EP 57: Communication in Marriage; Keys to Handling Conflict Peacefully. PT 2

Welcome to the Marriage and Love it podcast.

We are Greg and Linda Smith, your host from Raleigh, North Carolina.

It's great that you are taking time to invest into your marriage by listening to our weekly podcast.

And the goal of our podcast is to provide you with a weekly dose of marriage teaching to help keep you focused on your marriage.

See it as freshening up your marriage, preventive maintenance, a marriage tune up, or fanning the flames of romance, love, and passion.

I guess you could even call it continuing education.

We will be covering everything that has to do with your marriage, including the hot topics like sex, communication, and love, and much more.

Our teachings are based on Christian principles plus over 48 years of marriage and ministry experience.

We want to help you make your marriage great by teaching you how to be married and love it.

It is an honor and privilege to have you join us.

Hey, I'm glad you're here with us today to get your weekly dose of Married and Love It.

It's your booster shop for the week.

And mine too.

How about you, dear?

Amen.

It is.

I know because we learned so much.

Well, I've got to repeat, the scripture that was brought out last week is just so good.

And I've been reminded about it all week long and it's Galatians 5, 14, 15.

I'm going to read it to you.

You shall love your neighbor.

I put in there your spouse, and then I personally put in there, I shall love Greg.

Okay.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you bite ouch and devour one another, take care least you be consumed by one another.

Wow.

That.

That.

That's ouch.

Yeah, that's ouch.

That scripture says it all.

It does.

And we're talking about communication in your marriage and especially getting into conflict.

And the one thing that will make your communication better is if you love your spouse as yourself.

And we're going to be talking about this because it's basically putting on love.

And as we approach our conversations like that, what we started last week and what we're going to get into this week, you're gonna have communication that's gonna surprise you on how good it can be.

Because you know what, if you don't put on love, if you're not loving your spouse as yourself, then you're gonna devour one another.

You're gonna be consumed by one another, and you're gonna have all these fights that we hear people talking about all the time.

You know, I go, I go in on my Facebook page and since I look at marriage stuff all the Time I get tons of marriage advertisements for counselors, for coaches, and you know what?

All of them are about communication.

But I tell you, the things we talked about last week, actually all the different episodes, but especially last week, as we're getting into com to conflict, if you'll follow these things, it is going to lay a powerful, successful foundation for you to deal with when conflict comes into your marriage.

And again, conflict can be just having a conversation that maybe escalates or somebody just letting it all out, knock down, drag out.

So that's what we're going to talk about, how to tone that down.

So with this scripture in mind, in today's episode, we're going to continue talking about keys to handling conflict peacefully and becoming a skilled communicator and bringing in this is the big key right here that a lot of people don't bring in the God factor to help you communicate properly.

I like that.

I'm looking forward to this teaching.

Now, before we move on, here's a few points that we covered in episode 56.

We talked about what communication is.

We talked about the fact that conflict is going to happen.

It's just going to happen in all marriages.

That's normal.

But it is how you handle it that makes the difference.

We discuss just about how powerful the tongue is.

Oh, yes.

And we looked at James, which we're not going to do that here, and it talked about how powerful that tongue is and the problems it can cause.

Because look at Proverbs 12:18, or listen to this.

It says the there's one who speaks rashly like the thrust of a sword.

But the tongue of the wise brings healing.

That tongue, that your tongue and your mouth can thrust like a sword and cause harm, or it can bring healing.

So that's what we're going to be talking about.

Then there's another one scripture I want to look at, because it talks about being skillful.

Proverbs 16, 23 and 24 says, the heart, the heart not speaking out of our mind or our emotions, but the heart of the wise teaches his mouth.

It's intentional.

So as we're talking about communication, we're saying, you need to be intentional.

You've got to teach.

Every morning when I pray, I'll say, God, help me be able to communicate better with Linda.

Help me be able to share the things I need to share the right and proper way.

And it says, he, the wise person, teaches his mouth and adds persuasiveness to his lips through his skill.

Because then it says, pleasant words are a honeycomb Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

So if you know you have some communication issues going in your, on in your marriage and your life.

Well, the challenge we talked about last week and this week is teach your mouth, become skillful in your communication.

And we talked about applying the God factor to help us in this communication.

And that would be us inviting God in to help us.

You got to do that.

I know.

There's just no way around it.

We've got to have that one, two punch and God's the one and he's the two.

The one, two punch.

That's right.

We talked about doing a self evaluation on our communication abilities and skills and then to ask God to help us with that as well.

And you know, if you think you know what, I'm really doing pretty good on my communication, ask your spouse, how did we.

Yes, you were great minds think alike.

That's right.

Well, we started our communication series with episode four and five.

Then we also continued it there on episode 29 and 30, and we also picked it up on 47 through 50 and then episode 56.

Each one of those episodes builds on the other and we'll list all of these episodes in our show notes for you.

Okay.

All right.

So before we get in to the actual meat of the day's podcast, the new material, we're going to talk about two things I'd like to do.

Number one, if you have not signed up for our newsletter, we invite you to do that.

In that newsletter, we're sharing a teaching, a story, some type of marriage nuggets, maybe sometimes it could be a couple of different categories, kind of what we've got going on, something we're going to be doing.

It's just a good communication time.

And so we just encourage you to sign up for that.

If you haven't done that, you can go into show notes and there's a link that will take you straight to a sign up page.

Matter of fact, pause the podcast episode right now and go do that and come right back.

The other part is, and this is even more important is we just want to ask you to share our podcast and this episode or whenever you listen to one, if you see it's got good teaching in it, it's helping you where you.

Here's the key.

If you know of other people, which I think we all do, that could use a good dose of marriage teaching.

Maybe you're at work, you're at church, you're talking to a friend at a, a football practice for your kids or what type of Practice, and they start talking about marriage problems.

You know what you can do?

You can say, hey, I know a good marriage podcast.

And tell them about it and share the information with them.

See, our goal with Married and Love it is to develop successful families and see them impact their world.

And as you're learning and growing in your marriage and strengthening it, whatever condition it's in, our goal is to see you to impact others with your successful marriage.

And that's one way you can do that is by sharing this podcast.

You know, God is helping you.

He's giving you wisdom.

You're learning how to handle communication.

Or maybe you've improved your.

Your romantic life or whatever it is.

There's going to be people around you that are asking and talking and sharing about their marriage or asking for help indirectly, maybe, and God is equipped you to say, hey, listen to this podcast.

Show them to it on your phone.

Give them the address.

And that's causing the ripple effect of people all over to get blessed.

So.

So help us reach our goal.

Help you reach God's goal of helping all marriages to be married and love it.

That's great.

Yes.

Okay, well, here two more strategies involving the golf factor.

This is really good right here.

It's going to help us to succeed in our communication.

Galatians 5:16 says, But I say walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

What's the key right there?

Walking in the Spirit by the Spirit.

Yeah, so that.

That's the God factor.

You know, you got to get God involved.

Galatians 5:20 also tells us that when we walk according to the flesh, and that would be the selfishness, there are, you know, selfish nature, that we open ourselves up to the following deeds that affect our communication.

Some of that would be strife, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions.

The scriptures lists a whole bunch of that stuff.

So, Linda, you saying if we decide to put on God and use him, it can help us with these areas.

Right here, Lean into God and it will help us.

Yes, there's no doubt about it.

He says he will.

So I trust that.

So there's two paths we can take, right?

Walk with the Spirit, allowing God to help us, or walk according to the flesh.

Right.

So it's our choice.

Yep.

His way or I, our way.

And you know what happens when we.

When we start picking those paths, especially if we're just not walking with God as easily.

The way we should be is the marriage busters.

Come in.

Oh, boy.

See?

Yeah.

We can just be living a normal life and still deal with outbursts of anger and disputes and dissensions and get in disagreements.

But when the pressures of life come in those marriage busters, you're fatigued, you get tired, you get stressed because you're dealing with bills, bills or work deadlines or your kids are having.

You're having problem with your kids, or you're going to football and soccer.

Chaotic stuff is.

And you come home and you're just worn out.

And that's when we're the weakest.

And that's why it's important that we walk in the spirit.

Yes, but life sets you up for failure in your converse, in your conversations, because when you're tired and hungry, it's just hard to have a good conversation.

Matter of fact, it keeps people from communicating at all because they're so tired.

That's where roommates come in.

Yep.

Now, there's another thing that happened.

You ever heard this, the, the, the term kick the cat?

Yeah.

And this sets you up for failure right here.

Unless you walk in the spirit and decide to do that is maybe, if you haven't heard it, maybe you're at work and, and you worked real hard and, and you have a, a business meeting with your associates.

And then all of a sudden the boss comes in and says, you guys should have done this.

We should have closed that account.

We should have not spent this money.

How come you went over budget and he just starts kicking you?

He's putting you down.

That's called kicking the cat.

Your cat got kicked.

Now you're probably not in a good mood.

So, Jen, you're driving home and then all of a sudden every red light, you hit every red light.

Then you got somebody that's driving really slow and you can tell they're texting.

So you start getting mad at them.

They're kicking your cat, and then you're kicking their cat.

And then you pull into the driveway at home and you pull in and the kids left their bicycles in the driveway.

You got to get out and move that.

And so now you're mad that you're mad.

And now you're thinking about your kids and you're mad at them.

And then you walk in the house and maybe your wife is home as a homemaker taking care of the kids.

Or maybe she just pulled in the driveway and she pulled in and her cat got kicked.

So you walk in the door and what does she say?

She said, how come you didn't get home sooner?

Did you remember to pick up the milk on the way home?

And you didn't remember.

And you're like, oh, no.

So what do you do?

You start kicking the cat.

Everybody's kicking each other's cat.

And then the kid walks in, and then you start chewing on them because of that.

Why?

Because all the way back at work, somebody kicked your cat.

Yep.

And it got you upset.

And what happens?

We bring that all the way home.

All the way.

You had an opportunity to walk in the spirit.

But when we don't do that, when we walk in the door, if we're not walking in the spirit, all these other things, Linda strife, outbursts of anger, all that comes in and our conversation goes down.

And then by that time, the whole night is ruined.

There's not much peace in the home.

And that's what point is there.

That's what we're talking about here.

Let's bring peace.

We're talking about how to bring the peace in.

How you can stop that from happening.

Doesn't mean you're never.

You're never going to have another bad argument.

Right.

You still do.

Even Linda and I will.

We'll have a disagreement.

And sometimes we got to practice what we preach.

Always.

Sometimes the flesh gets a little more than what we want to.

But then.

Then you know how to take care of it when it does come up.

That's right.

Well, God's spirit in us gives us that ability to be successful in it.

And really, it comes down to making a choice.

That's like God saying, you guys, you got married.

I'm right here to help you do this thing called marriage.

Right.

He's got his hand out saying, hey, if you'll just do these things right here, I'm.

I'm here.

He gives us the six, the.

The tools to be successful.

So what are you going to do with it?

Well, I'm going to lean into God.

How about you?

Yes.

Yep.

We activate.

We're the ones.

We're the ones that activate the God factor in us as we decide to walk in the spirit.

It's our choice.

Lean into him.

Right.

We got to learn it, practice it, and apply it.

Apply it.

That is it.

But you got to do the activate, like Linda said.

Yeah.

That leads us.

That was Galatians 5, 20.

Let me back up just a minute on there.

I just.

Just had this word picture come to me.

When we plug something in, if it gets plugged in partially, it doesn't get.

It's only part, you know?

Yeah, you gotta plug.

Sometimes there's some plugs that you don't get it plugged in.

All the way.

And so the whole thing doesn't work very well.

Kind of if it pull the cord one way, it works for a second, then it turns off.

Yeah, that's like getting your cat kicked.

Yeah, yeah.

Start getting mad.

So go ahead, dear.

I don't mean to interrupt though.

That's good.

We gotta plug in.

That's good.

Plug in all the way.

Plug in.

So we looked at, if we're not drawing on the God factor, it's going to open the door for more stries, outburst of anger, which I know most of y' all probably never have that problem, right?

Dissensions and factions.

But let's look at Galatians, Galatians 5, 22.

And this is good.

It says as we choose to walk.

In the spirit, there again it says we have a choice.

The fruit that will be coming from that.

So we saw if you walk in the flesh, what happens, all that crappy stuff.

But look what happens if you choose to walk in the spirit.

That fruit is going to be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

I love it.

See, as we draw in God speed, when you got born again, if you're a born again Christian, God's spirit comes into you and these seeds of the fruit of the spirit are in you.

You are capable of having patience, you are capable of goodness, you are capable of self control.

You are capable of gentleness and being kind because God put it in there.

But you have to make the decision to say, you know what, Greg, I can be patient today.

Yes.

I can be good, I can be faithful.

I can have gentleness and peace and self control.

Now I'll tell you what.

As soon as you think that something's going to come up and test that, but it's in you and we have to develop that fruit.

Okay, so I've got to ask you this.

How about the people that have not accepted the Lord and they don't have him walking in them, they can probably.

Still be good people.

Just because you're born again doesn't mean you're going to have a successful marriage.

And, and if you.

There are people that aren't Christians that have a successful marriage, they're probably a lot less, but they don't have.

They can only go so far because they're by the flesh.

God gives us an anointing, a gifting, when we get, when we come, born again.

Okay?

So we need to tell people how to get born again that want to receive the Lord.

So I want to offer the opportunity to anybody out there that you may be thinking, well, I'm not born again.

How do I do that?

This is how you do it.

I'm just going to lead you, and it's.

It's simple, it's easy.

And this is what you do.

You just say, daddy, God.

Well, you don't have to say Daddy, God.

You can just say.

You can, though.

You can.

I do that.

But that's me.

I just come before you and ask you to take over my life.

I ask you to just heal me from the past.

I ask you to show me the way.

I want to be born again that Greg and Linda are talking about.

I want to accept you as my personal Lord and savior.

Amen.

Amen.

That's as simple as it is.

You're.

You are part of the kingdom of God now.

Yes.

And you have the spirit of God in you.

And as you receive his love, he loves you and he wants to have an intimate.

I'm not talking religion.

No.

I'm talking relationship.

He wants that intimate relationship with you.

And as you have received it, congratulations.

Amen.

Welcome to the family of God.

All right.

And let us know.

Let us know.

Yes, we want to hear about it.

But we have this gift, as we talked about, that we can walk in the spirit as Christians now, you got to develop that.

You still have to make a decision.

That doesn't mean it's going to be a cakewalk.

But when we look at that Proverbs 12:18, you got, there's one who speaks rationally like the thrust of a sword.

That's the person that's walking by the flesh.

But the tongue of the wise brings healing.

So when you activate the fruit of the spirit in your life, you're going to bring healing.

And that means when you get into an argument, a discussion or whatever you want to call it with your spouse, you've got the power of God in you, and you make that decision.

You know what?

I'm going to allow the fruit to come out of me.

It's instant decisions.

We're going to get into that a little bit more in just a few minutes.

So apply these fruits.

Don't just sit there when you're thinking about, oh, my Lord, I had my.

I had a terrible day today.

I'm going to get home and I'm going to be so aggravated if the car, the bikes are in the driveway and my wife is mad at me because I didn't get the milk.

But you go, you know what?

I've got the fruit of the spirit in me.

That's right.

I have patience, yes, I have goodness, I have self control.

And you start saying these things to yourself and you believe them because they're in there and you're feeding it.

We're going to talk about that in a minute.

And you know what, when you walk in the house, your wife going to be, could be thinking, or your spouse is sitting there going, oh no, I can't, I, I'm dreading them coming home because I know what happened and they're going to be mad about something and, and you're going to walk in and they're going to go, what happened?

You're not mad, you know, and you could be the same way.

If you're the one at home, you can say, I've got patience, I've got goodness in me.

See, it's all dependent on how you apply these things.

Right?

When you apply the fruit, your communication can begin to excel.

Well, here's a couple examples that from the Bible.

It's in Proverbs 51, a gentle answer turns away wrath.

That's probably right here.

What she's sharing is the one of the number one communication scriptures that will stop everything.

Yeah, that's so true.

But a harsh word stirs up anger.

You know what?

That's, that's so true.

It's a great scripture shows the contrast between walking in selfishness or what the scripture says, walking in the flesh in our communication as compared to walking in love, which is walking in the fruit of the spirit.

So Ephesians 4, 29 and through 32.

Here's another great example in the Bible, let no one wholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to, to those who hear it.

Wow, that's powerful.

That is powerful.

If we can make a decision to, to guard our tongue, right?

Just to not let stuff come out of our mouth.

Just shut your mouth, shut that trap.

But you know, this takes practice.

It does, it does.

It doesn't happen.

Somebody's never been been able to control their anger or their conversation or they're just not skilled.

You just don't.

And you can't change overnight.

What happens is you start catching yourself.

Right?

That's right.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

And be kind to one another.

Wow, that's a biggie right there.

Be tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ is forgiving you.

So if we Just said, you know, sometimes I catch myself saying, linda, just be nice, just be kind, be tender hearted.

I thought you were talking to me.

I'm talking to yourself.

I'm talking to myself.

You never heard it?

I said it to myself when I went to the bathroom.

Yep, that's right.

So what about.

So how do we do that?

I mean, how do we strengthen ourselves in all of this, dear?

Yeah, I'm going to get to that.

But you know what?

These two scriptures that right here that she just read out of Ephesians, you know, you can learn all the you should haves.

Don't say that.

You should have statements.

Use I statements.

All the different cliches we use to have good communication that so you can bounce back and forth and not have an argument.

Those only go so far.

But what we're talking about is the attitude in your heart and having God's spirit come in to help you draw forth on him and what's in you.

Because it's hard to let all bitterness be put out.

Yeah, that's true.

But when your heart is right and you're wanting to do right, you're.

You're seeing your spouse as more important than you, and you're wanting to bless them and you want to bear fruit, then it's easier to go, I'm going to be kind, I'm going to forgive.

That's right.

Just as God.

So we're putting the spirit in the heart and all these little guidelines, the communication that eventually if your heart's not right, all you're doing is putting book knowledge in.

And that only will get you so far.

But here's the key with walking in the Spirit and how we get stronger in that.

All right, we want to tap into the God factor.

And we do that.

How?

We basically spending time in prayer, talking with God, asking him from help, and getting into the Bible.

John 15:5 says, I am the vine.

That's Jesus talking.

You are the branches.

He who abides in me.

That's just spending time with God.

That's just praying.

You can be praying while you're driving down the highway.

You know, it's.

It's reading His Word and applying His Word.

It's living by these scriptures that we're sharing with you.

There's nothing crazy about these scriptures.

It's not some will, wild, spooky thing or evil thing.

It's God's word talking about love.

It says, if you abide in him and in he and us, we will bear much fruit from, apart from him, we can do nothing See, we need God on our side, so spend time with God.

And the more time we spend with him, the more we become like him, and then the more we'll act like Him.

But it takes time.

So let's dig into that now.

Awareness.

I want to get another impact on this.

When you're having discussions between you and your spouse, whenever you see an opportunity come up, how are you going to respond?

You need to be thinking when the, when it's, the opportunity is happening, you're in that discussion and you feel the temperature rising.

Be aware of your own emotions.

You can say, you know what?

I know my voice is going up.

I'm beginning to tone.

I feel my eyeballs bugging out.

That's a signal to say, you know what?

All right, take a deep breath.

Put on love.

Let's allow the fruit to come out and control those emotions.

Also be aware of your spouse's emotions.

Do you see them getting upset?

Do you see them, their voice changing?

Do you see them getting mad?

You see that anger?

You know, maybe you feel like you got a one liner coming that's gonna zing and you just have to say, no, Greg, hold off.

You don't want to say that.

Not all this is happening in seconds.

You know, it's not a long, drawn out conversation with yourself.

It's.

This is.

Stuff has happened in seconds and stuff.

So because what happens is you react or you respond.

You want to be a responder that responds in kindness and you don't want to react in anger.

So watch how you're.

Make sure you're responding and not reacting.

Be aware of your spouse.

If you see your spouse going out of control, you want to say, hey, can we just slow down for a minute?

I need to take a moment and think about what's going on here.

But you, you try to de escalate the situation and not.

If you know your spouse is getting angry and you're under control, that's not the time to give them a one liner, okay?

That's a time when you, you make sure you're putting the love out there to calm them down.

And then don't get drawn in to your spouse's emotions.

That's, that's the big part.

If Linda and I are in a conversation, we start getting heated and maybe she's getting more heated than me, then I gotta be aware, okay?

She's getting up there.

I feel my temperature going up.

Then I need to take a deep breath and, and put on love here.

I need to calm down a little bit.

Don't get sucked into the battle.

Don't take the bait that the enemy's putting out there.

All right.

All right.

Good.

All right.

Proverbs 15:28 says.

This goes for this section here.

The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer.

So what's happening while this situation is developing?

Or maybe you are coming home from work and you know there's going to be the potential for an argument because you, you already talked on the phone and you know your spouse at home is already aggravated.

Ponder how you're going to answer.

Say, yes, I am going to be in peace and kindness.

So begin to ponder it.

Because it then says, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.

Have that new person on there.

Have the person that's walking in the spirit of God, activate it.

Because if not, if you're in the flesh, you see what happens.

Wicked things pour out of your mouth.

Yeah.

Let's go to see what Colossians says about that.

Colossians 3, verse 8 talks about taking off or putting aside anger, wrath, slander, and abusive speech and lying.

So that shows right there where it says to not walk it out.

You don't.

You want to take it off, you want to put it aside.

Right.

Be like having a coat on.

Yeah.

And you, you maybe you got the coat of anger on and you feel that coming on you.

So what's that saying?

Take it off, get off.

Take it off.

Taking it off.

Yes.

At the first sign of any kind of conflict, whether it's in you getting stirred up or maybe it's your spouse, take off any kind of anger, any kind of slander.

In other words, hop into the, you know, put on.

That's the second step.

Verse 12 through 15 says about that.

To put on.

Well, what are you going to put on?

You're going to put on the God factor.

You're going to put on that coat of love, you're going to put on that heart of compassion.

You're going to put on kindness, humility, gentleness and patience bearing with one another, forgiving each other.

Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you.

So that's verse.

Oh, and it continues to say, and beyond all these things, so you can.

Do more than those, there's more there.

There's more.

So, you know, if you just apply one factor that we talked about, you are going to see great peace in your home.

So beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.

That is how we can bring peace into our home.

So when you're in it, you're having a discussion.

You're.

You're sitting in the kitchen at the kitchen table and you got a discussion going on.

And maybe it's not anything big, but you're just talking about it.

Maybe it's the schedule for the week and you got conflict going on about it because somebody overbooked and all this.

And all of a sudden you feel the flesh starting to kick in.

What the Bible is saying here is take off that impatience.

Yeah.

Take off the anger that you're feeling.

You.

Yes.

You've got to be where you actually say, okay, I gotta take this off.

And.

And in your mind, and this has happened in an instant.

Really?

Yeah.

I gotta take this off.

Now when you take it off, if you sit there naked, that means you're.

Gonna put something back.

You gotta put something.

Like Linda said, it says put on.

You got to see your.

Make yourself see that.

You're putting on that coat of love.

Right.

You're putting on gentleness.

You're going to put on patient.

Maybe your spouse isn't understanding and you're getting aggravated because she's not understanding your point of view.

Put on patience.

You got it.

Yeah.

You've got to have this mindset.

And as you're doing all these, then that's where you don't say you should have done this or you always do this, or I feel this way now you've got conviction behind you and you got gentleness and humility and patience coming out with those statements.

So not those statements even going to be more powerful.

But what's really cool is God says you can do all these things, then put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity, which Linda brought up.

So if you want unity in your marriage, you're going to have to work on putting on love.

And it takes effort.

It's practice.

It's practice and it's take spending time with God and taking on his nature.

But you can do this.

You can have the best communication in the world.

And maybe you have a hiccup now and then.

And you know what's so cool about putting on love is maybe you go two weeks without a real good conversations going on, and then one night your cat gets kicked and you just let loose.

Putting on love says, honey, I am sorry for what I said last night or five minutes ago.

Will you forgive me?

That was not me.

I just let the life hit me and I'm sorry for the way I responded.

Then the other.

Your spouse is Putting on love.

You're going to say, you know what, dear, I forgive you.

I, I know, I know you were stressed out today at work and you came home and it just blew up and I forgive you.

See, it eliminates the going back and forth that people do that.

Then you do a 10 second kiss and you move on with life.

Yes, because it's, because you put on love.

It's the perfect bond of unity.

And then we let the peace of God come into our conversations.

So here's how you can do this a little bit further.

And you'd be using the God couple, God factor as a couple.

Philippians 2, 2, 4 says, make my joy complete by being of the same mind.

And what really helps is when you guys get in this conversation and putting on love together, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.

You know what?

When you arguing and you're getting mad and you're wanting your way and you're the one, that's right, or maybe you go pull the silent treatment game.

I'm not talking about taking a healthy pause, but you just pout and you, some of y' all pout for two or three days and don't talk to each other.

That's selfishness.

God says, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself.

See, when you're arguing, you don't want to put your spouse down.

You don't want to degrade them.

You don't want to crucify them, so to speak, for something they said.

Maybe you do, but you choose not to.

Right?

That's right.

You choose not.

That's good.

Thank you.

That's putting your other spouse in front of you.

And some of you guys or girls, you don't want to compute because you, you know, you're going, I'm not a communicator and I'm not going to communicate.

You should just know how I feel or this is how I feel and that settles it.

You know what?

That's wrong.

That's not seeing your spouse is more important than yourself.

I don't care if you're going to church and leading the Bible study, if you won't communicate with your spouse and communicate properly.

God says you're not putting on love.

That's sin.

That's selfishness.

And it says, do not merely look out for your own personal interest.

So when you're in an argument, whose interest are you really looking out for yours or your spouse's.

Well, I don't read all this because I don't know what's going to happen tonight.

I hope I don't have to put this to work.

I don't know.

Maybe we should talk about the next episode.

Listen, don't merely look out for your own personal interest, but for the interest of others.

Thank you, dear.

That's nice.

So what we're going to do on our next episode, we're going to move.

In this one, we've been dealing with your heart, putting on love, walking in the spirit, allowing God to help you.

So next week we will continue with more practical things that will help you work out this.

But now we've laid this foundation, and I think it's going to help you excel a whole lot more.

Well, I want to encourage everybody out there.

And let me encourage you, dear, because you said you don't know.

Now, after reading that, you're gonna have your.

What's the rest of your day look like?

Go.

You know, I want you.

Don't lose heart in doing good.

Galatians 6, 9, 10.

And let us not lose heart and in doing good.

For in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary, you know, And a lot of ladies out there that I talk to, you know, they may say, well, I'm always the one.

I'm always the one that's having to, you know, be patient.

I'm always the one having to be kind.

Well, keep on being kind.

Don't get weary because you are, you know, you're going to reap the harvest from all that, you know.

And also verse 10, encourage, you know, there's hope.

There is hope.

So hang on to it.

Hang on.

Don't let go while you have let us do good to all men.

God says yes.

So even though it may seem impossible, it might seem overwhelming to you, I want to tell you it can be done.

You know, it's okay.

It's.

It's good if you may not see your spouse responding right away because, you know, like we talked about earlier, it's not going to happen overnight.

Well, you might think, well, I've been doing this for years.

Oh, well, sorry.

I'm sorry.

But you know, hang in there.

You're not going to change your spouse.

He won't.

She won't change overnight.

Hang in there.

It takes practice and it takes time.

Right.

So don't lose heart.

Don't lose heart.

Yes.

What does Luke tell us about that?

Well, as we close this up, you know, Luke 6.

31 says, treat others as you want them to treat you.

Yes.

And that's what a lot of this is about.

That is true.

If you want to have a good conversation, do your part and treat your spouse and respond to them the way you want to.

Do you like it when they react to you and fuss at you or argue with you or say you're.

You're dumb or whatever goes on in your conversations?

Well, then don't treat them like that yourself.

Treat your spouse the way you want to be treated.

Put on love.

Yes, put on love.

Constantly think about putting on love and taking off the flesh.

And, and I think before we.

We want to remember the golden rule right there.

That's basically what you're saying.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

The golden rule.

Yes.

So before we give a couple of homework honeydews, I just want to pray over you.

Yes.

So right now, Lord God, we just pray over everybody that's listening now or three years from now that as they work on their communication, maybe they're hurt, they've been offended, they've been put down.

They feel like they're not heard because their.

Their spouse is not responding properly.

They're reacting and they've said hurt words, harming words to them, whatever it is, constant strife all the time, walking on eggshells.

We just ask right now for healing to take place for hearts, Lord God, that, that are hard, that they don't even want to try to communicate because it's.

It's just been so bad hard on them.

They've tried to do right.

We just call, Lord God, that you would make those stony hearts soft and pliable.

So does they continue to apply your word and to put on love?

That the love they give to their spouse is going to penetrate their spouse's hardness.

That.

That there will be a.

Your spirit will be there.

That the spouse won't even know what's going on.

But this communication situation that's not pleasing to them and to you is going to be healed.

Yes.

That each spouse will begin to put on love and to learn how to communicate skillfully, Lord God.

And the barriers that have been there will be broken down and there will be a sweet, sweet communication beginning to develop.

And as Linda already said, the ones, Lord God, that have been losing heart, that as they hang in there, they are going to see rewards for their efforts.

And I thank you, God, for creating hot, skilled communicators, Lord God, that.

That their marriage is going to go to a whole new level because of improving communication in all areas of their life.

And we thank you for it, Lord, in Jesus name.

Amen.

Thank you, dear.

That's good.

Okay, so honeydews.

Well, let's just.

Here's one of them.

Think about what areas you can improve in regard to the deeds of the flesh or, you know, where do you say, where do you see yourself?

Are you walking in the flesh in your communication or what qualities of love can you put on to be a better communicator?

That's a couple of those honeydews right there.

Which coat of love are you gonna put on?

Which coat are you gonna put on tonight?

Which coat are you gonna take off?

Yeah, right.

Yes.

So, and then number three, honeydew.

The ten second kiss.

Y' all know it.

Hopefully all, some of y' all have started the tradition of doing this every day as we even set out the previous couple of weeks, the Valentine's Day kiss challenge, that 10 second kiss.

Do this after an argument.

Doing it.

Do it anytime you want.

So all you do when you don't want.

Yeah, that's right.

Or you don't have time.

It's only 10 seconds.

It's 10 seconds.

Say, hey, honey.

Hey, dear.

Come on over here.

Grab your arms around them, grab their rosy little cheeks and just plan a good old 10 second kiss on their lips.

Use whatever timer you need, unless you've got it down and just lay one on them again.

It may be just a good kiss or maybe something that will change your day.

That's right.

Enjoy.

That's right.

Well, I hope you've been inspired by today's message.

I know I have.

How about you, dear?

Yes.

Yes.

And again, if you know of anyone that can benefit from these podcasts, pass the word along to them, let them know about it.

They don't have to be in the middle of a bad marriage or anything.

I mean, it's just a fun podcast to encourage.

It's a tune up.

It's like, you know, preventive maintenance.

It's like a continuing education.

Right?

That's right.

Something.

It's a booster shot.

It's your booster shot for the week.

So we're going to see you next time.

And until then, remember, you can be married and love it on purpose.

Thank you for investing into your marriage by listening to the Married and Love it podcast.

Be sure to be a part of the ripple effect of making marriage great by sharing this podcast with other couples to equip them to be married and love it.

Also, subscribe to and follow us on your favorite platform and be sure to check out our website at www.marriedandlovet.com where you can learn more about Married and Lovett and contact us with any questions or comments that you may have.

And remember with God that you have a future and a hope and you can be married in Lovett on purpose.