high five. So if you wanna high five Aaron and I for what we do for you here on Marriage After God, give us a high five.[Aaron] I like that, a virtual high five. This is a review that someone left, and it says this, I can't say their name. I don't know how to say that. Anyways it says me and my husband are literally all for this podcast. We love how real they are and how they use personal experiences to teach us from their perspective. I love you guys, excited for the next channel. Love that. I think they're probably talking about next episode maybe .[Jennifer] Or next season.[Aaron] Next season. Anyways, we just, we love getting these. We love reading them. And so if you wanna leave one of those today, that'd be awesome. And like Jennifer said, it'd be like giving us a high five virtually. So thank you.[Jennifer] We'd also like to encourage you guys to sign up for the marriage prayer challenge. You just go to marriageprayerchallenge.com and sign up and you'll get 31 prayers over the next 31 days, encouraging you to pray for your spouse. So if you're listening alongside your spouse make sure that both of you guys sign up.[Aaron] marriageprayerchallenge.com, it's completely free.[Jennifer] All right Aaron, you've been excited about this topic. This was kind of your desire, right?[Aaron] Yeah, probably because it's one of the biggest things I need to work on.[Jennifer] You didn't have to admit that.[Aaron] Well, I'm just tryna be honest.[Jennifer] All right.[Aaron] Yeah as I was rereading through the notes I'm like, yep, this is something that I need. So, I'm not coming from expertise in this, other than coming from what the word says. And it's something that me and you care about, and want to be better in, and want to walk in.[Jennifer] Always.[Aaron] Love, walking in love. It should be so easy, right?[Jennifer] It's easy to say.[Aaron] It's easy to say. That's kinda what we're gonna talk about today. It's so easy to say actually.[Jennifer] Should we tell them who said I love you first? This has nothing to do with our notes or what we're gonna talk about today but, let them guess, wait, ready?[Aaron] Let them have a few seconds. So if you're listening, who do you think told the other that they love them first? And we're talking about us.[Jennifer] Aaron or Jen?[Aaron] Aaron or Jen? Okay.[Jennifer] Okay, ready? I did. It was me.[Aaron] Everyone is rather like, yeah.[Jennifer] I was patient, I waited for you but that's okay.[Aaron] You wanted to say you loved me when you knew of me in high school, didn't you? Like and I didn't even know.[Jennifer] That's okay.[Aaron] That's right. I mean you loved. Yes you did, you said you love me first. Wait, did I actually, did I tell you I loved you back?[Jennifer] Of course, after some silence and making me nervous, and me wanting to like jump out of the car cause I was so embarrassed. You made me...[Aaron] Well it's a big word.[Jennifer] I was already like, what is it called? Blushed, blushed?[Aaron] Yeah, blushing.[Jennifer] Blushed you. Just kidding. I had already pink cheeks from being embarrassed from saying it because I just wanted to get it out there, and then you made my cheeks red.[Aaron] Red faced.[Jennifer] Red faced.[Aaron] Anyways we did pronounce our love for each other in my car. So that's a fun little tidbit for everyone listening about us, that Jennifer said she loved me first.[Jennifer] I'll say this, I think we both knew way before anyone ever said it.[Aaron] Yeah, so it wasn't that we had no idea.[Jennifer] And you weren't surprised by me saying it.[Aaron] I wasn't, it was more of a...[Jennifer] There it's out.[Aaron] Yeah, we were being slow.[Jennifer] Patient.[Aaron] To say the word. Because it meant something. Which is what we're talking about today, what it means. And this idea of love. And saying it, and other things around love.[Jennifer] All right, let's jump in.[Aaron] Love's a big word. Like I just mentioned a second ago.[Jennifer] I mean it's four letters, yeah I get your point.[Aaron] It's not a big word in length, but it's a big word in meaning, right? But here's the problem, and this is why I wanted to start this way, is that the problem with love being a big word is we use it in a lot of ways, right?[Jennifer] Yeah like I love my plants. I love my house. I love our cereal, ice cream, right?[Aaron] Yeah, music.[Jennifer] What do you love Aaron?[Aaron] Pizza, I love pizza.[Jennifer] You think being a pizza delivery guy would deter you from pizza loving.[Aaron] No in fact it increased my love for pizza. If you didn't know anything, at one of my earlier jobs as a pizza delivery driver, I loved it. It was actually, while we knew each other.[Jennifer] Yeah.[Aaron] Early on in our relationship. But I do love pizza. I love trying new things, like a little adventurous things. I really love board games. I think you do too. We're like game people.[Jennifer] Why? I'm competitive, so it actually doesn't matter what we're playing or what we're doing, as long as I win.[Aaron] You like competition, you like winning.[Jennifer] I love winning. I love winning. Don't you guys love winning?[Aaron] Yeah. I love movies. So it's kind of unfortunate and actually nice because I watch less movies, but with all the movie theaters being shut and all that stuff, but I do love movies. Watch them way less than I used to but, we love lots of things. So, but there's other kinds of things that we love, right? With a different kind of love.[Jennifer] I'd say a deeper kind of love.[Aaron] Yeah. Like I love our kids. I love you.[Aaron] That's good. Do you love me like you like cereal?[Jennifer] Different.[Aaron] Those are different levels of love.[Jennifer] I like you both. No, but we love each other. We love our friends. We love God. We love Jesus.[Aaron] But that's definitely not the same kind of love. They're different. Like my love of pizza, or my love of my children, they're not even in the same planetary alignment. They're not in the same category.[Jennifer] That was a weird thing to say but I get you.[Aaron] But they're the same word. And I feel like in our modern day culture the word love is not as defined as it used to be. Like we use love for a lot of things.[Jennifer] It's used like on a broader sense.[Aaron] Yeah, it's diluted, it's used to have so much more meaning especially in the Bible. But now like we just, I love that, I love this. Like everything's, we love everything. But they cannot be the same kind of love. And it's obvious that there are different kinds of love, but it's hard when we use the same word for all different kinds of love. Would you agree?[Jennifer] Yeah, like when I say that I love you, it's not the same kind of love that I am saying that I love those other things.[Aaron] In essence when we use love it's more like I really enjoy these things. I really like these things, I desire these kinds of things, I want these things.[Jennifer] Well you know me, I love talking about definition. So, who gets to define love? Is it culture, modern history, poems, magazines?[Aaron] I would say currently those are the things that define current cultures word for love. The news, the magazines, movie stars or pop stars. How they are saying this is what love is.[Jennifer] How they use it we kind of all just follow along. But, I mean we do know as believers that, the creator himself has defined love.[Aaron] That's true. He's the one who gets to say what it is, and what it means. Not the world, not even ourselves, because we can even at times define what love is, which is kind of what I wanna discuss, we wanna discuss in this episode, is we do this ourselves, when we say, well, I love you. But it doesn't always add up. So with society using the word love in so many different ways, many things defining it, it'…

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Raise Your Hand If You Need Some Rest! Jan 25, 2021

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Rest is a wonderful and amazing idea! We are so glad God came up with it. The word rest in the old Testament is Sabbath. So in today's episode, we talk about rest, Sabbath, and the importance of it in our lives.

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How To Delight In The Lord and Your Spouse Jan 18, 2021

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de·light | \ di-ˈlīt , dē- \ a high degree of gratification or pleasure : JOY Do you delight in the Lord? How about your spouse? In This episode, we talk about the joy of delighting in the Lord and your spouse rather than simply existing with them. God Take the FREE Marriage Prayer Challenge.Marriageprayerchallenge.comREAD TRANSCRIPT[Jennifer] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast.[Aaron] We're your hosts. I'm Aaron.[Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer.[Aaron] We've been married for 14 years.[Jennifer] And we have five young children.[Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other.[Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together, including our newest book, "Marriage After God," the book that inspired us to start this podcast.[Aaron] "Marriage After God" is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.[Jennifer] To reflect His love.[Aaron] To be a light in this world.[Jennifer] To work together as a team.[Aaron] Using what He has given us.[Jennifer] To build His kingdom.[Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey.[Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together.[Aaron] This is Marriage After God.[Aaron] Welcome back, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your hosts of the Marriage After God podcast. We have a fun topic for you today. A light one and we think you're gonna enjoy it. We're excited to share it with you all. And hopefully it inspires you in your relationship with God and your spouse.[Jennifer] Yeah, before we jump into it, which we'll do shortly, Some of my closest girlfriends were praying recently for the men in our life, husbands, fathers-Thank you.[Jennifer] You're welcome. Just really wanting to lift up our men who are leading our families. Also, bearing the weight of care for everything that's been going on in our nation, in our world, because just by nature they're protectors, providers, it's on their mind, and we care about them. And so as they consider everything that's going on and how it will impact the family, and how they navigate it with us, we just felt concern to bring them before the Lord and pray for them. And I just love that we had the opportunity to do that. But with that, I wanted to also say Aaron and I want to recognize that there's just a lot going on right now. And I mean, we're only a few weeks into 2021 and it's already been historical and I'm not talking about just the memes. That's not funny.I thought it was funny. The memes are pretty historical.[Jennifer] Aaron was just sharing some with me.[Aaron] And hysterical.[Jennifer] No, anyways, this is serious. Just this first part's kinda serious. Because Aaron and I, just like you guys, we get to navigate what's going on in the world around us and respond to it. But because we also have an online presence and this platform of a podcast, we wrestle with questions like, hey, are we gonna address that thing that happened? Do people wanna hear our opinions? Does God want us to speak to that issue? And it's just, I know for me personally it's a lot, but we do wrestle.[Aaron] Yeah. It's not something that we just pretend isn't going on. But I think what we've landed on is that the most important message is that of Jesus Christ and drawing people back to the Word of God. Would you agree?[Jennifer] Absolutely. Yeah, and the reason that I wanted to share this is just so you guys know our hearts is that we are navigating and wrestling those things and you don't see all of those things happening. And so I thought it'd be nice just to address it and let you know that we are watching, we are praying, we know that there's husbands and wives out there who are impacted by some of the current events that are happening, whether it be political, or a natural disaster, or any sort of crisis. We know that those things are happening. However, like Aaron just mentioned, we're gonna stick to the things that God has purposed in front of us and the stories and the experiences and the things that we can speak to in His truth to encourage you, because that's what we created this podcast for is to encourage you guys.[Aaron] Well, and I would reiterate that we firmly believe that the Word of God, that walking with the Lord, is the response to whatever is going on. We talk about it in the platform of marriage and that aspect of life, but it's not like your job and politics and your marriage and your parenting and your friends and your church are all separate things in boxes that get dealt with differently. We deal with it all the exact same way. Now, that doesn't mean that we have all the answers, but what it does mean is we know who does, and we know who to run to, and we know what the Word of God says. The Bible is the eternal Word of God. It's living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting through to the bone and marrow. It discerns the hearts of men. So that's what our mission is, like you said last episode, Jennifer, is our ministry is to the church. Now we have ministries outside of that as well, but our main one pretty much for our whole marriage and life has been ministering to believers. And so in these times, we're not the ones equipped to bring up political commentary. We're trying to be equipped to bring up what the Word of God says and encourage you in that.[Jennifer] Now, being a marriage podcast and knowing that Aaron and I, we struggle and navigate some of these things, we can speak to really quickly and encourage those who are watching the news or experiencing these things happening and unfolding. So can we quickly just dive in for maybe a minute or two, how can a husband and wife-[Aaron] Process.[Jennifer] Process and navigate these things as a couple?[Aaron] Well, what we could do, what our flesh probably wants to do, is get anxious, break down, feel overwhelmed. These are the natural responses to things that are out of our control.[Jennifer] Or confusion.[Aaron] Yeah, confusion or anger even. But you know what? The Bible addresses all of those things. And I think, well, we can do one thing is we can share the things that we're coming across and that are giving us anxieties.[Jennifer] Like if I'm reading the news and something just strikes a chord in my heart and I can't let it go, like it's just sitting with me, I can bring that to you and say, "Hey, I've really been thinking about this. It's kind of consuming my mind, can you-[Aaron] Pray for me.[Jennifer] Pray for me or help explain it to me or whatever I need in that moment.[Aaron] And that's what we're supposed to do is bear each other's burdens. So communicating about it, not just holding it in, not just saying, "If I bring that up, it's gonna cause something," or, "I can't talk about that," but like going to your spouse, going to your church, and just saying, "Hey, I'm dealing with something about this thing that I saw, or this thing that I heard, or what's going on in the world."[Jennifer] Another thing that you can do that we do is commit to praying for the things that you see and hear. Don't just scroll past it, don't let your heart become desensitized to it.[Aaron] Which is a good encouragement for me because, I mean, I haven't had social media on my phone for a little bit, but when I did, I would see something going on in the world and I'd be like, "Oh, that's horrible," and then I'd scroll right past it.Bummer it, yeah.[Aaron] But stopping and saying, "I can't be there, I can't like physically help, but I can pray. And I know that I know a God that can help and has a plan for this," that's good. Something that would be really helpful probably for the entire world is to take breaks away from consuming the news. Right?[Jennifer] Yeah. I would say even in today's era of the way the internet works is even taking a break from actively engaging. If you're one of those people that leaves comments and dives in right away, hit the pause button, be slow to speak, be slow to dive into those things until you've wrestled and processed with God, with your husband, with your family, and get your heart right.[Aaron] Yeah, just speaking about this idea of taking a break, I was speaking to someone from Compassionate International, which by the way, you should check them out if you haven't, and he was just sharing how every year him and his wife take turns going for a couple of days, three days I think, to be off all technology.[Jennifer] That's cool.[Aaron] Little hiatus. Not everyone can go away, but we could do that at home. Let's say, "Let's put this stuff away for a few days."[Jennifer] I think the goal is balance.[Aaron] It's balance, yeah.[Jennifer] And speaking of balance, it's even, in regard to God's Word, are you consuming outside resources and information more than you're consuming the Word of God?[Aaron] That's convicting to me 'cause the answer is yes.[Jennifer] Well, we need to bring some balance, then.[Aaron] We need to switch that around, yeah.[Jennifer] Another one is don't let current events polarize you in your marriage. So when it does come time to talk about it, don't allow that thing to be the source of contention between you and your spouse. You've got to remain unified. Yeah, don't let it cause division, as the Lord says. A house cannot stand that is divided.[Jennifer] Right, but if the foundation is the Word of God, thenRun to it, yeah.[Jennifer] you'll be able to move forward from there.[Aaron] And there's a word that believers should remember is were we're to endure, as Paul tells Timothy, as a good soldier.[Jennifer] Well, things are going to happen. There's gonna be more news, there's going to be more historical events unfolding before us.[Aaron] Yeah, especially if you know anything about the Bible and what it tells about coming-[Jennifer] The end.[Aaron] Yeah, the end. The Lord's return. And I wanna end on some Scripture. This is, I read this today and I thought it was incredibly powerful.[Jennifer] And when you say end, you mean end this section so we can jump into today's fun topic.End the session, yeah. We haven't gotten into the good part yet. But this is really good. This is Isaiah chapter 35. "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, 'Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With the recompense of God, He will come and save you.' Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sands shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water. In the haunt of jackals where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way. Even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there nor shall any ravenous beast come upon it. They shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." This was written thousands of years before Jesus came, and Jesus was the answer of this. He is the way that we walk on. He's the highway that shall be there called the Way of Holiness. The early church, before they were called Christians, were called the Way because they followed Jesus. So be encouraged by that.[Jennifer] Man, that was really good Aaron. Thank you for sharing that. And I just feel like I have to meditate on that this week and really just let my heart absorb it. Okay, we're gonna move on. Aaron and I would love to encourage you guys to leave a star rating review for this podcast if it has impacted you. If you have time, you can even leave a written review. These are so impactful. Not only do they help people find the Marriage After God podcast because of algorithms and the way that social media and all these platforms work, but it also really encourages us. And today we wanted to share some of those encouragements that you've left for others to find.[Aaron] Yeah, this one is by user, I think it's Agibb90. "You all are one of my favorites. Love Aaron and Jennifer and all the materials they put out, whether they're daily emails, Instagram posts, one of their amazing books, or an awesome podcast. They are an excellent source of God's knowledge for your marriage or for life. So glad you're all back. Keep doing what you're doing." Thank you, that was encouraging. There was another one, and these are recent ones, so I just wanna thank you for everyone that's taking our call to action and going and leaving a review.[Jennifer] So this one was a five-star by jones_k10. "This podcast is beneficial, encouraging, and practical. Aaron and Jennifer honestly share their story and wisdom with men and women. I love how the couple speaks to each other and their listeners. They don't hide behind the messiness of life. They tell it how it is and give practical advice to apply to your life. This podcast is a wonderful way to start each morning on a positive, encouraging note."[Aaron] Nice, thank you so much.[Jennifer] That was so encouraging.[Aaron] Yeah, our messiness is encouraging to people. I love it. So we just wanna thank everyone for keep sharing these episodes. It really blesses us and I think it gets a lot more people to hear about the show. And one last note before we move on to the topic is we want you to be one of the 114,000 people that have joined our free prayer challenge. It's 31 days and we send you an email every day with a topic for you to pray over your spouse. You can choose either the husband route or the wife route, whoever you're praying for, and it's completely free. Just go to marriageprayerchallenge.com, marriageprayerchallenge.com, and would you just join this massive, growing movement of marriages that are praying for their spouses?[Jennifer] All right you guys, did any of you see the Christmas star?[Aaron] The movie?[Jennifer] No. It was in the headlines for a while in December, but I heard about it. It's the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, and it was-[Aaron] Oh, you're talking about the awesome space event.[Jennifer] Yes, and it was one that I asked Aaron to go chase after. So we jumped in the car and we drove south and we were driving and Aaron goes, "I think that might be it." And we saw something bright in the sky for like 30 seconds and then cloud coverage.[Aaron] Well, we were chasing the clouds 'cause we're driving down, I'm like, it said it was supposed to be in the lower horizon,Southwest region.[Aaron] and I'm thinking, "You mean the lower horizon where all the clouds are at?"[Jennifer] I know, it was crazy.[Aaron] Right, we're in the one place in the world that's not gonna…

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God's Not Done With Us Jan 11, 2021

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If you are a Christian then you are being sanctified. But what does that mean, why does it need to happen and what might it look like? In this episode, we discuss how the Lord sanctifies us because He loves us. Read TranscriptWelcome to the Marriage After God podcast.We're your hosts. I'm Aaron.And I'm Jennifer.We've been married for 14 years.And we have five young children.We started blogging over 10 years ago. Sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other.We have authored over 10 books together including our newest book, "Marriage After God". The book that inspired us to start this podcast."Marriage After God" has a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.To reflect His love.To be a light in this world.To work together as a team.Using what He has given us...To build His kingdom.Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey...As you boldly chase after God together.This is Marriage After God.Welcome back to the Marriage After God podcast. We're your hosts, Aaron and Jennifer Smith.Hey guysWhat are you drinking there?What? Oh.What are you drinking?I made chai tea.Tea. I'm drinking a rooiboss. And it's really good.Copy catter.I did actually-You saw me sneak in here with tea.I...No, I actually saw you with tea and I was like, "I'm going to go get some tea."It's cold, 'cause I was taking care of the baby and then I didn't get to drink it when it was warm. That's okay. Curious, how many people have the whistling stuck in their head from last week? Did you, Aaron?I've actually.. I've actually been whistling it.No, you haven't. Really?Yes I have. I don't know if that's exactly right but...I don't know if that's going to sound good to everyone else.High key... And it was like high-pitch. Yeah, no, I really liked the whistling and the song. I hope they do too.All right. I have to apologize because I re-listened to our kickoff episode from last week and I say 'um' a lot.Are you sure 'um'?We both said it a lot. I guess I'm just really rusty or I forgot how to podcast with you. Maybe I'm nervous. I have no idea what the problem was but I don't ever remember saying 'um' so many times. It was so many times we couldn't even edit them out because...I know you asked me like, "Can't we just like cut all of these um's out?" I'm like, no. I mean we could, but then it'd be like really choppy.Choppy, yeah. So for those of you who suffered through it, I am sorry and I promise to get better. Bear with me, bear with us.Mmm. There's probably some, like speech coaches out there they're are thinking, "Oh, we can help these people." Yeah, right.We can help them.Yeah.Yeah, there's one.Oh, oh.We are going to try and not say a bunch of uh's and um's.Well, you know, when you take a handful of months off, you just...You lose all ability to speak.We're working on it.Apologizing is kind of a part of this episode. So that's a..That's a good one.That's a good way to start.Don't give away the key. Okay.Yeah.What else were you...Well, last week we mentioned routines. Just as a little update. And being the first...Week of the year. Second week of the year.Yeah, a couple weeks of the year, I would say that we're on the right track. I'm not going to say perfect. We're on the right track. I've been trying to get up in the morning to work out again. Which also helps me get up earlier and be ready for the day and so that's been nice.It actually helps me too because I feel like when you get up early and you're very enthusiastic about how the day feels. It really impacts my heart and it actually motivates me to also be ready.Well, and we both have goals to do that. So when-Yeah.one of us sticks to it the other one feels more obligated to. So it's like-That's true.helping each other out. Speaking of others helping, I actually convinced one of my friends to start working out with me at 5:00 AM in the morning. I don't know how I did it but he's been enjoying it. But having him do it with me has made me a ton more consistent. Which is pretty awesome because if I know he's coming, it's that much harder for me to stay in bed. The alarm goes off and I think to myself, "Okay, I can't text him right now 'cause he's probably all ready on his way." So I have to get up.You don't want him standing out in the cold.Exactly. And I also enjoy working out with people. I'm a people person. So having-You.. You're...Yes.I don't know if anyone knows this.You're a people person?It's a surprise.What?I get it. But it..Aaron, you're not a people person, you need people like you...Yes.You can't live without people.Everyone does. Don't you?I think I can get by with little, less. Yeah, you got... That's that introvert in you.Yeah.Yeah, no, it's actually helped. There's something incredibly powerful about having someone who has a similar goal as you, like we were just talking about with each other. A friend of mine that wants to do this with me and how incredibly powerful it is in helping you meet your goals, helping you grow and mature and move forward, be consistent.Yeah.And so that's been a huge help. It's something I actually noticed. 'Cause I was trying to evaluate why I lost my routine that I was in for like three years. Well, why also it was easier for you to get to the gym, but when it's the home gym, it's a little bit...Yeah. Yeah, it's weird, 'cause my home gym is like right here.More of a challenge.Right, you gotta get in the car and drive but there was something... There was things missing that just disappeared, that helped me. Things like the cheers from the other people at the gym. People that have become friends. Anytime I had a new PR or accomplished something new. They recognized when I wasn't around.And so they would reach out, "Hey, how's everything going? Missed you at the gym." Tracking my progress. The gym has a way of tracking, you know, your weights that you've been lifting and...It's like that accountability.Yeah, well, it's not just accountability. It's the rewards. The way our brains work, we have a reward system that tells our... When our brain gets a reward, it knows, "Oh we should do that again." And all of those things that were so important for sustaining my pattern disappeared pretty much overnight. And with it, my pattern, my routine. So once they disappeared sort of the growth and the consistency, but there's something interesting about that concept especially when it comes to our spiritual walk. We need people, we need the Spirit of God. We need relationships with fellow believers. And that helps us continue on. We actually can't do it alone. And that's a deception that a lot of believers have. Is that, "Oh, I can do this by myself. I don't need anyone. I'm just gonna do my thing and..." But having partners, having fellowship, having other brothers and sisters to walk with and especially the Holy Spirit is how we grow. Yeah.Is how we move forward, Its how we stay consistent. It's how we have our mind in the right place. So I thought that was a cool..It's a good little analogy.Yeah, correlation, yeah.Yeah. Very cool. Well, as we move into today's episode we wanted to encourage you guys. If you haven't had a chance yet to please leave us a review. This just helps the rating of the Marriage After God podcast. So that through the algorithms and all that people can find the Marriage After God podcast. The more people that know about it the more marriages are impacted. The more we're over here cheering. So we also just wanted to ask if you have time to leave a written review. Not only does this also encourage people to take a listen but it encourages us and it's an incredible blessing so...To have written those.just wanted to ask you to do that.Yeah, and I actually want to make a little note on the first episode of the year of season five I'm incredibly blessed because out of the last like seven episodes it all ready is one of the most downloaded episodes.What?Yeah, so..You guys.Yeah, our listeners just-I guess there's people out there really hungry.missed us. Yeah. Hungry for A and Jen.So I just want to thank everyone. And I also want to thank everyone that, we did a call to action at the end of last episode. Just encouraging people to share the episode on social media.Thank you guys.Email it to a friend. Send it in a text message. Tell someone in person. And I think you guys are doing it. And I just, I really thank you. So would you just keep doing it if this episode blesses you today. Tell someone about it.Speaking of sharing something with someone. I really wanted to insert just a little food for thought. You like that?Thought for food.Thought for food. I was making dinner tonight and I was thinking about you guys and what I did... This is super random. I wanted to encourage those of you who cook in the kitchen because it's been a huge learning curve for me to know how to cook and how to meal plan and so hopefully this benefits someone listening I don't know. My goal was to make spaghetti and I had zucchini and bell pepper and onion. And so I chopped it up really small not like pureed style, but just small enough and added it to the meat and the sauce and everybody ate it and it was so delicious. So if you're a family, you know, if you're looking for healthy ways to add in those veggies and your family loves spaghetti it worked really, really well.And our kids had no idea.Well, they didn't like complain or anything. They didn't say one thing-No.about it.I actually didn't know they were in there until you...Yeah, you couldn't really tell.So just a little tip when you're cooking for your family.That was a good little tip.Right?Everyone's gonna have spaghetti tonight.Or tomorrow.Yeah, or tomorrow.Or this week.So as always, we want to offer something to our listeners. We like to create free resources that will benefit you, encourage you, inspire you and we talked about it last week. And it's the marriage prayer challenge. It's completely free. You can go to marriageprayerchallenge.com. It's all one word. And it is a 31 day challenge where every day we'll send you an email, either for the husband or for the wife, with a prompt for something to pray for that day for your spouse. And over 100,000 marriages have all ready taken this challenge and we just want to invite you to do it. If you haven't signed up all ready go to marriageprayerchallenge.com. You can do it at the end of this episode, if you'd like or whenever you want. It's completely free. And our thought is like, why not start the year off in prayer with our free prayer challenge? And also these prayers, all of our prayer emails that we send daily, are helped to be brought to you in part by our faithful prayer team patrons. And so we want to thank you if you're on the patron teamAll right, we're going to jump into today's topic which is, what we titled, God's Not Donne With Us. He's not done with us. He's not doneHe's not done with you.with you. You took my line.I was going to say the same thing.That's funny. I didn't know you knew I was going to say that but it makes sense that I would have done that.Yeah.He's not done with us.This is a good reminder for all of us that, you know, the idea that God's not done with us because there's times that we make mistakes, we mess up, we did it again, those sorts of things and it just makes us feel like, you know, how could God continue? How could He, you know, forgive me again? How could He deal with me? Like I would like... 'Cause we look at our own lives and we say like, how many times we want to be done with something or someone because of, you know, it oh, there..Hardship. Yeah.Yeah. But he's not. He doesn't he's patient with us. And that's kind of what we're gonna talk about this episode.Yeah. So something happened the other day that I thought would make a good story, a good segue, into today's topic. So it's just one of those kind of everyday situations that happens in marriage. It's something simple. I kind of don't want to share it, but it's a good example of what we're going to talk about today. We recently got a new rug. Aaron came home from Costco with it.It's one of the really, really soft shag rugs.Yeah, it's super-I love it.comfortable.He plays a lot with the kids on the floor and so he likes the thicker... And the last rug we had was so thin. It would like hurt when I'm on the groundYeah. So anyways, changing a rug out in the living room is kind of an ordeal 'cause you have to move all the couches. You have to roll up the old rug, clean underneath it. Which is gross. And then put the new one down. And so during this whole process, Aaron, you suggested let's take our old couches out and put them in the garage and bring the ones that are in the garage, which are nicer, into the house and...Yeah, they've been in the garage for a while 'cause we were just been waiting for the kids to get a little older. Yeah. We didn't want them to get destroyed. But one of them is like a smaller leather couch. And then we have this blue one. Longer, more modern looking. Anyways, I have actually really enjoyed the way the whole setup looks 'cause it looks so much different than what we had going on. But-It's Fresh. It's a new year.Yeah.New living room.So morning time is happening and we all sit down for family Bible time, which we've shared on social media before. We talked to you guys about it. It's a Holy time, not really a time to let your sin show. Right?Or the perfect time.Yeah. Aaron, you sat down, like you usually do, with a cup of coffee in your hand. Wyatt's sitting next to you and Truth's on his way toward you. And I just remember thinking it's going to spill. Like this is disaster waiting to happen. But instead of just, well, I'll just tell you what I said. I kind of looked at him cross-eyed and said, "Strange you would sit there on the leather couch with coffee like that."Yeah, it was a little more animated. It was like a..Yeah, I had a little attitude behind it.A little attitudey. Yeah.Sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm embarrassed to share this. It's just, it came from a place of not wanting the coffee to be spilled, but...But you were bothered that I didn't think about it or...I don't know what I was bothered byBut yeah. but it wasn't nice or effective. It wasn't an effective way to share it with you. And you were really calm and actually really nice in your response but you looked up at me and was wondering, you know, next time just simply asked me to move the coffee. Like just put it on the counter.Yeah, I think I said, "Was it necessary to like question me like that? Like with like an attitude??Or say it like that, yeah. It wasn't..Like can you just ask me to go sit it down on the table?Yeah, It just wasn't nice and I recognized that and I apologized but, you know, I didn't even realize that I had said what I said and said it that way. It was just something that kind of happened and came out. And the problem in that moment for me was I saw that it was an unbecoming way for me to act toward you. But I also recognized i…

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WE ARE BACK With A Word For The New Year!!! Jan 04, 2021

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We are just a few days into the New Year! Did you make any resolutions or goals? Did you recycle any from last year you didn't get to? Aaron and I are taking it slow to set goals and expectations for this year, but the one thing we both wholeheartedly agr WE. ARE. BACK!we missed you all. We have a word for you this year and we share what God has been working in us since we took our hiatus back in June!Join our free Marriage Prayer Challenge Today!http://marriageprayerchallenge.comPRAYERDear Lord,Thank you for this last year. Although it was difficult and different in many ways, we know you were working. We trust you and we hope for all that is to come, all that your word says will come. We are excited for this new year and the many opportunities we will have by your grace to share Your gospel with others. We pray for boldness and great faith. We pray for the right words when the time is right. We pray for receptive hearts and we pray for revival. May you draw hearts closer to yourself. We pray marriages would be stronger this year. We pray our eyes and our hearts would be focused on you, what you are doing, and how we can participate. We pray for truth to prevail. We pray gratefulness will overwhelm our hearts and our minds. May your peace guard us and may Your holy spirit Lead us into this next year. In Jesus’ name, amen!Transcript[Jennifer] Welcome to the "Marriage After God Podcast."[Aaron] We're your hosts. I'm Aaron.[Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer.[Aaron] We've been married for 14 years.[Jennifer] And we have five young children.[Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other.[Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together, including our newest book, "Marriage After God," the book that inspired us to start this podcast.[Aaron] "Marriage After God" is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose.[Jennifer] To reflect his love.[Aaron] To be a light in this world.[Jennifer] To work together as a team.[Aaron] Using what he has given us.[Jennifer] To build his kingdom.[Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey.[Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together[Aaron] This is "Marriage After God." Hey, welcome back to a new season of the "Marriage After God Podcast," and with it a new year.[Jennifer] 2021. It's here.Yeah, I'm pretty sure a lot of us are like thankful that it's no longer 2020.2020 felt long.With probably good reason. Yeah, it was a long year. But we're your hosts, Aaron and Jennifer Smith.Hi!And we're glad to be back. We've taken quite a bit, quite a long hiatus from recording episodes for the podcast. But yeah, and we're here with season five, January, 2021, excited to be here.[Jennifer] So I think it's safe to say that 2020 was, different?[Aaron] Difficult?[Jennifer] Disorient. I can't say that word.[Aaron] Disorientating?Disorientating a little bit.It is a long word.[Jennifer] Just so much has happened, you know. And the personal impact of last year looks different, you know, from family to family. But Aaron and I just wanted to take a minute and just speak to anyone who especially felt affected this last year and in profound ways. Even small ways, it doesn't matter. At any point, if you struggled, if you wrestled, if you were frustrated or confused or just had a hard time this last year, we just want to acknowledge that.[Aaron] Yeah, anyone who's lost loved ones or jobs, businesses, those who got sick, who struggled with anxiety, mental illness, we just wanna say that we're praying for you guys. And we didn't wanna skip over this. We are gonna try and be light, but real things happened this year.[Jennifer] A lot happened.[Aaron] We just wanna remind you that your peace and your shelter is God. And we just pray that God would be your peace right now, and that he'd be comforting you. But if you have gone through that and you're here listening today, we welcome you. And we're excited to encourage you today and share a little bit of our life with you. And we're excited to get back into the podcast with you. So, yeah, but we just wanted to start with that.[Jennifer] Yeah, and now we're here starting a new season of the podcast. And we're jumping into a new year. Hopefully, all looking forward to a better year, but maybe we're just all a little bit more prepared to embrace whatever this year has for us and accept, you know, what is to come, whatever that is.[Aaron] And just a word we wanted to give, and not to whimsically throw this word around, but for the believer, this word is everything for us. And the New Testament over and over again reminds us of this word for good reason. And so we wanna remind you, also, fellow Christians, of the word hope. And it's an important aspect of the Christian faith that sometimes gets overlooked, because when the world goes the way it's going, it might overshadow, it might make us feel like, "Wait, is there hope?" Like, "What's going on?"[Jennifer] But, for us, I mean, when hard times hit, it's that hope that gets us through, really, to persevere, to endure. Because we're not just looking for the hope of a better day or a hope of things, circumstances to change. What are we looking for?[Aaron] Yeah, our hope isn't an earthly, temporary, imperfect thing. Our hope is in something eternal, something sure and everlasting. So, you know, our hope isn't in the things that are perishing. The Bible tells us and cautions to keep our eyes above where Jesus sit on the throne, right? Keep our eyes on heavenly things. So I just wanted to read a section from Hebrews 6 that explains what this hope is for us and where it comes from. It starts in verse 13. It says, "For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself saying, 'Surely I will bless you and multiply you.'" So this was God's promise to Abraham. "And thus, Abraham having patiently waited, obtained the promise, for people swear by something greater than themselves. And in all their disputes and oath is final for confirmation." So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise, so the heirs of the promise, that's us, brothers and sisters, that we're the heirs of this promise. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath. So that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf having become a high priest forever. So our hope is eternal. It's sure, it's an anchor, it's steadfast. But what is that hope in? It's in Jesus Christ, it's in his complete work. It's in the fact that he is sitting on the throne next to God in heaven, interceding for us believers. That's what the Bible tells us. He's praying for us. He's encouraging us through his spirit. And at the end of all of this, we get eternity with him because of him. So our hope is not in, you know, the government figuring things out and fixing all the problems. Our hope is not in a cure for things. Our hope is in Christ and his work and what he's done. And that's a sure thing, and it's certain, and it's perfect. And so, brothers and sisters, we just wanna encourage you, regardless of what happened in 2020, no matter what 2021 has for us, we have hope in the perfect and complete work of Jesus.[Jennifer] That was really good, Aaron. And it was super encouraging just to hear you share that with us. And I just want to just affirm our listeners that one of the biggest motivations of why we do what we do and our reasoning for getting into season five of the podcast is because Aaron and I feel very strongly that our purpose, God's purpose for us, is to be an encouragement to the believer.[Aaron] To the church, yeah.[Jennifer] I just really look forward to this next season and the episodes that we have coming out because I truly believe that they are gonna be a source of inspiration and encouragement, and just reminding the believers to have that steadfast hope, no matter what we face, no matter what we endure through. And like we mentioned earlier, from family to family, it will look different, but I guess we're all in this together.[Aaron] As believers, yeah.[Jennifer] Yeah, and Aaron and I just wanna be here for you, wanna be a voice of encouragement for you.[Aaron] So with everyone experiencing so much change, we've experienced change, we actually talked about change in the very last episode of season four, it's explaining why we were taking a hiatus and just taking a break. And the changes we made coming into season five, we've made a little bit of changes. You've probably noticed the new theme song in the beginning of this episode.[Jennifer] Yeah, it kind of just go straight to the music and our intro. And then you just shared the title of the song that we chose. Do you wanna share it?Yeah, this song with the whistling which we really like is called "Can't Be Bothered." And so it's kind of like a theme for this year that, as believers, we're just like, we're not gonna be bothered by what's going on in the world. We're gonna keep our eyes on Jesus.[Jennifer] Actually, when we were gearing up to just start this episode, we heard the whistling and Aaron goes, "It's like we're holding hands frolicking on the hills of green." I don't remember what you said.That's what it sounds like.But it was so picturesque. So I just have that vision running around in my mind.[Aaron] So when you hear the song, we pray that it encourages that idea of frolicking with your spouse.[Jennifer] No, Aaron prays that it gets stuck in your head and you think about our podcast.[Aaron] That too. That's the marketing in me. Yeah. So we have a new intro to the podcast. And what we'll do is, instead of starting with us talking and then going into the intro, it's gonna be intro. And then we're just gonna jump into saying hi to you guys and talking about what God has put on our hearts and what's going on in our lives. And so, yeah, that's a little bit of the change for this new season. There's another change that we were doing for this season, and we'll share that at the end of the episode, but it's a little fun thing to encourage new habits and new ways of thinking. And I'll leave that as a secret until the end.[Jennifer] Oh, they're gonna be just wanting to know more.[Aaron] Yeah, so as usual, we do wanna invite you, if you haven't done so yet, to leave a star rating. At the end of this episode, if you want, just scroll to the bottom of the podcast app and just tap on one of those stars. And it helps us get into the algorithms so that other people can find the podcast. And if you have time, leaving us a written review is just a huge blessing. It helps others know what the podcast is about. It helps others hear your testimony of what you might've been encouraged by or blessed by from the podcast.[Jennifer] And it encourages us.[Aaron] And it encourages us. So we just wanna invite you to do that at the end of this episode, or at any time, really, to help spread the word about this podcast.[Jennifer] So we already mentioned that this is season five of the "Marriage After God Podcast." And we just wanted to note here that if you are new and you haven't had a chance to listen to previous episodes, or if maybe you've missed any, just to take a look at some of those past episodes, you know, your next commute or laundry day, be sure to catch up. Also, subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.[Aaron] Yeah. There's a lot of episodes, over 100. So you have plenty of time to go and listen to all of that. And we'd love to hear from you, to know what your favorite episode is, but yeah. Hey, what's happening in two days?[Jennifer] It's our anniversary. 14 years. I can't believe it!14? Are you sure it's not like six or seven?Mm-mm, definitely 14.No, it's 14 years. Man, it's been a long time.[Jennifer] Happy Anniversary![Aaron] Yeah, Happy Anniversary to us![Jennifer] You know, it's funny, as, usually, we're so good about wrapping up the end of the year with talking about goals and visions and dreams and things we desire for the coming year. And I think just because 2020 was such a whirlwind, we did it a little bit in November, just because we were itching for some like-Normalcy.Yeah, normal and new. But we never really had that conversation. So I think come-[Aaron] I'm a little satisfied, too. I'm okay, like, I don't have any huge goals. I'm sure we'll come up with some, but right now I'm just like, "Okay, cool. 2021, let's see what's going on."[Jennifer] We usually go out to dinner on our anniversary to celebrate. And so I'm excited to see how that will play out. And I'm just excited.In the coming weeks. But yeah, 14 years. I'm proud to be your husband. It's been a roller coaster. Roller coasters are fun.Yeah. In a good way. But they're also scary.[Jennifer] Yeah, I was gonna say terrifying.[Aaron] And I think that's a good definition of marriage. But man, it's been good. I wouldn't trade the last 14 years. And it's actually been more than 14 years. We knew each other for quite a few years before we were married. So we've been knowing each other for a long time.[Jennifer] Still love you. Okay, so let's take it way back. What was your favorite memory from our first year of marriage?Ooh, it was a long time ago.I know. I know.[Aaron] 14 years. Okay, so we were gonna be planning on going to Africa.[Jennifer] We did go.[Aaron] I know, but in the first year, we were planning. And we moved up to Washington for a short while to spend time with friends, to raise some funds. And that time we were in Washington, actually, was really cool.[Jennifer] Yeah, do you remember the drive we took and it was just like no agenda type of drive out in like farmland and we saw a bald Eagle.[Aaron] Eating something on the ground.[Jennifer] Yeah, that was pretty cool.[Aaron] That was cool. So that was cool, that was a long time ago. We were like kids back then. But no, that was cool. We stayed in a little tiny apartment above, what was the shop? It was like a print shop.Print shop or something.[Aaron] That's what it was, downtown in Washington.Super fun.It was interesting and cool. But that was a fun time.It just feels like a whole lifetime ago.[Aaron] That was almost a whole lifetime ago, yeah. So, yeah, that was one of my fond memories of year one.Awesome.What was yours?[Jennifer] Well, it's a hard memory, but it's a good memory.[Aaron] This is your favorite memory, is a hard one?[Jennifer] I'll tell you why.[Aaron] Okay, just do it. Pull the bandaid off, just tell me.Maybe I shouldn't. I think I even wrote about it in one of our books, but do you remember staying in the airport, and we had just flew back from Africa and we're in like Miami or something like that?We had a transition.[Jennifer] And we were gonna El Salvador.[Aaron] Like right from there.[Jennifer] Yeah, and we're trying to not…

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Making Changes Together In Marriage Jul 07, 2020

Show notes

Change is inevitable. Some love it, some hate it and sometimes it can't be avoided. Today we talk about how we make changes and we also share some change that we are making with Marriage After God Change is inevitable. Some love it, some hate it and sometimes it can't be avoided. Today we talk about how we make changes and we also share some change that we are making with Marriage After GodREAD TRANSCRIPTAaron (00:00):Hey, we're Aaron Jennifer Smith with Marriage AfterJennifer (00:02):God, helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.Aaron (00:04):And today we're going to talk about making changes together. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.Jennifer (00:20):I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife.Aaron (00:22):And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution.Jennifer (00:24):We have been married for overAaron (00:26):13 years and so far we have five children under eight.Jennifer (00:28):We have been doing marriage ministry online for over nine years through blogging, social media, and writing over 10 booksAaron (00:34):With a desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.Jennifer (00:40):We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life. Love and power thatAaron (00:45):Can only be found by chasing after GodJennifer (00:47):Together.Aaron (00:47):Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.Jennifer (00:51):This is Marriage After God.Speaker 3 (00:59):HeyJennifer (01:00):Everyone. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Marriage After God. We are so happy that you are here. And yeah, we just wanted to welcome you and what else, Aaron, you wanna share?Aaron (01:10):Yeah, if you haven't already signed up for our, we have a couple free things, but the one that we like to promote the most is the Free Marriage Prayer Challenge. Almost 80,000 couples have gone through this challenge and we wanna invite you to be one of those 80,000 couples. Let's make our way to a hundred thousand couples and it's at marriage prayer challenge.com, marriage prayer challenge.com. It's completely free. Just sign up with your name and email and we'll start sending you an email every 30 every day for 31 days with a prompt, something to pray for your spouse, either your husband or your wife and a reminder. So you'll get that email every day around seven 30 in the morning and it'll remind you to pray for your spouse in a specific area. So we just wanna encourage you to go to marriage prayer challenge.com and sign up for our free challenge.Jennifer (01:56):We also wanna encourage you that if you've been one of the couples that has already gone through this challenge, way to go that's so incredible. We hope and pray that it has blessed you and your marriage. And we also just wanna give this simple, small challenge to share it with a friend. So if the prayer challenge has impacted your life, reach out to a friend, another married couple this week and just let them know that it's available just to spread the love and encouragement around.Aaron (02:21):As a bonus challenge. And it might be even easier is share about it on social media, on Facebook, Instagram tag at Marriage after God, so we can see you shared it. Sometimes we'd like to repost people's shares but it would also let your people that you've done this prayer challenge they, it'll let them know where to go. Sign up for it and we'd be really blessed if you did that.Jennifer (02:40):Alright, so today's episode is about making changes together. So in marriage there's lots of different reasons why we would need to make change and we're kind of keeping it general here. We're not giving specifics cuz every marriage relationship looks different, every family life looks different and sometimes changes can come externally where you're forced to make change happen in your life and then havingAaron (03:05):To move loss of a job, you name it. There's a lot of things that could be pushing us beyond our control to make a change.Jennifer (03:13):And then sometimes it's internally, meaning you've been wrestling with something or maybe the Lord's stirring in your heart something that needs to change. And so then it comesAaron (03:21):A conviction. Conviction ofJennifer (03:22):Something, a conviction. So then that would be an internal change where then you guys go to the table and talk about that and what changes would need to happen surrounding that. So again, this is just a general overview of what it looks like to make changes together because we don't know your guys' details, but the Lord does know your details. He knows everything that you guys are going through to the smallest little detail. And I think that we can find a resting place there and a trust there with the Lord that he's leading us and guiding us through our changes. He's walking alongside us, especially if we give him that room to do so. And we're leaning into him during those times. So hopefully this episode encourages you.Aaron (04:05):Yeah, I know some people I used to be this way love change. They just like new environment, new atmosphere, new season, quick new job, quick to adapt, quick to adapt very. I'm usually prone to that in the first few years of our marriage. In your book the Unbuild Wife, we wrote about being escape artists.Jennifer (04:24):Well for me it was a distraction from me, some pain that we were experiencing. So for me it was just like, let's just keep our minds go, go,Aaron (04:31):Go, go. We longed for a lot of change. So different moving to different places, different kinds of careers and jobs and pursuits and just change was something that we longed for over the years. More children being married longer, I thinkJennifer (04:44):The change has changed.Aaron (04:46):Yeah, I've gotten a lot not necessarily against change, I'm just not so quick to be like, oh let's just run a change.Jennifer (04:52):We've learned how to navigate it a little bit differentlyAaron (04:55):But there's something powerful about not being so afraid of change because oftentimes we don't make necessary changes in our lives because we're afraid of what it takes to make that change or we're afraid of what it means if we change in that way. I'll just give a simple example. It's a silly one, but remember when I had my beard and it was like a foot long? Yes, I remember that. I grew, itJennifer (05:18):Felt like two feet.Aaron (05:18):I grew it for two years long after we had Elliot. I grew it until he was two years old. And then finally Jennifer was like, I think you should cut it. But within that two years I developed an identity around having this long beard. It was, it's peopleJennifer (05:31):Complimented you wherever you went.Aaron (05:33):It became a part of me. And I would imagine it was very similar to how girls who have really long hair might feel they're going to have to chop it off. That's a big deal. But I remember just wrestling with the idea of, well what does this mean? Was it look like? And eventually I just had to do it. I you cut it, there's like a video of you just slicing it off.Jennifer (05:51):Fun day. ForAaron (05:52):Me that was a fun day, but it really wasn't that big of a deal in the long run. But change sometimes we avoid it when it's necessary. Sometimes we chase it when we should not.Jennifer (06:03):Sometimes we control so much that we grip whatever it is that we have and we don't let anyone touch it. And then that becomes the source of conflict, especially in marriage. Yeah, I think of control.Aaron (06:14):And so I guess my first thought for everyone listening, is there some sort of necessary change that needs to be happening in your life and family career? You name it, that you've been avoiding? And I'm not saying just jumping and do it. What I'm trying to encourage is have you even taken it and evaluated it? Which is one of the things we're going to talk about. What changes could must happen that needs to be talked about and not avoided, not put on the back burner, but hey, here's some things that we need to be talking about in our family we've this career move or family choices that we're making orJennifer (06:55):Homeschool curriculumAaron (06:56):Or there'sJennifer (06:56):A lot of things or public school versus homeschool. There's lots of different kinds of change that people could be going through right now.Aaron (07:04):And so I just wanna encourage you to not be afraid of asking the questions to look at it head on and say, what is this, these thing we should be talking about? Should we make this change? That's something for us because if we hold on to certain things, if we just want life as we know it, to not bud all who knows what God's trained to do in us that we might be hindering him from. And it's just because we like to be comfortable. Change is uncomfortable. It goes against, to be honest, the way we were built as humans, it's easier to not change because it's less thinking, it's less to prepare for, it's less you just get into a mode and you move. But sometimes we gotta stop and break that mode and be like, oh we've been just kind of going, what needs to change?(07:50):Maybe it's in our relationship, this happens a lot in marriages. We can just get so comfortable and we realize we haven't gone on a date in two years and we realize we haven't had a deep conversation in a while. We realize we we're not pursuing each other anymore. We realize that there's a lot of things, but are we pursuing God? We used to. Where's that passion at? So change is necessary in those moments of we need to stop being so I dunno what the word is. Not intentional, just kind of floating and we need to put on the brakes so we can look around like wait, where are we? YeahJennifer (08:25):I was just thinking as you're talking, what about for the couple who is just going through life and changes is happening without being intentional as in they're not talking about it and it's actually frustrating them. This change that has occurred over time, control over, or maybe they do have control over and they're just kind of letting it happen. What does that couple need to do?Aaron (08:45):Well, I mean things that we've experienced, I know there's people that go through some pretty hard changes that they have no control over. Just life is changing. Illness accidents you could think about. Yeah, you could just imagineJennifer (08:58):Why finances. Finances gone like thatAaron (09:01):Is we could chafe against the change, which doesn't make it any easier, just fight it. Right? Which doesn't mean it's not never wrong to, it's always doesn't mean it's not wrong to fight if have, if the change is happening and you don't want it, there might be merit in trying to avoid that change or working against it.Jennifer (09:20):But if you're fighting it in the way of your countenance where there's nothing you could do about this and you're just walking around being grumpy or angry or frustrated, that's not helping. That'sAaron (09:31):Kind of what I'm talking about.(09:32):So you could surrender and not just let things happen, but okay Lord I have no control over this. How do you want me to be in the midst of this change, in the midst of these things that I have no control over? Because man, this is mostly when change happens is when we're forced to change. It's very rare that someone just chooses to change for the sake of change. Like I said, we're creatures of habit. We'd rather just stay in our vein and just move in that direction. So if you're in the midst of transition and change that you have no control over, just pray and surrender to God in that change and say, Lord, how are you using? What do you want from this? How do you want me to walk in this? How can I walk in your spirit in this situation? What are you trying to teach me? Because to be honest, we might miss something God's doing in the midst of that if we're just chafing and like, oh I don't like, this is so what was me frustrating and mad. We could miss what God's doing.Jennifer (10:32):Okay, so you brought up the first point that we were going to share on the practical side of how do you respond amidst change and navigate that together. And how do you this as a married couple and you brought up prayer. So what does that look like for those listening right now? What should they be doing as far as prayer with and for each other?Aaron (10:51):Well, we've talked about this a lot about making goals, dreaming together. If you don't talk about things, if you don't look out into the future, not that everything has to be so perfectly planned, but if you, at least with your spouse sitting down and saying, okay, what does the next 12 months look like? What are some things we could pursue or put on the table? What are some things that might be coming up? If variables change in your life, what might that look like?Jennifer (11:16):So before you even pray about it, you gotta talk about it. You gotta sit down and have that conversation and get the details. Even if you don't know all the details, you gotta know what you're praying for.Aaron (11:25):But you could also do the other direction. Maybe you have no idea, we have no idea what our life looks like, butJennifer (11:31):We wanna be prepared for the change.Aaron (11:32):Get on your knees. Yeah. Say Lord, what do you have for us? What do you want? Where do you want to take us Is, are you going to make change in our lives? Is there something else you have for us? Are we focusing on the things that you want us to be focused on and asking the Lord to reveal things to us and open our eyes and help us to hear what he's saying. Help us to see where he's going. Because the Bible says to, it says, if you're going to walk in the spirit, it says to also keep in step with the spirit. It's this idea that the it's spirit's not something that we control. The spirit is a part of God. So we follow. Mm-hmm the spirit of God. We don't lead the spirit of God. So we keep in step. And so Lord, what's your spirit doing in our marriage, in our life, in our neighborhood, in our home?Jennifer (12:16):And we've done this over the years. And I'll say that one of the biggest comforts that I've received from walking in marriage with you, Aaron, is that anytime changes coming, anytime we have to make a decision about something and we do surrender our hearts and ourselves to prayer together and individually, that is where I receive the most peace and comfort. And even if we don't have the plans laid out in front of us yet, I know I can trust God and I can trust you with what's happening and what change is coming. So man, it's so important to be praying with each other and for each other.Aaron (12:49):And it also keeps your eyes in your hearts in the right spot. So the next thing that we usually try and walk in, again, we haven't walked into all these things perfectly, but it's things that we've definitely learned are much more fruitful when you pursue these things. Prayer being thoughtful. But the next one is why is counsel? It's easy to think that there's no one else that can help us with the answers. There's no one else that could understand our situation. There's n…

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Our Role In Cultivating The Soil Of Our Children's Hearts Jun 29, 2020

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Dear Lord, Thank you for the responsibility of parenting. It is not always easy, yet it is a worthy and noble task. We pray we would be intentional parents who tend to the soil of our children’s hearts. We pray we would be willing to get down on our knee

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the responsibility of parenting. It is not always easy, yet it is a worthy and noble task. We pray we would be intentional parents who tend to the soil of our children’s hearts. We pray we would be willing to get down on our knees, to get dirty even when its inconvenient or challenging and show our children how to live according to your ways. We pray we would raise our children to know You and know your word. May you plant seeds of salvation in their hearts and may our children receive you and be world changers, bringing you glory!

In Jesus’ name, amen!

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Marriage Inspiration From Some Unlikely People In The Bible Jun 22, 2020

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In This episode we want to talk about a few people in the bible that have realy encouraged us lately and we hope their stories encourage you and your marriage as well.

In This episode we want to talk about a few people in the bible that have really encouraged us lately and we hope their stories encourage you and your marriage as well.

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The Promises Of God Jun 16, 2020

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Do you feel weak or powerless? Do you feel like you can't walk in freedom? If that is you today We want to encourage you from the word of God. http://parentingprayerchallenge.com 2 Peter 1:3-4 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain

Do you feel weak or powerless? Do you feel like you can't walk in freedom? If that is you today We want to encourage you from the word of God.

http://parentingprayerchallenge.com

2 Peter 1:3-4

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,

by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

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