Marriage After God

Everyone has the same amount of time in a day, yet we all manage our time differently and many of us may have lost a healthy perspective of and use of our time. In this episode, we discuss time and how if we value our time correctly then we can be more effective for the ministry God has for our marriages. We talk about how much time we have or how little we actually have. How do we perceive the value of our time? How can we see our time differently, how can we use it more effectively? Do we need to slow down? and most importantly we must ask ourselves what God's word says about time. -- Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle -- FOR MORE MARRIAGE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution READ: Hey we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. And today we're gonna talk about making time count. Hey before we get started we just want to invite you as usual to subscribe to our channel so you get notified every time we upload a new episode. Also we love to hear from you guys so be sure to leave us a comment and let us know what stood out to you in this weeks episode. So this episode is about time. About how much time we have, and how little of it we have and how we perceive time, and how we perceive the value of time. This has been a conversation that we've had a few times in our life and it's always around situations where we feel overwhelmed or like failures because we've dropped the ball over here, we've dropped the ball over there, we have all these things that we need to be doing, wanna be doing, can't be doing, can be doing. And I think it's a good conversation for marriages, especially ones that are chasing after God together to have together so that we can get a good perspective on our time. I think it's a good topic too just in today's culture. I think that the moment you probably said time people are thinking wait don't talk about it 'cause it's gonna pass me by. It's fleeting and everybody knows that, and yet our culture tries to cram in so much and tell us to seize the day type thing. So, there's a lot of people out there trying to do a lot of things and sometimes it can feel overwhelming or like we can't breathe, and so taking that moment to just stop and evaluate our time, it's important. Taking what moment though? I know, I know it doesn't exist. When you think about your life all of us use words like oh I'm busy, I've got a lot going on. They're filler words and they're easy ways of not having to explain everything that's going on in our life. But, just thinking about time and being busy, I also think about one of the last episodes we've published about social media and I'm thinking like oh but I find plenty of time to scroll. That's true. So, it's really I think something that has gotten out of whack. Yeah. We've lost our perception of time. The value of it. And I think our purpose of guarding it, I think especially as husbands and wives and parents, and I don't know I just feel like maybe no one's talking about this. But, we need to be guarding our time. I feel like it's a really important thing to evaluate and consider often maybe regularly and we're just not doing it. We're not being encouraged to do it. Yeah, well I think we don't guard it is because we don't know the value of it. I've used that word a few times now and I'm just thinking about how we value other things. Money, we know money's worth something because it could buy certain things and it can do certain things for us. So, we put it in banks and we save it up and we store it and we use it and we try to be wise with it if we can. Money has a value. Our cars have values because they do things for us, and we have all these value metrics for other things, but I feel like all of history people valued time much differently than we do in our current culture. I feel like time now it's even though we say oh I don't have enough of it or there's only so little that we just throw it away. We throw it away hours on social media, video games. So wasted, yeah. It's wasted on other things that are important we waste our time on. So maybe if we had the correct value of it, if we recognize like I wrote some notes here that just said we only have 24 hours in a day. Yeah. And, a quarter of that or more needs to go to sleeping. What a waste. Right? You totally want sleep when you die. Yeah, sleep when you die. You know for people like that live in California, we used to live. I used to commute two and a half to four hours a day or more depending on how bad the traffic was. If there was an accident, I was in traffic all night. Or a fire, which have been going on in California. So, a lot of our time spent in a car. A lot of our time spent at work. A lot of our time spent on the toilet. In a shower, if you were to just take all of the things that we do to just live, the time gets real... Like what we have left is not much. So, I think if we were to just realize man, time's valuable. Do you recognize time as being valuable? I'm starting to. And then now we're talking about it. Yeah, no I know. I think that it's a message that God's been trying to get through to my heart and I just haven't stopped to take the time to really like hear him on this. But, this morning I was actually driving to a friends house, I was gonna drop her off some dinner and spend some time with our kids playing and on the way out there you know when you're driving you see everything kind of pass by, like literally. Really fast. Yeah, physically. Which is a really good picture. It is a really good picture for how time flies but I don't know maybe it was just the Lord speaking to my heart but I just felt like I've been going, going, going, and I really need to slow down more so what I specifically heard is like in my family life, and in my home management, and things that I do at home. I need to be slower. I don't know, I would like to explain a little bit more, but that was the brief message. What's awesome was God was kind of speaking to you through the Holy Spirit while you were driving and this was before I told you what our episode was gonna be on. Yeah, I asked you to text me so that on the way home I could be thinking about whatever the topic was gonna be. And you were already thinking about time, which is why we're bringing it up, it's just something that we need to recognize in our own life and how to capture the time that we do have. We call this making time count, and we always say we have to make time. Like, oh I just need to make time for getting healthy. I just need to make time for the Word of God. I just need to make time for playing with my son. We actually can't make any time. Yeah, I was just gonna say that, we can't make it. It's a pretty funny statement, 'cause we can't make any time. What we can do is sacrifice other things that we spend our time on. That's the only way we can make time. That little statement I said capturing time makes better sense. Oh I need to capture time for the Word of God. I need to capture time for spending time with my wife. Because we all have 24 hours. Yeah. And we all only have so many years and minutes. You actually helped me a few years ago kind of understand this idea that we're only given so much and at the beginning of the episode you started out by sharing how sometimes you recognize this struggle with time when we are faced with like failure and just struggles in our family life. Yeah. I was struggling a few years ago with feeling like I can't do it all, but I want to do it all. We were in the middle of writing your first traditionally published book. Yep we were writing The Unveiled Wife. And we were moving, and we had our first son and just trying to being parents. Yeah. Just a lot of stuff going on in our life. So, we do what we normally do and what we like to do and we took a drive, we talk about that a lot. We drove up to the mountains. We took like a 45 minute drive and I'm just kind of spewing out this heart issue I'm having with I wanna do all of these things and I just feel like I can't. How am I suppose to do this? And I think that the last thing we ended up talking about was working out. And I just need this time to do this, carve it out. Yeah. And what did you say? Well, I remember the conversation like, it wasn't just you, I was thinking through these things too but you were like I gotta write this book, I gotta edit this book, I wanna be a good Mom, how to do I be a good Mom? Yeah, I'm nursing all the time. And I wanna get back in shape, 'cause we had the baby and you're like I wanna get exercising. And then you were also talking about our social media, 'cause that's a big part of our ministry. You're like I want it to look better. How do I reach out to people through comments? How do I answer all those messages? It's a lot. And I remember telling you that you can't. Yeah, it was really actually annoying the way that you communicated it 'cause you're so blunt about it. I don't know if I was mean about it. You weren't mean, I just didn't want to hear that. I just didn't want to hear that I couldn't fit it all in. I was trying to be encouraging. No, it was encouraging. But it didn't come off encouraging. No, no, no it was encouraging, I just didn't want to hear that I don't have enough time. Like, nobody wants to hear that. And what I went into I remember in that car ride, I was just telling you you only have 24 hours in a day, and you can't work all 24 hours. Yeah. Man if we didn't have to sleep, we would have so much more time, that's insane. I said you are physically limited. You literally, every single person in the entire world that's ever existed, doesn't matter how strong you are, is limited. Yeah. In our physical abilities. No one can pick up a bus. Some people might be able to pull a bus, but we're limited in our physical abilities. We're limited in our mental abilities. We're limited in our financial abilities. We're limited in our time, we're limited in every single way possible. We are finite creatures. Not infinite like God is. You gave me this illustration where you put your hands up. I remember you putting your hands up almost like you're grabbing a bunch of things in your hands and you said you know, because we're limited beings, we can only do so much with the time that we're given, and if there's something over there that you want to do, you have to let go of something else in order to do it. Yeah. And I remember that, just the idea and imagery that you gave me of putting your hands up and showing me how much I can fit in my hands really stood out to me 'cause I could see it. It was almost like oh, well that makes sense. I think I specifically gave you that because you were talking about fitness. And I said hey if you wanna spend 45 minutes exercising, you might have to spend 45 minutes left sleeping. Yeah. Or you might have to go to bed later. So you had to sacrifice something over here to do that other thing. 'Cause if you kept everything the same, you weren't gonna be able to accomplish all the other things that you wanted. So, it's a good illustration to have. It's just really taking all of our time and energy and ability and just realizing how much can be done with it. But, I think it's more than that, because that's what the world currently wants us to do is just fill our time with everything. But, it just doesn't happen. You know we have some examples from our own life and from just the worlds perspective of what it looks like. What this time management thing looks like and how we have to sacrifice. So, the idea that we have so much time and ability and we're limited is first of all just a good place to remember. A good thing to remember that we are limited. Like I told you that one day, and like we tell each other often still. We can't do everything, but you know what happens, how this practically plays out especially when we are looking at other peoples live and we're like how do they do that? You get emailed sometimes and they say how do you do everything? Yeah. And they don't realize that we don't do everything. Sometimes our sinks full of dishes. Right, because you can't do it all. You have to sacrifice one thing for another. I haven't gotten the oil change on my car yet and it's like three months past the oil change due date. We've never gone that far. Not that far, it's been getting pretty close lately. But like I hadn't done that yet because I was filling up all my time with other things. And so we just, we let go of one thing to grab another. And what this might look like, and maybe the people listening know someone who has done stuff like this, or they themselves are. But like, you know people that are super, super successful. It's rare that they're successful in every area of their life, because they can't be. And this is what you were struggling with, this is what many people struggle with. How can I be this amazing business person and this amazing mother and an amazing wife, and an amazing godly woman or husband or man. And then also be a awesome father. And all of these things equally. We just can't. It's not physically possible, we don't have enough in us to do that. And so you see someone who is super successful and you think oh man, I think I want that kind of success. Well, you gotta calculate what it took for them to do that. They might have sacrificed their marriage. And we've seen that a lot. Lets think about ministry. We've seen pastors they're amazing pastors, and they're teaching their congregations and they loose their family over it. I don't personally think that is a good balance. I would rather be a okay pastor and have an awesome family life. But I think that's what we need to evaluate. What are we chasing? What are trying to hold onto or take on and do with our limited time, limited abilities, limited resources. And are we pursuing the right things? Are we using our time wisely? I think those examples that you gave or more of the severe ones that you see. The big, yeah we see those ones. Really big ones that can be really detrimental, but I think that if our time is mismanaged, even in the little things, it can really kind of backfire within our own families. And I think social media does play a role in the comparison trap of wanting to try and do it all. It's hard because you see someone really good at this and then you see someone really good at that, and you're piecing all these things together to make this perfect person that can literally do everything and you're trying to fulfill that. I know, you bring up you're feed and you're like man this feed looks awesome. But all those other people that are really good at those individual things aren't trying to do everything. They're just doing the one thing that they're good at and you're seeing that and adding it to the list of things that you wanna try and do and accomplish. I think that's a good example. Our curated feeds of all the people we follow and we turn it into one perfect person. And you're like I wanna be that. How do we make our house beautiful and work all the time and go travel the world and it just doesn't exist. Here's the reality, if you're gonna go travel you're probably going to have laundry all over your bed because when you go to pack you have to do all the laundry and make sure it's clean before you go. So when you get back, there's gonna be a lot of laundry everywhere, right? That's just like a simple example. Or if you're traveling all the time you can't have a home. Yeah. And so you want this beautiful home and you want this beautiful travel life. And these are big pictures things from a few people we follow. They're just examples that we're throwing out there. But, the people listening, they have their own things that they're thinking of. They're like oh man yeah, I've been wanting to this, and I've been wanting to that and I just feel like I can't. And how does everyone else do it? Okay, I gotta tell this one story. So, my friend was getting into sourdough and I thought this is so cool and I so wanna do this. And so I start putting my time and energy into feeding this starter that she gave me, and for the first couple weeks, it was really great. It was like, you put it in a dark place for awhile and let it grow. We had bread every night. Oh my goodness. It was pretty awesome. It was amazing, and it tasted so good. Yeah. But after about two months of me trying to scramble and figure out how this sourdough things works 'cause I never done it before, I realized that I was letting certain things around the house go, or I'd have to rush out to get more flour because I was in the middle of baking something and I was not managing my time well just because I was so focused on trying to do this sourdough thing. And that was one little thing. It was just one little thing. But, it absorbed a lot of your time throughout almost every day for like a couple weeks Yeah, and I had to just let it go thinking okay I was learning and I learned this process and it was really cool but I'm gonna have to shelve this for a little bit and move on and figure out how it can fit into my schedule like in a normal way and not just at a frenzy. 'Cause that's what it felt like. I just recently went through a season of we have this home and there's all these little things that we've been wanting to do that need to get done. We have our businesses. And our home life, and I just had this list of all these things that need to be done, and I would chase after one of them and I realized I would put so much energy into the one thing and it took up mental space and it took up emotional space and actual physical time. And I started telling myself okay, I have to either take one day and finish all of these things or realize some of these things, nothing's going to change in our life if I did not do it. It doesn't get done. I'm just thinking about the rims on our car are super dirty, and a friend of mine just keeps saying oh all you need to do is acid wash them and they'll probably come looking beautiful, and every time I see him I'm thinking I gotta do that thing. It literally won't affect anything in our life at all, and so I just tell myself I don't need to do that. Nope. I don't need to do that. It's useless, it doesn't matter. Maybe one day if I have this extra day and time and it just perfectly aligns in the moon and stars all... I'll do it maybe. So, I'm just trying to practice. And that was like one little example. I'm trying to practice it in a lot of little areas. And then also recognizing where we waste time out of all of our things. Do you have areas in real life that you waste time? The bread thing was one example, but I feel like there was a benefit. I don't like I was wasting time there 'cause I was learning a new skill and it was really important to me. It started getting to waste time though. You thought it was gonna be this thing on the side. I could just fit into everything else and it became a thing. Yeah, I would say that I don't feel like I necessarily waste a lot of my time because I use it and I'm with the kids the majority of the day, but I think that I could definitely manage it better so that I was more efficient with my time. Right. That's another thing, how efficient are we with the time that we do have. Yeah, I feel you asked me that just kind of on the spot and I'd have to seriously contemplate how I'm... Well I asked you because I have one specifically. Oh go ahead. Based off of that previous episode about social media, I waste time on social media. Oh, yeah. When I do it, there's the conviction I get from the Holy Spirit when I'm doing it. I'm like scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and I'm like why am I not using this time that I'm scrolling to read the Word of God? I could be scrolling through the Word of God on my phone. I have it on my phone. I'm always a big advocate of using my physical Bible, and we always tell couples to just be in the Word of God physically. But, I waste so much time when I could be in this more. Yeah. I have this desire to know the Word of God, and yet I do things that are contrary to that desire. Like knowing social media really well. It's literally this fruitful. So that's one thing I waste my time. It's something that I'm actively trying to change in my life. That's good. So when I feel that prompting of like why am I scrolling, I'll go to my Bible app and I'll read a Proverb, I'll read a Psalm. But I'm sure there's other areas of my life I waste time too. So when we were talking about sacrificing one thing for another to make sure that we're prioritizing the things that we want. Wasting time and things like that. How does that affect the family or relationships when we mismanage our time? Why is it important to value our time? Like, what's the why? Well, again, we've been everything to steward. Our time is a gift. God's grace is on you every morning, but the fact that we get a morning and that the sun rises is a gift from God, and he desires that our life and our resources and our energy and our time be used to please Him and to serve Him and to minister to the world and to our families and to our neighbors for him. So I think when we mismanage our time it's just being a bad Steward with something He's given us. Yeah. And again, it's probably I'm say this, time is the most valuable asset we have. 'Cause you can't make more of it. That's true. We're only running out of it. And so much changes within time. Such a short period of time. So, everybody always tells you kids grow up fast, and it's just so true. I feel like our kids are growing up so fast, and when we were considering this topic for today's episode, I was just thinking about my drive this morning on my way out to my friends house, and how everything is going so fast, and how I feel like I just need to slow down. The reason that I felt that prompting was because these are just little examples but Elliot's got these shoes that he got frustrated over 'cause he wants to learn how to tie them but he can't. And I have three other kids who need to get ready and get in the car and make sure everyone's got shoes on and instead of sitting there, teaching my kid how to tie his shoe with a gentle spirit, I'm like rushing everyone out the door. Yeah, I'm like hurry up everybody, come on let's go. We gotta be here at a certain time. We gotta make this happen because I'm trying to fit so much into my day that I don't have time to sit there and help you. I don't have time to walk you through this process right now. That doesn't happen everyday, but when it does happen it's like I just missed that opportunity to minister to my child or to engage with them. I was telling you Aaron, going to the park and just being with them in a slow pace in my own heart so that we can engage with them in nature. And talk about why the leaves are falling off the trees right now. And how God created everything and all those little moments for walking in the Spirit. One of them is patience. I think that was a good point, I was just connecting is was you sitting with Elliot. Elliot has the same amount of time also, and what we're doing is we're being generous with our time. Or are we being hoarders of our time? Like, I'm gonna use it only for myself. 'Cause I do the same thing. I'm like hurry get in the car, hurry get in the car, hurry buckle up, like it's always like I don't even know why I'm rushing them. We're not even trying to be somewhere. I know. They're learning something about us we probably shouldn't be telling. We are hurried, and I think everyone does that. I think it's because we know our times limited, but the same time we're not managing our time well. If we just managed our time better, we would stop hurrying everything and everyone and stop to engage with them and be present with them. And I think that goes down to understanding the value of time, because if we valued our time we'd realize we're not gonna have very many moments with our son learning how to tie his shoes, or our daughter learning how to buckle in, or our littlest son learning how to drink from a cup. All these little things that we may not value correctly, 'cause it takes time. And I would be careful to even for those listening to justify the way that you organize your time because like this morning when I was taking dinner over to a friends house who needed dinner, that's ministering and that could be looked at as a good thing and yet rushing everyone out the door to get there by a certain time, it just kinda jolted everybody and I didn't need to do that. I could have done it either in peace or said I can't do that today. Well, we actually talked about this. Imagine if you or I or together we did that everyday, we wouldn't be able to minister to our children, minister to each other. Yeah there wouldn't be enough time for that. Minister to other neighbors. So, you can't just look at ministering, well I need to do that because that's the most important thing to do with my time. Because, there's other ministering that needs to be done. We have to spread out what God's given us. And it actually makes me think of a scripture we read to our kids this morning during family bible time. This is probably what prompted everything. It might be. And it's in Luke 5, and I'm gonna read a few verses just so you have the context. It's Jesus right after he heals a leper. It says, in verse 15, but now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. And you think oh my gosh. Jesus was healing people, his fame spreading. He just healed this man with leprosy, and now all these people are coming and flocking to him. And you're like oh Jesus is gonna be touching people, healing people, and this is what it says. It says, but he would withdraw to desolate places to pray. You know? Jesus, the Savior, the perfect one. Emmanuel, God with us. All these people are coming to be healed and he's like I'm gonna go pray. Yeah. Even Jesus didn't just fill his time with all of these things that we thought would be the most important thing 'cause Jesus knew how to prioritize his time, he knew what he was there, and he's like I'm gonna go pray. I'm gonna go recharge. I'm gonna go be alone in desolate places, places like that have nothing around, no one around. In darkness, and he's gonna go and just be with God. And what's funny is we say we're busy, our time's filled up. We have all these things going on. How often do we just go into desolate places and pray? Go into our dark room, get on our knees. I know that I don't. And God's called us to do that. And so I was just pointing out, I wrote here, even Jesus would quiet himself and pray. Yeah, and I feel like those opportunities to stop and pray and spend time with the Lord are just as valuable when you're actually engaging with the children, praying for them. Like being a Father who goes before the Lord for them to ask for protection, to ask for good health, to ask for maturity and to ask for all of these things on their behalf is just as valuable as spending time with them. And so I feel like this needs to be prioritized. Yeah, and it goes too how do we value our time? Yeah. What are we doing with our time? Looking into our lives, and asking the Holy Spirit, and saying Holy Spirit show me areas that I'm wasting your time that you've given me. This is all your time, all the time that we have in a day is God's. How are we wastin it? And that could be filling it with good things. Yeah. Oh we're doing this, we're doing homeschool. We're going over here, we're going over there, instead of maybe God is like I want you to dedicate some of your time to me. Just me, just being with me. Being in my Word, just being quiet. We're trying to teach our daughter to be quiet and to be still right now, and are we doing that? Are we quiet and still? And letting God have some of our time. Letting him have a lot of our time. So, I think that's really good, just recognizing that even things that we call ministry could be out of whack if we do too much of it. If it's just all that and we're not even doing other things that God's called us to do. Man, time is a weird thing. Okay, so we titled this episode Making Time Count, and for the benefit of those listening and ourselves, how can we make time count? Like as a marriage after God, as husbands and wives who want to fulfill the Lords will and purpose in their life. What does time have to do with it? Well, like I said, it's our most valuable asset, is the time that we have in a day, in our life. Ecclesiastes, Solomon says our life is like a breath. Which should give us some real perspective on how much time we actually have. It's fleeting, it's like boom gone. Here today, gone tomorrow. So recognizing that our times short. Paul says that a lot, recognize the times, that our time is drawing near, that the Lord's returning. Just understand there's an urgency for just guiding our families and ministering in our families and to our children. In ministering, guiding our neighbors. And doing the things that God's asked us to do now when we have time. Today's the day of salvation. Today is the day, don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow has enough worries of its own. Today is the day. We get those words all the time 'cause God's like no, no, today. You have today, and it's the only thing you have. You're not promised tomorrow. So, I think an urgency, a recognition of the value of our time. How does that stand with you? Do you feel the urgency in our own life? I do feel the urgency for us to just recognize the value of what we have and that it's a gift and that the time that I have with you is a gift. I was actually just thinking about this also this morning. Not to get too in to detail or anything. But, the time that I have with you to be intimate that time is fleeting and I was just thinking as we grow older with each other, am I going to regret the time that I didn't take advantage of being with you? I know, when we were younger and healthier? Yeah, and I was being convicted on that. I felt like the Lord was just saying you need to initiate more. You need to be engaged more, and I already am starting to regret the time that I haven't been for whatever reason. And so, and I've enjoyed the times that we have been. So, I think that same way with our children, or as a family as a whole you know. The times that we have been slow and present and just laughing and playing. It's so peaceful, and I love that. Time that we get to spend with our family, with our children. So, I think making that a priority and I think that the thing that it's gonna require though I know for me is that when I feel that hurried spirit and when the words come out of my mouth hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, I need to stop and remember to walk in the spirit to be patient, and to choose to slow down. To choose to be present, to choose to say no even if that on the other side is really good. Whatever that other choice is for the sake of whatever other ministry I'm suppose to be doing. It's almost like being diligent to spend the time verses wasting it. Like money, oh I'm throwing it away or how much do I got to pay for that? Yeah how am I investing with my time? How is that being invested? Yeah. So thinking about our time in those terms, those quantities, those units. I will say that a marriage after God does that well. And we need to do it better. We need to do it better, and I wanna challenge those listening to start today. To evaluate your time, evaluate what things you're saying yes to, what things you're saying no to, and what things you're sacrificing for that grab of whatever it is you wanna try and fit into your schedule. And, to know that time is valuable. So I wanna end with a little bit of scripture, and then maybe we can give them a little bit of advice on how to look at our time. And, it's in Ephesians 5 and I'll just start in verse 15. And it says look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And so just make the best use of the time, and this is in reference to how we once were in darkness and now we're in light. And it's saying so, make the best use of your time. So, let's be godly in how we look at our time. Let's ask God how he views our time and would like us to use it. What are some of the little tips that we have on how we can look at our time and how our listeners can? Well I think the priority that you should look at would be is your marriage in balance? Are you spending that time with your spouse? Are you cultivating that relationship? Is time spent well there? Yeah, is time spent well there, because if that's not happening, that balance isn't right. Same, I would say, goes for your kids. If you're not engaging with them, if you're not spending quality time with them. Discipling them. Discipling them, teaching them, loving on them. Just being present with them without your phone or without friends around or without distractions. Yeah. I would say those are the key important things that I would recommend people stopping to evaluate. So, I just wanna remind them, the reason we're bringing all this up in the first place is 'cause we wanna encourage you guys. We wanna encourage you to have peace, to recognize that you are not able to do everything. So, that's the little bit of advice I wanna give is that they can't do everything. To not be worried that they can't accomplish everything and to recognize that they're not meant to. They're not meant to accomplish everything. My encouragement too would be to watch out for that comparison trap where maybe you look at your friends lives or maybe you know that neighbor across the street, or maybe on Instagram, someone on social media. And you're taking bits and pieces from all these different people and you're accumulating this list of the things you need to be capable of doing, the ideals within the home, and all of the little things that you think that you have to accomplish and just remember that not one person can do it all. And I would say take that list, and lay it at the Lord's feet, and say Lord... What's important. Yeah, what do you want me to do? Yeah. We should always be asking this, like Jesus did, we should go off in prayer. We say Lord, I have all these vision, dreams, ideas as a marriage we have these things we wanna do. What do you wanna us to do? What's valuable to you? What do you care about? And what should we pursue, what should we sacrifice so that we can do these things that you don't want us to do, and what should we sacrifice that you don't want us to do? That's good. And just be asking the Lord what he wants, like that's what he wants us to do. And I think too something that we're getting better at is just looking at our lives and saying how are we managing our time well? What are we doing that's beneficial to the whole family and to the ministry that we've been called to. And what things are sucking our time and being able to cut it out, yeah. And so we wanted to have this conversation with you all because it's something that we constantly are having conversations with. We forget and we get into this season of like we can't do everything. Yeah. We have all these visions, we wanna do this, we wanna do that. We have all these books we wanna write, we wanna post, we wanna do these videos. Things that fit with what we're doing. But, we can't do 'cause we're trying to also have a godly marriage. We're trying to also have a godly family and to disciple our children and to have a decently clean house and to have our cars not fall apart and have our home not fall apart and have our lives not fall apart. So, just recognizing that it's okay to not be able to accomplish everything. And if you're feeling that overwhelmingness, if you're feeling like you're hurrying through life, we would just say just stop today and go do as Jesus did. Find a desolate place, a dark quiet place. Escape everything, and just spend time with the Lord to be able to evaluate all of this and maybe you'll come out feeling a little bit more refreshed. Yeah, definitely do it as a couple. Yeah. Find that time. Maybe spend 30 minutes before bed and after everyone's asleep, no one needs you and get into prayer with each other. Say, let's ask the Lord how we can rest in him, how we can wait on him. As the Bible tells him, wait on the Lord and he will renew our strength. And so, we hope this encouraged you. We hope that it sparked some awesome conversation about how you value time. I know we're gonna still talk about this. Yeah. And we also love to hear from you if you wanna leave a comment in the box below. So, we as usual, we thank you for joining us. We hope this blessed you, and we hope to see you next week. [Aaron Smith] Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

We are all on a journey with money and the Bible talks a lot about money so because of this It is very important for us as Marriages after God to be able and willing to discuss money with each other and how to manage money in marriage. In this episode, Jennifer and I ask each other questions about money and we give candid on the spot answers to those questions. We discuss our individual view and relationship with money. We talk about how we were raised with money and what we were taught about it. And we share our fears that surround money. -- Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle -- FOR MORE MARRIAGE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution READ: Hey we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. And today, we're gonna ask each other random questions about finances and money. Hey, thanks for joining us this week for another episode of Marriage After God. We're excited to have you. As usual, we wanna invite you to subscribe to our channel, so you get notified whenever we upload new content. Today's episode includes questions that we came up with, that we haven't shared with each other just yet. Just about finances and money, but we know that you guys have questions too, and we can answer them in a future episode of Marriage After God, so be sure to leave those comments, and leaving your questions about finances and money. So, before we get started, I want to start off with a disclaimer. We are not financial advisors. No way. So, we're not giving stock suggestions, or anything like that. We're just gonna ask each other questions about our experience with money, and I actually have no clue what your questions are, and you don't have any clue what mine are. These things always make me nervous. I like to be prepared. So, we do these episodes every once in a while, but these are gonna be really candid answers from our own life. Which, I feel like is really helpful for the listener, because I feel like they're gonna relate to us and understand what we've been through, or what we're going through currently. And so, I do but I don't like these. And they're hard 'cause we do cut out the pauses 'cause sometimes we have to think about them. Yeah. We're like uh let me think about that for a sec. But, hopefully what we wanna offer to you guys is just an inside perspective on where we've gone in life with finances and money, and where we're coming from and what God's teaching us, and maybe they'll be some funny stuff in here. I actually don't know. Some reality and some encouragement. Yeah, and 'cause our heart is that as marriages after God we would have hearts that are yielded to God in every aspect of our life. One of them being money, and to be honest we are on a journey with money. Yeah. The Bible talks a lot about it, but today we're just gonna talk about the journey we've been on. Yeah. So, let's get started. Do you wanna do the first question or do you want me to do the first question? Let me do the first question. Okay, you do the first question, and then I'll do mine. Okay, so my first question is were you taught good money habits like savings, building up a savings account by your parents? Or I guess the question is, who is your biggest influence? That is a great question actually. So, let me think for a second, I have a terrible memory and you know this. Okay, so first thing I remember is my Mom did definitely teach me how to use a checkbook. Does any use checks anymore? I don't know. I was taught how to do the reconciliation in the back pages and write them. What comes in, what goes out. Yeah, so I do remember that. I remember them opening a bank account for me, and me putting money in it and learning to save. So, I think the basics. I remember saving when I was a little kid like $100. I don't remember how I got all the money. That's a lot. I had a box, it was this wood box, and every dollar I'd get I'd get it, and I'd wet the dollar and flatten it out. Oh my goodness, I didn't know this about you. I would flatten the dollar out and I'd make it perfectly crisp, and I'd let it dry and then I would put it in the box, and I'd have them all organized and I'd have a rubber band around them, and I saved up all these $1's and $5's and $10's. Okay, this type of personality explains a lot about how we organize our finances now. You never heard this story before? I've never heard this story before, and I feel like now that I know, it makes sense because how you organize... You're like, I'm gonna change some of these questions I have for you. No, no, no, but as I see it, 'cause you lead us in our finances, and you organize our budgeting and all of that, and it's meticulous, and I feel like you've been really good at that. SO, I don't know who taught me that. Okay. So, somehow money was talked about. I remember my parents giving me a dollar at church to put in the tithe. So, I feel like they gave me the foundational stuff, the basic stuff. Good for them, that's awesome. So, yeah, I think they might have given me more, they had to of. But, I just don't remember it, all the details. Real quick, does Target have anything to do with any of these questions? I didn't actually ask any. Okay, good. I'm just kidding. Didn't think about Target. For all the wives out there. But CostcoI'm just kidding. Okay, here's your first question. Okay. Okay, what was your view of money growing up? Well, I remember it being kind of this elusive thing of we never had it. I don't wanna go as far as saying we were poor growing up, but I often heard my parents say things like that, and things have changed now in their life and in ours. But, I just remember having very little, and I remember personally when I started working and getting my own income, I protected it. But, I spent it, but it was mine. Yeah. I didn't necessarily share it, I wasn't super generous. I tithed here and there, but it wasn't consistent. So, would you feel like you were, based off the question you asked me, were you taught about money, other than just hearing about lack of it, or not ever enough? I don't remember my Mom sitting down specifically with me to show me certain things, but it was kind of like we'd be at the grocery store and I'd be like hey can I fill out your check for you? 'Cause I remember checks back then too. And she would let me, and she would show me what boxes to fill out. And then, when I was a teenager, probably like 13 or 14, she also opened up a savings account for me, and so I got to get familiar with putting money in the bank. So, we both had those foundational things. Yeah. So, there is a second part to this question. Oh no. So, I was asking about your view of money, but what was your view of giving growing up? Yeah, so shared a little bit about that, and I remember it just being a little bit harder for me. It's weird, it wasn't as hard to if I was gonna buy a gift for someone. Like, I saw value in that, and then give it to them. But, just giving someone money or even giving the church money, I justified it by saying well, I'll serve with my time or my energy. I'll go work in the children's ministry. Yeah, I don't need to give money. I remember us having conversations about that. Yeah, I just saw the benefit of that, but I guess because I always thought money was tight, or it was so little that I had to kind of keep it. Yeah. To myself. Keep it really close. Keep it real close. I was controlling over my money, and not in a healthy way. And we're all at a certain place when it comes to money and our perception of it, and it comes from how we were raised, or things that we've experienced. So, thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Okay, so my next question for you is going into marriage and being the husband and I don't know if you felt the weight of responsibility with finances and having to provide. But, did you have any fears going into marriage and managing our finances? No, I didn't know what managing our finances looked like. Yeah, we hadn't experienced it yet. 'Cause we hadn't experienced it yet. But, I feel like I might be a little unique, maybe not but I don't feel like I've thought too much about money. I remember that we had lots of conversations about it, I remember even telling you when we got engaged, hey I may not have a lot of money, I may not ever be able to buy you anything. But I'll love you. But, I'll be here for you and we'll figure it out. And that was just me being honest, I didn't know what kind of money we would make, or if we'd ever be wealthy or have a home. I didn't know any of that stuff. But, I wasn't worried about it either. So maybe in a unhealthy way I didn't think about money at all. Like no concern? Like no concern. I don't know, maybe that's a healthy thing too, I've never been too concerned about money as a whole. But, no so going into marriage I don't think it was a anxiety of mine like oh I gotta figure out money stuff. Again, we've learned a lot over the years of like how much we need to focus on it, and manage it well and steward it well. But, no I'd say early on when we were getting married it wasn't something that was on the forefront of my mind. Other than we needed it to go to Africa. Yeah, so just to let people know who are listening, we jumped started our marriage by jumping into missionary ministry. We went to Africa for four months. Yeah, we traveled around, went to Africa and stuff. And so, our finances were kind of unique jumping into marriage because we relied on the support of other people while we were traveling internationally. We had no money. We didn't have money. Like legitimately no money. We raised money to go to Africa. We raised money and then we took it, but then while we were there, and leading up to that, we had our jobs leading up to the time that we left. Which was about two or three months of marriage, but then we heavily relied on the support of others. Not only that, but we when we moved to Florida for a bit, just to give a little bit of background, there was a season where I was working full-time for free in the ministry that we were apart of, the missionary organization. And you were working part time, we had no kids then, and we still had no money. We were broke. We were so broke of course because I was even being paid, and you were getting paid minimum wage. Yeah. In Florida, which is like less than normal. And part time. I remember us being in our car one night, or one afternoon and we had no money for gas. Yeah, we're gas less. We're just like okay. God's taken care of us every step of the way though. I'd say your parents were a huge blessing to us during those times because they've always supported us and been open handed with their finances, and that day specifically you called your Mom. I remember that day my Mom gave me $20. and I was so embarrassed, and I said just don't tell her, what did I say? I said don't tell her that we're homeless, okay that was the same day that we were in transition that's a good word, transition from one house to another. But we didn't have another house yet. Yeah. We couldn't stay at the house we were at. They weren't our houses, they were people letting us stay at their places, because we were trying to serve as missionaries, and we were traveling a lot, and it was just a really interesting time. God took care of us, but I would say it was foolish. Yeah, looking back at it yeah. Again the negative part of me not paying attention or considering our finances. Yeah. I should of changed that scenario. And we did, God convicted our hearts and put us on a whole journey of changing our thought process on money and our responsibility with it. Yeah, but I did tell you don't tell her that we're homeless, just tell her that we need the money for gas. Yeah And it all worked out, we got a place that night it was all great. Yeah we did, it was awesome. So, God was lookin' out even when we weren't. He's faithful even when we're not. Even when we're not yeah. But that's where we started our journey of money is just experiencing that side of it. So, let me get to my second question for you. Okay, this is a question for you, but it's about me. Oh. Yeah, so what is one area I can grow and mature in when it comes to money? Okay, that's really funny because I have a similar question for you about you. Oh then we should make yours the number three for me. Okay, so what's one area that I want you to grow in? That you think I could grow or mature in when it comes to money? I think sometimes, okay, so you have this part of your personality that loves to research. Like, you spend a lot of time on researching things. Which is a really good. Can be really good. It is really good I think. The downside is because you do so much research, and you look at reviews and you look at what other people are saying, and you look at price value, when you do actually go to make a purchase it's a really good purchase. Sometimes really expensive purchase, or sometimes it's something that we think we need when we don't necessarily need that one, or that thing. So you're saying I buy the more expensive thing because... It had the better reviews. And it's gonna last longer, or it's a better value. We have all these justifications of what we walk through when we buy a purchase. Which I do, I do that. Yeah, so and you don't do it all the time, but when you do make those bigger purchases, I don't know. So you're saying having a little bit more of a sober mind about certain things. It's not like I make big purchases all the time. No. But when I do often instead of just going with the more affordable or something that will fit what we need, I'm gonna go and get, 'cause I'm looking for value. Yeah. And I'm like, well I need to spend a little bit more to get the value I'm looking for. And sometimes that also hangs us up on the purchase that we need to make. For months. Yeah, because you're like I need to do my research. That could be good though, the slowness of it. I know, I know, but that's why I said it's like a catch 22. Maybe getting more sober about my expectation of the value. Yeah that's good. And being okay with less when it matters. I don't know, thinking faster and wiser and slower and smarter all at the same time. All the things, all the same time. Yeah, I know what you're saying. No one's gonna understand what we're talking about, but I get it. If you have an example. I don't know to put you on the spot. I don't, I'm trying to think. No, I don't. Okay, so give you an example something I'm thinking about. Okay. Like, I wanna buy a lawnmower. And I could go down to the thrift store and pick up a lawn mower for like $25. Call around, ask a friend. I could call around and see if any friends have an extra one I could borrow or buy. But, the way I think is I'm gonna go look online and be like well if I'm gonna be using this every weekend, I might as well get a new one. But if I'm gonna get a new one and spend that kind of money, I might as well look for the best one. It just keeps going up and up. And I haven't bought a lawnmower yet. And you haven't bought a lawnmower yet. That's a great example. And this has been a few weeks. Yeah, okay. Okay, I will think about buying a lawnmower in a better way. Like, not go buy the best one, and I might call some friends up soon. Actually someone actually told me they might have one. Oh really? I was gonna say, you might buy one and then it breaks down and you can learn how to fix it. It's good all around. That's true. Time waster. Yeah I know. Okay. Okay. That was your question for me about you. That was my question for you about me. Really confusing okay. Okay my next question is, throughout our marriage I guess for a little back story if people don't know us, we got debt free and we've been really committed to remaining debt free. But, one thing you've been really adamant on, even from the beginning of our marriage was no credit cards. Right. So, I guess my question is why Aaron? Why so adamant about that? Even times where I had good justifications or excuses why no we should do this, we'll get miles you're like no. So, let's be honest, you're right I've been so adamant about no credit cards, but we did get a credit card. We did. Just a couple years ago. For about a year. For about a year, it was an Amazon credit card, because they had such good points and like all the things. Okay. And, we did that to buy a house, and we needed credit because we literally had no credit, 'cause we've never had credit cards. Yeah. And, it made it harder which was fine. What made it harder? What do you mean? Not having credit. Oh, yeah. No credit score made it harder to do the loan thing and so I was like hey let's get a credit card, and we were just gonna do like one or two things on it. It became a habit over that year. Just to build credit, and then what happened was every thing we were spending on our debit, we now put on our credit. And even though we were paying it, what happened was our way of spending money even on all the normal things got so out of whack, because what we would do is we'd spend on the credit card, and then by the time we paid the credit card, the money that would of been spent a month ago, hadn't been spent yet. And so by the time we pay off the credit card, now we're back to zero. We're always playing catch up. Catch up yeah. And I hated that, and I finally like cut the credit card up, and it took us like a couple months to detox from using the credit card. Well one thing that I noticed with the credit card was that there was this access to it felt like free money. It's the same concept as poker chips. The reason casinos will play with poker chips versus cash, is because poker chips are less painful to put on the table. Interesting. They're all the same size, maybe they're different colors. But, it doesn't feel like money. And so you spend more. I think Dave Ramsey also shared this tip once is when you're spending with cash, you're feeling it going through your hand, you're not gonna go waste it on that $8 Mocha, you'll just get a black coffee or whatever. $8, yeah. Yeah, but when you're constantly using your debit card you don't feel it as much. But, it's even more true with credit cards I feel like. Well it is, and also with credit cards, they do the whole points thing, and it gives you enough of an incentive to spend more. Which we don't need incentives to spend more. We're human. We have enough incentive to spend more, so that's why I've always been afraid of credit cards, I just knew that debt and credit cards were so dangerous. So before and after that year that we had a credit card, that's why you're so adamant about it? Like having the credit card proved exactly why I hate credit cards, even though we were doing it the right way. Anyone would say, oh yeah, get a credit card, just make sure you pay down the balance, and not keep a balance and all that. We never paid a penny of interest, but that doesn't make it anymore of a healthy habit. We were so backwards on the way our money was being spent, that it like gave me anxiety. That's true, I remember you really frustrated over it. And then the detoxing, it took a few months, like we were negative a bunch, because we were playing catch up on the way our money was coming in, and the way the money was going out. And we forgot how to spend correctly. Yeah, it was totally different, we were like what we have to look at our budget again. We have to like look at how were... So, I just hate credit cards. Okay. And so that's just the reality of it. Okay. You ask me my next question. Next question, this is also in the beginning of our marriage. I thought you were gonna say it's also about me. No, in the beginning of our marriage, I remember us praying that we would make more money so that we could give more money and be more generous. You remember that? Mm-hmm. And over the years, we've had opportunities to do so. Mm-hmm. Has your or our perception of our giving changed at all since then? Yes, I mean mine definitely, I don't know if your has increased because I feel like you've always been a really generous person, and what you shared in the beginning of that question of praying that prayer I feel like you've taught me a lot and led me a lot in this area of generosity, and I feel like that was one way where you taught me in a really special way 'cause it's not like you just sat down with me and pointed out where I was not being generous. You sat down and said hey we should be praying about this. And so we prayed, we lifted our request up to God, and anyways I just really feel like over the years, He's answered our prayer, He's been faithful to show us different ways of giving different opportunities. He's invited us a lot to just participate in serving the body and being generous. And, I feel like more of a generous person because of that. Awesome. Yeah. I used to see generosity, the pinnacle of generosity, as giving more. That's why I prayed this, 'cause I truly wanted to increase in what we had, not so that I can have more but so that I can give more. That was a reality of how I felt and believed. And as we've matured and gotten better jobs and now we just making money from our books, and trying to be more generous and giving more something that I've changed in is not that I don't wanna give more, I still have a heart to give and wanna be generous. But what I've found is I can get lazy in giving in the other ways of my time, my energy, my resources, my love, my other things. Because I can give money. Not that giving money is a bad thing, but I just felt like God showed me that there's lots of ways that he desires us to give. And that there's other ways that could be more valuable, than just giving someone $10 or $100 or something. That I could give them something more valuable than money. Almost like showing me that money's... Like what is true generosity? It's not just money. Well, and not just true generosity, what God is actually desiring us to give. And not that, like I said, the money, or time or none of those are intrinsically different or like bad or better. But, seeing the true value in things. Because I can give all my money as it says in the Bible, and have not love and I'm nothing, right? And so, it doesn't matter what I'm giving, it matters why I'm giving and who I'm giving for. And so, he's just been transforming my perception on giving and I could default to like oh let's just give so and so money, or how about I give them a whole day of me helping them. What do they actually need? Yeah, what do they actually need? And money could be it, but am I using that as a crutch in my giving? That's really good, yeah. Which is a weird thing to think about. Well, I wanna add to that first part of the question about us praying for God to give us more so that we can give more. I remember specifically you mentioning we're not gonna wait for him to give us more, we're gonna start now. And I think that's really important especially for our listeners to hear, because I think sometimes we can always be in a season of waiting. And we're like we have to wait for God to give us more in order to give more when we can give out of what we have even if it's a little bit. And so I just wanna encourage them with that. Yeah. 'Cause we found it to be truly a blessing even when you give when you barely have. Well and the Bible says that exactly. You know, it talks about Jesus talks about the woman who gives her last mite. And he says she's giving more out of her poverty than you did out of your wealth. Yeah. And so there's this perception that we have of well I can't give until I have more to give. Which doesn't make sense, because unless we have a heart of giving, we're never gonna give, because it's never gonna feel like enough. 'Cause that's the chase of numbers. There's always another number to jump to. So, that's how I've changed in this, but I think you're right. You've gotten much more generous, and I feel like I've changed in what I see as generosity. Yeah. Making sure that my heart is right and not just I can give money. That's really good. Which could be so cheap in the Kingdom mindset. Or, perfectly generous it's all how we do it. Yeah. Your question. Okay I'm up next. So, did you ever have a goal of how much you wanted in your savings account or in our savings account? Has there ever been a number? This probably goes back to my first answer about not thinking about money very often. No. No. I don't think I've ever had a number. There's been specific times in our life when we're saving for something specific. So we needed a number, yeah. Yeah, but I don't think I've had like a oh I want $10,000 in savings or I want $5,000 in savings. Even though Dave Ramsey says you should have a certain amount in there. I think it's like $2,000 or something emergency fund. Yeah, I think there's a minimum emergency fund, but then there's like six months savings of payroll or whatever. But, no I don't believe I've ever had a specific number in mind. Okay. But, maybe I should I don't know. I don't know. We'll let the listeners tell us if I should have a specific number in mind. Okay. Okay here's a question for you. This is kind of a fun one, and it's also maybe it's a question they could be asking each other. Okay, that's good. That are listening. What is the best thing you've ever spent money on? And here's my catch with this, is I'm trying to point out that sometimes we look for value in things, and we think it's gonna be there, but then it's not what we think it's gonna be. So I wanna see if you can recall oh the best thing I've ever spent money on was? The best thing I ever spent money on was oh man. I feel like I know what kind of thing it will be. What kind of thing? Yeah. Well, the only thing that really comes to mind are two things and they're both jewelry orientated. Jewelry, okay. One thing you bought me. Would this be like a typical thing for women and jewelry? Actually I think you bought me both, so I can't even use those examples. Why not? I don't know. Oh 'cause I bought them. 'Cause you bought 'em. It's the ring that I have now as my wedding ring. You bought it for me on my 10 year wedding anniversary. Yeah but you didn't buy it I guess. No. Well, if it's our money then maybe you did. I can't think, I guess the couch? That was a good purchase. That was a good couch. Okay, so let me give you some background. The couch behind us? Yes. Yeah it's a nice couch. So, just some back story real quick. I was pregnant with Olive and we had just moved to Central Oregon, and somebody had given us this old 1970's floral couch it was bright yellow. Smelled like cat pee. Oh my gosh it smelled so bad. And we had it for almost a year I think. Yeah. I really liked that couch though. It was really stiff, and I was over it and I told Aaron can we please, please, please, please, please buy new couches? And, what's really funny we're renting this little tiny house, like it was like a little cottage bungalow style. What was it, it was like 1,100 square feet? I feel like it was smaller than that. But anyways, the living room was not very big, but we went to this furniture outlet place I sat on every piece of furniture until I found the one that I wanted. I was probably like six months pregnant, and I found these couches. And I've loved them, they've been one of the best things we ever bought. And it barely fit in that house. Yeah, it didn't fit in that house, but we had them in there. Yeah. It was the most money we spent on furniture. Usually we would get given furniture or we'd go to the thrift stores and get furniture. It was our first house purchase of furniture. And you know what? If people read The Unveiled Wife, they would know that our very first couch as a married couple was an inflatable blue blow up couch. Plastic couch. Yeah. That it deflated. That deflated while we watched T.V. The bottom part did. So, couches is like a thing for us? I guess so you guys. We had this beautiful ugly blue couch, from like the '70's in Florida. So the things with the couches that we have now, I even remember the day that the delivery guys dropped it off and unboxed it. Like that's how powerful this purchase was for me. So, I'm really happy with it. So, I actually that you were gonna answer like trips we've been on. Oh. Like adventures. I didn't even think about that. That's what I thought you were gonna say. I knew that you would probably answer. Okay. Although I like that too. Your biggest thing is spend money on memories. Yeah, and these couches have been awesome. They're comfortable and the kids play on them, make forts out of them. They're huge pillows so yeah, building forts is like awesome. They're like perfect fort couches. What's funny though is the pillows are so big, they're super heavy. Anytime they wanna build a fort they're like gung-ho about it, and then the moment we say 'kay clean up they're like we can't they're too heavy. Yeah they can take 'em off and build a fort, but they can't put 'em back it's difficult. Okay, anyways. Okay so you have one more question for me. Okay, so what's funny about this is my last question... Let me guess, it's the exact same one as me? No, it happens to be what was your worst purchase ever? Because you're such a researcher and you go for the top notch thing. So, okay. You gotta have a bad one in there. It's not gonna be worse in the sense that you're thinking like a bad thing I bought. It's more in like I regretted. Yeah. Like what is it called, buyer's remorse? Okay. I've had that several times. Yeah you have. So, and you're probably gonna remember this story. The paintball gun that I bought. -That's exactly what I was thinking about. I knew that was what you were thinking about. And the reason, I've had plenty of remorseful purchases in my life not gonna lie. But because the Lord used it to teach me something about myself. Yeah. When it comes to not just money but where I find my value. And I was gonna going through a season we were financially strapped, I didn't feel very successful at what I was doing in life. Our marriage was a little like It was more than Okay, alright. We were drowning. I can only laugh about that now because we are so far from that place now. Yeah, not back then it wasn't funny. No. But, I wanted to feel successful again. I wanted to feel needed and useful and valuable and I did use to be part of a paintball team when I was younger. You remember when you were first hanging out with me, I was working at a huge paintball park in California. The first day I met your Mom was at one of our tournaments. Yeah, and I was good and I loved it and it was a very short season in my life, and so when I'm in this season I'm feeling like a little sad and depressed and unsuccessful. And so I was clinging to an idea of who I was and who I could of been and so I said hey I wanna buy a paintball gun and I wanna get back into that hobby. What's funny about paintball is it's not a cheap hobby. You don't buy cheap paintball guns to go do a hobby of paint balling. You definitely would never buy. So, like I said, I bought a really nice paintball gun and all the equipment and all the stuff, and it was really surprising because you were like okay. You let me even though you probably thought it was such a stupid idea. I didn't see the value in it at all. And I went one time and I felt the Lord tell me why are you doing this? Why did you go spend all this money and this is not what you want. How long did the gun sit in the box for? Maybe a couple months. And it just sat in the box, I only used it one time it was brand new, and I finally came to my senses and the Holy Spirit was like you are looking for something in the wrong place. And the only reason you bought this is because you feel this way and you're going through this and I had to repent. I came to you and I said I'm sorry. You said I feel like an idiot. That's actually what I said. I said I feel like an idiot. I said I think the only reason I wanted to do this and buy this is because I don't feel successful. And I had to admit to that, and you forgave me. And you're like I'm really glad that you're deciding to get rid of this 'cause I did not want you to do that. And I was like can you sell it for what it's worth? And no I didn't I lost money on it. Yeah. But that was a lesson that I learned in looking for value and security and fulfillment in something else other than God. And so that's why that sticks out to us, or to me specifically is that story is that was me buying a feeling or a notion about myself and trying to turn into something I wasn't and trying to fulfill myself through money. Yeah. Which doesn't work. Yeah don't do that. In any way ever. For anyone. For anyone. Yeah don't do that. The Bible tells us you cannot serve God and money. Yeah. You'll hate one and love the other, or you'll serve one and despise the other. You cannot do it. And so that's not the worst purchase I ever made, but that was on the top of the list. Most regrettable. Not most regrettable. Actually I look back and I thank God that he allowed me to do something dumb. In a safe way, 'cause it's not like I emptied our savings account. Yeah, I don't know back then it could have been pretty close. I guess you're right. You're right, it probably was. But you weren't paying attention to the savings accounts. I wasn't paying attention to the savings accounts so thanks. Ask me your last question now, we'll get the spotlight off of you. Okay what is one area you can grow in your relationship with money? I don't wanna say. I take the fifth. You can't. It's not a court of law, this is Marriage After God. Okay, so ready for some truth, some honesty? Yes. Okay, you already know this about me. I have this problem when I feel like we need to spend money for things especially if it's for the house or for the kids or whatever, and let's say I'm at Target or Costco or WholeFoods or whatever. Or online. Or online, and I see a few extras that I wasn't necessarily planning on buying or at least at this time, and I just go ahead and go get it without consulting you. I feel really bad about that, and I know it's an area that I need to grow in because there's been seasons where I am good at it, and I feel like I'm respecting the commitment that we've made to discuss purchases over a certain amount and then there's other times where I just disregard it, and I don't know why I do that. And you're not talking about a pack of gum or an extra pair of socks? Well I'll buy an extra pair of shoes for one of the kids, but they really don't need it, it's just they're really cute and they're right there on the end aisle at Target. How often does this happen? How many shoes does Olive need? I know, I know. We try and be pretty minimalist when it comes to the way that we live, but then there's times where I'm just like oh and I need this type of hand soap and laundry detergent and all of these extra things when I wasn't planning on making those happen that day. Truthfulness, transparency. Transparency, I think that's a good one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we both do it though. We base it off of what we see as valuable. Yeah. Like oh this is an important purchase but our scales of value are so different from each other sometimes on purchases. Yeah. But, which is why we should discuss them more. Yeah. Which is actually something that we've just another level of honesty with our finances, we just recently are revisiting with each other because we get out sync. Yeah, we just went on date night and that was the topic of our conversation which is why we're doing this broadcast. Yeah, so we're out of sync right now, and so we're trying to get back in sync with each other of communicating. Just a rule of thumb something that we've instituted in our marriage and what we're talking about is that we've stopped doing, but what we used to do is we would discuss any purchase that was going to be over $50. Yeah. We would plan out things that we were trying to save money for and we just haven't been doing that lately and it hurts us. Yeah. And so we're gonna get back into that, we're gonna discuss be on the same page with each other on things that we want to spend money on. Needs versus wants. Yep, that's a big one. What we're trying to save for. Okay so we're done with our questions but I do have one more question that I wanna answer so that those listening know. Okay. So, we're writing this book Marriage After God, and we are dedicating a whole chapter to finances, and how it's foundational to a marriage after God, and I just wanted you to share a little bit about that before we close out. It is. There's a few things that are on the top of the list that cause divorce and destruction in marriages and it's sex and money. And so, if we don't have a sober Biblical mindset of money, if we don't understand what it's for, if we have the wrong perspective and relationship with money, it will destroy us. And we experienced that, and this is not just having it or not having it. This is whatever money you have what your relationship with it is. And even if you don't have money, what's your relationship with pursuing it. Because the Bible talks about not pursuing wealth or not toiling to pursue wealth. It says be wise enough to desist, right? It tells us that we can't serve God and money. Jesus talked more about money than he did about other things. Money is important to God. There's a wrong perspective that verse that says money is the root of all kinds of evil. But, it doesn't actually say that. See that's a wrong understanding of money. It's the love of money it's the root of all kinds of evil. And so having the correct biblical mature relationship with money and how when we have that, it becomes a tool, a powerful tool in the life of a marriage after God, in a marriage that's wanting to see God's Kingdom grow and their marriage be used for his purposes. Because then he can trust us. Yeah. The Bible tells us if you are faithful with the little you will be faithful with much. And so that's why we have a whole chapter in the book dedicated to finances and money and our relationship with it, and how we're suppose to view it and think about it and use it, and it's foundational, and if you just think money's not important as in a topic to consider and to truly evaluate in your life it's gonna control you versus you controlling it. Or maybe you know that money is a source of contention in your marriage, and you guys aren't being one. That is just a red flag that it is time to get on the same page. Go for a date night, talk about strategies on how you guys can organize your finances, and then commit to implementing the things that you discuss, and we're not perfect at this. Like we just said, we just went on a date night to talk about how we're out of sync right now and we need to refocus and just move forward in oneness and in unity when it comes to our finances. So that's really good. This isn't' just financial advice so that we can be wealthier and happier and all that. The point is the money and the resources God's given us, he desires for us to invest into his Kingdom. Now that looks a bunch of different ways, but he wants us to think that way. Like oh, my money and the things that God's given me are not just for my own benefit. They are for our benefit, but they're for the benefit of what he has given it to us to use for in growing our families, taking our families in generosity, in building the Kingdom through supporting missionaries or building an orphanage or adopting a child or whatever it is. Yeah. The money's for that. Yeah. For those things, the things that God's called us to not for our own pleasures. Now, we do get to enjoy all good things that God gives us. Right. But if that's our own focus, we're in the wrong place in the first place. So, yeah that chapter is an important one. Yeah. We actually been editing it right now. We're working on it right now. Well, thank you guys so much for joining us this week on money and finances. Yeah. We hope that we gave you a little bit of insight into just the conversations that you guys can be talking about it with each other. We hope that you have an incredible week, and we'll see you next time. [Aaron Smith] Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

We haven't figured out how to perfectly navigate social media in our marriage and family which is why we wanted to talk about this subject today. We talk about a few strategies to build healthy habits with social media in our home and we will talk about areas that we struggle with social media. We think it is time to start evaluating how social media is affecting our families and daily lives. There is a lot of good that can come from social media but there is a lot of unhealthy things as well. Aaron gets personal and shares his own addiction to social media we share stories of things our kids have told us because of us being on our phones in front of them and we both share how we can be better at how we engage with it on a daily basis. “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything." 1 Corinthians 6:12 -- Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle -- FOR MORE MARRIAGE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution READ: Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. And today we're gonna talk about social media and your marriage. Hey, thanks for joining us today. As usual we want to invite you to subscribe to our channel so that you're notified each time we upload a new episode. So I brought up today's topic to you and I said, "Hey, we should talk about social media." Not because we've conquered this beast, or have figured it all out, but more so because we're in the midst of trying to figure it out with having kids and seeing the impact in our family life using social media, not that our kids are using it but how we use it and they notice, but also using it for work and things like that, I just felt like it's an important conversation to have. So I thought, hey, we'll bring up the topic today, and those listening can maybe further the conversation in their own marriages at home because chances are they either want to be talking about it, or they've already been talking about it. Yeah, and a big part of us doing this podcast is to start the discussion in our own home. We've talked about it in the past, and we've tried implementing things, so we're gonna bring up some strategies, and things that we're still struggling with. And hopefully, we can find more healthy habits when it comes to social media, especially in a world where everyone's doing it. It's like social media is just a part of life right now. We were discussing before we started the podcast, when we were talking about the notes, that we grew up in a world that social media like didn't exist and then boom! Social media was everywhere, and there was no training for it, there was no preparation for it, there was no studies on it. It just was, and I also grew up, I don't know about you, but I didn't have a cell phone until I was like 18. Yeah, I was like 18, 17 or 18. But now every single person has a cell phone. Every single kid has a cell phone, and every cell phone is a smart phone, and it's got social media on it. And I think it's just about time that we start evaluating our home life and our use of social media, and the potential dangers of it for our marriages, for our kids, for our health. And just so those listening know, when we're talking about social media, I think everybody uses it in maybe a little bit different way, but it can be-- Or all of it. Or all of it, yeah, some people use one platform, some people use all of them. But we're talking about Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. Twitter, YouTube. Snapchat, LinkedIn, there's so many. Snapchat, there's a bunch we don't even know about that people use. Yeah, YouTube, did you already say that? Yeah, YouTube, yeah. And so those are all just different avenues that we can have social-- Connections. Connections online, and it's become a way of life, but the question is how are we approaching it in our homes, in our marriages, and what's healthy, what's inappropriate, and I think we should talk about all of those things. Yeah, and I don't want this episode to seem like a downer because it's not. There's a lot of good that comes from social media. Obviously, we've been able to share ministry online in this way and so there's a lot of good that comes from it. A lot of relationship building, a lot of connection and healthy connection through using social media, and I think a lot of people using it would attest to that, but I think they also would agree that there are some negative sides and cons that we need to figure out. Yeah, and I want to start with a scripture just to give us an idea about this because it's not like we're saying social media is bad, you need to just get rid of it, no. For some of you that might be the case. We've had friends that just got rid of their social media accounts and just totally checked out, logged off. Yeah, or at least for a season they did, yeah. But the idea is to have a biblical perspective, a right perspective, a healthy perspective, a sober mentality about social media, so this is in 1 Corinthians, chapter six and it's verse 12. Paul is saying this. He says, "All things are lawful for me, "but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me, "but I will not be dominated by anything." And so this idea of yeah, as Christians, we have this freedom in Christ. This isn't necessarily bad, it's not a bad thing. May be lawful for us, but is it beneficial? May not be lawful for us but are we being dominated by it? And so those are some questions we can ask ourselves and it just helps us look at it and be like okay, may not be a bad thing but are we in control of it or is it controlling us? And so this is just one little bit of scripture that Paul gives us to have a better mentality to be approaching this with. So why don't we share just like a general overview of like where we're at with social media? Yeah, our life? Yeah. Yeah, because we're never on social media. Never. No, actually what's funny is social media is a part of our job, right? Which we, I often use as an excuse. I do too. Why I'm on social media. It's definitely one of those justifiers like, well, I have to do this. Yeah, like I need to keep up, I need to make sure that I'm watching what's going on and responding to people. Because we do legitimately use social media for our ministry online. Everyone that's watching and listening to this episode probably found out about it through social media, so it's definitely important to what we do but it's not everything we do. And so right now I would say I personally definitely have an unhealthy relationship with social media. I would just say that outright. It's actually something I'm currently, I was literally just laying in bed last night, praying about it. Oh, really? Yeah. So it's something that needs to be dominated by me and not dominating me, as that scripture in 1 Corinthians says. Yeah, that's good. And so it's something that I'm trying to adjust and figure out. I can definitely tell that I've got an addiction to it. Like I said, we grew up in a generation where social media just came out of nowhere and we weren't trained, we didn't have parents that grew up with it and said oh, you know, limit face time, limit screen time, limit all this stuff, and we didn't have any of that so it just happened. There's something about that infinite scroll where you just like, I don't know about you but-- Mindlessly scrolling? Yeah, sometimes I stop myself and I'm like what am I doing? I'm not even looking at what I'm scrolling through, I'm just addicted to the scroll. Yeah, like what's next, what's next? There's this, there is actually those pleasure hormones being released when you're on the internet. Studies have shown that it can be addictive. They haven't done enough studies on it but they're doing more and more and they're finding that it's social media itself, social media use is being tied to mental health and depression and anxiety and we can see that on a small level because there's times that we see someone else's life. We're like oh, that's nice. Get stuck in comparison. Yeah, which absolutely if we do that day-to-day and like if we don't have a healthy relationship with the Lord or with our family, like that could just fuel a fire that doesn't need to exist. But where I'm at is I definitely am on social media way too much and the reason I know that, because I can easily justify and say well, I need it for work and I need to be on. You know, yeah, it's unfortunate that I need to be on so much but some examples I can give you and you could probably pull out some examples too, being on the phone doing nothing, just mindlessly scrolling when I should be hanging out with my kids. When I'm supposed to be working, mindlessly scrolling. Like in bed next to you at nights when I could be with you or talking with you or being intimate with you or having a conversation or whatever, I'm scrolling. Okay, so can I share a story real quick? I just thought about this. I wasn't going to share it but 'cause I didn't know until you just said that. If I don't like the story, I'll cut it. Okay. But just go ahead. So the other day, it was probably like two weeks ago now I think, I was walking out to the car and you were already in the driver's seat waiting for me and you were looking down and I knew you were on your phone. Because I'm always on my phone. Well, yeah. And I got in the car and I remember saying hey, can I tell you something and you're all "What?" And I'm like, well, I used to really like it when I'd be walking out to the car and you'd be watching me because I would try and do something funny like dance or make a funny face or just knowing the fact that you're watching me walk out to the car, there was something, I don't know, reassuring and loving about that. Well, I think you're missing it 'cause you know, now you're recognizing it existed and now it doesn't. Exactly and so now there's even times where I go to dance or go to do something and I realize you're not looking at me and so then I feel kind of foolish but then I feel sad. Which is really sad. And I just remember telling you that I like it when your eyes are on me and I think that's one of the detriments to social media is our heads are always down, the eye contact is lost, and we miss those little opportunities or moments to be with each other even if we're walking to the car. I know it sounds silly but-- Well, it's ironic it's called social media. I feel like it's antisocial media, it's like-- Disconnection. Yeah, we have less real connections in life and I have a bunch of friends on Facebook. You know, oh, so many people liked my comment and my wife sitting next to me not liking what I'm doing. You know? It's really unfortunate. And this is us really talking about what we're dealing with. How are you, what's your relationship with social media right now? I would definitely say that I spend too much time on it and that's after cutting out, like being aware and trying to cut those times out so that I'm not on it as much. And having four children now, I am recognizing that my time is limited and very valuable and so I've been trying the last couple weeks to leave my phone in the bedroom during the day when I'm with the kids so that I'm not even on it but I still find myself looking for it or going back to it and bringing it out, asking one of the kids to go get it for me. But one of the biggest things that I've tried to implement recently was when I had Truitt, I had the baby. And with all my past babies while nursing, I would scroll on social media 'cause it was like downtime. I don't know why I just saw it as like this time where I have a free hand, the baby's nursing, everyone's fine, I could just scroll. Yeah, like what's the big deal? Yeah, what's the big deal? But with this-- When people used to read books and like learn something new or... Yeah, I'm just mindlessly scrolling. But I realized very quickly that with this experience with nursing, it's been incredible. I haven't had any like pain or hardship with nursing and so I've really enjoyed it, so I found myself not picking up my phone and then making that a more intentional thing, so now every time I go to nurse-- Like watching the baby, talking to him. Yeah, I keep my phone away from me and I look at him, I make eye contact with him, and I feel like there's this connection that needs to be there especially with nursing moms. And so that's just been a huge encouragement to me and a recognizing of I need to stay off my phone more. Yeah, another example of why it's probably super unhealthy, our relationships with our phones, is when we don't have our phones, the anxiety we feel. Yeah, that's a problem. Where, I don't have my phone. Where is it? Okay. Where is my phone? I think I do that every single time we get in the car. No, you do this. You're like, Aaron, I think I left my phone in the house and I go inside the house and I come back, you're like nope, it was in my pocket. It was in my pocket, I'm fine. It's happened like 100 times. Sorry. You're so kind to always go back and-- I know, I go look for it, I'm like it's not where you said it was. And you're like, oh, it was in my jacket pocket, I'm so sorry. But yeah, those anxieties you're feeling. And I bet everyone that's listening has experienced that. Like oh, where's my phone, or mindlessly scrolling. Like it's a common thing now. I almost feel like if we didn't do it, like if we just turned our phones off, right, I know we would go through withdrawals because I felt it before when we tried going like no technology for a day. It's hard. But we'd be weirdos. What? Yeah, because you'd go hang out with friends and all your friends are gonna be on their phones and you'd be like hey guys, you want to talk? Okay, this has happened to me before and I remember looking around going, okay, I guess I'll just go on my phone. Because everyone else is. Everyone else is. Oh, so I want to give an example. You just brought something to memory. Yeah, the one that just happened? Yeah, it just happened. So we have a really good friend over and she's, we haven't seen her in a while either, and she's talking to us about something, she's just telling us a story. This is why it's so bad, I don't remember what she was talking about. She's telling us a story and I'm on my phone. I didn't even realize I was on my phone. And I heard myself going huh, yeah, yeah. And she stopped and she said "Am I just talking to myself?" And Jennifer was on her phone. No, I wasn't. You weren't listening though. I was with the baby on the couch. Yeah, but I think you were looking down or something. I was not zoned in, yeah. But I was on my phone and Jennifer was like focusing on the baby or something and she just stopped and she said "Am I talking to myself right now?" And she was very kind about it and kind of funny and I looked up and I was all oh my gosh, I'm really sorry. I put my phone down, turned it off, pushed it away. Don't you just want to throw it away at that point? I felt like a jerk. You're just like let's just set this thing on fire. She was literally standing right next to me and I couldn't even listen to her. And I hadn't seen her in a while and it was so disrespectful. How often does that probably happen and people don't say "Am I just talking to myself?" They probably just move on and feel like not valuable. Yeah, Simon Sinek did a TED Talk. I was gonna bring this up. Was it TED Talk or was something else? It was some sort of viral Facebook video. And it was so convicting. And he was just saying, he's like the moment you pull your phone out. Even if you're not on it-- You're telling everyone in your presence that they're not as important. And it's so true. And I know like the feeling I had when she said "Am I talking to myself right now?" Because she literally was talking to herself. I was ignoring her and I was standing right next to her. And how many times has that happened with our kids? Yeah, okay, you gotta tell them the story with Elliott. I didn't want to point the finger at you. Guys, we have a bunch of really sad stories when it comes to social media because of how bad it is and this is why we're talking about it. But this is how people feel. Like people feel this way, kids feel this way, so share. Elliott's five. Go ahead. He's five years old and I don't even know, was it while he was five? Yeah, it was this year, you were outside. I'm outside and I walk out there and he's playing and he always wants me to play with him. And I have my phone in my hand of course and he just he goes, man, kids have a way of like stabbing you right in the heart. So he's like "Dad, what do you love your phone more than me?" And that was a legitimate thing he said and it wasn't like he'd ever heard someone say that before. That was hims telling me like hey, I'm right here and you're on your phone, what are you doing? Like I want you to play with me. That was a wake up call for both of us. I don't know why my son has to be so intrinsically like thoughtful, like the way thinks and he's just got a way of being, he's super intelligent. And I looked at him and I said no. I said of course not but Elliott, you're right, there's no reason why you would think otherwise. And I put my phone down. I said of course I love you more than my phone and I'm gonna work on not being on my phone in front of you. And so just we're not getting to our strategies yet but one of the things that we've done is we've told our kids that they're allowed to tell us to get off our phones. Yeah, well, because we're-- Dad, get off your phone. We're like in training as parents. We're like trying to figure this out. Yeah, we have to figure out how to rightfully and correctly and soberly use our phones. Because social media is not bad but it's bad. And we have to know that we're setting an example for their hearts. Like how are they gonna feel as they grow up when they get their phones? They're gonna remember mom and dad are even still always on their phones and I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be that way. And it's bad. So because of these kind of events that have happened, we're becoming more aware of it and we have got to figure something out. It's got to be fixed, like we've got to put our phones down. And we've tried making rules like not having our phones on us when we're around the kids or not having them in our bed. You know, we've dropped the ball on a lot of those just because of how connected we've been to social media. But I am, as sad as these intimate moments have been with these people that we absolutely love, I feel like they've been wake-up calls for us and I feel like that is what's starting the change. And I'm glad that you're willing to share some of those stories because I feel like people listening will hear those and think, oh man, does my child feel that way or does my friend think of me this way? And maybe they just haven't said anything. And maybe that would be-- Well, lots of people feel that way. I know even though I do it, I feel that way when someone does it to me. I'm like hey, I'm like are we talking, what's going on? Are we gonna be on our phones? Something that we've kind of incorporated within the group of friends that we have is saying who you hanging out with right now? Yeah. And it's like this cue of like, hey, we're all doing something together and you're on your phone. Are you hanging out with your phone and people on social media, or are you hanging out with us? Are you being present? And so it's like our cue to like, oh no, I'm not hanging out with anyone, put it away. Sorry, I'm hanging out with you guys. You guys can use that if you want. Yeah, that's a little tip for your friends. Yeah, who you hanging out with? Just a little vocal reminder of like get off your phone and hang out with us. We know some people that have done like phone baskets where everyone puts their phones in but we haven't done that but I know other people have. Yeah, okay, so moving on. Do you have any stories of like social media and specifically our relationship and maybe how it's caused some either tension in our relationship or temptation for sin? Well, yeah, like I've struggled with pornography my whole life and social media didn't make that any better. Gave more access. It gave me more access to things and it's still a danger and can have temptations involved with it, but I don't give in to those temptations now. But one of the things that has always been hard is like you would be on my, 'cause we have access to each other's phones, you just knowing like oh, he's following that girl or who's that or who's that? And just the things that you would see might make you feel insecure. And then I remember for a while, there were certain people that you would follow and I would ask you like why are you following that person? And we had a good conversation about it a while ago. What was that about? So yeah, there's this girl that I was following and I was following her because I liked her lifestyle and I liked how she looked. It was all vanity in my opinion but I didn't realize that I was even doing it. And I don't know if I was talking about her or he looked over my shoulder and saw that-- I think I looked over, you were in bed scrolling through her feed. Scrolling through her feed and you just asked me like, well, can I ask why you're following her? And that was the first time that I had to stop and consider why I was following someone and really think about it. And I wanted to really think about it because I thought it was an important question. And I thought, you know what, I was even honest with you. I said I don't know why I keep going back to her feed but I'm jealous of her. I think she's really beautiful, she has a beautiful family, they go on these vacations. Did you feel like you'd coveted like what she had? I did, I did. And I would often go back especially in times where I felt discontent or whatever and I don't know why it made me feel better just to go look and see what is she up to? How is she happy? And I remember after telling you that, you said you should evaluate whether you should be following her or not. And after that, I decided not to follow her and it's actually been healthier for my heart. Yeah, not that that woman was doing anything wrong. No, it wasn't her fault, it was my own heart condition and I had to check it. Yeah, and there's a lot of things that we do. Like so something that I've made a commitment to on my social media and I told you about this is I went through and I unfollowed every girl. Not that any of them were immodest or anything like that but I just, I made a decision. I said there was first of all no reason I needed to be following any girls. That was just for me personally. Like if it was a friend of ours, right, because I even unfollowed our friends, I followed usually their husband. And if there was something that I needed to see, you followed them and you'd be like hey, so-and-so did this, did you see that? Or you could share it with me. But I just realized, I evaluated like why am I following certain people, which this goes back to how social media is developed and evolved and what it's convinced every single person of. It's convinced us that if we don't like someone or follow someone, then we must not be friends with them. Right? When I have a lot of friends outside of social media that I don't follow on social media and I actually have great relationships with them. Do you feel like it forces you to stay in communications in other ways with them? Yeah, I mean-- Like better ways? In some ways, but again like the women, I wouldn't contact them privately. Oh, right. So why would I be following them privately? So I got to, I just realized, I evaluated who am I following and why am I following them? You know, is it actually adding benefit to my life? Do I need to be following them? Like I like to follow family and some friends and to see what's going on their life because I can't keep up with them all the time, which is totally fine. So I unfollowed all the girls on both Facebook and Instagram. You've been through there. You've seen there's no girls anymore. And in reality, I didn't need to. If I needed to know something about a friend of ours' wife, you'll let me know. And usually I don't need to know, thanks, it doesn't matter. But that's just one thing that I did and that was something I did for myself and also something I did for you 'cause I was like I don't need my wife feeling insecure about anyone I'm following. Not that you are trying to be insecure or that you're jealous but doing those things inadvertently do cause those situations. And I'll be honest, knowing that you've struggled with pornography in your past, knowing that you had social media accounts was in itself an insecurity because I would always question what are you doing? Who, why? And that was hard for me for a really long time but regaining that trust with you and seeing that you haven't been with that struggle for a very long time now, that we've rebuilt that. And so I'm not as insecure. But you've also seen me make decisions with social media that match that purity. Like you having access to it, me showing you, me talking about it, me not messaging people privately, me not following girls at all. Those are just fruit of the way I'm walking in. It's my way of protecting myself because if I know I'm prone to something, I'm like, well, I should avoid that, right? And so trying to find those healthy boundaries. But again, even on the not being tempted with the lustful stuff, I still struggle with the scrolling. Which could be just as destructive, you know. Yeah, okay, so in talking about social media, one thing that you really wanted to touch on was idleness. We both have struggled with this at times and so-- Right, it lines up with the idea of just mindless scrolling. So the word idle, a lot of times we usually define that as like doing nothing, right? But it's actually broader than that, it's more than that. It's doing something that's meaningless or doing something that's fruitless, right? So it's not just like sitting in your chair doing nothing. That's not necessarily being idle. Being idle is doing things that are worthless. So filling up your time with things that don't matter. With busyness, right? And so in Proverbs 19:15, it says "Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, "and an idle person will suffer hunger." So there's just this idea of like, the Bible talks a lot about laziness, a lot about idleness, a lot about slothfulness, and this idea that like don't be unwise, a foolish lazy idle person. And there's another scripture I'll get into. But it says an idle person will suffer hunger, right? Now we can look at that and just on the practical reality side, an idle person that's filling their time up with nothing, like I'm just doing hobbies. Well, I need time for my hobbies. They're not gonna be productive, they're gonna, you know. We live in a city that is known for its adventure sports and we always hear about like during the summer, people calling in sick because they want to go bike riding. Or in the winter, people calling in sick because they want to go snowboarding. And that to me is idleness. Eventually someone who has an attitude of that is just gonna get fired, right? So just on the practical side, being idle is not gonna produce income, right? You're gonna be lazy, you're not gonna have a job. But the other kind of hunger I think of is the word, right? An idle person that's filling up their time, me, and this is what I've been struggling with is I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Then I realize, I'm like why did I just sit here for 20 minutes scrolling when I could've been in the word of God? I could have been praying. That's good. I could have been spending time with you. So the hunger, I look at on a whole 'nother level of like spiritual and emotional and physical, right? You know I hunger for time with you and yet I don't give you time. That's really good, babe. So I look at the the depravity and the danger of idleness and that could be what social media is for many people. I know it is for me and I'm just confessing that, that I can find myself being idle and I'm recognizing it now. Now I go in the bedroom, I'm like oh, I'm gonna read my Bible, I bring my Bible and I bring my phone in too. And then you get a notification, ding. And like I just gotta quickly, ding. And then like 30 minutes went by and like what did I just do? I just wasted my time. So the next scripture is also in Proverbs. It's in Proverbs 31 and this is talking about the Proverbs 31 woman, right? But it's just another way of describing what I'm talking about. 31:27. "She looks well to the way of her household "and does not eat the bread of idleness." Right, so we go back to like a Proverbs 31 woman looks well to her home and doesn't eat the bread of idleness, right? Which is funny 'cause the last one talked about hunger and this is saying you're eating the bread of idleness, like idleness is a food you're eating but it actually gives you no sustenance. That makes sense in what you were sharing and how it's not that you're just sitting there not doing anything, you're doing some-- It's an activity you're doing. You're eating something, it's just not filling you with nutrients. Right, and so in this situation for this woman who's trying to manage her home well and bless her husband and her children. Are you hinting at me? No, well, maybe. This is for both of us, right? I know, I know. You know, she is sacrificing the health and well-being of her home for nothing. That's literally what she's doing. That's insanity. It's crazy. It's crazy. So we just want to like look at these and say okay, are we being idle? Is this fruitless? Is it taking away from my relationships, my relationship with God? Is it's getting in the way of my relationship with my children? And those are some serious questions we can ask ourselves about social media. It's something that I'm asking myself currently, something that I'm praying about regularly, and I'm trying to make changes in. And so maybe what we can go into is some of the strategies that we've implemented, some that we want to implement, just to give like a good idea because the people that are listening and watching might want them because I'm sure that they deal with this too. We just live in social media-ville. It's like life right now. It's true. Okay, so one of the first ones that we started out doing when we first got on Facebook was we share passwords and we're very transparent with giving each other access to each account. And this is just a good overall, being one in your marriage and protecting each other is access. Like my wife knows that she can get on my phone, we have the same password for our phones and for our computers. She can look through my search history, she could be on my phone, she can see whoever I'm following, she can see things I've liked, she has access. Now we've had marriages and people say I don't need to do that, they just need to trust me and blah blah blah. Like they take it to a negative level. That's fine, you want to be that way, go ahead. I'd rather be safe. I'd rather my wife feel like she can trust me, I'd rather my wife. Now you almost never even check. No, but in the past there has been moments where I'll see something that triggers this curiosity of like do I trust you and what are you guys talking about? And I'll click on stuff or visit and then turns out it was nothing and that affirms me. And yeah, I'm at the point now where I don't really need to check in but-- And the goal even if you did-- But I know that I can. Even if you did check in, the goal shouldn't be to see if I'm wronging you. The goal should be to see if I'm sinning because you are my wife and you're my helper. And the advice for us, I shouldn't be checking because I'm like jealous and I want to make sure that you're not talking to anyone. I'm checking to see if you're being safe and my whole goal would be to reconcile with you and to help you walk in purity and vice-versa, right? Not because I just want to see if I'm being wronged here. And so sharing passwords and giving access and verbally giving access, meaning hey, if you ever want to grab my phone. Our pastor does this often. To the men, he's like you have access to my phone. Like he wants the other men to be accountable or him to be accountable to us and he just says if you want to look at my phone, go ahead. I mean, that's what's good about being a part of a good community. So what's the next one? Another one is talking about your experiences on social media, so this is kind of a two-parter. So it'd be like, hey, I saw so-and-so on Facebook say this or do this, did you see? Or you know, just inviting each other into those spaces. So the other part of this is sharing your experiences from social media and feelings that you have because of it. If you're wrestling with insecurities or comparison or-- Or getting mean messages from people. Yeah, are you talking to your spouse about those things and are you inviting them into that space and just talking about it? Yeah, so being open and transparent with your experience with social media so that it's an open conversation, that's good. So what's the next one? So another one is permission to ask questions. This is one that I feel like you're really good at, that we're both really good at in our relationship and it has helped protect our marriage and protect our hearts. And that's just, you know, asking those hard questions. When you asked me why are you following so-and-so, that's a hard question and it made me really consider why. Yeah, and when you're asking the questions, is that before you ask the question on both parties, the husband and the wife, ask yourself why you're asking the question. Are you asking because you're insecure yourself or you're jealous or you're fearful, or you're asking because you actually are interested in the well-being and the purity and the holiness of your spouse? Which doesn't mean if you feel those other things, don't not ask it, it means reconcile first and say okay, I'm feeling a certain way, I need to let them know that. Hey, I just saw you looking at such-and-such and actually I'm feeling a little insecure right now and I want to know why you are following that person or why you were looking at that. And we've had couples, we've had wives and husbands talk on both sides, say hey, my husband just won't stop following these girls that I've asked him not to follow. And he says why, they're friends from school, it's not a big deal. Wives following old boyfriends and vice versa. So there's got to be an openness not only for the questioning but also a permission to be like hey, I actually would appreciate if you didn't follow so-and-so. And that's one of the other ones was being willing to delete those relationships that are just really unnecessary. Because your marriage is the most important thing. Yeah, and here's a good warning sign. If we're being defensive about unfollowing someone on social media, there's a problem. There's a problem. Because guys, it's social media. Unfollowing someone and unliking someone's page and not seeing their posts online does not make you not like that person. Doesn't mean that you don't have a relationship with that person. Now if the only relationship you have is online, then all the more, why is it a big deal? So if there's a defensiveness welling up like what's the big deal, you need to ask yourself why you're being defensive. That's really good. Like why are you trying to protect this social media thing over here versus your spouse who has a concern? So recently I've been telling the kids when they're arguing over a toy or just upset at each other, I always tell them that toy is not more important than your brother's heart. It's true. And so I just think about that in context to marriage and social media and just think like social media is not more important than your spouse's heart. It's not. Guys, marriages existed for thousands of years without social media. It's probably better off without it. Right? So we just remember that social media is, if we're getting defensive, there's probably an addiction there to the platform itself. There's probably some sort of connection to whoever you're being asked to stop following. You got to ask, you got to pray through those things. You got to ask yourself why am I being defensive with that? Another way that we've been really good at protecting our marriage through social media is whenever someone messages me that is a man, I'll usually say please contact at Husband Revolution and I'll tag you right away. Or if it's a friend of ours, we'll just tag each other in that message so that everyone's a part of it and there's transparency there. Yeah, we haven't been perfect doing this every single time but again we talk about things so if someone messages me that's a friend of ours, I'll let you know. Hey, so-and-so messaged me, just want you to know. And so there's an openness there. We have a pretty straightforward rule on just not having private communications with the opposite sex online. So you know, I get people, being on social media, being a social media ministry, I get women all the time messaging me and I usually give very short answers or no answer at all, right? So there is no long-term communication. If they ask for advice, I don't give advice. Just say oh. So one thing I'll answer and this is an example, just so you know. Someone will ask like what Bible version I use. I use ESV. Yeah, really like to the point. Yeah, there's no conversation, there's no, okay, cool. If you want to know more, message Unveiled Wife. And so very short or no answer at all and that's just kind of where I've landed the plane on not getting myself in trouble. Yeah, nope, same here. Okay, so the last one that I have on here is be willing to put it away, whether that's a season of like not logging in or if it's just a daily hey, I'm gonna go put my phone away because I want to be with you, I want to be present with you, I want to be with our children, and be willing. Yeah, I think I would take that. So the willingness should be good, like this is another thing. We've given each other permission to say put the phone away. Which is hard because we get defensive, like what's the big deal? I haven't had, I've been on all day. Okay, okay, I don't sound just like that. And we're like fighting. I didn't say you did. You just told everyone you do. I know, I do, you guys. I get really defensive sometimes. We both do. You'll ask me to put it away and I'll be like I'm not. And then I recognize I'm being defensive and I'm like So giving permission to tell each other please put the phone away. But the willing to put it away part, I think it should go even further and we should be proactively putting our phones away, getting off social media. I think I need to be putting in the other room and not having access to it when I'm with the kids so that they don't see me picking up my phone and you know, oh, it's checking it. 'Cause I'm always checking it for no reason. Like there's nothing. And like I said, like Simon Sinek, you're just letting everyone in the room know that they're less important than your phone. It breaks my heart, you guys, it's so sad. Such a good quote. Actually the whole document, we should link to it. Yeah. So that's what we have for you guys today and, you know, we just want to remind you that a marriage after God is one that values their marriage relationship and like I said earlier, social media is not more important than your spouse's heart. Social media is not more important than your heart, Aaron. I know. And I want to treat you with that respect and love and concern and value. Ditto. And so from this day forward. Till death do us part from our phones. I promise to do a little bit better. -We are gonna work on it. We are. We have to work on it because I don't want my kids growing up feeling less than because of our phones. And I don't want to feel less than. I mean, I don't want you to feel less than, both. Yeah. The other thing a marriage after God should be willing to do is to evaluate these things and look at every aspect of our lives and say okay, what needs to be changed? What needs to be cut out? What needs to be destroyed, put away? And so social media might be that or at least needs to be re-evaluated and put into check, right? Which means as we wrap up this episode, go call your spouse or unless they're watching this with you, listening with you-- Yeah, watch this first and then put your phone away or your computer. Oh, 'cause they're on social media. My point is go have that conversation, go talk to each other about some of the strategies that you can implement that will help protect your marriage. Yeah. Alright, we thank you for joining us this week and we look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? Find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

Spiritual leadership or spiritual headship in the home comes from the idea that God has designed marriage to operate in a certain order. His design when walked in actually comes with blessing and security. In this episode, we discuss what some of the traits of a spiritual leader are and what it can look like when they are walked in. -- Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle -- FOR MORE MARRIAGE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

Parenting resources have played an invaluable role in us navigate and grow into our role as Godly parents. There are a handful of parenting advice books and websites that transformed the way we saw parenting and discipling our children, we thought we would share them with you! In this episode, we share books, blogs, social media accounts to follow, and some insight into the power of our roles as mother and father. We also share a look at the some of the parenting resources we have created to inspire your prayer life for your kids. Here are all the links from our Favorite parenting books and resources we talked about in this episode. ***Books Large Family Logistics - https://amzn.to/2Nh38ZU ESV action Bibles- https://amzn.to/2QDfzNB Rhyme Bible - https://amzn.to/2MLNLDO Little Golden Books https://amzn.to/2QDBrbS https://amzn.to/2xjfuqd https://amzn.to/2xrKAeM https://amzn.to/2NhLFAp https://amzn.to/2MGNZvF Rod & Staff Bible Stories - https://www.milestonebooks.com/item/1-10002/ ***Audio & Video Jonathan Park - https://amzn.to/2xqSHbz Ken Ham Answers In Genesis - https://answersingenesis.org/store/media/ Nest Entertainment - https://nestlearning.com/collections/movies We Sing Songs - https://amzn.to/2D6EiHs GA Henty audio adventures - https://amzn.to/2MH7lRr Sing the Word from a to Z - https://amzn.to/2MJ9ITQ ***Sites/apps https://club31women.com http://courageousmom.com http://familylifetoday.com The Bible app for kids https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-app-for-kids/id668692393?mt=8 The Bible Project - https://thebibleproject.com/ Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

Marriages resources played an invaluable role in helping our marriage grow into what it is today. There are a handful of marriage books and websites that transformed the way we saw our marriage, our sex life, our way of communicating and so much more than we thought we would share them with you! Some of these resources helped us in our struggles with sexual intimacy, porn addiction, and parenting. In this episode, we share books, blogs, social media accounts to follow, and some insight into the power of real-life relationships. We also share a look at the some of the marriage resources we have created to inspire and lift up your marriage. It is crucial for the health of your marriage that you invest in your relationship by digging into resources that give you a fresh perspective that will challenge you to grow in the role that God has given you! Here are all the links from the helpful marriage books and resources we talked about in this episode. Books ESV BIBLE Aaron's Bible https://amzn.to/2Ik8a2b Jennifers Bible https://shop.unveiledwife.com/collections/bibles/products/journaling-bible-esv-antique-floral Experiencing God Study https://amzn.to/2NmYqtJ Wired For Intimacy https://shop.unveiledwife.com/products/wired-for-intimacy-how-pornography-hijacks-the-male-brain No More Headaches https://shop.unveiledwife.com/products/no-more-headaches-enjoying-sex-intimacy-in-marriage-by-juli-slattery Sacred Marriage https://shop.unveiledwife.com/products/sacred-marriage-what-if-god-designed-marriage-to-make-us-holy-more-than-to-make-us-happy-by-gary-l-thomas You can get all of our books at https://shop.marriageaftergod.com Sites https://www.familylife.com/ https://www.familylife.com/weekend-to-remember/ https://marriageaftergod.com https://authenticintimacy.com https://fiercemarriage.com http://Faithfulman.com http://Club31women.com http://UltimateMarriage.com http://beating50percent.com Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

Are you a people pleaser? People pleasing is a very common issue in many peoples lives including ours. Maybe we do it because we are insecure, or fearful of what others might think of us. Maybe we try and please people for selfish reasons, whatever the reason we do it we must realize that it is damaging and will hinder you from being able to truly minister to those in your life. in today's episode, we discuss the 3 reasons we believe people might be tempted to become people pleasers and where it comes from and how it can hurt our marriages and how it hurts our ministries. Resources http://beating50percent.com/ -- Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle -- FOR MORE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

The Postpartum season and any other time of trial or hardship can really rock a marriage. In this episode, we discuss our past experiences of postpartum and why this fourth time around was so different. We specifically address a decision we both made before the baby was born and how it impacted the wellness of the whole family during postpartum. Postpartum is a trying time as a husband and wife get disrupted with a new baby, crying, sleepless nights, pain, and a jolt in the day to day routines. However, we realized that being a team and working together is critical during this season. We talk about how selfishness and fairness cause bitterness and frustration, we talk about expectations, walking in the Spirit, and we talk about preparedness and how much that can really help the marriage during postpartum. Postpartum eCourse https://unveiledwife.com/a-christian-postpartum-course-that-every-expecting-mom-needs-review/ -- Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle -- FOR MORE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

Being creative with your weekly date nights can get difficult over the years. This is why we put together 11 date night ideas for you. :) Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle FOR MORE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!

We heard each of our questions for the first time when filming so that our responses would be genuine and off-the-cuff. Here are the questions so that you can use them on your next date night. What is your favorite fast food and why? What is your favorite type of dessert? If you had 3 hours to do whatever you wanted and money didn't matter, what would you do? What is the hardest thing about doing a podcast with me? (you''ll have to adjust this one for your life ;) What has been the hardest lesson you have learned as a wife? How do you envision our life and family in 10 years? If you could go back in time and tell your 18-year-old self one thing, what would it be? What was your experience like singing in a metal band? What is your favorite part about being a mother? What's one piece of advice would you give to husbands to help them lead their wife better? -- Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle -- FOR MORE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution Connect With UsInstagram | @marriageaftergodInstagram | @unveiledwifeInstagram | @husbandrevolutionCheck out our marriage resources!SponsorsGet our new book The Marriage Gift - 365 prayers for your marriage!