God, Sex and Your Marriage

If you felt discouraged, worn down, or are thirsting for health you need rest and renewal and then Horton was to be coming out and I want to invite you to join the new women's conference for a time of deep encouragement and challenging you hear from me. Author Heather Bowman and so many more wise and wonderful. Learn more and sign up for renewal, 20, 22, including events or I think there a lot of married Christian couples who don't have inflation and they just kind of feel stuck, but again we remember that this is all about revealing the nature of how God loves us.

There is a pathway purpose for us to be maturing intersexual for each other, welcomes bedding relationship with Dr. Gary And author of our Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" today. Dr. Julie Slattery and hope sexually our featured resource they has a provocative title God sex will merit more books.board radio microphone. We have a lot of questions about sex and marriage. Mostly there. This is a huge topic struggle close the person about their careers. Exposure or culture.

Section section you will become filled with the real, in particular relating to people with marriage contracts. Many couples struggle to make this a mutual joy mutual sense of social action. So I'm excited about our topic today don't know anyone that has really spoken more clearly on this topic.

Dr. Julie Slattery, so I'm looking forward to our conversation, let's reintroduce her. She's a clinical psychologist, author, cofounder of authentic intimacy. In the summer of 2020. She launched sexual discipleship.com is designed to equip Christian leaders to address sexual issues with gospel centered truth.

In addition to speaking and teaching.

She hosts the podcast job with Julie is a prolific author. Her latest again is God sex and your marriage. You can find it@moodybooks.org welcome back to Building Relationships always enjoyed it. Thanks much for having me.

You spent the last decade writing and speaking about the area of Christian sexuality assess where we are right now in your opinion well and he says we are more open to talk about sex and sexuality we ever have been so this is a topic that I think in Christian circles, and homes has been muted for decades, and damn the pain of our world and the confusion of our culture is forcing us and giving us permission to talk about things we haven't known how to talk about. That's also the bad news and as we look at what's happening in our world and how that affects us and what's even happening in our own families and marriages. There is a list of pain and confusion that makes us even wondering where should North what is the purpose of all this in the first place, so massive amounts of just paying questions, confusion, and I think the average person is just trying to figure out what marital problems and pain points. Have you noticed the last few years. I think that pain points have always been there. We are hearing more and I think they're getting worse. So some of the common pain points could be just or even basic.

We are incompatible sexually married to somebody who is different sexual desires than I have never want sex. And so I'm lonely in my marriage have pain points of pornography and so many people who have gotten hooked on pornography at a young age that follows them into marriage and undermines the trust with marriage so you have spouses asking questions of how do I deal with this and what is recovery and holistic like and then you have pain points of trauma. So many women and men having experience different forms of sexual trauma and the impact that has as they try to communicate about Saxonville intimacy. So those to be probably the main one spent there are certainly others that we hear about it authentic in a messy think anyone is listening probably has a pain point. Yes you so that sex is like a jigsaw puzzle. Explain what you might I'm always looking for these tangible ways to help people connect with such a complicated topic and for me, jigsaw puzzle has been really helpful one because I feel like a couple opens up this jigsaw puzzle with pieces they have to try to figure how do they fit together and I do jigsaw puzzles. I really enjoy themselves only way I can do a jigsaw puzzle. If I have have to have the front of the box in front of me. I have to have the picture that I'm creating as a reference point and so every time I pick up a piece and like okay, where does Cisco within the larger picture and I think that's a great metaphor for sexuality and sexuality within marriage because were creating something that most couples don't know what were supposed to be creating or even worse there working on the wrong picture that working on a perspective of sex that's inaccurate and so they just give up on trying to solve the puzzle and said, this book is really about. We have to have the right picture of what God me marital sexuality was supposed to be in the first place if were ever going to be able to work towards wholeness in our marriages.

Most of us can Abilify with that, but there are those, and I'm sure those solutions are those who have difficulty putting together the word six and God because their idea of sex is God's against this group is notably roadbuilding. The other thing you say to that person yeah boy that's such a great question because at that time he gets at whatever she's talking about the front of the box of the jigsaw puzzle is actually God's love for us.

Christ's relationship with the church and people here that lie, what are you saying Julie, we read the Scripture and we read about what the Bible says about sexuality. So often we just focus on a few passages that tell us what not to do. We try to make sense of song of Solomon, but if you read the Bible as a story as a narrative embedded in that narrative is a purpose for our sexuality through the Old Testament and the New Testament.

It's this idea that God created marriage and sexuality as a physical way that we can understand the nature of how God loves us with a covenant love and we see that played out in the Old Testament through God's relationship with the nation of Israel. His covenant people and we see that in the New Testament through Christ's relationship with the church again. His covenant people and is the picture that we should be working on until people that are squeamish about integrating the thought of God and sexuality will I need should be working on the wrong picture as they're trying to put together the puzzle of sexuality within their marriage. So it's essential that we learn how to integrate those two things.

I'm guessing that most of our listeners lose many of our listeners do or say what you're telling me that the sexual part of the marriage is somehow picture of God's relationship with the church.

Look what you are able. I wish I had like an hour or so to teach this, but I'll try to summarize it. This is really key so so follow me for a minute okay if we like in the very first book of the Bible Genesis within the first two chapters we see that God creates male and female he has them naked in a garden and there's this first wedding and their sexual intimacy and this is before sin entered the world and God says this is good and he says this. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. Now we fast-forward all the way to the end of the Bible which is revelation, we see another way we see another union but it is the wedding between Christ and the church is union between God and his people, and then we see in the book of Ephesians, Paul linking these two weddings together Tanya my marriage is even talking about the one flesh union of a husband and wife. He quotes Genesis and he says the purpose of this is that we might understand the love of Christ and the church and I think that this is a truth that we don't know in the Christian church because it's like you're saying Dr. Chapman is complicated. It's hard for us. At first understand, but it also is why we are still confused as were trying to navigate these issues within our marriage because we've lost that picture. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" you can find more ways to strengthen relationships@ 5lovelanguages.com you can hear the program. There take an assessment of your love language or download the love najaf@ 5lovelanguages.com with just a word to parents. Today's program deals with sexual intimacy and marriage and struggles with that topic.

Dr. Jude Dr. Julie Slattery is joining us in our topic is God sex and your marriage. That's the title of her new book and you can find a moody book's.org Moody.org Bush U talk about the four pillars of God's love for us. Please help us have the right perspective on sexual and soon marriage continue. You walk us through the concept. I would love to. As you mentioned before the break we are talking about how this is complicated like how does understanding God's love had anything to do with my sexual relationship and marriage in these four pillars are really the tangible that connect the two because if we look at how does God love his covenant people. There's a direct correlation and what it looks like for us to build healthy sexual intimacy, marriage, boiled it down to these four pillars of covenant love of God's love for us. So the first one is faithfulness and that God loves us with the faithful love and he calls us to faithfulness like when we have a covenant we are to be true to our word and marriage is a covenant where faithfulness is essential. You can't build intimacy without faithfulness and this is why it's so devastating cheat on your spouse.

It's why it's so devastating when pornography is involved in your marriage because it breaks covenant so that's the first one but it's not the only one. The second one is intimate, knowing it's only like our relationship with God. The whole purpose of our covenant is that we might have close fellowship with him, that we might have this intimacy that grows with him in the same issue within the sexual relationship, the purpose of sexuality and intimacy in marriage is that we might be on a journey of deeply knowing each other of growing in intimacy. Dr. Chapman, I know that your heartbeat as you teach people about the love languages you want them to grow in intimacy and the third one is that there's an element in covenant that requires us to sacrifice the climax of God's covenant left restless across. It was God giving us his son and Jesus laying down his life for us and the same is true in marriage and in our sexual relationship covenant is always going to have this element of love will cost you something. And that's true, and sexual intimacy that just how God designed it took us to express love. I want to give out of who I am and in the fourth pillar is passionate celebration and I think sometimes we miss this one. Even our relationship with God that God commands his people to celebrate our love for him and that's really what we do as we gather in our churches every weekend is together we celebrate and sing of our love for him and in a Similar Way, God is given the pleasure the gift of sexuality.

The fun of sexuality are husband and wife to regularly celebrate their covenant promise with each other so that's kind of the outline of the book right there is is four pillars close to reliving those out. Anyone who hears those for our faith will be motivated to read the book, because for powerful elements like the parallel between Christ and the church God in Israel but always all these things with her, but let's go back to it.

Faithfulness part just a moment. Why is faithfulness so foundational to sexual intimacy. Faithfulness is what allows us to experience every other pillar of intimacy. So faithfulness means I can trust you and means I feel safe with you and so it's not just unlocking a cheat on my spouse, but that I continually am going to choose to be a safe person for my spouse and it is only if you have that foundation that you can build intimacy that you can experience pleasure, like let's be honest, like marriage and sexuality are very vulnerable and for us to be able to go on that journey together is a husband and wife.

We have to trust each other. So when there are consistent breaches in faithfulness, really.

A couple can't build pleasure, they can't build intimacy and they don't know how to make sense of sacrificial love. So that really sets the table. If there's one pillar that's the most foundational and importance that one that you know one thing that I really come to learn is that the most important thing about your sex life is your character and you'll never hear that from the culture. But if you don't have character doesn't matter how he books you read are you know how adventurous you want to be. It's not been a work in the long run. Why is unfaithfulness so painful now. Dr. Chapman, I think it's because God designed it that way, you know, if you go back to that front of the puzzle box. God wants to teach us about how he loves us and we read the Old Testament and we see how idolatry broke the heart of God, and he even uses marital language and sexual language to say you've you've cheated on me committed adultery on me. God wants us to understand how broken his heart is when were not faithful to him and that plays out in the metaphor of marriage and sexuality and so I know that there is a husband or wife is listening to this right now who has experienced betrayal and we can tell you from the Scripture that God personally knows that pain he knows what it is to be a spouse. He's been betrayed. And so even in our pain, we can begin to understand the heart of God and how much he longs for us to be his faithful bride's powerful framework in the book is most married couples are sexually active book books sexually intimate which the difference between those two yeah this really builds on that pillar of intimate knowing activity is the focus on the body and on how often were having sex. If were sexually compatible MI still attracted to my spouse and those are important matters but they are not nearly the most important aspects of your sexual relationship intimacy. By contrast, is really looking at how how is the gift of sex in a marriage helping us journey towards knowing each other more intimately.

So I'm one of the things I talk about through the book is that this is been a difficult part of my marriage, my husband and I have been married for 28 years now, and particularly the first 15 or 18 years of that sex was the pain point. It was the area of marriage where we just felt like we couldn't connect their problems to address and during those first 15 or 18. Marriage and during those first 15 to 18 years of marriage. I really thought like this gift is broken.

Why would you give us this gift and then not let us enjoy it and have to really wrestle with that, but what God began to reveal to me over time is that intimacy is formed in the difficult times and in the hard places, like if we look at our relationship with God again anyone I ask, what, when did you develop more intimacy with God. Was it during the good times and the mountain tops or was it in the valleys when you are experiencing hardship and suffering and without fail. Everybody says it was in the valleys and so the same is true when a couple is working on sexual intimacy. It is more intimate to walk through infertility together than it is to have sex and it is more intimate to walk-through recovery together than it is to have sex. It's more intimate to be honest with your spouse about what you struggle with or talk about triggers because of your past trauma and so the broken pieces of sexuality are often that invitation to move into sexual intimacy instead of just activity looks talk about some practical strips couple contract to move more yeah so I me I think it first starts by being able to talk about sex, so again, let's imagine that you're putting together this very complicated puzzle and you have to do it together but you're not allowed to talk e.g. can't communicate but I know Dr. Chapman is euphoric with couples you know this is true, a couple could have been married for 25 years they've been physically having sex for all that time but they still can't communicate about this. They don't even know what to call each other's body parts. They don't know what words to use to initiate sex. They don't have to share with their spouse.

I love you but tonight is not a good night and they don't even have the basic building blocks of the vocabulary to begin going more deeply into intimacy and so that is a really critical first step and it's not just the vocabulary that's the starting place. But, then, is moving into understanding the meaning of sex for you and being able to talk about why sex sometimes associated with shame for you or why sexual pleasures difficult for you and so this level of communication is really taking a couple from just about what our bodies are doing to her sharing the journey and other pieces just praying together about your sex life like very few couples actually do that. That's creates deep intimacy but think you're exactly right. What might be a first trip in a couple who haven't talked about this part of their marriage all these years you get started you know a great first step in this is what my husband Mike and I have learned to do is get a good Christian book on sex could be God, sexier marriage, or there's so many other authors like Cliff and Joyce Penner written on this topic. Dr. Doug Rosenau get one of those books and read it out loud to each other so you read a couple pages have your spouse read a couple pages why this is so helpful is because you are speaking words that you're not familiar with speaking and you're using the author's words but it's helping you get comfortable with saying things that are difficult to say and then pause after you read a couple pages and so we think about that or what part of that really you think describes us and said that's a great first. Debbie cannot see these podcasts or audiobooks or workbooks, sermon series, but I think reading out loud to each other, gives you the skill of being up to verbally communicate things that are difficult for you to talk about it. I really really agree with it strongly and I think couple should do the will click a book and do exactly what you should think they'll find themselves talking more and more freely about this part of the relationship and it's amazing how it opens up a sense of closeness to Plato's intimacy which talk course. Obviously, it's not just talking about the sexual part of marriage and initially involved sharing our intellectual faults in her feelings about other topics as well.

But if we can talk about this part of our marriage, chances are we can share all the other parts of our marriages will verbally with each other why that's so true. It really takes us deeper. Let's look at the role of self-denial dimension sacrifice. What role does self-denial play a healthy sex life. I think this is probably one of the most misunderstood concepts about sex, particularly among Christians, because when he taught about something on sex immediately go towards if you know the Scripture first 20 chapter 7, which some people will refer to as the wifely duties passage you known. I'm talking about. Remember that passage. Yeah, right. So if we like it that passage and a lot of sermons might be on this passage. It sounds like what Paul is saying is you owe each other sex. And so what couples will sometimes do is still get in a cycle where they'll take that particular passage and let's face the husband who has a higher sex desire will say to his wife. The Bible says that you have to give me sex when I wanted because that's how I fight temptation and so we have a whole lot of marriages that are in that kind of pattern which if we go back to the fact that sex is meant to be this expression of covenant love covenant love doesn't look like you own me something, particularly something as vulnerable as sexual intimacy, and so I think we really have to understand self-denial and even that passage in verse 20 chapter 7 within the context of God is calling us to work on sexual intimacy, not activity. Activity is let's have sex, intimacy is let's create a safe environment in our marriage when we can journey together sexually and so the Scripture also talks about the need for that husband to see how I minister to my wife sexually. If she's not interested or she is wounding intersexual past. How can minister to her.

How can I be sensitive. How can I lay down my desires for her sake and when a married couple, both get that perspective of ministry of working towards true intimacy.

Their sexual relationship will grow and develop and heal that when they're just in a pattern of I want sex.

Therefore, you, you owe it to me or the wife's perspective I have to do this even though I don't enjoy it because it's my duty. They really shortcut and compromise intimacy ColdFusion's postage word talks about wives, submit yourselves to your husband. Some people swear was absolute kosher disposal submit to movie be available hundred percent in the server. Marriages will fail to recognize the just before he says that the wives who gives a word to the whole church, submit yourselves one to another, which is what makes a church work. You know, serving each other and live the child's developments want to serve as was love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, but it's better if yes, it is presently is your right.

You know sometimes I remind people that, in the same lateral letter in first Corinthians is first in the chapter 13 that defines what that love is supposed to look like and what I'm teaching on this sometimes I'll have the audience read that passage with me and after each description of love say in the bedroom so love is patient and the bedroom love this kind in the bedroom but does not seek its own desire in the bedroom and left forgives eat if we go on and on and we state that is the character a guy wants to develop in our bedrooms away. We love each other and I really believe that there are seasons where couples need to stop pursuing sexual activity in order to begin to build that true intimacy and there's there's a lot of wounding issues that need to be addressed that just having sex might be covering up instead of inviting them to those deeper places of healing God sex and your marriage is our topic today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman that's the title of Dr. Julie Slattery's latest book you can find it@moodybook.org that's moody book.org.

Today's program is about sexual intimacy so parents be aware of the conversation today and don't forget you'll find more simple ways to strengthen relationships@ 5lovelanguages.com that's five love languages.com docs U said just before the break, that there are seasons.

There are times when couples who really want to pursue each other and intimacy will not go the route of of sexual intimacy for at least a while talk more about that. How do you know that that's a good idea yeah I would say that there still building sexual intimacy even if they may not be having intercourse and I think that's the distinction so let me give you some examples of this. Let's say you do have somebody in the marriage to has experienced sexual trauma and every time they have intercourse there triggered they can't relax their dissociating which means are sort of separating their body from their sense of being present and they've established that pattern of her years because it's the only way that they can stay safe.

Well, if they continue just to do things the way they've always done it and there never building that safety that's required to heal and for that person who's been traumatized to be able to be present and so sex therapist, marriage therapist will tell a couple like that you need to back off on intercourse on anything that might be triggering and learn to establish safe touch. Learn to communicate what triggers you do with the British in the stop when things get going so that we can stop and pray. Or we can stop and reset so that would be one example.

Another example of this is so common.

Unfortunately in today's day and age if you've been impacted by pornography and the only way you can engage sexually is to revert back to fantasies or images that you engage with in the past, you might be physically having sex with your spouse, but you're not present you're not you're not you're not experiencing intimacy. They are disconnected from your body's doing and what your mind is doing and so somebody who's going through sexual addiction recovery or pornography recovery needs to stop engaging in sexual action until they can begin reconnecting okay.

Sex is meant to be about being with my spouse thinking about my spouse experiencing my spouse and so those are the two examples of why sometimes taking a break and really focusing on intimacy can make a huge difference afflict the words you use, sexually, sexually intimate hope or listen because having sex is one thing but having intimate relationship which carries over into the sexual part of the marriage is totally different. Think Julie that there are many couples that have never gotten. The don't experienced sexual I think you're right. At Dr. Chapman when I teach on this. I'll often have couples come up and say we've been married for 20, 30 years and we've never experienced what you're describing. We totally missed it and I and they want more.

Both the husband and wife were created for more. They were created for this intimate knowing, but the culture and just kind what we settle for is just a shadow of that and so I love to give couple is just the pathway of Henrico deeper. How do we pursue that that depth of intimacy stored in areas other than the sexual part of the marriage right clicking book emotional.

If you don't feel attached emotionally this were the five lovely flake interfaces with this you don't genuinely feel loved by the other person then just to have sex together may be momentarily pleasurable and loose for husband, for example.

But meaningless to the wife is not even painful to the wife. You're so right Dr. Chapman, your God never created sex to be separated from intimacy. These things go together so that your sex life isn't this special compartment of your marriage is the overflow of your friendship of your laughter of your communication of your kindness to each other. Even your love for God. This is the overflow and so I think a lot of us have been taught because of the silence in the church around sex that this is a special compartment. That's not integrated well. There is of course a passionate part of the pleasure part of sex and marriage to watch the boats in the perspective of passion and pleasure in Christian marriage. We understand that passion and pleasure are one of the four pillars and so you can't get rid of that that fourth pillar. I think there's some people that because of their experiences have just given up on passion and pleasure and they just say well we can have the other three pillars will be faithful to each other will communicate together. We will even be self sacrificial sex is no fun it's it's not enjoyable, but we have to say that's it. A limited perspective of what God created sex to be in even if we go back to it supposed to be a model of our relationship with him. What would our relationship with God be like if we never celebrated our love for him. If we never took time to express how much we love him and so this passion and pleasure part of sex is part of God's design and most couples are going to really have to work at it it doesn't come easily over the years of marriage. It fades and you have to invest in it so that's one piece of that. But I think than the other perspective that some people over emphasize pleasure and they just say, well, sex is pleasurable. Therefore, I just don't even care about it anymore. That's the only thing that matters. And that's kind of what our culture tells us that if you are incompatible sexually or if it's not fun. You need to do whatever you can to get back that pleasure and that's an unbalanced file as well and so we can pursue passion and pleasure in a healthy way.

When we combine it with those other pillars of faithfulness, intimate, knowing self giving love.

Now, passion and pleasure has a balance perspective to it. Sacrificial part which we are serving each other and have the scripts but they really care about me there willing to help me this better than the other thing reformer look to the phone pleasure. When we have that kind of intimacy of the relationship you have a way that those other three pillars really set the stage for healthy pleasure and there's a lot of unhealthy pleasure happening in marriages again where people use pornography or their referring to their database of images that are outside of their marriage. Building healthy pleasure means building those other three pillars and then being able to enjoy the fullness of what God designed sex to be between you and your spouse. You know you mentioned this also earlier book renews the word her. But happiness of the emotional shifts that happy within our relationship. You're working with limited terms of us.

It will couples were one of them decided to divorce because they're not happy in the marriage does not her. But God intends me to be unhappy so getting out of this, but also totally self centered approach to life right it really is and if you are looking at marriage and sex through that perspective, you're missing you missed the whole purpose of marriage and sexuality which is learning to love and for me to learn to love my husband means that I have to learn to love through periods of time where I do feel unhappy where I do feel disappointed. Love is about more than just me getting my needs met its me growing in my character and my ability to love even beyond my own natural instincts were Jesus said love your enemies, sometimes it really is. I think everyone who is married, has had at least a 10 minute period of time whether life and certainly not you displayed with the God is not only concerned with our sexual morality but also our sexual maturity was what looked like a marriage by this is something that I never heard as a young married person. It was all about making sure keeping the rules we want to make sure were not wandering sexually which the first part of of maturity is morality. That's where we need to begin with so many couples get stuck there like okay were not cheating on each other were not liking up pornography, we must be good. God desires to deepen each one of us in our experience and expression of love and that's in every area that includes intersexual love for each other and so when we've been married for 10 years, 20 years 50 years we should be ale to look at the past and say our sexual love is more seasoned. It's more beautiful today than it was a year ago or five years ago because God is challenging us and to to plumb new depths of his love for us, and having that being expressed and how we love each other sexually and I think there are whole lot of married Christian couples who don't have the vision for that and they just kind of feel stuck, but again when we remember that this is all about revealing the nature of how God loves us. There is a pathway and a purpose for us to be maturing intersexual love for each other.

This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" go to five love languages.com to find more ways to strengthen relationships.

That's five love languages.com.

Our guest is Dr. Julie Slattery and if you just joining us, our program is about sexual intimacy and marriage are featured. Resource is God sex and your marriage.

Find out more about it@moodybook.org books were earlier you mentioned pornography. What you say to the couple who's in the middle of the struggle with pornography. I would say first of all take it seriously.

I.e. I think a lot of couples will sort of dabble in conversations about pornography or the promise each other. I'll never look at it again, but pornography it's roots can go very deep in our hearts and our minds. It trains our brain and how to respond sexually and how to think sexually so take it seriously. The second thing I would say is it is a journey for most people, and for couples it's not like you promise that you never get to do this again even though you resolve that you're not gonna fall back into it. The reality is that for most people recovering from pornography's sonography addiction is a journey and you need help on that journey you need other individuals or couples who know what it's like to have that struggle. You need the help of experts who understand how pornography and sexual addiction impact the brain impact the sexual relationship and then finally I would say don't give up because God is the healer heals and redeems all things any of the journey takes a long time to get there it is. It is a journey that is worth it and God will redeem when you surrender it to him.

Men are more involved in pornography than women, though there are women, of course involved, but one of the saddest things I hear in my office. The wife realizes and finds out that her husband involved in porn open to determine what's wrong with me that he had to go into an unreal world. This area, and social terms of taken over self pornography is a choice with a person wakes another person is not responsible for the like, and blame the other person you were really my moods and therefore it's not about how don't know that it is as devastating as sexual immorality, having an affair with somebody else.

But it comes pretty close to it as particularly when the uses habitual because it's a continual threat to your marriage and I'm so glad that you said that Dr. Chapman, the truth of it is that most people that are really addicted to pornography or irregularly using it were exposed to it at a very young age, 10, 11, 12, where their brains were not able to cope with it and we know now that early exposure to pornography can have a really profound effect on the brain and so the brain begins to get wired that way where we associate sex with pornography and then young man or young woman will use it over the course of the teen years that just reinforces that brain wiring and so then you get married your spouse is not gonna fix that problem for you, doesn't matter how often they want to have sex or how great they are in bed.

The wiring has been really overtaken by the consistent use of pornography and that has to be addressed below. Closer listening or struggling with your horse and reach out for help lower section of the book is called taking the next what is important to see the path to intimacy is a step-by-step process rather than just one joy element. It's so important because it is a journey that I like this phrase that sometimes a sexual discipleship because I think we don't think about our sexualities being part of our discipleship journey, but it really is for every single one of us and the problem is we often get stuck on that journey and we don't take the next step when young couples asked me if they get ready get married like what should we expect what's normal and I try to give them some good encouragement. One thing I always say to them is you should expect that you can have some challenges you can expect that you're in a run into roadblocks, that's normal.

I don't want to discourage you or depress you as part of the journey that God has for you so you want to keep asking him God. What is our next step. What is healing look like it's her next step in building faithfulness. What is our next step in learning to communicate and become more intimate and we should all be on that journey. Even after you've been married a long time like you have Dr. Chapman you're still asking that question God, what's my next step in letting my spouse better and maturing and dealing with whatever circumstances this season of life is bringing so important to recognize and the sooner the couple can recognize that the better of some Tom Sawyer to the couples are getting married the text to learn how to make slicks for mutual joy in the relationship just like a Textron with every other aspect of marriage don't play the drums because you get married than pictures will be proven for both of you every time you get an boon of ministry is not realistic.

It takes time but it also takes more than time suggests the passage of time is it can make that happen. It's the effort that you put in. While the time is it's going by what you do that's right Ludlow still just a moment.

Is there hope for a sexless marriage to just put it on the shelf. The couple absolutely not your marriage isn't for first and foremost, your sexual relationship. It's your covenant if you promise to one another and I've had couples that reach out to me and say we haven't had sex for one reason or another in three or four years.

Does that mean were not married Emily know your marriage is sexist covenant is a promise. Sex is simply the physical way that God has given us to celebrate and remember the covenant. But if you are in a sexless marriage. I would challenge you to really look at how did you become a sexless marriage. What's in the way physical problems is it trauma is it a lack of safety and communication. God doesn't want you to stay there. Not just because sex is important but more importantly, that journey of intimacy is important and even when you can't necessarily have the full active sex or intercourse. That doesn't mean you can't still build sexual intimacy and learning what it is to be vulnerable with each other and celebrate your love for one another and so my encouragement to be absolutely there's hope and there's also an invitation for you to look at the intimacy that God is asking you to build within your sexual relationship.

Social research story about a couple but you like to toil illustrates the hope you have for marriages that are struggling. Yeah, there's so many stories all share one that is in the book that a couple has given me permission to share so Dane and Brooke about four years ago first heard me speak on this topic of marriage and sexuality and they were actually separated, but they are at a marriage event and they had four for the whole marriage had an open marriage even though they were Christians. They felt like hey I marriages can be safer if we give each other for permission to look at pornography cheat on each other and so they had just this mess in their marriage that had led to separation depression. This frustration and when they first heard me speak on this. It was intriguing but they are at a point of desperation and then they say yes to the journey that got invited them on of restoring their marriage of learning what the purpose of sex and intimacy really is is over the last four years they've been in counseling than in discipleship groups, learning about healthy sexuality dealing with the pain of their past. They both had been addicted to pornography so they both went through recovery and about a year or so. Though they really got to the point where they were no longer just dealing with the past they were building true intimacy and so now Brooke and Dane actually meet other couples through materials that help them rebuild intimacy in their marriage and their thriving. They have two little kids and it just is a story of God's redemption and it's a story that gives hope to every couple he feels like man were too far gone they would tell you four years ago that they were too far gone and got is done amazing things for listeners are hearing that if you are in a marriage where you feel like there is little hope. I hope you're listening because the reality is we determine what the future looks like. The past is behind us we cannot undo the past we can overcome the influences of the past that were sent so much more limited. Thank you for being with us today to me. Thank you for writing this book and let me encourage all those who are listening to get this book. Read it for yourself.

As we said at the beginning of the program. Read it with your spouse and minutes of book I think you may want to postpone to other people you encounter mail if it's helpful to help.

So thanks again for being with. Thanks so much for having once again Dr. Julie Slattery has been with us you can find out more about God sex marriage books.work with the Moody radio microphone arch looks to become the man you were married. Everything don't miss a conversation with Anthony Delaney in one before we go. Let me think are absent. Janice backing Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman's production of the radio in association with Moody publishers a ministry by