MCC Podcasts
Welcome to Marin Covenant Church. My name is Ben Kearns. I'm one of the pastors on staff. What's up? Stokes are here from Louisiana. We'll see you guys. This is my wife, Katie. And yes, she is a veteran person married to me. And I'm super honored to be on our pastoral staff. We said, hey, let's do this series on marriage. And I drew the straw of talking about the nuts and bolts of marriage. And I thought, hey, I don't want the danger zone of saying something that I'm going to regret. My wife's going to-- I'm going to owe her some shopping spree. And so I thought, why not let the brains of the operation come on up here and defend herself? So anyway, we're super glad to be with you. Like I said, we've been married. And Katie's been a veteran for sure. We've married for 15 years, if you can believe that. We got married with little kids. This is a picture of us on our wedding day. We were, yeah, so full of life and so not hitting puberty yet. And it was all super great. We were 22 right out of college, ready to get married. And we just could not believe like we loved God. We loved kids. We loved each other. We could not believe that God allowed us to get married. I still can't. Super great. And we got married. And the lady who discipled Katie all through college, she married us. And she gave us some words of wisdom. Why share with us the words of wisdom? She said that then was the team leader, and I was on the team. Yes, please. Old school, baby. Old school. She's on my team, but I am the team leader. And we all appreciate that. My dad and stepmom didn't appreciate that, but that's OK. It's like, this is my marriage, my wife, on my team. And truthfully, our whole first season marriage, it was fine. I mean, look at us. We were young kids. We were cute. We loved making out. How hard could this marriage thing be? And truthfully, it wasn't really until about seven and a half years in where we had to go back all the way to our wedding video to get some marital advice. Because you see Katie and I, right? We want to be on the same page. We want to live God. We want to do these things. And we kind of wrestled. We got to this point, this point where I thought we should go one way. Kate is how she should go the other. Jeff kind of alluded to. It's my favorite passage. It's Ephesians 5. And it simply says, women, submit to your husband. And men love your wife. And I said, Katie, let's watch her marriage video again, just to communicate that point, right? Nope. So good. I know. She loves it. Because the deal was, I just finished seminary. And I was getting ready to go on this new adventure. We had to leave our church. We were done there. We were ready to move on. And what did we decide back when we had our wits about us? And we were in love. And we were having dinner and drinking wine. Back then. What? Back then when we were in love. Back then? What was our big plan? What was our big plan? When? For our future when we were going back home. We were going to move to another state where we could afford to live. And for what reason? And be part of what church? And be part of the covenant church. Be a part of the covenant family. It was God's will. We decided when we had our wits about us, we decided. But the problem is, it took forever to find a job. And in that process, Katie got pregnant. And it took us forever to get pregnant. So she got pregnant. And you know when you get pregnant, you get kind of hormonal. And so you can't really trust you. You're like, right? So good. I know. She's a veteran. And so what happened was we reached this crossroads, where obviously I love Katie. I love my wife. I love my future family. God has called us to do this thing. And we are not seeing eye to eye. And we have to make a decision. Right. So far, so good? OK. So this is what happened. You can tell she's like, we were talking about this week. She's like, why are we even going there? I get really mad every time you talk stories. So good. I'm like mad already. So we-- so-- it's only going to get better, I promise. OK, so-- Like really mad. I grabbed you from seminary. And we do this road trip. Look at us, look at those kids from the '90s right there. Oh my god. I love bangs, I got man boobs, I get all good. And so we're in Montana. And I don't know if you know your geography, but Montana. You have to say why we're there. Why were we in Montana? Yeah, because we're on a road trip. We're leaving from seminary, going to Washington, the place that God has called us, that me as the leader of my family, I'm taking my family to go and look at her eyes, dead eyes. Dead. Not happy, but I didn't care. And we get to Montana in Montana's a long state, and all of a sudden, Katie stops talking to me. I'm sure you did something. I'm sure. I can't even imagine what, but Katie stops talking to me, and we're driving 100 miles, 200 miles, 600 miles. We finally get to Bozeman, and we're like, all right, we got to work this thing out. So we had this really gracious, loving conversation at this restaurant about God's plan for our future. No, I still remember the waitress. She was so awkward, 'cause I was sobbing, and you were rude. I was not rude. I was simply leaning in, you know when you kind of lean in, and you want to make your point? It's your turn to submit, I think is that way. No, he says, it's time for you to submit. Team leader, how hard can this be? I know. For real, he really said that. I flip in hate Bozeman, but everything at Bozeman, I can imagine having a burger, my wife crying, the waitress being awkward, and realizing-- Carrying his child. We love you, Noah. And I didn't realize I was leaning so far over the table, making my point, and you know when you remember back on something, all I said was, I love you, and I want God's best for our life, and you don't remember that. I don't remember that at all. Well, needless to say, that sent our marriage on a totally different trajectory, because it was that moment that basically, we began a year and a half long fight. And not the kind of banging doors, slamming doors, and screaming each other, but I don't know if you've been through a season like this, but a year and a half where Katie and I were obviously not married going on the road together. We were like married, but we were doing our own thing, and there was very little warmth, and love, and affection, and she was pissed, and I was a dumb guy. I didn't know what was going on, and for an entire year and a half. In fact, last year, all the youth pastors in Maryland, we got together for lunch, and like four of them just got married this last summer, and they're like, we went on this awesome honeymoon, and we have a great foundation for our marriage, and I just felt like, oh, you poor babies. Like, a year and a half was our marriage. And so we realized, as we were putting this thing together, having a biblical marriage, right? That's what we wanted. The Bible says, I'm the team leader, duh. We want a biblical marriage, and a biblical marriage where we take things in the Bible, and we like hammer each other over the head with them, is actually not the way in which we're supposed to engage this thing. And thankfully, what was helpful is all we did is say, let's just kind of thumb through the Bible and see what marriage looks like. And all we had to do was kind of begin in Genesis and make it just a couple chapters in before we realized, oh, our marriage is way better than those y'all are. - Way better. - So this morning, we're gonna take a look at a couple of messed up marriages, make you feel better about yourself, make us feel better about ourselves, and then we'll turn the corner hopefully. - Hopefully. - And then you can have a lot of marriage like Katie and I. - There you go. - So good. All right, let me pray for us, and then I'll hop into it. Oh man, it's not gonna be good. All right, Heavenly Father, thank you so much for my friends in this room. Thank you for my wife and for having her put up with me, and I just thank you that you have called us to be in relationship with you, to be in relationship with each other, and that is such a hard thing. And we just pray as we spend some time looking at marriage, looking at relationships, that you would just be gracious to us, God, because we know marriage brings such incredible joy and such incredible pain, and we just don't wanna be flipped about that. We wanna recognize that you are good and gracious and all that, and we wanna understand that better. So be gracious to us, speak to us whatever we need to hear, and nudge us a little bit farther down the road to know and love you. We love you Jesus, and all of God's kids said, amen. All right, if you have your Bible, just from the beginning, we're getting after Genesis, Genesis chapter three, right? God made Adam and Eve. Hey, here's the garden, it's super sunny, it's like the Bahamas, and you get a big naked all the time and have coronas, all good. That's how it started, but it only took like three days in before it goes south, and here's how we are. Genesis chapter three, verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat "from any tree in the garden?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit "from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not "eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, "and you must not touch it, or you will die." You will not certainly die, the serpent said, "The woman for God knows that when you eat from it, "your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, "knowing good and evil." And when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good and good from pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of it and ate it. She gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, and then both of their eyes were open and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leads together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of God, and he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord among the trees of the garden, but the Lord called to the man, "Where are you?" And I love this picture because I can so relate on so many levels to Adam and Eve, of course. But they were made to be together. They were frolicking naked. I mean, our honeymoon, frolicking naked. Super great, right? - My parents are here. - Oh yeah, hey Larry, sorry, man. (audience laughs) You know, that's how, like you have this dream, but what Adam and Eve, where they screwed up, is there was this sin, it was just a little sin. I mean, you have the whole garden, it was just don't eat this apple. It was a desiring to look at. It's one small thing, and what we've noticed in our own marriage and in our friends' lives, is that when we kind of belittle sin, when we say, "Hey, this sin, it's just me, "it's how I am, it's not a big deal," it always seems to end in death and destruction. - And I think it's really easy to justify a lot of the sins that we participate in, and I know as a woman it's super easy to justify gossip and talking and grumbling and complaining because it's life, and it's hard, and life is not easy all the time. And I think it's especially hard when we are talking about our spouse. And I hadn't, many of you know that Ben was on a spatical recently for three months, and I had people all the time come up and ask me, "How's the sabbatical going?" And I would say, "It's so good." And then it would instantly, on a dime, the conversation many times in many places in my life, people it would change to, "Really is it good? "How's it having him at home? "I can never have my husband at home." He would drive me crazy, he would do this, or he wouldn't do this, he would do that, or he wouldn't, it would be like having another kid. Is it like having another kid? I mean, and they would go off, go off on a very regular basis, that was the response. And it's difficult because I don't, it's so easy to say, "Yeah, sometimes marriage can be hard, "and there was days on his sabbatical "where it wasn't super great all the time, "but in the larger picture it was, "but it's still not something that you go around." I wouldn't go around and say, "Oh my gosh, it's like having a third child, "and it's because it's disrespectful, and it's hurtful, "and women we should not be talking like that about our husbands." And I think what was interesting, what struck me as I started to hear that over and over again, is that I was walking away from those conversations, I would think, that was a very surface casual conversation where you asked me about Ben, and you went off about your own husband, how much more are you complaining, grubbling, moaning, shredding apart your spouse when you are not, when it is an even longer conversation? And it's always been a frustration of mine to hear women just go off on their husbands because we would hate it if they did that to us. And it's just an area where it's a small sin because there are frustrating things about living together and doing life together, it's not easy, but it's not okay to shred them and pull them apart to other people. And so it was just an eye opening for me to consistently see that that is a normal way of communication among women, that at least that I've been around, that whether it's the playground or the downstairs hallway or wherever it is, it seems like it's an acceptable thing to talk about your husband that way. - Yeah, when you talk about your husband as a third grader all the time, like chances are you don't want to be all romantic with him also, and so it shuts that whole thing down. Now what I think is interesting is, when I hang out with guys and we hang out and talk, we actually don't talk about our wives at all. Have you noticed that? When you're hanging out with dudes, we don't talk about our wives. Like at least they fight, like they grumbled their friends about us, we just go, well, I guess I married, I forgot about that. (audience laughs) But what I realize is, like the emotional development that we need to engage in a marriage for men is super challenging. And it's like at work, you're successful, you're the man, you kill it, you get all these kudos, there's these clear expectations and you accomplish them and life is great, you come home and you do not accomplish anything well, and all of a sudden the home risk is to be rough. And there's kind of two ways in which men kind of relate and one is they get angry, which I thought at first I'm like, that's really bad, but the truth is, at least if you're angry, you're engaged. If you're angry, at least you're in the fight trying to work it out. What I realized for me and at least some of my friends is we just kind of withdraw. And we don't think it's a big deal, like who really wants to hear me complaining about my wife? Who really wants you? I don't really want to get in a fight again. And so we just kind of withdraw, we step back and we step back. And just like where we get all frustrated with our wives when they kind of shut down the true nudity, right? We get, our wives get frustrated when we shut down our emotional nudity, right? When we say, I am not given of my heart, I'm not giving who I am, because it's too hard, it's too complicated and we shut it down. And these are just small things, right? What's, I mean, grumbling and withdrawing. Like it are not big things, but there's these little, tiny sins that we just kind of discount and they send us on these trajectories that cause us to hide from each other and to hide from God. - So that's our first biblical marriage that we don't want to be like. And our second one is actually Abraham and Sarah, which I'm sure some of you have. Remember this story? - This one's okay for the guys. - Oh, it's not at all, actually. So this is in Genesis chapter 16. So this says, "Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had born him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. So she said to Abram, "The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant. Perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai had said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan for 10 years, Sarai, his wife, took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. So again, fabulous idea, right? No, I can't imagine ever wanting to give my husband to a maidservant ever. I mean, I could almost see. - But here's what was really going on. Abraham had been promised by God that he was gonna be the father of many nations, that his descendants would outnumber the stars. And the Holy, the Lord had told that to him and Sarah and nothing was happening and nothing was happening and nothing was happening. And finally, Sarah takes it and she wants some, she wants this baby that she's been promised and doesn't see how it's gonna come through, doesn't wait on it. So she takes it into her own hands and offers her husband what seems like a very good idea at the time, her maidservant, but then as soon as she gets pregnant, they come to, and there's deep resentment and there's anger and frustration and there's fractured relationship. And I think that that is very easy for us to do, not that we would ever give over our husbands or our wives to a maidservant or somebody else, not that that's a good idea. But I do think what we do do is that we do run after things that fulfill us in a way that is false. And for example, when Mckenzie was about five months old, Ben had decided that he was ready to go and wanted to run a marathon. And I thought this was a really great idea. In fact, I was the one that was like, you should totally do a marathon, you should do that. You saw that picture, you need to do that. This would be healthy for you. (audience laughs) Like, you should try it. So I was actually really excited about it and I really encouraged him strongly to do it and he wasn't sure if it was gonna be too long or too whatever, but I thought it was a great idea. Well, as the training went on and on, I want you to remember I have this new born in my house. As the training goes on and on, training for a marathon is no small deal. And it starts out like the first month is really easy four miles, six miles, eight miles. Like it's working out for us and I'm like, thinking this is great, I'm Friday morning, since day off, he gets up, he goes, he's home by like 9.30, like this is perfect. Then you get to 13 to miles, then 15 miles, then 18 miles, then you're up to 20 miles, his day off, he's leaving at seven in the morning and Jeff and I are gonna go to Point Reyes and we're gonna run for a year and then we'll be, oh, we had to get breakfast, whatever, whatever. (audience laughs) Mike, no, Mike. (audience laughs) - I told you, is 50% of this is gonna work or not? We'll sleep. (audience laughs) - So, he's gone. And this thing that I was genuinely excited about, that I'm encouraging him to doing, is starting to make me feel resentful. Because he's coming home, he's being filled up by this, having great conversation, great runs, he's accomplishing goals, he never thought he would accomplish and I'm excited for him. But I'm also angry that I've been home with a three year old and a newborn all day by myself. And so it was one of those things where he started fulfilling fulfillment and then he starts reading magazines and he's gonna be in more marathons and I'm like, nip, we're done. Because it was too much and I felt jealous and I felt left out because originally what was a good idea started not working because it was becoming what he was doing and what he was defining himself by. - I think the hard and challenging thing is right, we want our spouse to be fulfilled, we want our spouse to live into all of the complexities and dreams of who they are and we realize early on that there's no way we can satisfy those. But a lot of times the things that we kind of allow, we just kind of just get after this, it does, it always comes back to hurt us. And what's interesting is what I've noticed in my marriage with Katie is Katie has a lot of words. She has a lot of things to say and I even know why. You know, when your wife talks to you sometimes, she's like, what's that to do with anything? But she likes to talk, she likes to communicate. And so when Katie found some friends, she found some girlfriends, I was like, this is awesome. She would go off with these girlfriends and they would talk like the stuff that I was like a buffer. You know, like, oh, you can talk about all the stuff to come home and then we'll talk about the media stuff. And then they'd be like, oh, I want to read this book, I want to read the life of pie. Who wants to read the life of pie? Oh, join a book club. Great, so should go join the book club and does this thing, right? And there's women that have all these different things that they want and for us men, we don't have quite the emotional needs and words and so we easily say, go and do these things. But what I realize is, oh my goodness, Katie and I've seen some other women in our church and from school, they start being fulfilled and satisfied with all these relationships. And also, whatever few words that I had to offer, she doesn't even need those anymore because she has that all taken care of from all these other places. And also, I'm resentful. Like, I would love to talk about the life of pie. Please, you know? (audience laughs) And so, and it's one of those things, right? We want to find fulfillment. We want our spouses to do those things, but we can't just do these knee jerk, short, quick fixes that are outside of what God has for us, that are outside of ways that we should actually be growing in marriage, because if we do, that'll just lead to resentment, which never seems that and well. Nothing to say about that? - That's enough. - Still married, still okay? Okay. All right, last biblical marriage, so good, right? You read into the Bible, these guys are hackers. You guys are such better in such better shapes than them. You have Abraham and Isaac. I mean, Abraham and Sarah, they have a son Isaac and they just keep the dysfunction going. It is so rad with these guys. Isaac and his wife Rebecca have two sons, Jacob and Esau. And it's at the end of Jacob's life, he's about to die. And Rebecca loves her son, Jacob way more than she loves her son, Esau. And she decides that she's gonna meddle. She's gonna get in the middle. And the last way we don't want to have a biblical marriage is that we don't want to allow our kids to triangulate. We don't want our kids to get in the mix and mess things up, and this is Rebecca, and none of you are Rebecca, so this is great. All right, Genesis chapter 27, verse five says this. Now, Rebecca was listening to Isaac, spoke to her son Esau. And when Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back, Rebecca said to her son, Jacob, look. I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat that I am gonna give you my blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die. Now my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you. Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats so I can prepare some tasty food for your father just the way he likes it, and then take it to your father to eat so he might give it your blessing before he dies. But then Jacob says to Rebecca, his mother, but my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin, what if my father touches me? I will appear to be tricking him and I'll bring a curse down on myself rather than a blessing. And his mother said to him, my son, let the curse fall on me, just do what I say, go and get them for me. And this is such a brutal story where I could just picture Jacob as this old dying man in his tent, and Rebecca is just man handling this thing. She has this thing that she wants to do and she's like, oh, that poor old guy, he doesn't know, I know, and gets right in the mix with her kids and does this gigantic power play which ends up dividing their house actually forever. And so we don't want to do that. - And I think it's really easy. I think, I know that for Ben and I on a regular basis, and before we had kids and even now, we are constantly saying to each other and to our kids when they're trying to ask Ben for one thing and then ask me for the same thing that he just said no to, that nope, daddy and I are on the same team, and that seems really easy. That's an obvious way that kids try to triangulate our marriage, but I think what is bigger is actually what is not so obvious. And what I've noticed, and I've seen it a lot in our student ministry, in our children's ministry, and I see it in my own family with my own kids, is the way that they try to triangulate us, which doesn't necessarily start out totally intentional, but ends up being that way, which is that I am home, I have the blessing to be able to be home with them most of the time, and I'm doing the school, I'm doing the drop off, I'm doing the pick up, I'm doing all the kids stuff, or your kids are older, and you're the ones that are figuring all out the details while Ben's working, and he's doing these long days at the job, and he comes home, and so I'm getting tired, and I'm feeling all these things, and I'm kind of done with certain parts and personality characteristics from my children, and Ben comes home after a long day, longer than he thought it was gonna be, and he's wiped out, and he is actually feels guilty because he said he'd be home at a time, and then he gets home later, and so he has this guilt, because he hasn't seen the kids all day, and I have this, I feel tired, I also feel fear, feel, feel, feel, fearful, fearful, because something my daughter said, or my son said, suddenly I add 20 years, and I think, oh crap, we're screwed, so I get so worried, because I put my own fear on my kids, and so then what happens is, Ben starts to parent one way when he gets home, which is different than how I'm feeling about the time, and what I'm noticing is, my eight-year-old and my five-year-old start to be able to figure out, like, daddy's a little bit more gracious than mommy, like, they're not really on the same page, our words are, we're on the same page, our actions are, I'm kind of frustrated at him, because of how he's handling the situation, we haven't had a chance to talk about it, I don't like how he's doing it, he thinks I'm being too easy, he doesn't understand why I won't give more a hard line on certain things, and so it's not the obvious things, because we're on the same page, but we're not really on the same page. Does that make sense? Like, we feel, I feel resentment at him, that he's not handling it the way I want to, and he feels frustration with me, because he wants it done a different way, and so that's the triadulation that I think is really subtle, and can actually be really damaging within your marriage. - Yeah, and that's like us who are madly in love, and our kids are perfect. - Madly. - Madly. But what's interesting, and we've seen this a ton, and you kind of get little percolations of this in our own life, where like, okay, but Kenzie, she's like me, and I totally understand her and Noah, 'cause like you, and so, you kind of like, you divide your family, right? This kid's with me, and we do our special thing, that kid's with you, and you do your special thing, because you kind of get each other, and because kids are so beautiful and so great, and they just ooze love on you, and it's like, well, that's kind of easy, like when we go do our special thing, that's really easy, when I do this, and we haven't talked and connected, that's really hard, and unintentionally, you kind of see parents pick kids, and all of a sudden, the kids go from being a kid, to being kind of a partner in this marriage, and often, an unhealthy partner in this marriage, and so the triangulation happens, when all of a sudden, it's me and the kid, versus mom, oh, dad, he's such an idiot, we know how it really works around here, or however the deal is, and that is so brutal, and like, when they're little kids, we don't think that much of it, we're not really reflective enough to realize, oh, this person's kind of maybe replacing my spouse a little bit, but when we, when student ministry, we see us all the time, because kids, like, you think you're oozing all this love and affection on them, you think they're like, you're raising their status, but a kid does not feel safe, when all of a sudden, they're brought to the adult table, you're the adults, you figured out, we're the kids, even though they're gonna kick and scream, they wanna be told what to do, they want to be below you, and when they're brought to the table, when they're a partner with mom and dad, or above one of the parents, the amount of anxiety and stress and death and destruction that they feel is overwhelming, and we as parents, we have to realize kids are a great blessing, we love them, but they are not our pawns in this game of life, in the ways that we're trying to move our heads, I mean, move forward, it is your marriage that is you are the unit, and your kids are the people who mow the lawns, that's how God's well for us. And so as we, so we realized that's kind of silly, kind of tongue-in-cheek, we don't have a biblical marriage, right, we don't have to take, look at the Bible, and then use that to bash each other over the head and say, follow God and do this, and I'm the team leader, but the truth is, what we really want is a spirit-filled marriage, because the Bible, the whole Bible, it's pointing towards Jesus, it's pointing towards this version of life that's actually dynamic, it's not a list of rules that we do this and we don't do this, it's dynamic, it's saying, come and be with me, connect with me, be transformed by me, change by me, and I will cause this great fruit to bear in you. And so this passage, that's one of my favorite passages, John chapter 15, verses one through five and says this, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that he'll be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I've spoken, but remain in me and I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, must remain in the vine and neither can fruit bear, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches, if you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing. And what's so rad is we are made in the image of God, which means if you were dragged here and you could care less about God and care less about this Jesus thing, it is this truth that if you want a decent marriage and you don't want the next 50 years of your life to be awful, connect to your spouse. Say, instead of being connected to the vine, see the vine is your spouse that you are connected to them, you need to do whatever it takes to connect to them. There was something at one point when we were 19, we fell in love, there was something we did that causes us to connect, we need to find that thing and be connected to each other. If one of your, if you love Jesus and your spouse doesn't love Jesus, that doesn't change the fact that we must work hard to connect to one another. The nice thing, I mean, I cannot believe that I get to be a Christian, that God actually loves me and gives me an opportunity to know Jesus because I am a total wreck and I do not have it in me to figure out how to stay connected and make this thing work. But this passage is that when we connect to Jesus and we are pruned, we bear fruit and then we actually have the things in us to pull that out. So we have three really simple things to understand but I think incredibly complex things to put into practice and if we do those things, we can begin to have the marriages that God dreamed for us to have. - And as Ben said, the first thing is to stay connected and that is to stay connected to each other for sure and to constantly be working and looking outside of ourselves to find how we can love and care for our spouse. But I think to add on to that, if you are a Christ follower, if Jesus is your savior, it is your responsibility to stay connected to Him. And it is important that your walk with Him is daily, is alive, is active and is something that you are living out and figuring out on a daily basis. - I love God, I mean, it's super easy. God loves me and life is great. And it wasn't until after being married to Katie for a while that I realized there was this whole area of spirituality that I never even thought of, because the deal was Katie was not being a good wife to me. And I would feel like I would need to tell her these things and that never went well, by the way. - Ever. - Ever. But as I got to know her and as we became better friends and as I watched just the way she lived life, she had this weird twist on her walk with God because it wasn't just God, I love you God, I want to know you God, I want to follow you. She had this twist where she was willing to say, "God, have your way with me, prune me. "There might be things in me that I don't know about "that I need you to fix. "There might be ways that I'm not being the wife or the husband, "I mean the wife or the mom or the things that I may not be "and I need you to reveal that to me." And that was weird for me. I'm like, "I love God, I'll stay a script all day, "but allowing God to have that kind of access "was totally different." And what was wild is all of a sudden my whole being changed. So instead of trying to make sure I needed to help Katie become a better wife, I realized I could trust God that he was going to make Katie the kind of wife that I needed. And truthfully, if she's going to spend all this time and energy saying, "God, prune me, shape me, change me," maybe I could add that to my spiritual diet and not just know and love God, this is all great, but say, "God, prune me." Where are those wild roots that are just out of control that you need to prune so that I can bear the kind of fruit that I want to bear, that you want me to bear? And I think what's difficult about when we're asking the Lord and we're responsible for our own walk with Jesus and we're asking the Lord, "What do you want to prune from me? "What do you want to add to me? "I think the hard part is, as many times, "it comes from him, something that is not natural "to who we are," which is why there's a problem in the first place. And I think I remember a sermon that Art gave about five years ago, which was so impactful to me. It's become like a mantra only because it actually works. And that is the whole concept that when we can't grow, what do we do when we can't grow what's not there? Like, I can't find love for Ben in these certain ways. I can't deal with the resentment that I feel about certain things. I don't know how to do this because it's not in me. If it was in me, I would be doing it, but I can't do it because it's not in me. So it's become a prayer of my heart that, Lord, whatever it is, that this marriage needs, that whatever I need to do, you've got to put it in me because I can't manufacture it by myself. And when I try, I'm usually kind of sick of trying after a very short period of time. So it's coming to the Lord and it's saying, put it in me. And then, as Jeff shared a couple of months ago, that as he's been counseling people, as they've been coming to his office, as he's gotten older and been in ministry longer, he said that he's becoming more comfortable with telling people, I don't know how to fix it for you. I don't know what to do. I don't have an answer for that. And the reality is you need to get on your knees and you need to be asking Jesus to fix it because I don't have an answer. And so I think between saying, Jesus, you put it in me and your faithfulness, not a flip at one time or a really meaningful, emotional experience that you have on a Sunday morning, but the daily hard work of getting on your knees and saying, Jesus, put it in me. He is going to put it in you. And I've seen it because it wasn't certain things weren't in me and there's still things that aren't in me that I'm sure Ben would like to see that we're working on, that he's working on, that he's changing and putting in me. - Yeah, I mean, this Christian life is no joke. That is for dang sure. And I don't know if you were at Hamilton yesterday or if you've been up there before, but we were clearing out this area that they're gonna use from track and field. And there's been this one garden every year, we cleaned one garden, it's super nice and easy. And because this one garden is taken care of all the time, anyone can walk over and pull out a couple of those wades and you just do a little maintenance and it's great. We were at this place that had no maintenance for a long time and actually a bulldozer needed to come and de-root, uproot, whatever, some of this stuff. And the Christian life, we cannot be satisfied. We have love in God and trying to get on our deal because whether we're married, whether we're parents, whether we are just called to live life and to get after what God has for us, if not making space for God to prove to us,