Marriage After God - Biblical advice, practical tips, and inspiring stories to strengthen your relationship and deepen your spiritual connection

Have you ever been fearful of having more children or even having your first? You are not alone. In this episode, we talk about 3 honest fears that have come up recently in light of our 4th pregnancy. Aaron and I navigate these new waters for a growing family through scripture and the realities of what it means to have a large family. Our heart is to walk alongside you in this journey as we are also learning how to have a biblical mindset of children and parenting. -- Stay tuned each week where we will be discussing topics hoping to inspire you to cultivate an extraordinary marriage. FOR MORE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.unveiledwife.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution READ TRANSCRIPT Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. Helping you cultivate and extraordinary marriage. And to day we're gonna be talking about fears of a growing family and how to combat them biblically. Before we get started today, because this topic is kind of surrounded around growing family and having kids, I wanted to share that we do have resources for parents called 31 Prayers For My Son and For My Daughter, and these are great resources for you to pray over your children. They're 31 prayers in each book talking about different topics in the child's life and there's also journal pages that after each prayer you can just make it more personal and we've had some positive feedback about these resources. Parents are really loving them, so make sure you get a copy. Yup. Well first off I just wanna thank everyone for joining us today, listening. And we want to encourage you to grab your Bible so that as we go through scripture you can participate. So the first thing we're gonna do before we start talking about these fears that a lot of us go through in our marriages as we start growing our family with children, is I just wanna go straight to scripture and read God's word about fear in our lives. And this is in Second Timothy. This is Paul talking to Timothy and encouraging him in his ministry. And he says, So I just wanna start off as we go into this idea of the fears that we all experience and explain that God has given us, just like He's given Timothy, just like Paul reminds Timothy, He hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of love, power, and self-control. And then second verse I wanna start us off with is in Psalms 127 and I just wanna get a biblical, godly perspective on children. And in Psalm, the psamlist writes, So God's perspecive in this one verse, there's hundreds of verses that talk about who children are to us and to God, is that they're a heritage, that they're a blessing. That they're a weapon wielded in the hands of parents for his purposes. I'm so glad that we started with those two verses 'cause I think above all else, it's so important to remember what God's perspective and heart is towards children. So as we move forward and navigate through these fears, how do we remember what God believes is true about growing family? And as we always say to the Christian marriages out there, that we found our, a marriage after God founds their marriage on the Bible, on the word of God. We don't do it in our feelings, we don't operate in our opinions, we don't operate in our ideas. What we try and do to the best of our abilities through the spirit that God's put in us is we run to the word of God. So as we talk through these fears that we're dealing with right now, our way of dealing with them is the word of God. And so that's why we encourage you to have your Bible and as we go through these fears that we're gonna bring up right now, we're gonna try and find scripture to combat those fears. So Aaron, you walked us through those two scriptures, which again were very powerful, and they're ones that I'm actually really familiar with, but how do we look at our lives and use those scriptures to encourage us in a practical way? So the first practical thing, the Bible tells us to meditate on God's word. And that word, meditate, it comes from this idea of like a cow chewing cud. And it's like we chew it, we mull it over, and over, and over again, and we continue to bring it up and remind ourselves of it. And we go back to it over, and over, and over again. We don't just hear it one time and then all of a sudden, oh that's just into my heart and got it forever. That might happen in some cases, but for the most part, like for you, you have to be reminded. Yeah. Especially when you're going through hormone changes. Yeah. Because you're going through hormone changes and that can feel totally chaotic. And so instead of just trying to address the symptoms and like, well you need to change the way you're thinking, you need to, which is how I tend to approach you. Sometimes. Which is not always effective. But meditating on scripture. So when we're in those moments of the things that we're specifically going to talk about, we go back those scriptures and be like, well, I'm thinking this way and I feel this way but this is the truth. And I just need to remind myself of that, even though it doesn't feel like the truth. That's good. So even having like maybe these scriptures written out on hand so that they're next to you bed stand or in the kitchen window, or some-- Or on our chalkboard right over there. Or on a chalkboard, in your house somewhere. I think that would be really encouraging for those listening to know that a very practical way of being reminded of these scriptures is to just put them in front of you. Yeah, have them on hand. Memorize them. So one of the reasons why I really wanted to talk about this topic today, about fears of a growing family, is because this is exactly where we've been for the last month. I am right almost into the second trimester of our fourth baby. Woohoo! We're so excited about that. And I've just been wrestling with having some fears about our family getting a little bit bigger. And I don't know for those of you listening, if you guys have jumped in and had any kids yet, or maybe you're on two or three, maybe some of you are on six or seven, like some of our friends. Yeah. But I know that some of these fears that we're gonna talk about are super relatable and so hopefully it's encouraging for you to hear what we're gonna talk about today. So why don't you share with us some fears that you're going through right now. Because, although we learn from scripture in second Timothy that we don't have a spirit of fear, when hormones rise up, when your body starts changing, when you start realizing the logistics of the day and you have an overwhelming morning you know, they come up. And it's our job to navigate that with God, so. So yeah, a lot of the things that I've been wrestling with is feeling like, I can't handle it. I can't manage my home, or keep up with the demands of all of the dishes, or feeding everyone, or keeping up with the laundry. And just little things like that. Getting all the crud off the floor after meals. Yeah, from our youngest spilling food on the floor. Yeah so, having to meet all those demands of the day and then looking to our future and saying, and we're gonna have another baby being added to the picture and it just feels overwhelming. That's just one fear that I've been wrestling with. So you're talking about not being to handle it. That just the demands of the day, of life. Feeling exhausted emotionally, mentally, physically. Which are real things because your body has limitations. Especially when I'm pregnant again. Exactly. And your home has limitations, and your time has limitations. The thing that I immediately thought of is acknowledging the weakness 'cause we all, moms out there, you look at any Instagram about moms-- We want to be superheroes. Superheroes, like you're the superhero mom and you're like, oh my gosh she's got a beautiful Instagram feed, and her home's always perfect, and her kids are beautiful and wonderful and act perfectly all the time. And that's just not reality. I think you might have a expectation of yourself that isn't a real expectation, and since you can't live up to it, it hurts. It does hurt. And it breaks you, and it makes you feel more emotional and like a failure. So one thing that husbands can be doing is reminding your wives that they are great. And that the things you're doing are wonderful and you don't have to do everything perfectly. Another thing we should be doing as husbands is cultivating an environment in the home where we're helping. I can't help all the time because I have a job. Many husbands, they have full-time jobs and a lot of wives and moms might have jobs also. That might be adding to the stress also, but cultivating an environment where you know you're helped. Yeah. And I remember reminding you, this morning even when you were dealing with this, I said, "Babe, I'm here with you also." Like you don't need to feel like you have to do it on your own. But the weakness part of this, it reminds me of the scripture of when Paul, in Second Corinthians, is talking about a thorn that's been given to him in his side. It's either an ailment, or someone who's pestering him and we don't know exactly what it is, he never says exactly what it is. But Paul tells us the torment that this thorn is causing him and this is what God's word to him was about this weakness, in Second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse nine it says, And so, reminding ourselves of like it's okay to be weak. We're human. Weakness is a part of who we are. We're in this weak flesh that has cravings, and desires, and hormones, and brokenness. But we have a savior and we have a god that's given us His Holy Spirit that we can actually operate in His strength. And that actually, when we recognize our weakness and we humble ourselves, we actually can glorify Him and his strength. And Paul says, I'll boast all the more gladly in my weakness. So my wife can actually say you know, recognizing that I can't do all of this reminds me of my need for God and His peace, and His comfort, and that I need to run to Him. Because, did you run to Him in those times when you feel the most weak? Not always. Is that your first-- It's not usually my first-- No but, that's what God wants 'cause he wants us-- It's not my first thing ever. I usually go like my own strengths, and my own like, oh I'm gonna get some consulting, I'm gonna get-- I don't run to him first, I don't follow my faith and say, "Okay, Lord, I cannot do this today." I feel like we continue to keep ourselves trying and striving for that ideal perfection or expectation that we've placed on ourselves that we don't slow down enough to do this, what you're saying. Right, and that idea that we can recognize our own weaknesses and our own limitations. You remember a long time ago, on our road trip, or actually we were driving up to the mountains, and we were talking about just time, and strength, and energy. I was telling you how frustrated I am because there's all these things that I wanna do and you told me-- And that was so long ago, and you're right back there. I know. But I explained, I said, being human, we're limited. We can only hold so much weight up. We can only speak so many words. We only have so many hours in a day. We can only stay awake so long. That if we want to accomplish something over here, then there inevitably will have to be other things that will have to be laid aside. Yeah. It's just the reality. So a good example of this is if we want to have, let's say you wanna stay quality time with all your kids. Right? The dishes probably go-- There might have to be some dishes in the sink. And I'm gonna be honest personally, I would rather you spend some quality time with our kids. I think that's really important to acknowledge real quick, just so that people listening can understand this. So understanding each other's expectations of what we're called to do in the home. So knowing that you're okay with dishes in the sink, helps me understand that I can spend that time with the kids and I don't have to rush to go do the dishes in order to please you. Like ultimately we need to understand-- Or please yourself, because you could easily see a clean house as the most important thing for the day, and drop the ball on the children. And then you still might feel like a failure at the end of the day. Yeah. You have a clean house, and kids that are vying for attention. So I do want to encourage those listening that it's really important for a husband and wife to vision together, and to talk about expectations, and figure out what are priorities for your family. And this brings me back again to a husband cultivating a safe environment in the home. If you come home from work and you're bothered that the dishes are dirty, yet your wife had spent all day with your children, and had taught them, and loved them, and fed them, and took care of them, and took them on trips, or did play dates, then you might need to-- You either let the dishes go, or clean them. Or clean them. And that's kind of, or find a time to give her time to herself. If she likes to take care of the house, take the kids and you go spend time with the kids and let her have an hour or two to herself to do what she wants. Yeah. Like I know that sometimes you just wanna clean the house. Yeah. "Hey, Aaron, go play with the kids, I just wanna just clean." Yeah, especially 'cause I like the way that I do it. And since we're a team, I should be like, "Deal, I'll take the kids we're gonna go to the park, we're gonna go for a drive, we're gonna be gone. You won't hear from us." But husbands, cultivating an environment that's healthy and safe for your wife, the mother of your children, because is she feels like you expect her to be everything, perfect for you, perfect for her kids, perfect for your home, you're gonna break her. And this something I have to learn, and we also have to balance, but it also takes communication. You know, talking through these things. And as we're talking about fears of growing family, when those conversations come up, where you guys are talking about maybe growing your family you need to be honest with yourselves and know that your wife might have fears of, well I can't do all the demands of the home if we bring another child into the world because I already can't do it. Right, because like if you're a husband that is just absent, you get home, turn that TV on, get into your video games, hopefully you're not playing video games, but you just kinda check out when you get home and you expect dinner to be ready, and you just view your home time as your sanctuary time, and your wife just kinda keeps going 24/7, I wouldn't wanna have your kids either. That's harsh, but-- I'm just being honest. But that's the kind of men we need to be. If you wanna have a marriage after God and one that's free from fears of a growing family, I think it's really important to talk about expectations and to be a team when considering how it needs to be done when you do have little kids running around and you wanna spend that time with them or do things that are a priority in your family. So you shared with us that you feel like you can't handle it, which is a totally normal and common feeling because of everything in life. What's something else that just wells up in you, just it's those emotions, those feelings, what else was coming up in you today? So another one was that fear of missing out. FOMO. Yeah, FOMO. I have that, all the time. All the time, with friends and things-- With everything. I have a fear of missing out with my children. The ones we already have. So we already have three and I see them growing up and every day I'm just amazed by them and I just feel like there's been certain seasons where I was either pregnant or had morning sickness where I did miss out a little bit. Post-partum with Wyatt, that was another one where I felt like I was missing out with Elliot and Olive a little bit. So I don't wanna miss anything in their lives. I just don't. And so one of my fears is if we have another child, what else am I gonna be missing with them that maybe I wouldn't have if we didn't have a growing family? And that's a totally legitimate fear that people have. It's not unfounded, you just look at numbers, you look at time, we just talked about this, how we're limited creatures. We're not infinite, we're finite. But what we need to do is we need to change our perspective on things. That's what this whole video's about is perspective. If the perspective is, unless we can spend equal amount of time with every single child, then we're not gonna be giving them what they need, I think is inaccurate. And this is a personal opinion but I do feel like there's a level of-- You know, if that's the case, then let's just have one kid. Because they can get all of our love. But in reality, the love and the experience that we want our kids to have, our oldest, it's gonna be inevitable that he learns that the world doesn't revolve around him. It's inevitable that he's gonna learn that he has other responsibilities. So where you wanted to spend time with our oldest, Elliot, but you also wanna spend time with Olive, and Wyatt, and then the new baby, well Elliot needs to learn how to spend time with his siblings. And they need to learn how to have alone time and play well with each other. This is true. One thing that I've been noticing lately in our relationship with our kids is we've been teaching them a lot about how to walk in the Spirit and they're free to the Spirit and so it is having siblings does give them the opportunity to learn compassion, and learn kindness, and learn sharing, and gentleness, and love, and all of that. Well, and responsibility. Responsibility. How they participate in the family. We can easily recognize just the spiritual state of our son that he does feel like he's not getting as much as he used to from us, as much attention. So a couple of things happen. We can recognize that and make sure that we're a being extra intentional with him, right? Which we do, and we try to do, and sometimes we drop the ball of course. But then we can also find other ways of redirecting, 'cause he's craving attention from us but usually that's a craving that God's wanting, right? And so we can slowly start teaching him about that desire that he has for that relationship, and that he's not gonna always get it from us, and that Mom isn't the only person to get energy from, and all those feelings met, and those needs met. Because what's gonna happen is one, two, three, four, five kids, however many kid we have, if every single one of them think that they're owed that same exact amount of attention from you, what are we teaching them? And can you possibly ever fulfill that? No, and we're essentially teaching them to have that same perspective toward God. They're gonna expect you know, that-- Yeah, they're gonna look at Joe over here-- That same perspective of God owes me this or that. Yeah, or they'll look at this, oh, so and so has been given so much and they have this ministry, and like He hasn't given me that. And that's just the wrong perspective. The Bible actually tells us that the entire body is knit together as one unit. And then it says that the lesser parts of the body are glorified, and the greater parts of the body are brought low for the sake of equality. So giving him a perspective that he actually can't get everything he wants from Mom, he has to understand that. And he actually can start, instead of wanting to just take from Mom, he can actually learn how to give to his siblings. And so we're teaching him responsibilities in the house. So instead of just going to Mom and being, "Mom, Mom, Mom can you just spend all the time with me," we're like, "Actually, Elliot, we need your help. Can you go put trash bags in the trash can? Can you go vacuum the floor? Can you go--" And you gotta be able to trust your kids because Elliot's been stepping up and doing great. And every time we ask him, you know require something of him he's been fulfilling that. So it's been great to see the maturity in him excel. It's amazing actually, he puts the trash bags in every time I ask perfectly. One thing that you did mention when I shared this fear with you was the reality that we will miss out. Even it if was just one kid. There are gonna be times that we miss out which means the time we are present we need to be so intentional, and that really meant a lot to me. Which is true. Again, the same way we recognize we are weak and that makes God more strong in our life. The other thing we recognize is we are gonna miss out. We can't control everything, we can't have everything and we have to be okay with that. We have to be okay that Dad's gone a lot of the day, but when I'm home, I should not be gone at home. Even if that means on the couch, on your phone. You should be present, you should be engaged. Which is something that the Lord convicts of me every single day. I'm trying really hard to not be on my phone in front of my kids 'cause I want them to know that they have my eyes when I'm here. But then there's also times when I'm around that I have to say, "Daddy's busy, and you need to go play quietly. You need to color, you need to--." So just understanding that we cannot be everything in all things to our children. We have to recognize where we're at. That's good. And that missing out is a part of life. And that's gotta be okay. I know it doesn't feel good, but it's gotta be okay. Yeah. So why don't you share this one more fear that you are currently dealing with know that we're about to have four kids. I don't know if everyone can relate to this but it's just that fear of losing my personal time. The time that I like to pour into things I'm passionate about. One of them spending time with the Lord. You know, I feel like with each kid I have to really fight for that time. Or working in blogging, you know. I feel like I have to really-- Or time with your girlfriends. Or time with my girlfriends. Just going to get a cup of coffee, you know, and sharing that time with either myself, or with a girlfriend. I feel like the thought of bringing another child would mean now I gotta find someone that could babysit four kids you know if I wanna go on date night with you, right? That's $5 a kid, that's two to four hours-- It's a lot. So, being conflicted with am I gonna lose more me time. And I know that's really selfish, but it does come up. But it's real. Yeah. You know so, I'm gonna keep going back to this, 'cause it's a balance of like, it'd be easy just to tell you like, "Well, you just gotta get over it, 'cause that's selfish." But the other side of it is, the Bible tells us husbands to walk with our wives in an understanding way. And it tells us to love you as Christ loves the Church. And it tells us to serve you, and to honor you, and hold you up in honor. So on one hand, recognizing selfishness. Yeah. Recognizing like, well like this is my lot in life. This is what God's given me. I've children to raise to know Him. And having a positive perspective about that. And having a positive perspective, having a biblical perspective knowing that our jobs as Mom and Dad is to raise children that know and love the Lord. Which is a super powerful purpose. It's the most powerful purpose. That our kids will actually go to Heaven. Yeah. Right? But on top of that, how can I, how can you as a husband, cultivate an environment for you to thrive in that? Not that you just hold all the weight of everything because remember, the Bible tells us that you are the weaker vessel and that I need to recognize that and be like, I can't just put everything I want on top of my wife and expect her to hold it all up. That's my job. I should hold everything up, right? So knowing that if I want you to just love your role as a mother, I'm gonna give you time to yourself. Do I ever do that for you? Yeah, I was just gonna say I feel like you've been really great at-- This pregnancy. This pregnancy, I've been really good at it. You've been learning with each one, but you do recognize a lot faster now when I'm kind of reaching that breaking point, or need a breath of fresh air. Just the other day you came home for lunch and you were like, "Hey, you wanna go take lunch by yourself?" And it felt really awkward saying yes 'cause I thought to myself, I'm not gonna go sit in a restaurant by myself, but I did it, and it was great. It was so refreshing. She came back, like kicked the door open, she's like, "Hey, kids, let's go do something." I missed my kids. And so it refreshed that positive perspective. Recharged you, gave you a new perspective. So, on one hand, yes we need to recognize that it's a self dying that happens every day. Not just in our child rearing, raising children. And be okay with that, embrace it, and accept that responsibility from God. On the mother's part. But on the husband's part is a self dying also that I would lay down my life for my wife and say, "You know what, I don't want to sacrifice my time, I'm going to though. Because I want you to feel energy and recharged." And also, husbands, dads out there, it's our jobs to be leading our families spiritually. Are you giving time for your wife to go and recharge in the word of God? So important. With no kids around? Not in the bathroom when she's on the toilet and the kids are trying to come in. This is like serious, do you like, "Hey, Babe, go and just spend an hour or two in the Word." And of course that can't happen every day, there's logistics in life, but is it on your mind? Are you saying, man I need to figure out a way to get my wife to just some her time. And that's you dying to yourself, and your desires, and lifting her up. So it's not just, "Well you need to get a right perspective, Hun. You need to just tough it out." Which she does. I do. But you need to tough it out too, men. You need to lay down your life and say, "Well, I need to make sure that my wife feels loved, cherished. I need to make sure that she has time for herself so that she can get regenerated, have a bath." Like, how often am I like, "Go take a bath." Yup. It doesn't happen all the time, but once a week maybe I just, I'll draw a bath for you. I'll give you a bath bomb, I'll put some essential oils on. Sometimes music. Yeah, I'll put some music on, and I put the kids to bed, and it's just her time. So that she can get her mind rested. And her spirit rested, and that's what we need to be doing. This is what a marriage after God looks like. It's not just all on my wife. It's teamwork. If you look at almost every scripture in the Bible about children, it's always tied to the fathers. So that should tell you how much weight should be on you as a father. That you are teaching your children, that you are discipling your children, that you are responsible for your children. That you don't just leave and say, "Oh, my wife's gonna take care of it. My wife's gonna read the Bible to them. My wife's gonna teach them the word of God." I will say if you assume that position and you put that weight on your wife, her fears will mount. Like she will have so many more fears. And those will be legitimate fears. 'Cause she is doing it on her own and she has a husband that's absent. And you don't wanna be that husband. You're not that husband. And because she'll be so drowning in her own fears that it'll probably stimulate fears to grow inside you. Oh, is my marriage not gonna work out. Or are we not gonna ever have intimacy because she's too tired to, you know what I mean. So like it starts spiraling to of control when there's not a team action. Yeah. So I hope this encourages you today. We're gonna read a couple scriptures to close out. As we're talking about fears today there was a specific scripture that was on my hear that I really wanted to encourage specifically the moms with, but dads too. Listen up, it's in Psalm 34, verse four. It says, Now when you are acting out of fears or you're spiraling in your mind, kind of out of control because of these fears that you have and you're motivated by your fears, you're not going to the Lord. Everything that you do in that moment is based off of what you believe to be true, which are the lies and the fears that you're struggling with, and it's just gonna get worse if you do not seek out the Lord. And I've experienced this first hand. I had a almost total meltdown today because I was so emotional over these fears that we just talked about. And so it's really important that we seek after the Lord and that we come back to His perspective and what His truth is for our life and family. So we walked through a bunch of fears, this is reality for us. It's something that we're gonna have to daily go through and we're gonna be running to the scriptures. I'm gonna be taking on my role as a spiritual leader in the home to encourage you, inspire you, remind you of the truth so that you can walk in it. And I think it's really important for me to clearly communicate to you when I am having these fears, when they are coming up in my heart because if I'm operating in them and letting them spiral in my mind, and I'm not confronting them or talking to you about them, then things are just gonna haywire in or whole family. And then we start feeling crazy. Yeah. So we just wanna thank you for watching today and we just pray that this message just encourages you if any of you are going through this right now and walking through fears of a growing family. And so if you enjoyed this video, please hit the subscribe button and also hit the bell next to it so you get notified every time we upload a video. And please leave us a comment. Let us know if you are planning on growing your family, 'cause we'd love to be excited and praise God with you. Thank you, we'll see you guys next time. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriage-after-god-biblical-advice-practical-tips-and-inspiring-/donations

This week we highlight 6 callings God has for every marriage. We share personal stories and struggles we have experienced in our own marriage, as well as the importance of these callings and how they impact the marriage relationship and beyond. The 6 callings we present include Prayer Love Forgiveness Trust Purity and Generosity. These 6 callings are foundational in order for marriages to experience extraordinary. In each of these categories we share scripture, testimonies, and application. Our hope is that couples would evaluate their marriage to see if they are excelling in these callings or need to grow in them. We hope this episode is encouraging and challenging. Stay tuned each week where we will be discussing topics hoping to inspire you to cultivate an extraordinary marriage. FOR MORE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.unveiledwife.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution READ: We're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Today we're going to be talking about God's calling for your marriage. Lots of people think they have a calling or don't know what their calling might be, but we believe that there's six callings that every Christian marriage has and we're here to share 'em with you. So Aaron, before we get started, can you just explain a little bit about what does it mean to have a calling, what does it mean when you hear the word I have a calling on my marriage? So that people understand what we're saying. So just growing up in the church, we've all heard this idea of our calling and a lot of times it's our individual calling like what's God call, am I a missionary? Am I gonna be starting a church? Am I gonna be a pastor? Am I gonna be a worship leader? And there's always finite things that people might feel called to, but when it comes to our marriage, do we believe our marriage has a calling? And we believe every marriage has a specific calling. A specific purpose A specific purpose That God's going to use them for. Yeah based in their unique giftings, talents, position in life that God wants to use in those marriages for his purposes. But, that might be vague for some people and some marriages might be thinking well, what's my purpose? So what we thought we'd do is sit down and share with you six callings that we believe very Christian marriage is called to. These are callings that God has for your marriage today, whether you know what the specific calling is from God and you're in the ministry that God has for your marriage, as a couple. These callings are for every Christian marriage. There's more than this, but we picked out the six that we love the most and that we've kind of walked throughout in our life. And so this gives you a place to start in your marriage and say okay, God already has a calling for us. We don't have to guess or we don't have to pretend we don't know or not know how to figure out where to get that calling. You can actually start today and say oh this is, at least we know these callings that God has for us. That's really cool, I'm so excited to jump in. I just wanna encourage you listening, if you, as we go through each six, if you could just take evaluation of your marriage and see if you guys are already fulfilling these callings in your life or if you're not, if these are areas that you're wrestling with or you're struggling with, then hopefully our encouragement today will help you step up in those areas. Yeah and you can let us know in the comments what areas you that think you've already been walking in and you're like, oh, and you never saw them as callings. Or you can let us know what areas that you didn't recognize that you needed to be walking in. Let us know in the comments, we like to read through those. So let's get started. We're gonna start, we have six of them. So the first calling that every Christian marriage has is to prayer and this could be together or separate. It should eventually be together, but some of you might not be able to do that. But let me read the verse that goes with this. Philippians four, six through seven. And it says do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Every marriage, every Christian marriage has a calling to pray and that seems easy, it seems like the easy bible answer, but I wanna talk a little bit about this real quick from our own life and I have a question for you. How would you say prayer has played a role in our marriage? Well I would say it was significant in saving our marriage, for sure. We started out in our relationship with praying for each other and praying for the purpose that God had for our marriage. We prayed like every night during our dating years. Yep, and throughout our engagement and then even through our marriage and when we hit that hard spot in our marriage, when we, when we were contemplating divorce and just were both really isolated from each other And broken and frustrated, yeah. You were really adamant about prayer. So every night you were still praying for us and my heart was a little bit harder towards God and I was really frustrated and wrestling with the issues that we were facing. But you were, you were faithful to prayer. Which was hard. For all the husbands watching, my prayers start off very hopeful in the first few years of my marriage and eventually got very angry and bitter. But I still prayed because I had that foundation in my heart and I was like no, this is the only way I can see us getting healing and so I kept praying. You actually got to a point where you kind of stopped praying. Yeah we used to pray together every night and then slowly I just kind of faded out and listened to your prayers. Still participated, but didn't Right. Didn't pray as much but I will say that your faithfulness in praying every night really helped me to embrace God and come back to him, to turn my heart back to him and to trust him because I knew that you trusted him. So that did play a big role in saving our marriage. Yeah and so, prayer's a little ominous for a lot of Christians, which it shouldn't be, but there's no classes on prayer. I know some churches probably have that, but it's not like a, we just assume like oh prayer's supposed to be easy to us. You know, what would you say are some, is prayer just talking to God? Is it like you have the right words and you have, you bring in scripture at the right time in the prayer? Is there any, how does it look in our marriage? What does prayer look like for us? Well how I've always viewed it is, it's just our way of communicating with God. So it's basically opening up our hearts and just sharing what's on our, what's on our hearts and what's on our minds and sharing it with God and what's really cool about what I've experienced through praying with you is that not only are we submitting everything to God and asking for his guidance in our relationship, but every once in a while there's a compliment in there about me when you're praying and thanking God for me. Well when you hear me pray for you, you actually hear my heart for you. Yeah, exactly, I get to hear your heart for me and that affirms me and it affirms my relationship with you so that's been a huge encouragement. But I think that people can get really overwhelmed when they think about prayer and going to God and overthinking it, you know? Right. Feeling like it has to be done perfectly and it doesn't. So you're saying that the couples that are watching now could start today? They can start today. They can just say okay lord, I don't know what I'm saying to you, but I want help or thank you and it could be as simple as that. Yeah, so we encourage you. So the first calling that every Christian marriage has is to prayer and this means together. So some of you might be married and your spouse, your husband or your wife is not a believer or is where my wife was, in a place where she's kind of angry or bitter or they're angry or bitter. You can still pray without them, for them. And with them and over them. So, don't let a disunity keep you from prayer because you have a unity with Christ and Christ, as our mediator, gives us direct access to the throne of God that we can actually open up our hearts and we can pray directly to God. We don't need a high priest anymore cause we have Christ who is our perfect high priest. So we just wanna encourage you that you can actually start praying today, whether together or individually, start praying today. Yeah and if you're doing it individually, which is great, every once in a while, invite your spouse to pray with you or say, hey, I'd love to pray for you, can you give me a list? Can you give me five things that I can really focus on? I know that that's super helpful. And I know it'll totally bless them. Yeah. And I just wanna bring this quote up that our pastor always says to us. Prayer isn't preparation for the battle, prayer is the battle. So we don't look at prayer as like, well that's a supplementary thing that we do for our faith or it's something that we do only when it's really bad. Prayer is the battle and we're in a spiritual warfare every day. Against our own flesh, against the enemies in the world and in the spirit and so prayer, we need to go to battle on our knees in prayer, in praying for the things that we care about in praying for the things that we are concerned about and going to our father and saying lord, we need your mind on this, we need your heart on this, we need your help on this. So prayer is the first calling that every Christian marriage has. Okay, so what's the next calling that every marriage, every Christian marriage has? Okay, so the next one is love. I wanna share a scripture, but it's probably not the one you're thinking. Most people go straight to first Corinthians chapter 13, which defines what love is, which is great, but today I'm gonna share Matthew 22, 37 through 40, which says and he said to him, you shall love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. So, contrary to how culture will tell us that love is a feeling and love is something that we Fall into? Fall into. God is saying that love is a command. He commands us to love him and he commands us to love our neighbor, or in this case, in regards to marriage, our spouse. Yeah and so, for all the marriages out there, your calling, our calling is to love. Not just love each other cause it says love your neighbor as yourself, that's the second and greatest commandment, cause my wife is my closest neighbor, I'm her closest neighbor, we practice loving our neighbors by loving each other well. And then the second part of this is that as a couple, we love the lord with all of our hearts, minds, soul and strength. So, if you're sitting out there wondering what your calling in life is, this is a amazing calling, is to love each other well and to love God. Yeah and I just wanna share that because of the way our culture is, very self-focused, especially in marriage, we can get caught up in thinking that I can't love you right now because you're not loving me. And that can just cause a crazy cycle to happen, I know we've experienced it before. Yeah and so in the beginning of our marriage, because I wasn't living up to the high expectations you had for me, you would just withhold all of your love. Yeah, so I would get really frustrated because You would tell me Yeah, I had all these expectations of romantic love and these grand gestures of you showing me love. Right. And I relied on you to initiate all of that and when you didn't do it, I didn't wanna do it. And you wouldn't initiate it, because you were expecting like that's what my husband does, he's gonna pursue me and he's gonna do all the loving and I'm sitting over there thinking my wife's not even pursuing me, why would I give her love? Now, we were both wrong because we both were commanded to love each other. I was commanded more specifically from Ephesians 5:23 on how I'm supposed to love you, but we're supposed to walk in love the way the bible tells us to. Right. So we were totally dropping the ball on that calling in our life and it's only been the last three, four years that we've been learning to actually walk in that calling for us. In that command. And what happens when you start walking in that calling, just with each other, as most areas of marriage, in a Christian marriage, you know we start loving each other more biblically and more authentically and we start pursuing each other more. So what happens is we have extra in us to Love others. So then we can actually, instead of you just always, constantly thinking I'm not getting what I need, you have more than enough and you actually have the energy, I have the energy and the love available to be able to sit and love our other neighbors. Right. Our friends, our family, and so that's where that calling gets even wider. Yeah. Is showing that love to the world. There was a turning point in our marriage where I feel like we really began to understand God's command on love, but also, the way that he set the example for unconditional love. Right. And I wanted you to share a little bit about your vision of being with Jesus in the garden. Just a really brief version. So, just really briefly, when we are at our breaking point in our marriage, I felt the lord bring me a vision of Jesus being in the Garden of Gethsemane before he goes to the cross and I remember God showing me Jesus weeping and as it were, great tears of blood cause he was so anguished over what he was about to go through and I'm, you know, we've all heard the story. We know exactly what it's about and we understand it, but I feel like God showed me a new perspective on it and he was saying, cause in the garden, Jesus three times said lord, let this cup pass from me, the cup of wrath, essentially, is what he's saying. He knew what he was about to do and he knew who he was doing it for. Yeah, who was he doing it for? His bride. And so, essentially what he was saying, is lord, I don't wanna die for my bride because this is too painful. Especially knowing that part of his bride would reject him or not Or spit on him Want him, yeah. Or turn away from him and instead of what he wanted, in his flesh, cause his flesh was saying I don't wanna do this. His spirit submitted to the lord in his will for, he said not my will be done, but your will be done. And he did it. And so he went to the cross anyway for a broken and filthy bride, an adulteress bride, knowing that that was what god's will for him was and that's how he was gonna love us. So here you are, already married to me, you know, three years in. Yeah and I feel like I had a choice, but the choice was this, was in my flesh I was saying lord, I can't do this and God was saying sure you can, cause Jesus did it. Not your will, but mine. Not your will be done, but my will be done. So, God's will is that I would love my wife anyway. If my wife never gave me what I feel like I deserve or what she's supposed to give me, I should be able to love her still, through the holy spirit. We were in church, it was, had just gotten out, so people were scurrying all over the place and we were just standing in the middle of the sanctuary and you were crying, telling me all of this and I had something in my eye Yeah, sure I wasn't crying. But right there, we just, we committed to walking as Jesus walked in unconditional love for each other. If nothing ever changed. Yep. In our physical issues that we were having. Yeah. And you know what changed? Our hearts Everything. Our hearts changed and our hearts melted. You know, the bible calls our hearts stone and he takes our hearts of stone and he turns them to hearts of flesh and I feel like that's what he did in that moment was turn my heart from a heart of stone and your heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. That's the power of the calling of love in our life. Exactly and our obedience to this command is not relying upon what other people are doing, especially your spouse, so our encouragement to you guys today is to love anyways and to love unconditionally and to let It's your calling. Yeah, it's your calling. Yeah, so let's move on to the third calling. We have three more after this, so the third calling that every Christian marriage has is to forgive, this is a hard one. I'm gonna read the scriptures, Colossians 3:13, there's lots of scriptures on forgiveness. I'm not even gonna read the harder ones, I'm just gonna read this one. Okay. So first Colossians 3:13 says this. Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. So just like that last command, to love, forgiveness is a command. Forgiveness is not an option for the believer, especially in marriage, we don't get to choose, we don't get to choose not to forgive. We don't get to say well, my wife wronged me so badly that I don't have to forgive her. Well, it's actually a command to forgive and I always tell myself, cause when we were going through what we were going through, I felt like I didn't have to forgive you. And there was a lot of things that I did that you just held onto and you were like I can't forgive you for that. I didn't want to forgive you You didn't want to forgive me and you know what the lord showed me, showed us? Who are we to hold forgiveness against anyone? For what god forgave me of and the patience the god had with me, how dare I withhold forgiveness from anyone, especially my bride, who is one with me. So technically, if I withhold forgiveness from my bride, I'm withholding forgiveness from myself because she is me and I am her. But we did this, it was so destructive. It was not a oneness, it was complete disorder and just think about this. The calling in your life to forgive your spouse. You have nothing else in you to withhold against your spouse that you did not do to Christ himself. That when Christ died on the cross, he forgave all sin just like that. The thing that he was praying that he could have the cup passed from him, he did anyway. He drank that cup, every last drop of it. The cup of the wrath that we deserved and so that doesn't mean we don't repent. It doesn't mean that things that happen to us don't actually hurt us and that it doesn't take time to learn to trust again and that it doesn't take time to figure out how to walk with each other and get back into oneness and unity. But that does not mean we get to not forgive. So, if you're wondering what your calling is in your marriage as a marriage, it's forgiveness; towards each other and towards others. So I have a question. Has it been easy for you to forgive me? -Not in the beginning. There's definitely been times where forgiveness was too painful to accept in my heart. I just thought of something. What was it that you were afraid it would mean if you forgave me? Remember, there was something you used to say Do we wanna say what specifically we're talking about? No. Okay. There was something, there was a reason you withheld forgiveness and you were afraid of me not changing. Yeah. You were afraid if you forgave me Then you would just have the freedom to do it again Right. And so, you would just, you would withhold that forgiveness because you used it as a tool to control the situation. Well, I wanted you to hurt like I was hurting. Exactly. And so I thought, if I withheld forgiveness then you would feel the pain of not being reconciled. Right, so you were breaking this command in your heart because you thought that you had the right to because of what I did, but in reality we don't, right? No, we don't. We don't have the right to withhold forgiveness from anyone. There's another verse that's terrifying and we'll put it in the comments, in the description below, but it essentially says if you don't forgive, Your father won't forgive you. And that is terrifying. Yeah. So this third calling for every Christian marriage is to walk in forgiveness. And to encourage you, what I've experienced with us is the more you practice forgiveness and your heart is motivated toward reconciliation, the easier it becomes because you have this bigger picture of what it means to forgive and why it's so valuable for oneness in marriage. Right. So why don't we move on to the fourth calling that every Christian marriage has. So the fourth one is trust and I feel like it goes hand in hand with forgiveness because in order to trust again, you have to be able to forgive and reconcile and experience oneness and intimacy again. But, I know that for a lot of marriages, trust is a big issue and it's really hard once you've been sinned against or hurt, to extend that trust and rebuild it again. Yeah and so I would encourage one thing, is this is not a calling to just blindly trust. When I would wrong you in things that I was walking in, right? And I broke your trust. Your calling wasn't to just be like, well, I'm just gonna trust you again. Your calling was to forgive me and your calling was to reconcile with me and to walk with me as we grow towards oneness again and heal, right? But, what were you supposed to trust in, in that season? So the whole time, no matter what, I was supposed to trust God. With what? With my heart and with you; that he was working in your life Right. and that he was there to help us. And that was actually hard for you cause the first four and a half years of our marriage, you didn't trust God. No, it was definitely a learning curve. So it was impossible for you to trust me. I mean, I didn't give her a reason to trust me, but you didn't trust God, you didn't trust me, you didn't even trust your own emotions. I think that's why I felt so lonely and I felt so, I just felt so alone in what we were facing as a couple because I felt like I wasn't connected with you and then I felt disconnected from God, so there was a lot of mistrust and not having that really hindered my ability to experience intimacy with both of you. And trusting God with your spouse puts you on the right path of the spirit of God helping you trust again; because as you see God work in your spouse as you pray, and as you forgive, you start seeing the transformations and you say okay Lord, I can trust you. I can trust my spouse with you, I can trust me with you and I can trust my marriage with you and so I'm just gonna walk in the things that you've asked me to because I trust you, father. And a foundational verse for trust and especially trusting God is Proverbs three, five through six, trust in the lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths and I had to lean on this verse especially in regards to our marriage because I felt like I had all this understanding of what I should do as a wife and how I should respond to my husband, but I couldn't lean on my own understanding. Every time I was faced with this verse, I had to remind myself I can't do that, I need to be able to trust God. And your understanding kept you from being able to trust me. Yeah. And kept you from trusting God And kept me from reconciling with you Right Because my understanding lacked The spirit of God. The spirit of God, it really did. It was selfish, it was very selfish. I was trying to preserve myself and protect myself instead of reengaging with you and trusting that God was gonna lead us to a better place. Going into the word of God and into prayer and actually battling for me and being my helper because you were just thinking like no, I've been hurt so I'm not gonna try. Yeah. There's this picture that I see when I think about trust in a marriage relationship and I hope that this encourages you guys. But it's this idea of all the walls in a person's heart that we built up over time, every brick that is placed to build that wall will keep your spouse out of your heart and the whole idea of oneness is to, to understand each other and to know each other intimately and you can't do that unless you bring those walls down, so this picture of taking these bricks down from these walls in your heart and building a bridge to close that gap and to allow connectedness, bring you guys together. Which could take a lifetime to break those walls down, but, through the holy spirit, could happen over night. True. So we just, we encourage you guys in your marriage to take up that calling of trust and trusting God with your spouse and your marriage and seeking his word on how you should live and how you should be and how you should act towards each other and towards outsiders and walk in that and you'll see what will happen. You'll see what we have experienced is freedom. Yep. Freedom from the bondages of our own desires, our own misunderstandings, our own Sin? Sin. Which bring us to the fifth calling for your marriage and it is purity. In Hebrews 13, verse four, it says let marriages be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. I did not do this. I totally broke unity with my wife often, I had dealt with pornography my entire life, I thought marriage would fix it and it didn't, of course, I'm sure a lot of you out there that are watching this could understand this. But I walked actually worse in it during the first few years of our marriage and that, by itself, broke unity, spiritually unprotected you and us, brought in all sorts of filth into our home, brought in filth into my mind, made me see my wife in a broken way. It encouraged you to have lack of trust with me, rightfully. It made it hard for you to forgive me, rightfully. It made me not want to be with you physically. It made you not want to pray with me, so all of the other things that we've been talking about that are callings in our life, my daily decisions hindered from making it easy and possible for us to do. That doesn't mean that they're not callings still for us, but my own impurity, my own walking in filth, my porn addiction Hindered all those other callings. Hindered all of those other callings, which, when we're walking in that sort of sin, and I know there's a lot of marriages watching this that are dealing with that, either both or one of the spouses is dealing with pornography on a daily basis and is walking in this unrepenting sin and it literally is gonna not just bring death to your home, because the bible tells us that our sins will find us out and sin leads to death when it's full grown. And we were, we had spiritual death in our marriage; praise God that he was patient with us and kind to us and extended grace and mercy and I just always think about his patience cause of how long I was walking in that and how he didn't just destroy us cause he totally could've. And it almost did destroy our marriage. But purity and walking in all these other things make our marriages into a ministry. But when we're not walking in purity, we have zero authority. I had no authority to lead my wife, I had no authority to lead myself, I couldn't sit with another brother in Christ and say hey, let me encourage you, let me walk you through this because I was completely walking in unrepenting sin. I thought I was repenting but the fact that I just kept going back to it without having an actual change in my heart, without having an actual understanding of what I was saying yes to. I was completely destroying our marriage and that is a calling for your marriage, as much as it's a calling for our marriage. This isn't unique to some marriages, your marriage is called to purity; husband and wife. So I'm talking about my own impurity that I struggled with pornography on the internet. What areas of purity did you struggle with that you didn't recognize in the time? And, to be honest, I wasn't even able to bring up to you because of my own sin. But I was able to bring up to you after I started walking in purity. Well the first thing I wanna just share, very vulnerably, is that I also had my own struggle with pornography for a season and I'm sharing that because I know that there's wives listening and it can be so hard to confront and admit that you're wrestling with this and once you, once you confess that sin and repent of it, you will find so much freedom and so, you need to deal with it, but one of the other major impurities in my life was hiding the fact that I had a problem with food and using it whenever I was emotional, whenever I felt down or defeated, whenever I had a craving. I was so selfish with my, with my desires for it and used it as a crutch anytime we were facing discord or disunity. I went to sugar, you know, anything that would make me feel better and I knew that I was living in an unhealthy way and I kept that from you because I didn't want you to point the finger at me or challenge me or keep me accountable in any way. And you thought I didn't have a right to anyway cause of the way I was walking. Yeah, when you did try and step in and encourage me to be healthy, I wouldn't let you. You'd use my sin as an excuse for your own. Right. Yeah, so that was this crazy cycle in itself of not being able to walk in the freedom that Christ gave both of us because we were stuck in Impurity. Impurity. Yeah, so the fifth calling for your marriage is to walk in purity and if you are struggling or, I don't even wanna say struggling, if you're in these problems, these sins, addiction to pornography, eating habits, things that you haven't submitted to the lord and you're holding on to and saying this is mine, you need to repent today and walk in the freedom that Galatians 5:1 tells us we have. For freedom, Christ has set you free. Stand firm, therefore and do not submit again to the yolk of slavery. If you have the holy spirit living in you, you have the power to walk in freedom and purity. And as you're evaluating your life, I would also suggest that maybe it's not pornography, maybe it's not food, but maybe it's music, maybe it's what you're reading, maybe it's the, the Maybe you love romance novels and you're just, you dwell on those and you read them often and Maybe it's other types of websites that you're viewing online or maybe it's a bad shopping habit. There are so many different ways that we can live impure lives and God calls us to a higher standard than that and it's for the protection of our hearts, for the protection of our marriages, for the protection of our families that we live pure lives. And in doing so, it makes our marriages be able to walk in the higher calling that our marriages have, which is ministering to the world, which is doing the will of the father and when we aren't walking pure, we just, we're missing it. We cannot do that, it's the plank eye effect. The bible doesn't say not to go take the spec out of your brother's eye, it says you can't see the spec in their eye clearly because we have a plank in our own. So, the idea is that we need to remove that plank, we need to be walking in purity, we need to repent of our sin and accept the freedom that Christ has given us and the authority and power that he's put in us. So, let's move on to the last one The last one. And this is a fun one for us but it's also a hard one. It was a hard one for me, for sure. And this isn't an extensive list of all the callings that every Christian marriage has, but these are the six that we chose for this podcast, this video, and so what's the sixth one? So the sixth one is generosity and I'm gonna read second Corinthians nine, six through seven. And it says the point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So what'd you have to say about that in our marriage? Well, I wanna be honest with them and say that in the beginning of our marriage, I fought generosity and I didn't, I didn't realize that I was fighting it. I didn't know that I wasn't a generous person. Yeah when I said I wanted to start giving to our church or to some non-profits, what was your answer? So, I thought that by giving of my time was enough, I really believed that. I remember you'd tell me, you'd be like, why do we have to give our money? We give our time, cause we volunteered a lot at the different churches we were a part of. We also didn't have very high paying jobs and what we did have went to our living situation And debt, we were getting out of debt at the time. And I just, I never felt like we had enough and so to give away the little bit that we had was really frustrating to me and I didn't understand why it was of importance. Especially when we didn't have the things that a lot of our friends and married couples had. Yeah. We didn't have our own home, we only had one car, we didn't have When we did have an apartment, I remember going down to the thrift store to get a can opener or whatever little thing we needed And we were doing all that for the purpose of getting out of debt, but in our mode of getting out of debt, I believed what the scripture said about generosity and giving and so we wanted to walk in obedience to that. So even though we were trying to get out of debt, we were like, we're also gonna give to what God's doing. And I will say that this is a huge testimony to God's way of submission because as your wife, I submitted to you in this call of generosity and it actually changed me, it changed my heart, it changed my perspective and my view. At first, it was really challenging for me and I complained and I do feel bad about that still, but, over time, I saw, I saw this verse come to life that when you, you sow bountifully, you reap bountifully. And I saw it even in our own marriage. Yeah. The times that you were generous with me whether it was with your time or your resources or with gifts, I would want, I would feel something in my heart to want to do it back, so Yeah. I even saw that come alive in our own marriage, but also out in our other relationships. And this calling for your marriage, being generous, there's not a dollar amount on this. This is not a like, you have to give this amount of money all the time. The new testament, specifically, is very clear that God wants all of it. He wants to know that our hands are open and that whatever he puts in, he can also take out. And so this isn't a prosperity gospel of like if you put money in the basket, money's gonna come right back out to you. Sometimes that happens, but in many ways, the blessing that we've gotten from walking in generosity, just in every aspect of our life, is having a healthy perspective on money. We don't crave money. We don't crave more money Or things. We don't seek wealth, I mean even things, yeah, we see things as useful objects, we don't see them as things that are gonna fulfill us. We, man, the amount of things that God's been able to do just through our little bit of generosity in other marriage's lives, in other people's lives and around the world has been a huge testimony to God's goodness in our life and so what happens is God blesses us, cause we're all blessed, everyone's blessed right? Just Jesus Christ alone, he's the best gift anyone's ever been given, but even just in our day to day life, the things that we have, recognizing that they're not ours, that they're used for his kingdom, so, in your marriage the calling of generosity, are you being generous with your home? Are you being generous with your cars, with you finances, with your time? Are you walking in a marriage and a level of generosity where you just trust God and say okay lord, we're open to what you have for us and we're gonna do it, we don't know what that looks like, means, but we're gonna say, lord this is your money, how do you want us to use it? Do you have someone that needs help in the church that you want us to bless? You know, is it $5 to help someone with a meal? Is it $20 for gas for someone? Is it $100 to a missionary? It could be anything. And when you submit your heart to God in prayer and you tell him I'm yours and everything I have is yours, you will hear him speak to you as far as that tugging on your heart to give in those divine moments where someone else is in need, he'll show you. Yeah and he does it all the time and that's where our hearts are at. Okay lord, what do you have next for us? We actually start the year off every year, God, how do you want us this year, financially? Yeah, it is a pat of our goal setting. Yeah, so we hope you enjoyed these six callings that the lord has for your marriage. We try walking these callings ourselves and we hope that by you walking in these and chasing after these biblical concepts and callings for your marriage that you'll be led towards God's greater calling for your marriage, whatever that may be and that your eyes would be open and that your heart would be open into receiving what he has for you, as individuals in your marriage and as a unit, as a whole. If you enjoyed this video, please hit the subscribe button and also hit the bell next to the subscribe button so you get notifications when we post new videos. Also, leave a comment if there are other callings that God has for Christian marriages. We'd love to be encouraged by that and see more. See ya later. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/marriage-after-god-biblical-advice-practical-tips-and-inspiring-/donations