No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Practical Thoughts on Marriage and Leadership
In this episode, Brody shares practical tips for strengthening your marriage through a biblical lens. Join Brody as he outlines six key practices, including the importance of actively caring for your relationship and committing to hard work. He highlights common habits to avoid, like inattentiveness and poor conflict resolution, and emphasizes the value of effective communication and forgiveness.
Brody encourages focusing on learning together rather than showing off, and he stresses a mindset of commitment over entitlement. Little adds insights on addressing insecurities and keeping short accounts. This episode offers valuable wisdom for a fulfilling marriage rooted in faith.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Snowbird Marriage Conference
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Welcome to this week's episode of no Sanity Required. I want to spend a little bit of time today talking about marriage. I want to give you some practical thoughts on marriage and leadership, and the reason I lumped those two together is because marriage, if it leads to raising kids, requires solid leadership, understanding as parents, and so that's why I've got it categorized that way in my own notes. But what I want to share with you is thoughts that I'm sharing. We're right now in the middle of the two uh SWO fall marriage conferences One was this past weekend and we've got another one coming up this coming weekend and I want to share some thoughts from uh that event, and hopefully it'll be an encouragement to those of you that are married, those of you that aren't married but hope to one day be married, and maybe those that have made some mistakes in this season of life you're not married even though you were at one time maybe shine some scriptural or biblical light onto the way that we approach marriage.
Speaker 1:Just some super simple, practical things. The feedback from the episode that Little and I did together has been unbelievable, just phenomenal, overwhelming and so I want to bring a little more of that content. We did that episode to prepare our listening crowd and folks that follow NSR and other SWO stuff that they'd be sort of thinking about the upcoming marriage conference. Now that that's here, let's go a little deeper with some of that, but keep it super practical. Hope that you find this helpful.
Speaker 2:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible, culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:This past Friday night I shared and then this coming Friday night I'll be sharing. And then this past weekend on Saturday I had to get on the road, had some speaking responsibilities on the road, had the privilege and the honor of sharing and teaching away from SWO and then chance to visit with some family on the way back through, some close, close, close family that I love so much, and got to spend some time with them on Sunday evening and then swing through and get a meal with my girl. She's in school at one of the North Georgia one of the University of North Georgia campuses, so one of my daughters. So I'm just my cup is kind of full, I guess you'd say, and I'm thankful. But I wanted to take this and I've told y'all I do this a lot, where I'm traveling and speaking a lot and I'm also recording content a lot, and I wanted to use this to to sort of hash out some thoughts I put on paper to share the. The passage that I want to share at the marriage conference and that I shared on Friday night We'll share on this Friday night is from first Thessalonians, chapter five, versus 16 through 18. And that's, if you're not, it's not like a specific marriage passage.
Speaker 1:1 Thessalonians 5, verses 16 through 18. It's not like a specific marriage passage. It says this Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you. And the approach I took was hey, at the center of everything we do here, we preach the word, we teach the scripture, and so Paul is obviously writing this. If you study first Thessalonians, he's writing this to the church at Thessalonica. And so he's saying to the church and this comes on the end of you got to back up several more verses he's given this encouraging admonition and uplift and edification to the church. He's saying hey, respect each other, respect your pastors and leaders, hold one another in high esteem, love one another. Well, it's all stuff that you could really apply to marriage and it would be very effective. Um he, at one point he says uh, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient. Um, see it, no one repays evil for evil. Always seek to do good to one another. All that's like marriage, textbook marriage, one-on-one stuff.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to hone in on um verses 16 through 18, in these three points Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. And then he says for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, so take that and apply it to marriage. Does that what our marriage marriages look like? Or is like if, if, if I, if I invited you into my home, but it was where I wasn't going to be able to see you or know. You were there and you were going to study and see, uh, how little and I run our household, how we interact together, and we've brought you into our home a few episodes back, I mean, we were sitting on one of our couches and we brought you into our home and you. But but if, if you could be a fly on the wall, would you see that we rejoice always? Is there, is it a joyful place, a joyful atmosphere? Many of you, many of us, grew up in a place that that, where maybe, uh, there wasn't a lot of joy, there was infighting, there was dishonesty, there was backstabbing or whatever, but there was also just a lack of joy. But then, to take it a step further, not just is there joy, but is it expressed? Do we rejoice always? And then is it a place where thanks is constantly given.
Speaker 1:Thanksgiving, thanksgiving, thanksgiving, Give thanks, give thanks, give thanks. Do we give thanks? Because the scripture speaks of this as such a powerful act of worship when you practice the giving of thanks, not just before a meal, but we have hearts and attitudes of thanksgiving and I even think about that one day of the year it's my favorite, I have to say my number one favorite day of the year drum roll, please. It's Thanksgiving, and I mean somebody might say, man like, don't, don't spiritually shame me here. What about resurrection Sunday? I'm just talking about what.
Speaker 1:As far as the experience that I share with my family and my extended family and the people that I love and care about, thanksgiving's the number one day, and I think part of it is aside from the fact that I'm with my loved ones. I mean, there's times where people aren't there I have. Last year I had my daughter and son-in-law were not there, they were on the mission, and this year they get to be there, but my son is not going to be there and so we're not all there. Many of our loved ones have gone to be with the Lord now and they're not there, and so the dynamic of it changes. This year, kilby and Greg and Alma Ruth, my little granddaughter, get to all be there and I'm so excited, but it's a day of reflection on the goodness of the Lord and Thanksgiving and it just fills my heart and I find that when you're expressing Thanksgiving toward the Lord and toward one another, it just drives away negativity. You can't gripe and complain and then at the same time, rejoice and give thanks and then the last thing he says is pray.
Speaker 1:And before I got last thing, I love christmas day for a lot, the same reason as well, but I guess I've become an old fart because the opening of the presents tends to take away from some of that. I think, where on thanksgiving day it's just the celebration of one another and the meal. There's something about eating and sharing a meal together. I love Christmas Same deal, lots of family get together, but but anyway, um, the last thing he says pray continually and consistently. He says. He says just keep praying. And uh, and, and I think that a marriage, that is where prayer holds a central theme or place. It becomes an anchor point. So constantly pray, consistently pray, and you hear that phrase pray without ceasing. Pray like don't stop praying.
Speaker 1:I like to use the word consistently and continually. It's this ongoing, continual pattern and consistent pattern of prayer where I'm constantly talking to the Lord. Little and I talk a lot about this, how our prayer lives, each of us, our prayer lives are lots of short conversations with the Lord. I mean one sentence throughout the day, here and there. If I sit down, focus my attention and my affection on Jesus and begin to talk to the Father through the Son, by the Spirit, I fight to get through five minutes without becoming distracted. I'm ashamed to say that I am. I wish I had the mental discipline to sit in a meditative state and talk to the Lord, but I struggle with it just being transparent. And so, anyhow, I find that it works better for me to have a consistent, ongoing prayer time with the Lord.
Speaker 1:And when I'm alone, if I'm working out or going for a walk or at the reloading bench or driving in my vehicle, a lot of times if I'm in my truck or on my lawnmower or running a chainsaw, I won't listen to it. Sometimes I listen to a podcast or something like that, but a lot of times I don't. I shut it off, just focus, and I think we think that came up in my conversation with John Rouleau, but just it gives me an opportunity to reflect and think and then to, to, to pray. If you do those three things, I think that is not only the will of God for your life as an individual, I think that's the will of God for the church and the will of God for our marriage, our. I think that's the will of God for the church and the will of God for our marriage, our marriages. And so that's sort of the launching point for this talk that I'm doing at the marriage conference.
Speaker 1:What I want to do is just sort of walk through the main talking points that I'm using for the marriage conference here at SWO for this fall conference. I spoke on this last Friday night. We'll be speaking on it, kind of refining it and honing it for this coming Friday night, not really changing anything, but it's always good to just I call it getting reps. Basically, if you're going to preach a message or give a TED Talk, a TED-type talk, it's good to just go through it, walk through it. And so I want to walk through this because I think it will be helpful for y'all, and I can add some more casual comments maybe here and there. But you know the centerpiece centerpiece is not the right terminology.
Speaker 1:The main way that we communicate at Snowbird is through expository, teaching or preaching, where we take scripture and we try to explain what the scripture means, what it originally meant, what it means the piece of that biblical truth that is unchanging and timeless but then also how the application of it might fit for us today. For instance, paul in first Thessalonians which is where I spoke from, I'm speaking, I'm speaking from, spoke from last Friday, speaking this Friday at this marriage conference 1 Thessalonians 5, he's speaking to a specific church in a specific city at a specific time in history. How does it apply to us today? We do the work of coming up with that application while also being faithful to the original intent of the content, and so the 1 Thessalonians verses that I'm focused on are to the church in the first century, but I think they're just dynamite for marriage in the 21st century. So I want to share a couple of those thoughts.
Speaker 1:So, from there, what I want to do is just give this kind of again, the heart and drive of this comes from the interview that JB did with us, based on questions people had asked that Little and I shared from our living room, from the couch we sat on We've got three couches in there. We've set our home up for lounging hospitality. So just in our home, hanging out, sharing with y'all it was. It was very natural and helpful for us even to articulate some of those things. We had some good conversation afterwards. I thought let's just, let's just share, let's let's go a little further, deeper on some of this. So I want to give you one, two, three, four, five, six, six practical thoughts on marriage.
Speaker 1:Um, with the rest of the time that we've got in this episode, the first one is this choose to care, don't wait for a feeling of caring. Choose to care, don't wait for a feeling of caring. Now, what do I mean by care for this person? Well, yeah, care for this person, but also care about your marriage, care about your spirituality. Choose to be a person who cares about the things that matter to God. Choose to care about the things that align with Scripture. You might care about this election and Donald Trump or Carmela Harris. You might care about your favorite football team getting to the Super Bowl. You might care about the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. You might care about abortion rights or the rights of the unborn. Some of these things align with Scripture. Right, like for me.
Speaker 1:I've said this, my voting is going to align with Scripture, the things that align with the righteousness of God in Scripture. So the sanctity of life, life in the womb, the sanctity of marriage, biblical sexuality, um, the biblical mandate to, to take dominion over creation, um to, to multiply and to then ultimately advance the kingdom, the gospel of Jesus, which is a kingdom of, of salvation and grace, and salvation by grace, through faith. And so, anytime though I'm talking about those things, it's easy to see where I care about that. I care about the unborn, I care about orphans and widows, but then sometimes I get derailed. Where I care about things, that it's not that they're good or bad or wrong, or right or indifferent, but they become the things I care about more, or wrong or right or indifferent, but they become the things I care about more.
Speaker 1:And so when I say choose to care, I'm talking about do you care about your marriage as much or more than you care about your kids' sports accomplishments or who the next president of the United States is, because I'm going to tell you right now if my marriage was in crisis. I don't give a rat's hairy rear end who the next president is, because I'm going to tell you right now. If my marriage was in crisis, I don't give a rat's hairy rear end who the next president is. I care about one thing and that's getting my marriage where it needs to be. So you got to choose to care. Care about your spouse and their sanctification. Ephesians 5 says that my job as a husband is that my wife would grow more into the image of Jesus, that she would be sanctified and washed by the cleansing of his word. Choose to care about her feelings and emotions. Choose to care about our future. Choose. Choose to practice. Choose to care about financial practices. You know that matters. It's not that, um, it's not that. I think that as a Christian, you're out of the will of God if you're not practicing such detailed stewardship that you're laying up wealth on earth or a hefty retirement.
Speaker 1:I was telling somebody the other day my mom is 74 years old and she still works and she refuses to retire because she doesn't want to live on her social security. Check the reason not because she wants nice things, but because she loves to take her 20 grandkids. Anytime one or two or four of them are over at the house, she's going to take them to McDonald's. She's still old school, country Southern lady. She's just Southern, she just is, she's simple, she's she's and she's not like a country person I wouldn't say. I don't even know how to describe my mom, but I will say she appreciates and enjoys the simplest pleasures in life. Man, I want to be more like that. I'm so thankful for that. She doesn't get wrapped up in and things and stuff.
Speaker 1:I know people that are just obsessed with how much money they got in the bank and how much retirement comfort they're going to be able to have. And I watched my sweet mama and and and and my, my sweet gentle, strong stepdad, and they just love people and they love each other and they love the simple life. And she said I don't want to just live on our two social security checks because I want to be able to do, do things with the grandkids Well, and now the great grandkid that it's just wonderful. And I so I was telling I was talking with somebody the other day about my parents. Everybody meets them, loves them.
Speaker 1:And I was telling somebody, uh, I said you know, if my mom, if you said to her, I have, I'm gonna give you $500,000 if you'll retire and that, that, and then that'll break it If you, if you, if you budget that for the next 20 years, um, that'll get you comfortably into your nineties. Not, I'm gonna give you $5 million. I'm gonna give you a chunk of money, that, and then we're going to help you understand how to maybe invest a portion of that and make it last longer. And even if it's we're going to invest 80% of it and let it grow a little bit, whatever. No, that's not what she would do. What she would do is she would spend that money on other people.
Speaker 1:My mom is not going to pull up at an intersection and not hand a five or $10 bill to a homeless person that's standing there. I don't do it. I'll just be honest. I don't do it. My mom does. And people get mad at her, don't, grammy? Why are you giving them money? Why you, you know why are you? Those people? Look, she don't care. It's in her heart to give that money away. She's going to give that money away. You know why? Cause she cares because she chose a long time ago to just care about people and there's something very freeing about that. And so in marriage I don't know how I got off on that it's not in my notes and it's not in my talk, uh, but I share that. Just to say and I'm not saying that now everybody needs to go start handing out money to homeless people. Like I said, I don't do it. But there's something I just appreciate and admire about her the simplicity of how she sees life. She just cares about people. And if you care about each other in your marriage then everything else is going to take care of itself. It just is Um number two. You will work hard in your marriage. You have to. You can work hard now, are you? And if you work hard early or you work hard now, you commit right now to work hard, then you'll you'll develop a pattern where you can enjoy the benefits of that pattern later.
Speaker 1:I mean, I would say laziness in this area destroys a marriage, but it's like a slow destruction. It's kind of like if you've got a leaky roof that eventually ruins the house, just a little leak that right now. It's like a slow destruction. It's kind of like if you've got a leaky roof that eventually ruins the house, just a little leak that right now it's not bothering anything, in time it's going to create black mold and mildew and and rotten wood and termites are going to get in there, what you know. Whatever, it's going to eventually destroy the house, so you can work hard.
Speaker 1:Now I'm going to tell you something. Anybody I've ever talked to that's been through divorce will tell you that divorce is hard work. You got to work at something. You can work at building your marriage, or you can be lazy and let it destroy itself, and then you can work at how you wrap it up. You know it's like it's going to cost you something at some point. You got to work hard, so work hard now. So here's three things to beware of something. At some point you got to work hard, so work hard now. So here's three things to beware of. Beware of the following patterns.
Speaker 1:So if we're going to establish a pattern of of hard work, um, the opposite of that, or what I need to avoid would be number one um, visual lethargy. What in the world are those words mean? Well, lethargy is think of the word lethargic. It's laziness. In what I'm paying attention to. So visual. What am I looking, what am I watching for? What am I paying attention to? Pay attention to your spouse. Pay attention to your children. Pay attention to the intimacy that exists between you, the openness, the care, the love. You quit paying attention to that, you get lazy and you quit looking. You quit. Then you're not working at it anymore. So pay attention to the little things.
Speaker 1:I would say little things are big things and don't make so. Little things are big things in that if you do the little things well, you're going to encourage and grow and strengthen your marriage. At the same time, don't make little things into big things when they don't need to be. It's kind of a play on words. Little things are big things. Do the little things well, but then also don't make what's the saying? Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Learn to just love and serve each other well, but pay attention to the climate. That keep a reading of the room, you know.
Speaker 1:Number two the second way that you can develop a really bad pattern is habitual inconsistency. So if you're not consistent, um you, you create, you create an inconsistent pattern. You're expressing one thing one minute and something else the next. You're saying I love you, I want to do better, but then you're not expressing and showing love and you're not doing better. Inconsistency is something that just destroys relationships. It'll destroy a kid as a parent if you're inconsistent. So you've got to be consistent. Just be consistent. You don't have to be perfect, you don't have to communicate perfectly. You don't have to communicate perfectly. You're going to get on each other's nerves at times, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, but be consistent in the pattern of how you love each other. Be consistent.
Speaker 1:Habitual inconsistency is a destructive pattern and I'd say you could apply that also to to like church, um, your, your walk with the Lord, like a husband. If your wife sees you in the word um sometimes, but it's very sporadic and inconsistent, then she's going to have a hard time trusting you as a spiritual leader. Or if you're not in the word at all, then there's going to be no consistency in the spiritual, you know, direction of the of the marriage, some good habits that I think you can form a humble approachability. You should both work to be approachable. My, my wife should know that she can talk to me, and y'all know how hard this is. There's times where you want to say something but, gosh man, I don't want to say it, I don't want to talk about it. So I need to work to make myself very approachable to my spouse.
Speaker 1:Next, wholesome communication. I need to use soft words, not sharp words. I don't need to mince words and beat around the bush. I need to speak with clarity, but with gentleness. I need to not be passive, aggressive, and I need to speak the truth and I need to do it with transparency and with humility.
Speaker 1:Another good habit to form is quick conflict resolution and or rapid problem solving. So that's where we talked about in the if you listen to mine and little's interview we talked about. You know that passage that says don't let the sun go down on your anger and the idea of, and I think you could also take the passage that says don't go worship the Lord If you've got odds with someone, then leave your gift at the altar and go make things right, and the you know your spouse would be that closest line of relationship and communication where, most likely, if you're at the altar and you've got conflict with somebody, there's a good chance it would be your spouse. So um that and or the passage it says don't let the sun go down on your wrath that you know. Scripture there says be angry and sin not. So you can be angry, frustrated, you can be discouraged, but be committed to, to resolving the, the conflict and and and have a rapid plan to get there.
Speaker 1:That may rapid may mean over the next few days, you know it might not mean I mean if, in the heat of the moment, when I'm frustrated, angry, scared, you know whatever I might not need to deal. I need to let my emotions subside and surrender those to the Holy spirit and be committed. You know I might go to little and say, hey, we, we've got to work through this and we've got to talk about this tonight. It's not the time, but we've got to do it. And so then we do it in time. And when I say in time, I mean we're literally hey, let's come back together. Maybe we set a time. Let's meet tomorrow for lunch.
Speaker 1:And that gives us 24 hours to pray about this and seek the lord and let's talk about it and maybe we come together at lunch tomorrow and we're not ready. We're just not quite there. You know little used the story, she used a scenario where she's talked about how there have been times where she felt like she was maybe in the wrong, but she was frustrated or mad or wanted to deal with something, but she felt like she was maybe out of line or or overreacting or or maybe not. Maybe she, you know, maybe she needed to confront something with me, but she and I could tell there was friction, but she just needed time to process it. And we got, you know, we gave it some time and then it sorted itself out in her own heart. Other times were no, then we had to sit down and work through it. So be committed to rapid problem solving, quick, uh, conflict resolution. You might need to take a short break, but then you need to get back, get after it.
Speaker 1:Um, there's two more things that I think are good habits to form and and again this is over against bad habits that are habits of inconsistency. Spiritual communion, that's worshiping together. For us, we don't worship together by singing together, but we do, you know, this morning we listened to a couple of worship songs while we're both on opposite couches she's reading, I'm reading, and somewhere in there she got up and made a cup of coffee and we played a couple songs. Just, you know a place where we're both in communion with the Lord, and that's given strength to that moment, I think. Um, but then also being committed to church, to worship and together with God's people and God's house, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of people, um, they, they slip here a lot, a lot of people. They slip here. They make other things more important. Well, I got to go to my daughter's volleyball tournament. But that's some bull crap because you are setting your daughter up, for I hate to break it to you, but your daughter ain't going to go play Division I volleyball.
Speaker 1:She probably ain't going to play Division III volleyball and she probably don't need to. Division III school is going to cost you about $50,000 a year so she can say she's a college volleyball player. You know what will shape her life forever Seeing her daddy committed to being in church. Every time that Sunday rolls around and we can come together with God's people, I'm just telling you, man, I'm telling you if your daughter's good enough to play the next level, you don't have to pull her out of church and all y'all go stay at a hotel resort whatever in Panama city or, you know, myrtle beach or Virginia beach. I always have these tournaments. Baseball tournaments are always in, you know a lot of times are in really nice places Disney world, whatever I'm. I know I'm going in hard here, but a lot of couples need to hear this. I'm just telling you, if your kid's good enough, they're going to get there.
Speaker 1:And all y'all know I have a son who is a division one all American football player. I mean you can't get much further up the ladder except to become a professional NFL football player. I mean he's in the 1% of the 1%. He's received recognition from the ACC. He's received recognition from Sports America, sports Illustrated, athlon Sports, espn. He's received recognition from um sports, america sports, illustrated Athlon sports, espn. Um, uh, and I'm just going to tell you, in all of his career growing up I think he missed, we missed Sunday. We missed church and worship and being at church together on Sunday six times in his four years of high school. You do the math that comes out to one Sunday a year and then every two years a second Sunday 52 Sundays in the year roughly.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to tell you one of the things I can say that my sons and daughters that are grown and out of the house now they understand the value and the importance of meeting with God's people in the house of the Lord on Sunday, and y'all know I've talked about it's not magical to go meet in a building importance of meeting with God's people in the house of the Lord on Sunday and y'all know I've talked about it's not magical to go meet in a building, but coming together with God's people and worshiping together, it's super important. So, spiritual communion, worshiping together as husband and wife, as a family, so important, so valuable. And the last one, this is a habit that I would encourage you to form Patterns of forgiveness and communication of thankfulness. Patterns of forgiveness Actually, that's two in it. And so communicating thankfulness we talked about in that 1 Thessalonians passage, the importance of giving thanks. But communicating thankfulness to others in that first Thessalonians passage to you know the importance of giving thanks but communicating thankfulness to others in your household, particularly in your marriage.
Speaker 1:Expressing thanks Simple as what's this look like? And let me say, when I'm sharing personal experiences, I'm not getting it's because that's what I got to go on. I'm not saying, hey, look where I did it right. I want to be clear. I've done this wrong, often, each of these things, and that's where you learn. You learn from doing it wrong. But communication of thankfulness there was one evening this week cold front came in. I wanted to go take my bow and get a deer stand and I called Little and I said I want to, I want to make sure you're good with that. Now she don't care if I go hunting, I'm I got the best wife in the world. She's like yeah go have fun, enjoy.
Speaker 1:She knows how good that is for me. I feel sorry for dudes that I've had guys and that they won't go hunt with me. We're going, I'm going to you know, a trip. I mean mean, I can't, I don't think you know, my wife would want me to be gone for for that.
Speaker 1:I, I I'm not hating or judging that's. Everybody got to figure those things out themselves. I'm just saying, and I'm thankful in my marriage that little's always quick to see it. But I also want to be mindful of of I don't know what kind of day she's had or what frame of mind she might be in and I might need to come on to the house and and I can hunt. Another day there might be something you know going on at the house and so, uh, but she said, nah, yeah, go hunt, that'll be awesome, go for it. Um, enjoy it. I hope you get one. And I just said thank you, I really appreciate you encouraging that. So, just communication of thankfulness.
Speaker 1:You know um, again, man, I'm sharing times where I've. The reason I'm sharing is because this list are things that I've, that I've learned from doing wrong and so I'm trying to get it right. You know um, not because I've mastered any of this um and patterns of forgiveness, just being quick to forgive. I think that's a good habit. Now, if you've got a spouse who is addicted to pornography or is unfaithful in extramarital affairs, it's not as simple then as saying, oh, I just got to forgive him. No, that's you know, or he's abusive. If you've got a husband that's verbally or physically abusive in some way, then you don't. Then it's not like, oh, I just gotta have a pattern of forgiveness. No, that's different. I'm talking about just being quick to forgive and and, uh, you know every area of our lives that it's where it will make us stronger.
Speaker 1:And then the third thing is impatience. Again, we're talking about hard work and then, under that, what are the patterns that will create? More work and ultimately, probably destruction? Visual lethargy, habitual inconsistency and then impatience. Remember, we've got to be forebearing, not fur-bearing. We watched it.
Speaker 1:We got a UFC pay-per-view a couple weeks ago and the one dude that was fighting one of the guys that was fighting gosh, that dude was hairy. I was admiring the fact that he looked like a silverback gorilla, but little did not find it attractive. Um, you gotta be forbearing, not fur bearing. Um, forbearing, jesus parable. The guy, that one dude you know, had a million bucks that he owed and the other guy owed five bucks. And the guy that owed a million dollars, the man forgave him, but then he went and wouldn't forgive the $5 debt. And you know it's like.
Speaker 1:Remember, you've received grace and patience from the Lord, so express and extend that to your spouse. All right, number three. So, number one, choose to care. Number two work hard in your marriage. Number three you can be right, but still be ineffective. You can be right but still be ineffective. Number four spend more time learning and building and less time showing off what you already know. Number five don't think that the delay of consequences is the same as the absence of consequences. If you are unfaithful and you don't get caught, don't think that there won't be at some point consequences.
Speaker 1:Well, there's no consequences right now, nobody knows. You know, um, oftentimes the consequences to my actions are immediate. Sometimes they are delayed, but there's but. But when I'm unfaithful to the Lord and to my wife in any way, if I'm, if I'm unfaithful to the Lord, there's going to be consequence to that. If I'm unfaithful to my wife and I'm not just talking about infidelity, although that would be a huge one, but I mean if I'm unfaithful to the calling God's given me as a husband, there's going to be consequences to that. It might not happen today, but there will be consequences.
Speaker 1:Number six cultivate an attitude of commitment rather than an attitude of entitlement. Cultivate an attitude of commitment rather than an attitude of entitlement. Here's some little add ins. Oh, little capital L. This for my wife. Little added. These two added these two.
Speaker 1:When I talked through this list, she said you can help alleviate your spouse's insecurities or you can let your own insecurities enlarge theirs. That was really good. You can work to alleviate the insecurities that your spouse might struggle with. Let's say that she grew up with a dad that body shamed her or yelled at her. She doesn't feel like she's good enough. Your insecurities could enlarge hers, or your humility and commitment to the Lord and to her, could diminish hers, could shrink them when she becomes more and more secure, could alleviate them.
Speaker 1:And then little always talks about keeping short accounts. It's like don't let something get so big that it's an issue, that there's a point where you can't deal with it. You know, got to deal with it, got to keep short accounts. I'm mad at you. I got to deal with that. Deal with my own heart. And if we need to talk about it, it goes back up to what we talked about earlier Rapid problem solving, quick conflict resolution. All right, y'all, that's what I got for this week. That's just some thoughts. All of that is not coming out in the talk, the message, what I'm sharing at the marriage conference.
Speaker 1:But I just gave me some the back notes to what I'm talking about. I thought it might be, I don't know, maybe it'd be encouragement, maybe it'd be helpful, I hope might be like rambling, it might be you're like, oh my gosh, I just spent almost 40 minutes of my life, 45 minutes of my life that I can never get back. I learned nothing. Maybe, maybe, maybe, uh, maybe the Lord use it in somebody's heart, somebody's marriage, maybe there's something in there, a nugget here, a nugget there that you needed and I hope that it will be encouraging.
Speaker 1:I went on a little rant about the kids' sports. I know I know I did, but y'all, I've watched 30 years of ministry now and it's something that I just feel like it creates a diminished view of the glory of God and an exaggerated view of the glory of sport, and I feel like I've got the leverage to say that as someone who we did man, we worked our tails off to get Tuck to the next level. I said we missed six Sundays. I should add that his official visits, which I'm not going to get into what that is, but when you do an official visit to a Division I school, they fly you in or they bring you in, they put you up and feed you and you spend a long, like Friday through Sunday, with the football program, the staff, the, and they're, they're, they're trying to recruit you to be there. Or, once you've committed to a school, they bring you in for an official visit and you spend those.
Speaker 1:So those official visits, we I guess that knocked us out of some Sundays, but I remember one of those um, something was going on at church and we left at 5 in the morning on Sunday from a university that was about a five I think it was a five-hour drive to make sure we could be at church. So even then, I just wow because I think the value there is in the long run is going to make your sons and daughters stronger humans, better people and people that view and value the glory of Jesus and the glory of the church and the beauty of what God has created in marriage and spiritual communion together to be more, more valuable. So, um, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Hope it's been good.
Speaker 1:And uh, yeah, See you guys next week.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.
