Marriage as a Living Painting

Are there things about your spouse that you wish would change.

Have you found that your your coaching is another word for nagging. Have you found your coaching just isn't working. Aaron IB says it's time to rethink your strategy. There's something incredibly compelling and powerful about a spouse that is kind and is gracious in this patient is something so compelling about that and if you would as a believer. Choose that posture right now to preach at not to condemn, not the key point fingers or be frustrated but just to lovingly serve them and keep demonstrating the gospel, not just preaching to them or something very compelling about this is family life today. Our hosts are David and Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine you can find us online@familylifetoday.com when you think about change that you'd like to see happen in your marriage there's a way to go about that. That may be all right to you and then there's the Jesus way, let's talk about how we can help one another grow in grace today stay with us and welcome to family like to thanks for joining us. Do you think we as couples in marriage you think we know how to love one another. Well when we get married. I mean, I didn't think we know right I don't I don't think we do. I would say we think were in love, we have no idea what love is.

Yeah, we discover what love it. Work is really hard work and it's awesome but it's up it's not as easy as we think.

I was think about this because of the conversation that the two of you had recently with Erin and Jamie IV. They just written a new book called complement actually two books there's a book for him in a book for her and the chapters in these books are the same chapters in both books. It's just Aaron talking to guys about this is how I live this out. Jamie talking to the women about this and for listeners who don't know Aaron and Jamie.

Jamie has a daily podcast. It's very popular called the happy hour. Erin is a songwriter.

He's a worship leader at Austin stone church in Austin Texas.

In fact, when you sat down with them.

I thought, are you really going to do this. You're here with a songwriter and a worship leader and you said I want to get the guitar and play a song I wrote for this is my last day and she so secure. Think all this is to be terrible, or what will they think he's just confident so I'm I was overly yeah I I gotta be honest though, as I was getting ready to set this up my Hargrave started racing and I started having second thoughts.

I got a look at over there and think in this cousin Pro might do it all. Well, let's go for it. You mentioned that you're not like singer here that and make sure my nose you had written a song about your love for Erin and Jamie. After reading their book and decided to do it for them. So here we go here we go last night to relate thinking about our interview today. I decide to write a song about the IVR you did not decided. Alden don't play it for me until her in studio. I like for signs on their song is like a jingle. You tell me years. Okay now I made a lot of money in colors ranging This Summer. This Is Sort of Engine and a Pleasing Singer Play Mail Saying the Words. As I Just Wrote It Last Night's Ever Written a Song.

This May Be the Last Way for Kids Make the House Feel That Jane Is Married, You Be the Jamie Is Crazy and She Is a Crazy Great Reader, but Hardly Know You Knew Our Stuff Was in There I Saw the Generator I Look to You As the Love and I like I Could Throw a Little Bit of Incredible Music, As We Will Make You Think Is Real. So like I Did Listen to Something Greater. So Do Your Gift to Our Filing Worship Is My Language in Man, I Love You Guys Complement Each Other Where You Both so Gifted Gary Steve Yeah but Your Drop Both on People Closer to the Kingdom Now. Pretty Cool. We Talk about That A Lot Because People Do Ask Is Often They Look at Our Life and Say You Guys Are so Different and You Know Jamie Is a Podcast Erin Speaker and Making Media and As a Songwriter and Pastor and How You Do It like That's What They're Wondering and Wanted Things That We Write about That We Think Is so Important Marriage As I Know You Guys Do As Well. Is This Common Mission and I Think That so Many People Go into a Marriage Thinking That They Can Just Kind of Figured out along the Way and Not Have a Goal I like Sports As I Think Sometimes a Sports Team on the Field Another All Playing Different Positions at the Same Goal. They All Want to Win Again, the Coaching Staff There. I'll Cut You Different Things Now Want to Win a Game and Citing Even with Aaron 90 Think Our Mission Is We and Everything We Do in Our Life We Want to Know Jesus Hospitality Not Have Given Her Home Is Not Just Because That's Where People to Jesus Said That Common Mission Is so Important and You Know We Want Unity with in Our Marriages and Common Goals Bring Unity Because A Lot Of People Never Had That Discussion Happy to Raise Our Kids Common Mission in Even Have That Conversation. What Is Our Mission Right like Do We Want to Do about That Because I Know It's at the End of Your Book and We Were to Save It but You Brought It up. So Let's Talk about Because I Can't Said We Didn't Really Even Know We Went to a Conference Two Weeks for a Marriage That Was Our Premarital Deal.

It Was the Family like We Can Remember That We Know Spring Then They Did Talk about Mission but Were Sitting There Thinking Who Care There and I Want to Have You Comment Aaron on Your Comment on Mission and You Mentioned Earlier You Said Marriage Has the Uncanny and Unique Ability to Be a Living Painting That the World Gets to Look at with the Light. When People Look at It. They Are Meant to See Just How Good God Is. That Is so Well Said of the Bigger Vision God Saying Okay This Is What Marriage Is Really about Talk about That. We Talk about This A Lot with Couples That We Might Be Counseling through like about to Get Married and When Things We Say Is like Starting Your Marriage Is Super Important to Have like a Mission like an End. That's in Mind before You Even Started Because Too Many Times, like Even the Dating Relationship. The Relationship Almost Just Seems to like Implode on Itself You Know, You Kind of Neglect All Your Other Friends and Just Become about Each Other and See Just Live like in Isolation and Just All about like Yourself.

And If You're Not Careful That'll Play out into Marriage to Restart. Thinking This Marriage Is about You Making Me Happy and Me Making You Happy and so Then There's Conflict. When the Other Person Can't Do That Because Nobody Can Do That for the Other Person. But If You Start out with Our Mission Is This No Matter What Your Career Is or My Career Is, No Matter How You're Wired. You're in a Room Number, Your Personality, Our Common Mission Is This, and from Day One. Jamie and I Have Really Wrestled to the Ground like This, As We Flicker Put on the Planet to Do That Is to Know Jesus and to Help Other People Know Him. It's That Simple.

And so There's so Much Liberty That Comes with That Because It Doesn't Matter What Jamie's Job Is I Can Cheer Her on, and That the Same Mission like to Mention A Lot Of Times People What They're Asking Is, Is There Competition between Your Two Jobs Because They Seem so Different and You Both out Front in Different Areas and at the End of the Day. Genuinely There Is Not Competition Because We Have the Same Mission behind. What Are Two Different Jobs Are in Severe Marriage Started out That Way, Great. If You're in Marriage and It Didn't Start out That Way Doesn't Mean That It's Hopeless, You Can Always Go Back and Go Okay Maybe We Didn't Start out with a Common Mission, but We Been Put on This Planet for Something so Spending Time to Pray, Discern, Gather Your Community like What You See in Us. How Is God Using Us Already As a Married Couple How We Want Them to Use Us and Then Align Yourself with That Mission and Just Go for It Because We Got This Really Short Amount of Time on This Planet to Live. And God Wants to Use Your Marriage for More Than Just Yourself, but for Your Community, for the People around You to like I Wrote See a Painting and Go.

Oh My Goodness They Love Each Other like That They Serve Each Other like That and They Love God. There's Something Really Compelling about God's Really Good Infiltration to Everything That Might Come into Your Marriage. So, When and I Think through like That You Know I Just Think of It As like We Have Maternity on Our Mind. Like That's Were Looking Forward to, Then That Changes the Will Vacations Be Taken. I Don't Mean That in a Weird Way like I We Going to Costa Rica Florida. I Mean, like Who Spent Our Time with You and I'm Going to Go on a Trip with a Couple It with Another Family We Always Think to Yourself Is Kingdom Value Now Investing Somewhere Where We Can Spend Our Money or Who Are We Going to Invest in Going on Double Dates with Whom You Can Have around Our Table. All Decisions Are Not Ones You Think about When You First Get Married, but As You Add with Four Children. They All Play Activities Are Counter so Full It's Unbelievable How Full It Is.

And so When We Think through. Are We Saying Yes to This Are Noted.

This Really Comes down to This Is Further the Mission That We Have and so There's A Lot Of Nose That Come Out Of That Man, That Sounds Fine and and We Love You Bet It Does Not Further the Mission of What We Have and We Have a Limited Time Here and Guess and Even Your Yeses Are with Mission Mindset Sounds and Can Even Put That in Your Kids You Know What I Joked in the Song about Texas Football. But I Know You Have Season Tickets to the Longhorns and Your Kids Are Playing High School Football but It Such As Football Right It's It's Almost Ministry That I Left College Football Left Is Longhorns but I Don't Go to Those Names of My Friends.

I Take My Boys and Because to Me Three More Years with Three of Them Only One Year with One of That and Said Those Are. That's an Investment in the Discipling like Going You Think about like Using Your Marriage for More Than Just You. You Have To Have like A Lot Of Money to Do That I Get to Get to the Spot Where like Now We Can Be Generous with Our Resources and Our Time. We Been Doing That from the Beginning We Had Nothing Live in a One-Bedroom Tiny Apartment Scraping by, but Our Table Was Always Filled with People That We Were Viewing to the Lens of Alchemy like Serve the Poor. Our Lives into Them Swear Now like Consciously When We Do a Writing Trip. Jamie and I We Made a Decision A While Back That Every Time We Go on a Writing Trip.

We Know We Go Out Of the Town Out Of the State or Whatever We Rent a House That Has One or Two Extra Bedrooms That Doesn't Cost Much More Money Maybe a Couple Hundred Bucks More to Get a House with Another Bedroom and Then One Fight a Couple That Were Born Her Life and to Get a Free Vacation Is Are Probably 1020 Years behind Us Was a Little Small Decisions like That of like How Do We Use the Resources That We Have Is a Married Couple. Whatever They Might Be.

However, Limited, or However Excessive Using What's Right in Front of You to Say Our Marriage Is Meant for More Than Just Us Couple Things As I'm Thinking about That I'm Talking to A Lot Of People Now That Are Empty-Nesters in Their around Our Age and They Have Found like We Don't Have a Common Mission Anymore Because It Used To Be Kids and so Now They're Floundering Thinking. We Don't Know What to DO Side Levy to Address That and Then after That, What about the Person That Says I Want to Be on This Common Mission for Jesus, but I'm Married to a Spouse That Really Doesn't Care That Those Are Two Different Questions You Seen What I Really Enjoy Talking about This Possessing Is Happened so Many Women and Couples for Sherbet, Especially When They Spend No 1825, 26 Years and Their Entire Life Revolves around Their Children Are Common Mission. It Has Nothing to Do with Our Children. It Really Does Having to Do It That It Will Not Change When They're All Gone, and It Didn't Change before They Were Here so I Think That's What so Important Because What Happens Is You. You Pour Your Life out for Your Kids Only.

They Leave and You Look at Your Spouse and Go Wait Again When You Even like to Do and I'm I'm Never Hung out with You Because Were Always in a Nassau Game Room Always Ran Kids around and Again We Get It We Have Four Kids I'm Telling You We Do A Lot Of Wrestling Matches and Football Games and Choir Concerts. But in the End That Our Kids Know That Our Lives Do Not Revolve around Them Are Marriages Revolve around Then Our Mission Is Revolve around Them Instead of It Revolving around Them to Bring Them into It and so They Could See Our Lives in Our Ministry and Be a Part of It and Our Biggest Prayer Be That They Would Then You Know Spread Their Wings and Fly and Create Their Own Mission in Their Own Life at Their Spouses That God Has Marriage for Them That Our Mission Won't Change When They Need Really Good and I Think That If You're in a Spot Right Now in Your Lesson. Your like This Is Me. My Child's 15 and I Don't Even Think I Want to Have a Dinner along with My Husband. I Can Even Imagine It. I Would Say Just to Encourage You. It's Not Too Late. It's Not Too Late at All and This Is by No Means Saying You Know Keep Your Kids Out Of the You Don't Care about the Mean Allowed Them Now.

It Just Means That Your Number One Devotions to God and Your Number Two Devotions to Your Spouse Back in a Way That Your Marriage Will Fire You Know I Can before You Answer. I Can Say This World You're Looking As Thinking That No Barriers for the Fall. But Here's the Thing When When Our Kids Left First College and Then Married and We Sat in the Family Room and It Was Really Quiet and We We Long for These Days You Know It's Chaos and It's Loud and You're Picking up Stuff in Here We Are, and I Remember Thinking If We Hadn't Worked A Lot This This Would Be Really Empty Right Now.

If Our Lives Were Only about Them and We Just Looked Each Other like I Don't Even Really like You. It Was like All That Work. Now You Get the Payoff Is Pretty Beautiful in Terms of the Nation. We Always Had That Same Mission like We Want to Advance God's Kingdom, We Want to Draw People into the Kingdom and Disciple That a Marriage Is the Vehicle Yeah Is Dennis Rainey, Said a Great Marriage Will Be the Greatest Evangelistic Tool of the Future Because People Are Looking Thinking I Want That. And yet I Don't Know How to Get It Taken Last Year and Have a Harder Question Is the Heart of Course. What Only One Spouse Even Wants to Pursue Jesus or Have a Mission Well I Have a Couple Friends Are in That Exact Same Scenario. So This Isn't like Just You Know, Idealistic Sort of Thing.

This Is Something I'm Walking through Couple Friends with That It's Incredibly Hard Incredibly Hard. So First I Would Say like Just Want to Recognize How Difficult That Is and What a Long Process That Is and Then I Think Second This Is What Comes If I Had with Mike. My Friend Was. Imagine Your Very Best Friend in Life Is Not a Believer but You Came to Faith. You Know, a Couple Years Ago and so You Want Synced up with the Same Timeline of Coming to Know Jesus but Now You Know Jesus and You Fall in Love with Them at That Very Best Friend of Yours. He Hasn't yet.

How Would You React and Is like Man I Would I Would Never Give up on Them Because I'd Found Jesus and I Want I Want Him to Find Jesus Do so I Would Never Ever Give up and I Think so Many Times in Marriage.

It's Easier to Give up on Your Spouse Than Even It Is to Give up on Your Very Best Friend in Life and I Don't Know Why. Maybe It's Because You Live with That Person.

You See All the Complexity and You See the Hardest Stations to Verbal Marriage Is Awesome and I Met Jesus. So How Do You Not You Know That My Encouragement to Him Is the Same. I Would Use for Anybody That's Listening Is Salvation Is Sometimes Much Slower Than We Wanted to Be.

I Think about My Life. I Did Not Come to Me. Jesus Interrupts 21 Years Old.

So in Some People Stories That Seems like Early on Mom so Glad You Met You As a 20-year-old, but in Other Stories with Friends of Mine That Met Use When There Five or Eight or 10 That Seems like Later in Life and I Know That God Works in a Very Mysterious and Sometimes Slow-Paced Way and so I Wonder What It Would Look like to Be a Believing Spouse and to Plead with the Lord and Then Also Show an Incredible Amount of Patience and Kindness and Grace to Your Spouse Just like You Would a Best Friend Were Your Longing Them. Longing for Them to Know Jesus Better Thing I Would Say Is This, I Think There's Something Incredibly Compelling and Powerful about a Spouse That Is Kind and Is Gracious in This Patient. There's Something so Compelling about That and If You Would As a Believer. Choose That Posture Right Now to Preach at Not to Condemn, Not to Keep Pointing Fingers or Be Frustrated but Just to Lovingly Serve Them and to Keep Demonstrating the Gospel, Not Just Preaching to Them or Something Very Compelling about That. So I Started the Book with Love Yeah That's the Foundational First Chapter to the Foundation of a Marriage for Sure. Yeah I Was Thinking I Don't Know Where I Written Your Book.

I'm Looking Right Now like Think I Read It Somewhere in Your Book You Tell Me. She Wrote This. I'm Sure It Is but This Idea.

Obviously, in the Mission Was That by Neighbors, Non-Christians, Unchurched People. Anybody Looking at a Godly Marriage They Get an Image from Your Almost Your Painting Idea What God Looks like Right Sort of the Mission Which in Some Ways Is Scary.

Like Paul, That's a Heavy Responsibility Care. My Neighbors Are out Look over at Our House the Way We Raise Our Kids in Way I Treat My Spell It at the Same Time or Watch in the Talkshow in the Host Had on As a Guest. Dwayne the Rock Yeah Johnson Right and I Never Sit There All by Myself Watching the Singing of Everything I Sell That Dude's Body Is Actually the Interview Was about His Workout Thing and You Know He Says I You Know, Do You Ever Cheat on Their Forget He Goes Yeah Chetan. I Really like What Beasley Thinking yet with Food and Media You Because You're Perfect and It's His Life and How He Makes His Money Is As I Am Once Every Six Months. I Have a Pizza Thomas like That's What He Is. So Anyway, When His Whole Thing but Anyway, Here's My Thought to Sinners like I Had No Idea Body Could Look That Good.

And Then It Hit Me. That's What Marriage Can Be Somebody I Had No Idea Guy Look like That Had No Idea God Was That Good.

Yeah by Looking at a Husband-And-Wife Yeah the Way That's Sort of the Mission Right Talk about Deck Is Scary and It Same Time Awesome Yeah I Think It Can in Every Scenario. So It's Not Just Because Jamie Are Going through a Good Season Can See What God Is like. Hopefully in the Good Season You Can See This Is What God Is like. Aaron Loves Jamie Generously and He Serves and Lays down His Life for Her and Jamie Loves Erin Unconditionally and She Serves and Lays down Her Life for Him to Write You Could Say Will That's How You Do It, but Also in the Example I Just Gave Were Maybe There's an Unbelieving Spouse.

There Is Such an Opportunity for the Believing Spouse in That Relationship to Be Such a Profound Demonstration of What God Is like to Be the Perfect Marriage Because You Can Show What God Is like. By Having an Imperfect Marriage That's Covered in Grace and Covered in Forgiveness and Might Have like Moral Failure, and Might Have Really Terrible Mistakes in It.

You Can Demonstrate the Gospel, Even in That by Showing What the Forgiveness of God Looks like. Or with the Patience of God, Looks like It Really Is Just Having a Shift in Your in Your Mind of Going Hey, How Do We Put Jesus at the Center of Everything, I Just Admitted That I Did Something Terrible Man. Isn't It Amazing That God Loves Us Even When We Admit We Do Something Terrible Which Is Putting Him in the Front and Center and Not Expecting Our Our Marriages to All Be Perfect Because I Will Set Us up for Failure in Them Will Never Try to Demonstrate the Cause Right on My Best Friends John in My Men's Group for 20+ Years in Every Man Should Have Men in the Group. Every Woman Should Have Woman and We Had Couples That We Did and We Did Life with John and Betsy's Wife. They Give Us Permission to Tell the Story He Called Me One Nights Out Of Nowhere. 11 PM Says Get over Here Now like to John Watch and That Get Here Now and You in a Live Couple Blocks Away Rush over There He Thinks Is Why Seven Fair like to. There's No Way That's His Affair. She's a Man's Group.

There Is to Us in the Next Day after She Was Caught Literally Get Caught We Go over to Their House to Start Looking at Can We Help and Log Source You're Getting a Car to Drive Home and I Should Have Never Said These Words.

I Little Eternity and I Say Even God Can't Say That Marriage Which Is Blasphemy God Can Do the Impossible. But There I Am Just Watching Those Several Hours like She's Not Repentant.

He so Angry There Five Boys. It's the Worst Ever. God It's Done Yeah and Long Story Short He Say That Marriage Is A Lot That She Broke and Repented and yet It's You That Is Is and Let Me Say It Was Really There a Separate First Time You Thought. Even Months Later's Never and Now You Look at like Living in There.

You Obviously Were Town Storytellers like We Want the World to Know. But When You're Talking about That Painting You Look at Their Marriage That's Imperfect As You Said, Very Imperfect, They Would've Never Chosen the Path Dragon Read, but Now They're like God Is Revealing Himself to the World Husband-And-Wife Stayed True to Their Valves and It's a Beautiful Cracked but Beautiful Resurrected Picture. That's the Mission. What We Been Listening to Our Recent Conversation with David and Wilson Had with Aaron and Jamie IV. The Authors of a Book Called Complement a Book for Husbands of Book for Bob's Two Separate Books Same Title, Same Chapters, and I Think the Message of the Book and the Message of Your Conversation Today Is, No Matter Where You Are, No Matter How Hard Things Have Gotten or How Hopeless You Feel about Where Things Are. There Are People Who Can Help You.

There's a Path out. Don't Just Get Frustrated and Quit before You Get to That Place Where the Picture like You Were Saying. They Can Be Restored and Be More Glorious Than It Was before. It's Always Easier to Bail You Know It in Any Area of Your Life.

When He Gets Hard. As a Part of Us Are Part of Our Flesh Uses Can Work out.

I'm Not Going to Put in the Time to Really Really Know Christ. But That's Where God Shows up.

You Know You Hang on and You Get to Know Him in a Way You've Never Ever Known. Here's What I've Told Couples in That Situation I Said I've Said for Tenure Marriages Your Arm and Your Arm Is Just Aching and You Want the Pain to Stop and Somebody Comes along and Says Will Just Amputate and You Can Do That and Maybe the Pain Will Stop but You Will Be Missing Something for the Rest Your Life.

Now There May Be a Way to Fix the Arm That Is Gonna Be Painful and to Take Time and There's Rehab Involved, but You Will Have Your Arm for the Rest Your Life Once It's Healed over and I Think so Many People Just Say Will Just Amputate and Then Later on, Often Look Back and Go. I Wish I'd Thought It through and We Can't Make It Universal Because There Are People Who Are in Situations That Are Abusive. There, in Situations Where They've Tried for Decades to Fix Things but I See A Lot Of Couples Today Where to Get Sideways They Get like You Guys Got in the First Six Months Your Marriage and They Say We Just Married the Wrong Person Were to Fix This Doesn't Fix. I Think People Are Weary, and I Think It's Just Too Late. It's Just Too Late. There's Too Much Work to Be Done and Think Were All Agreeing That It's Never Too Late with God All Things Are Possible.

That's What Would Say Get to a Week and Remember Marriage Get Away. If You're in That Situation Get Some Help for Your Marriage See a Counselor Go to Your Pastor Start Reading Books or Listening to Podcasts about Marriage That Can Help Give You Insights That Maybe You've Been Lacking Where Making Aaron and Jamie's Books Complement Available This Month for Any Family like Today Listener Who Would like to Get a Copy If You Can Help Us with the Donation to Help Support This Ministry Donation of Any Amount to Help Advance the Work of the Ministry Will Send You a Copy of Both Aaron and Jamie's Books Complement. That's Our Gift to You, and in Addition to Receiving the Books Your Donation This Month Is Gonna Be Matched Dollar for Dollar with Money from a Matching Gift Fund That Has Been Established for Us from Some Friends of the Ministry Was Pretty Wonderful Too Because These Friends Are Saying We Want to Help. What Can We Do and so They Are Coming into Match When Evers Given and That's Pretty Remarkable and I Want You to Help to so They're Not Just Giving the Donation Them. So You're Saying You Be a Part of This Being a Complement. They've Agreed to Match Every Donation up to a Total of $250,000. We Want to Take Full Advantage of That Matching Gift.

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It Means so Much to Us Now. Tomorrow Were Going to Continue to Hear the Conversation You Guys Have Recently with Erin and Jamie IV. This Time Talking about the Importance of Being Cheerleaders for One Another in Marriage, but I Think Airman in the Conversation Said, I'm Not Gonna Let Anybody out Here Me Comes to My Wife so Will Hear That Tomorrow.

Hope You Can Tune in for That. I Don't Think Our Engineer Today.

Bruce Goff, Our Entire Broadcast Production Team On Behalf Of Our Hosts David and Wilson on Bob Pain We Will See You Back Tomorrow for Another Edition of Family Life, Family Life to You As a Production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas. Accrued Ministry Help for Today Hope for Tomorrow