EP5. MAKING YOUR MARRIAGE GREAT: Part 2 continued - 10 keys to transform your marriage....Better You, Better Marriage

Welcome to the Married and Lovett podcast.

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

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

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

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

You could even call it continuing education.

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

Our teachings are based on christian principles, plus over 47 years of marriage to each other 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 on today's podcast.

We're going to continue on with the topic of better you, better marriage, and that's part of our making marriage great series today as we talk about better you, better marriage.

What we're talking about is working on yourself, improving yourself instead of trying to change your spouse.

Because I know we all see things in our spouses.

Oh, I wish we could change that, or I wish they wouldn't do that.

And what happens?

We try to change them and our focus is off.

We need to focus on being the best that we can be.

So today we're going to be looking at the ten commitment keys, a better you, better marriage.

And we're going to review the first few that we covered last week.

So if you missed those, make sure you listen to last week's episode.

And we've got a couple of scriptures that kind of open that up.

And Linda's going to mention those.

And then we'll get into the ten keys.

Yeah, we're looking at Matthew seven three five.

And I'm just going to paraphrase it a little bit.

And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye?

And I like to throw in there your spouse, but you don't notice the log that's in your own eye.

And then we're also going to look at psalms 139, verse 23 through 24.

And it reads like this, search me, o God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my anxious thought and see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way.

Now, Linda, I want to add something to that that we didn't mention last week.

It says, search me.

Oh, God.

You know, a lot of times we'll say that we're saying, God, search me.

And we're a lot of times going to be praying.

When we say that, we'll be sitting down and go, God, will you just search me, see if there's anything going on in me, help me to treat my wife better or my husband, and just show me what do I need to change?

And a lot of time, that's a prayer that we're praying.

And, you know, God can respond to that prayer in many different ways.

Sometimes it's going to be directly to us.

You'll be sitting in your prayer chair, or maybe you're out taking a walk and you're going to hear this small voice that comes in and says, you know, Greg, try to work on your tone or try to spend more time listening to your spouse, or I help them around the house do this or do that.

But it's just that voice inside of us.

And sometimes we'll argue with that voice, but we need to listen to that voice.

Sometimes it will happen while you're reading your Bible, God will just show you something in the word and you're going to go, oh, that's what I was praying about.

Or maybe you're reading a book on marriage and a certain chapter jumps out or a certain paragraph.

That's God answering that prayer.

When you said, search me, oh God, and see if there's any hurtful way in me.

What are the things I can change?

Maybe it's a podcast like this one, or maybe it's a church or you're listening to somebody else speak on marriage, but somehow God heard your prayer and he's going to open up other avenues so you can hear his voice talking to you.

Sometimes God can even use your spouse.

Imagine that.

Yes.

Proverbs 20 717.

I'm going to paraphrase this a little bit.

It says, iron sharpens iron, so one spouse sharpens another.

You know, God uses Linda in my life to sharpen me a lot.

Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't.

But he'll do that.

He uses you in my life to sharpen me.

Yeah, I ask him to use me.

And he also, you know, and a lot of times one of the areas I really have to work on is being corrected because of, you know, I'm perfect.

Yes, yes.

At least that's what you tell me all the time, that I'm perfect.

When you come to correct me, I'm like, what?

Huh?

I thought I was perfect, but, well.

I like to edify you too, sometimes.

So in all seriousness, Greg really becomes, sometimes the sharpening me helps to sharpen me.

So your spouse, God, can say, you know, you ever prayed for patience before?

Oh, don't do that.

And when you do that all day long, long, your patience are tested.

Yes.

Well, when we pray for God to search us, he's going to search us.

That is a daring prayer, right?

Yes, it's a very brave prayer.

And then the ten keys that we're talking about all fit in to how you can hear from God and how to be a better spouse.

And the thing I want to encourage you to do is when you pray this type of prayer, say, God, help me with my spouse.

Help me understand him or her.

Uh, search my heart.

Have your antennas up.

Be aware of what you prayed.

And that way, you're going to be listening to what God is trying to tell you.

All right, so, Linda, what was the next.

So it's Ezekiel 36, verse 26, and it says, moreover.

And now this is the message translation, I believe, moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

I will remove the heart of stone.

That's the Lord talking to us.

I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

So with that, God is telling us that he's going to take that old, hard heart out, and he's going to replace it with a heart of flesh, a soft, tender heart.

And with that in mind, we want to be willing to, you know, to be changed.

And, you know, when.

When God takes, you know, somebody's heart gets hardened, sometimes one act can cause that heart to get hardened almost instantly, like a big freeze, because it's like one of the biggies.

Somebody commits adultery or they get lied to over and over, and it causes that heart to get hard.

But a lot of times, that hard heart gets hard a little bit every day or every bit a little once a month or once a week, whenever the offenses come.

And it can be a gradual thing to all of a sudden, that heart is hard.

But also for that heart to get softened, sometimes it can happen immediately, but a lot of times it takes another day by day thing, because it's a process.

It's a process because that heart has to heal.

And the actions and attitudes of the person that caused that to happen, they're changing, and sometimes they don't change overnight.

So.

So we need to offer up grace, you know, realize that it may take a little bit of time, you know, and not get offended on our part because it didn't in a.

Didn't happen immediately.

Yeah.

So we're going to get onto the ten keys.

We're going to review the first, and then we'll go into the new ones we didn't cover all the way.

And just remember, these ten keys, they're a process.

They don't happen overnight.

And that it's a two way street.

As you're working on these keys to become a better person, the first one was I will be open.

Number two is I will be teachable.

Again, on our previous podcast, we went into these more detail.

I will be honest.

I will not condemn or criticize.

And number five, probably one of the biggies is I will forgive, because that can really, really impact you if you don't do that, because you'll be carrying around baggage.

And something we didn't bring up last week, it kind of ties into I will forgive, but also we.

And this isn't one of our ten steps, but it is be willing to say, I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah.

When you know you've done something that is not right, maybe you don't even agree with it, but it's just be willing to say, I'm sorry.

Please forgive me.

I will do my best with God's help, not to do that again, to change my habits.

It may take time.

I'm human, but please accept me being sorry.

Accept my apology.

And then I'm going to do my best to get that changed.

Thank you for that.

And then own it.

If you screwed up, messed up, just own it and move on.

So the next one is number six, Linda.

It's I will be vulnerable.

And, you know, I was wondering, when I was looking at my notes, I'm like, you know, what is that definition of vulnerable?

I needed to look that up.

So it.

Some of the words that describe being vulnerable is exposed, naked, a sitting duck, unguarded, unprotected, wide open.

So when we say, I will be vulnerable, we're actually going to be, like, exposing our weaknesses to our spouse.

This is probably one of the hardest ones.

It is.

Well, forgiveness is pretty right for a lot of people, but you got to.

Be vulnerable to even the forgiveness to.

Realize that there's something that we need to ask forgiveness for, also being vulnerable, that we're willing to be hurt and be corrected.

And that's where I was saying that, you know, those times when I have to be corrected, or that Greg will come to me and say, you know, this, that or the other, but I have to be willing to receive that correction and allow the walls to come down.

And that also risks me being rejected, you know, when we're, when we're vulnerable, it's like we're putting ourselves out there to be rejected.

And you have to get out of your comfy zone.

You really do.

You have to get out of that comfort zone.

And also, it's realized that it's a slow process.

And as the spouse that might be coming and correcting that, that person should not condemn or criticize along the way that whole journey.

So do you have anything to add on?

I just think sometimes it's.

It's we got to be willing to be hurt, and I think you brought that up is when we, we share something that's important or valuable or something that's really on our heart to say they share that, it's.

It's laying your heart out there.

Yeah.

And wide open, exposed, naked, a sitting duck.

So it is really important one.

So whenever your spouse sharing something about how they feel, whether you think it's right or wrong or whatever, they are laying their heart out.

They are stepping out in the deep end.

So reach out your hand, listen to them, bring them out of that deep end, and let God do what needs to be done in your relationship with that sharing.

Right.

Anything else?

All right, well, let's go to number seven.

And this one can be a tough one.

It's called I will let go of the past.

All of these really kind of blend together.

They do.

Yeah.

They go hand in hand at one point or another.

And letting go of the past with being able to forgive.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

And, you know, even when Linda forgave me, she had to let go of the past and let me grow.

And so when we let go of the past, that means you're for.

You're letting go of your past actions.

That's things you've done or how you behaved or things you've done.

Broken promises from the past.

Hearts from the past.

Yes.

Maybe from former marriage.

Yeah.

That you might have had.

Yeah.

Well, it can be from your spouse's actions.

Yeah.

And from life situations.

So you kind of got three categories there that you're letting go of.

And just like Linda started saying, let go of the past, it could be hurts.

Broken promises.

You know, one thing once, it's usually the men, but they'll say, oh, I'll change.

I'll change.

Next week, I'll change.

But you said you were going to change.

But today I'm really going to change.

I'm really going to read that book, else they change.

Or we change for maybe a week or two, and then we fall right back into the old habits.

Yeah.

The things that were causing pain, you know?

Yeah.

Or somebody can hang on to.

Well, the guy I dated before I dated you, even though I didn't marry him, he did this and this that really were nice.

And that you liked.

Yeah.

And you hold on to those and you hold that on as a comparison or maybe a former spouse, you know, you hold on.

Or my dad treated me like this, or he or my mom or whatever.

You've got to let go of those past.

It can be actions or deeds, words, you know, words can be the biggest part of a past.

The words we speak can be a knife into somebody's back or heart disappointments.

So we don't want a lot.

We don't want to allow the past to be an anchor.

An anchor, you know what it is?

When the boat puts the anchor down, the boat doesn't move anymore.

So when we hold on to.

To things in the past, maybe it's one little segment in our marriage, or maybe it's everything.

It holds us.

You can't go forward, and if you're holding on to that past, you're not going to be able to maybe release forgiveness because you keep holding on to that.

And maybe the other areas of your marriage are doing okay, but it's going to still, if you don't let go of that one anchor area, it's going to put a damper on everything else because that one thing is kind of in there haunting you.

You ever know the story of the monkey?

They're trying to catch monkeys out in the jungle, so they put bananas in a jar in a cage.

In their cage, cage, jar, wherever, and.

They put it in there.

And the monkey reaches in and holds on to that banana.

He wants the banana.

He will not let go of the.

Banana, but he doesn't let go, and he can't get the jar off his hand.

And then the guy, then the hunters can come in and get a the monkey.

Why?

Because he wouldn't let go of that banana.

So when we won't let go of resentments, regrets, whatever it is, whether it's what we did or our spouse did or life, it holds you from moving on.

I like the verse in Genesis 1926.

When lot and his wife were leaving Sodoma and Gomorrah, they were told, don't look back, because God was destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.

And when the wife, they left, and the wife was walking behind her husband, and she turned around and looked at the destruction going on, she turned into a pillar of salt.

And that's an example for us.

We don't need to look back and hold on to things because we'll turn in and be paralyzed, and we got to get away with what could have been.

If only I hadn't had done this.

Woulda, shoulda, coulda.

Have you ever looked back in your life and you.

You made a decision that affected the course of your life, possibly, and you go back and say, man, if I hadn't done that, if I just would have done this, maybe things could be better.

You know what?

That's over with.

You can't change it.

I know in my life, there's a couple things in the last few years, I think, man, if we hadn't done that or made that decision, this probably wouldn't have happened.

Maybe so, maybe not.

But I can't keep hanging on to it.

So you've got to change your thought processes.

When one thing, when you got one thought going on, the Bible says, renew your mind.

So if I'm thinking, if I would have done a, you know what I have to do?

Change my thoughts to thought b, because if I tell you the think red donkey.

Red donkey.

So you're thinking about a red donkey.

Now I say think about a pink elephant.

What are you going to think about?

Pink elephant.

Pink elephant.

So when you get these thoughts of the past coming in, change it to something positive, replace it with something positive, or my husband is gonna.

He is a man of God, or he is the kindest person in the world.

He knows how to speak words of love to me.

He loves to vacuum the floor.

That might be a faith statement, but you replace him, or my husband never does this.

Start thinking in your mind, my husband is awesome, or my wife.

And so replace the negative or the past with the future.

And that's training.

You got to train your mind on these things, but you can't think of two things at once and get away from the thoughts.

If I had only done this or I hadn't done that, or if only.

You've got to push forward in your life, so let go with the past, because you're not going to move forward in parts of your life or your whole marriage, because you're looking at your marriage as well as yourself.

So let go of the past.

And sometimes if we're dwelling on the past, it can become more real than God's word.

So let go.

Put God's word first and where you want to go to be what you.

Want, not what you got.

Did I read Isaiah 43?

No.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

It says, do not call to mind the former things.

This is Isaiah 40 318.

Or ponder the things of the past.

Ponder.

That means you're meditating on them.

You're bringing them up.

So God's word says, don't call the mind.

So that means if he's saying don't do it, that means you have a choice.

So you don't have to do that.

So now let's look at the next one.

Number eight, it says, I will have a vision for the future.

That's going to be a decision.

And then Isaiah 40 319, after it says, do not call the mind the former things or ponder the things of the past, behold, I will do something new.

Will you not be aware of it?

Will it not spring forth?

So we got to be looking forward to God doing something new.

So have a vision for your life.

Have a vision for your spouse.

Then have a vision for your marriage.

Don't be a negative normanden or negative nancy in your marriage.

So in other words, don't be the drag in your marriage.

Be a positive impact.

Number one, you need to be positive about yourself, because if you're not positive, nobody around you is going to be positive.

So have a vision for yourself on how good you can be and what God has for you as a husband and as a man or a woman and for your spouse, start seeing them as positive.

Be positive.

Be a leader of positivity.

When you walk in the room, the lights go out because you're so negative.

Be the person that walks in a room and the lights come on because you're bright as a shining star and you're bringing sunshine into the room.

That's what I call Linda.

She's Linda sunshine because she brings sunshine around when she comes around.

So don't be a negative Norman or negative nancy.

And then for your marriage, don't be dragging your marriage down by being negative.

Be positive.

Oh, our marriage is getting better.

We're going to be accomplishing this.

We're going to get through this financial struggle.

I'm going to be a better wife.

I'm going to be a better husband.

Speak it to yourself.

And then start applying the other parts by being teachable, by learning, by doing, by believing the best.

And then you're going to have a vision for the future because Jeremiah 20 911 says, behold, I know I have the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord.

Plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope.

So right there, you can say that when your wife is disappointing you, your husband's disappointing you, or things are negative because of the finances, whatever it is.

Or maybe somebody's got a medical challenge going on.

Say, you know what God says.

We have a say, dear God has a future and a hope for us.

Plans for welfare, not for calamity.

As we talked about in our earlier podcast, we can say, I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

Matter of fact, say that right now.

I can do all things through Christ strengthens me.

So be, speak positive.

Speak.

Speak and think positive about yourself, your spouse, and your marriage.

So have a vision for the future.

And number nine says, I will do what it takes.

In other words, how bad do you want to have a good marriage?

How bad do you want to be the best husband you can be?

How bad do you want to be the best spouse you can be?

Because we said it in last week's episode, I think Linda said it.

Would you want to be married to you?

Would you want to be.

Think about that.

Would you want to be married to you?

Hopefully, the question is yes, but you need to pay the price to be the best me.

It's.

It's not hard.

You know, what you got to do is you need to work on these ten principles that we're sharing.

Linda's got another one.

When I get done with this one.

We need to work on these daily.

Be aware of them, have our antennas on, on how we can be a better us.

Be willing to be made uncomfortable, and do it when you don't feel like it.

That's a biggie.

And like we.

Yes.

And like we said last week, is a decision that you have to make.

Yes.

Run your race to win.

See, the only reason why we don't change is because we're selfish.

We don't want to change.

It's all about me.

All about me.

What about me?

What about me?

No, it's supposed to be, what about thee?

What about our spouse?

And we can't do what we need to do to be a better person if we're not looking at the person that we need to be better for, it's about them.

Because God says he came to serve when we're supposed to serve.

So don't be selfish.

Say, God, I need to change because I want to be the best husband I can be.

I want it to be the best wife.

Search my heart, O Lord.

Help me do this.

Help me not to be selfish.

Help me to be giving and loving, to be able to serve and treat my wife or husband the way they're supposed to be.

So Linda, I think that leads up to you.

It says, the 10th key is, I will love you you.

And that means love is a decision put on love.

And I think we might have talked about this at the very beginning on one of them, that we're going to.

Touch on it, maybe.

Yeah.

Well, we'll do a little bit more in depth, but, you know, we need to first start out loving ourself.

Yes.

Because we can't love others if we don't first love ourself.

And that is one of the commandments.

I don't know that exact scripture, but it.

The commandment that Jesus gave us is that you would love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Yeah, well, we gotta love ourselves, and so we gotta let God love us and show us how we can love ourselves and then we can love others.

But.

And that might include letting go of the past.

Yeah, exactly.

Because usually we don't love ourselves a lot of times.

That's right.

And we need to forgive ourselves.

Yes.

You know, and realize that God forgave us, so we need to forgive ourselves and let go of the past and not hold that over our own head.

Right, right.

Yeah.

So love is a decision.

Put on love, I will love you.

Realize that.

And when you put on love, that shows action.

Yeah, that shows action.

So we probably need to take off the self, the dirty clothes, and then, like, you're putting on a jacket or overcoat, like it's winter time, you got to put on that overcoat, put on love.

So it's an active decision to make to put on.

So what do you put on in the morning when you get up?

Are you putting on dirty clothes or getting your nice, clean clothes?

Which be representing.

Putting on love.

That's it.

So I like to take first corinthians.

Let me just.

The love confession is what I call it.

It's one corinthians, chapter 13.

And I make that a prayer for myself.

I usually like to do that when I'm having prime time or this prayer time, and I read it out loud and I apply it to our marriage.

So I'd like to challenge you to do the same thing.

And we're going to have this in our show notes, so it would be available for you to look it up, our notes that we're going to offer you that you can get a printout of this, but it's a love confession.

First corinthians 13.

I'm going to read it to you the way I read it out loud to myself.

God is love, and the love of God is in me.

Therefore, I endure long and I am patient and kind.

I am never envious or jealous.

I'm not boastful or proud.

I'm never haughty, selfish or rude.

I'm never irritable or touchy.

Oh, I am never resentful and I don't hold grudges.

Can you see where all of this is going?

Yes.

I mean, this covers a lot of the ten keys that we just now gave everybody.

I hardly even notice when others may do wrong.

I expect and believe the best of every person I would put in there.

I expect and believe the best of Greg.

I will defend Greg no matter what anyone else might say about him.

The love of God in me never fails towards Greg.

Therefore, I never fail.

Our marriage never fails.

I'm kind of paraphrasing it.

And love is my greatest aim.

So the love confession, it's a great prayer to have to speak over you, yourself, your husband or your wife.

And to speak over your marriage.

Yes, it is.

Well, I think that covers the ten keys that we have.

So go over these and look at them and see what once applied to you.

And we started off with the hotel story that I gave about me and Linda going over to Dallas and, and having a weekend getaway.

And already for a romance.

High dollar hotel, excellent atmosphere.

And we sat down for dinner and Linda goes, we need to talk.

That wasn't what I wanted to hear.

I wanted to hear, let's go back to the room with joy and anticipation and excitement in her voice.

No, it's, we need to talk while we're eating here.

But what did you did right.

What do you do right at that moment?

I said I made a decision.

I put on love.

Yes, I put on love and I took it like a man and took everything that she talked about.

And it was a good, it was very, very valuable time.

And yes, we did get eventually get back to the room when we had a good weekend.

But if I would have said, no, we're not going to talk about any of that stuff right now.

We came here to, we spent $40 on $150 hotel room with a coupon.

So we're going to go up to the room and have a nice romantic evening.

How well would that have gone?

Not, not well at all.

So remember, you got put on love.

Put on love is doing these ten keys to be a better you for a better marriage.

Yes.

And so that's the end of this part.

And then next week, we'll get on to number three.

Next topic.

But tonight, now I want to give.

You we got honey do list a little homework.

So now it's time for our honeydew homework list.

Yep, that's it.

So first of all, go over these ten keys, sit down when you're having your prime time or some quiet time or whenever it is and just go over these and see how you line up and ask yourself these questions and see if it's anything you need to work on.

And if you haven't already shared the podcast with your spouse, which we recommend you doing that, or just share the notes.

You can even get the show notes and go over to some of the show notes, sit down and share them with your spouse.

So go over the ten keys, get them working in your life and then do the ten second kiss which we've been talking about recently.

So grab your wife and set your timer for 10 seconds and give them a good old kiss and enjoy.

And if you're maybe your master 10 seconds, go to 15 seconds but enjoy and see where it goes.

But do that every day.

And then we just ask.

Give us a five star review on Apple or maybe some of the other applications that you're listening on or apps and give us a five star review and leave a comment if you like.

Place a request for a copy of the love confession or the ten keys to a better you better marriage by clicking on the contact tab on our website.

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