EP 103

Welcome to the Smiling at the Future podcast. My name is Christi Rose and this is my pursuit to glean practical wisdom on femininity, homemaking, finances, relationships, and singleness from the God fearing men and women in my life. Hope you enjoy this journey with me as we learn to smile at the future.

Hey everyone. In today’s episode, Marie Clark carries on our conversation from last time about how we keep Christ at the center of our homes by zeroing in on the relationships and roles in the home. Most of this episode involves your relationship with your children and your spouse, but the principles of communication and character can apply to anyone in any season. So please stick around. I know you’ll be sharpened. And without further ado, here is Part 2 of my conversation with Marie Clark.

Hi Marie. In our last conversation, we talked about habits that keep Christ in central focus in the home. Not in the peripheral or just something we focus on on Sundays, but really the from through and to theme of our lives lived out in the context of our homes.

So with our first question, why is it essential that Christians understand their God-given roles and how to live them out for the harmony of the family? Yes, that’s such a wonderful question. And you know, I think that there’s sometimes a little bit of a resentment when we think about the roles like a wife having to submit or a husband leading because he’s certainly imperfect and and he’s going to make mistakes. But you know, all of the Scripture shows us that the roles that God has established have been established for our good and that when they are followed and when they are submitted to and when we walk in them, that is the best way to have full enjoyment of life and full harmony. And you know, when we talk about God-given roles, we recognize obviously Christ is our head, all of us. But then the practical what it comes down to is the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. The wife is to submit to his authority. The children are to obey their parents in all things. But despite the simplicity of this and that and how commonly it’s known and touted, I have noticed a disturbing trend that I feel like is sweeping through the world and into the church. It’s not the feminist movement. We’ve we’ve had to deal with that. But it’s, it’s almost like this new thing, although it’s not new. I’ll talk about that a little bit. But it’s this concept kind of of child LED parenting. And it is one of those things that that turns the roles on their head and really brings down a house. And, and we’re going to talk about some proverbs that talk about that.

But this is something that’s absolutely happening all the time right now. And it’s something I get, I get very passionate about because I see homes crumbling. I see families having such a hard team. I see, I see kids out of control and moms desperately upset. And it’s because they have let those roles get out of balance and they have not followed what God has said and they have to start this very, very young. So one of these things with I’m calling it child LED parenting. To be honest with you, I don’t know all the names it goes by. I’ve heard it called gentle parenting. I’ve heard it called now the Christian version of it is like grace filled parenting, but in in in essence, it’s this parenting where the lingo is kind of like you’re inviting your children onto your journey, but you’re not controlling them or disciplining them. You’re you’re offering them for for them to join you if they like. And instead of giving commands and directives, you just model what you want them to do. And then you invite them to join you in that activity. As I like to put it, you’re asking your child’s permission to parent them, but but they have unapologetically, the message is that you want to send to your child is I’m not out to control you. And I’m addressing this because I see this a lot. I don’t know if our singles have run into this kind of philosophy, but it is gaining steam. It has a lot of offshoots. So maybe they say, oh, no, no, we’re not gentle parenting. No, we’re, we’re graceful parenting. We’re going to call this different. But a lot of these things they, they rely heavily on worldly research, which they call like trauma research or brain research or parenting research. And it’s really attached itself to the Christian audience. And I do want to just say at the top, I’m just going to be really direct. It is nonsense. And it’s creating its own biblical deception in the name of Christ. And it’s taking the order which God has established the family roles to exist in. And it’s throwing them on their head and it’s telling us that we have better ways to help you learn how to be a respectful parent. And, and it’s wrong. It, it is. I saw I went on to one of the websites of one of the more dominant Christian ones and it gives you some examples like how do you practically do this grace filled parenting? It gives this example like where the parent says, the mom says, I’m noticing my body is starting to feel angry. I think I’ll go swing in the hammock for a few minutes. Would you like to join me? And so this is really like a dishonest tactic in which you see that the child is actually angry, but you’re playing a part so that you can get them to calm down through distraction, right? I just want to ask moms, because there is so much parenting stuff out there and, and we’re talking about the Christian home, you really have to ask yourself for everything that you read, everything that you see. Can I find that in the Scripture? Does the hammock, I’m sorry, I didn’t say hammock. Does the Bible suggest that when I’m angry, the answer is to go swing in a hammock? Or, or does the Bible say in Colossians 38, but now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice and slander, abusive speech from your mouth and in verse 12, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, gentleness, bearing with one another, forgiving one another. Does the Bible say, and this is important, that I’m not supposed to control my child’s behavior, that I’m supposed to invite them to, to obey and to to have more joy and obedience, which they may or may not decline? Or does it say that the godly person is the one who manages his household well, keeping his children literally under control with all dignity in first Timothy 3-4? And, and, and one thing I also want to hit because there’s so much parenting information out there. Again, it on Christian, so-called Christian websites that depend on worldly forms of research and that research is done by unbelievers who walk in the futility of their mind being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance is in that that is in them because of the hardness of their heart. That’s Ephesians 417 and 18. In these sites, the the Bible is not the sufficient standard that’s informing what they do and say. And unfortunately with these other methods, if the research and the Bible are at odds with each other, guess which one gets top billing? It’s not the Bible.

So another thing, you know, even if you’re not following a philosophy of like graceful parenting or, or you know, gentle parenting. Another thing I just want to say about roles, cause I’ve heard other moms say, oh, no, gentle parenting, that’s really bad. We’re not doing that. But then I see something. I see that they are unintentionally, I know they don’t mean to, but they’re setting a precedent for the child to independently think that they can do whatever they want whenever they feel like it. And you have these little children that are running around doing whatever they want, and it’s easier to chase them and pick them up when they’re under 5. But imagine doing that when they get older. And it’s harder to say no and then have to deal with their tantrum. And it’s easier to just say, OK, I guess, I guess we can just keep doing that for a little while. And, you know, kids love to make demands, and they get very accustomed to that. And I’ve seen this even in my own parenting when the kids were young. Sometimes we fall into a pattern of obeying them and like seeking their opinion when we just need to leave and be the parents. So, you know, we’re asking them things like what do you want for dinner? Do you want to finish your peas? Do you, do you think you could clean up your room? Could, could you stop throwing that at me? Or, you know, I’m thinking we should leave the playground in about 5 minutes, but what do you think? Or, or honestly, we’re just chasing them around while they go from room to room and activity, activity presumptuously deciding what they want to do rather than having to submit to the parental authority and training that hasn’t been done for them. So, you know, we parents, we have to keep our children under control with all dignity, Even so that we can be useful in the Church of God, where the qualification to be entrusted with the care of souls is first demonstrated in the home. And I recognize not everybody’s going to be an elder, but this is showing us God’s order, God’s rules, his expectation for a godly home. So how greatly should we be pursuing that?

You know, a warning, encouragement in a warning here Proverbs 2915 says the rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother. So another thing I I just want to say with that is that we have to be consistent with discipline. So another aspect of the daily habits of keeping Christ at the center is that in order to have a peaceful home, you have to raise and train peacemakers. And that’s your children. And you’re responsible for the behavior and the discipline and nurture of the children. You’re you’re responsible. I’m responsible for how they act. Their behavior so important will have a huge impact on the tone and function of your home. So if you want to have that home, you have to train them. We moms sometimes feel and behave and speak like we are the victims of our children. So dad comes home and it’s something like, you won’t believe how they spoke to me or this child. I have no control over them. They’re making me crazy. They don’t listen to anything I say. And I’m going to make a comment that some people might find a little bit a little bit much, but I really believe it’s true. If my young child has a habitual sinful behavior that is not improving at all, I’m the one who’s at fault. And if they grew up allowed to live in that because of the fact that I haven’t properly addressed it and enforced consequences, I have accountability for that because one of my main jobs is to teach and train and discipline. And that means I am not the victim of their behavior. I am the keeper of it. I’m the one who must require obedience. And if it’s not there, I’m the one who must pray and work and plan until I can come up with a biblical proactive plan of action to address it.

You know, when God commanded children to obey their parents, he was not expecting toddlers to know how to do that. It it was he was calling parents to train, to require it, to enforce it and the blessings promised to children that do obey like long life and it going well with them. Isn’t it crazy? Isn’t it sad or devastating that they might lose that because of my sinful failure to discipline them? So I can’t wring my hands and have a pity party and be a martyr, a martyr when my children’s souls are at stake. And there have been times when I’ve done that for a hot minute, but I’ve also spent a lot of time on my knees praying for four very different children with very different struggles to a very personal God who will help me understand their hearts and and help me know how to parent them with diligence because it’s a lot of work and wisely. To your point, Marie, about how it’s, you know, when a child is misbehaving, that reflects on the parents, not so much on the child. And I, I remember seeing a lady walking a dog at the park. And this is, you know, not a perfect example, but the dog was really overweight. And I didn’t think, oh, that’s, you know, that that dog has some issues, you know, and it gets gets that under control. You know, you immediately look at the owner and say, OK, owner, you are dropping the ball there. You are not taking good care of your your pet that you’re entrusted to. And the same thing with children. Yeah, the children are misbehaving. That is a direct correlation to the training and the parenting, the discipline that they are not receiving in the home. Absolutely. You know it. I’m so glad you said that because you know, I Proverbs 19 versus 16 and 18, they paint this really interesting picture and what you said is so perfect for this Proverbs 1960 and says he who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, but he who is careless of conduct will die. So this gives us the picture of like an undisciplined person, right? They’re careless about their conduct and they’re held in contrast to one who’s keeping the commandment and an undisciplined person. They’re not doing what they need to be doing. It actually says they’ll die. I mean, some people are so undisciplined that they create risk that’s very high and could even lead to death. What I find amazing is that 2 verses later it really connects because it says in verse 18 discipline your son. So there’s this concept of self-discipline, but then it goes into discipline your son while there’s hope and do not desire his death. So what does this mean? Because no normal parent would ever desire their child’s death. What it’s saying is that a lack of discipline is so dangerous that it’s as if by failing to do it, we are acting as those who would actually desire their death. So moms and dads have got to have the self-discipline to be faithfully and consistently disciplining their child now, no matter what the excuses are. And there’s, there’s lots of excuses. They’re so cute. I feel bad I was abused, so I don’t want to do it. Listen, there is a fleeting window while there’s hope and it says discipline your son while there’s hope. I can guarantee you without hesitation that if you are not faithful to this, you will regret it so deeply later because these verses weren’t warn of of destruction and death, but the promise in in 1917 is correct. Your son and he will give you comfort and he will also delight your soul. And I thinking about, you know, our home and all these things, man, that is a reality that I get to live now after a lot of years of a lot of hard work. And I’m still in the trenches because I’ve got little ones. But when I look at my two older kids, what delight they bring to me, what comfort, what help they are so capable. They are so delightful. They are so I can entrust them. I can send them, you know, bearing the Clark family name. Can you go do this ministry And they represent the Lord well. And so it’s a joy. It it’s hard when they’re young because it’s exhausting. And it and you have to like exactly what you said. You have to come back to the Scripture, you have to fortify yourself in the truth, and you have to move forward in obedience. And for someone who’s listening and maybe they have children and they, they feel like they haven’t been faithful to discipline correctly, you know, start now. God, God can redeem the years that the locusts have eaten. He can still use you in their life. Don’t give up. Don’t just think you’ve missed the boat. Like start today. And God, God will help you in that.

Oh yeah, the Lord is all about redemption, right? So as you’re continuing to discipline and train and parent your children, what are the more practical ways that you help your kids keep Christ at the center? Yeah, and positive ways, right? Yeah, You know, Mark 1013 says it’s just a description of an account. I’m not going to go into the passage, but it’s just an observation. It says in those Scriptures, the parents were bringing their children to Jesus, that he might touch them, and he took them in their arm, in his arms, and began blessing them and laying hands on them. This, this observation is just just people were bringing their children to Jesus. The children couldn’t get to him on their own. They were taken by the parents. They were brought to him. They were put in his arms. And I’ve always looked at that, that simple description and thought, you know, that’s a big part of my job. My job is to bring the children to Jesus. And I do that by bringing them to the Word of God and teaching and instructing them from the word of God, by praying with them and praising with them and setting an example to them. My children cannot arrive at this on their own. I bring them. So as a young mom, as absolutely obvious as this sounds, I remember they were little and I realized they can’t read. I am their sole source of scriptural input. And with that profound thought, it resulted in in our forming the habit of gathering each morning in our front room, snuggling in together, and studying through whole books of the Bible with them. And I have done this since they were little. I study in advance so that I, I understand the context and the meaning. I’ve got cross references and I, I really try to get the meaning of the passage and I teach them with depth and care. And you know, I’ve got 4 kids and, and you know, my oldest and my youngest are 10 years apart, but we together, the kids and I, I’ve gone through the Old Testament, the New Testament, a very long study in the book of Proverbs, which is wonderful for kids. I do not have children’s Bibles for them. I don’t read them story books. I don’t personally again, preference read them Christian living books. I read to them from the living inspired word of God. And then I explain it to them, what it means, how Scripture explains Scripture. And then whatever passage we’re in, I practically apply it to our lives. How does it apply to them? How does it apply to me? Talk with me. What what did you understand? What are you seeing in this passage? Talk to me about this and systematically working through truths together. And I just want to say to moms, you do not have to have a Bible degree. You start this and for Single Ladies, please keep this in mind. Start it with your own Bible time. What is this? What is the scripture trying to say? What does it mean? What was the genuine context of the situation? And then how does this apply to me and how can I learn and be instructed? What do I learn about God? Start that now in your singleness. And then you just do that exact same thing with your kids. And when they’re little, it’s very, very simple, but it’s the scripture that you’re putting into their life And and then you get to where we are now. I mean, we’re expositing things together as family. It’s it’s amazing. It’s so rich.

And then the other thing that’s important is pray together. Children have to be taught how to pray, and we need to model that. And so I’ve always taught the children that we pray before we start our Bible time, but we pray after. And when they pray, I want them to pray about something that we studied in the Scripture that day. My son used to always pray for the dolphins, like every single day when he was five. And I’d be like, you can pray for the I didn’t. He wasn’t even praying for anything in particular. He didn’t know they were endangered. He just wanted to pray that the Lord would bless them. But I said, but you also must pray about something that we read today. I always want them to thank the Lord in prayer and then they can ask him for something and when appropriate, confess sin. Now, as the kids get older, they don’t have to do as much confessing it as we’re praying as a family. But I will say that I always had them doing that when they were little because I’m teaching them how to see their sin and I’m teaching them how to confess it. And we’re family who’s sitting right in front of each other. So this is not top secret. But I’m also teaching them about the humility that confesses sin. I’ve seen children who have such arrogance that they they cannot confess sin, they will only deny it. Well, no, we need to teach them that that, you know, we humbly confess sin, that that’s how we’re right with God. And that might mean that I need to point it out to them. Even little mid prayer, I can interject a little bit. And then did you want to confess that, you know, you were, you hit yourself, whatever it was, you know, and and that’s an important part of how we round out, you know, their understanding of prayer. And I’m teaching them how to pray. And then we, I would always want to choose passage of Scripture to memorize with them. And so we loved that. And when they were little, we would act it out. So like Psalm 1, you get little kids, it’s a great one. You just think of little hand motions to it and you teach them Psalm one, which is such a beautiful Psalm for children that guides them in their life. And there’s hand motions and, and we always did, I’m just throwing this in at Christmas. I always have them memorize a huge passage from Luke 2. And we act the whole thing out and they get in like Christmas costumes, which is basically sheets. And we act these verses out together. So it’s like the most lovely, wonderful time. And then we cap it off by singing a hymn together because I want them to know hymns and have rich lyrics in their memory.

And if this sounds like excessive or too much, I’m telling you right now. These are the basics, folks. This is basic faithfulness. This is not super Christian, Marie. These are the basics of taking your children to Jesus. And when they’re old enough to read themselves. So this starts, you know, depending on your children, but it can start young. I always have taught my children and because I wanted them to have this habit for the rest of their lives, to have their own Bible time as a habit. And I do this whether they are saved or not, whether they are professing Christ or not. I teach them that they read the word in the morning because you know, Deuteronomy 6 says you’re talking about this all the time. This is your life, whether you profess Christ or not. So I teach them to pray before they read, Just asking the Lord to help you understand and open your eyes to behold wonderful things and have a heart to obey. And then they read their little passage and then they pray afterwards. Lord, please help me to apply this. Help me to be faithful. And then even when they’re doing that, even when they’re having their own Bible times, we still have that time because this is like them when they get up in the morning, they’re having these times. We still come back for that family Bible time. So this is a habit that we probably had maybe for 17 years. Our oldest is almost 20. I probably should have started earlier. I know I memorized Scripture with her. She had memorized Psalm 1 when she was 3. But we just do this. It’s a big rock in the jar and having that big rock in the jar in the beginning. So I hope the singles will kind of, you know, take this to heart. We as a family have had the most wonderful conversations around the Word of God. Their own sin has been revealed through the study of Word. Conviction has been brought by the Spirit rejoicing and worshiping together. I’m systematically teaching and training them through the Word of God for a lot of years. And I remember about a year or two, just like a testimonial of this. Cause a lot of times I’m going to tell you as a mom, you sit down, they’re messing around. Like it’s such training ground. Like you must sit, you must sit quietly. Everybody hands to yourselves. Everybody’s in a different seat so nobody’s messing with each other. But I remember a year or two, my youngest, so she was probably like 8 or so. And she said she was struggling with a lot of areas of sin as kids do. And we were studying through the Proverbs. And she just put her little hand down and said, I just don’t understand this. Every time you read the Bible, it’s telling me the exact things that I’m doing and why they’re wrong. How does it know? And like she thought there were spy cams in the house or something. But and, and I had told her these things, like I had pointed these things out to her. But man, when she heard it from the word of God directly, you know, in context, the spirit of God revealing sin and convicting, there’s nothing like it. It’s wonderful.

And then so that, you know, my husband’s a part of this too. This is what I’m doing as a mom because this is what I do. I, I’m, I’m home with them and he’s working early. So this is, this is what we do as a mom in the evenings. My husband has had the opportunity to catechize them and teach them through more doctrinal things, which they memorize. And that might sound as dull as toast, but I’m telling you, it is so fun. And all these kids like kind of competing and memorizing these catechisms together. And it’s just been, it’s been lovely and wonderful.

So sweet to hear how you guys are living all of that out. And I’m sure just like the repetitiveness of all of this is really teaching your own heart too, and revealing sin in your own heart. And it’s amazing how when you teach something, it just solidifies in your mind to much deeper level. You have to understand it to be able to teach it. And I just appreciate how you brought that out all throughout this. This is if you’re a mom, this is your responsibility before the Lord to be the predominant teacher of your of these doctrines of the Scriptures to your children. It’s not outsourced to the church or or to the Christian School teachers or whoever else is influencing them, although they can, you know, buttress what you are doing in the home. But it is up to you. If God has given you children, it is up to you to teach them about him and his word. And I just appreciated how simple you made that of. They can’t read. I am the source of the scriptures to them and, and they can’t, they don’t know how to pray. You know, this is not just innate these habits and how to do them. And so they must be taught. And so, so sweet to see and hear how you guys are faithfully doing this in your home. And then also the big picture of seeing the fruit of this over the years with your older children. And it pays off. And you may not see it in the moment and it may, like you said, feel overwhelming and like a lot of work, but keep the the end goal in view of what you’re doing. And obviously faithfulness is what the Lord requires of us. And so it’s not a guarantee that all of the children that he provides will follow him and in his steps. But we are called to be faithful with that stewardship.

Now, as we’re talking about relationships in the home, and we touched on this in the last episode about, you know, family culture and how do we blend family cultures? But how would you encourage the listeners if they’re, if they’re engaged, getting married and starting this new family together, how do you go about developing a family culture? Well, a family culture is developed, whether you like it or not, by a husband and a wife, mainly as the leaders of the family and how they live in real time. So this is like a real husband, a real wife, their real life choices, their real life example. We don’t get to look at like a happy godly family and be like, Oh yeah, that’s the family culture I want. What do you guys do? But then live in frustration and irritation and anxiety and expect to have that same enjoyable family culture there Because a bad tree won’t produce good fruit. So the question really isn’t so much like how do we develop it, but rather what are we, what is our family culture going to be? 1 sentiment that I often hear is, you know, I don’t want my children to grow up the way that I did. So the inclination is to think, well, OK, if the pendulum of how I was raised was all the way to the right, I’m going to do the opposite. I’m going to swing all the way to the left. So someone might say, you know, my parents weren’t really there for me. They weren’t interested in what I was doing. I was all the way to the right. So I’m going to swing it all the way to the left. My children are going to be the center of my life and everything we do is going to revolve around their interests and activities. Or even I’ve heard some people who grew up in, in Christian homes. My parents only cared about the church and service family was secondary. So you know what, our family, we’re just going to, we’ll help stack chairs after the service, but nothing else because I don’t want my kids to feel second best. But you know, very often these wide swings are not biblical, They’re not balanced. They’re they’re negative extremes.

So our goal is always to ask like, what’s the most biblical way to make a family culture? So, you know, this starts with the husband and wife, as I said before, it starts with their character and that becomes the driving force of how they interact with each other. The example that they set for their kids that their kids will do this is your speech, your attitudes, your body language, your reactions, your character is under a microscope called your children’s eyes. And they are learning what is appropriate through you. It’s a little bit scary, but we may, through our daily habits and sin that we’re not addressing, develop a family culture of anxious people or people that really exaggerate or angry people or complainers or contrarians. I mean, what’s the knee jerk reaction when we get bad news or how do we respond to disappointment or what is our attitude when we’re tired or hungry? How do we talk about other people like people at church? I mean, it’s scary, but true that to a great extent, to a very great extent, our children will be like us. The the expression like mother, like daughters from Ezekiel and and even Jesus said, you know, when a pupil is fully trained, he’ll be like his teacher. So for us personally, I’m going to give you a few examples of things that that we have pursued in our life. Again, this is this is just choices that we’ve made. I hesitate because I I really don’t want to come across like I’m singing our praises and be obnoxious, but at the same time there’s basic practices that we have genuinely set out to do imperfectly, but they are what we try to do and and I’d like to help in a practical way. So I pray it’s helpful.

First of all, my husband, praise the Lord for him is Mr. Calm Brett is discerning wise. He just has set the tone in our home of I’ll tell you one of the big things, good and thoughtful listening. He has calm responses, godly wisdom, advice and leadership. And he has led me through his example and guidance on how to be thoughtful about how we even speak to each other. I grew up in a different home about how we spoke to each other. And actually he grew up in an unbelieving home, but he’s just a godly man, always was from a very young age. And he had, he had a really good sense of, of, of how to communicate. So one example I remember early on, he just, and we didn’t really do this, but he pointed it out. I don’t want us to use sarcasm. And again, this isn’t a mandate, but for us, it feels like it can be kind of an underhanded insult or cruel or harsh. But we have the goal of having a calm response to things, not a hasty reaction. You’re just being mindful of how we communicate, managing our expressions even. There’s no one that you’ll be more you with than your family and your kids, but there’s no one you need to be more godly with than your family and your kids. So, you know, just just not saying the first thing that pops into your head. The wise man ponders what to say. So and a big aspect of family culture, I think everyone will recognize this is how you speak to each other. You know, how you speak to the kids, how the kids speak to the parents. There needs to be, you know, honor in the Lord with kindness and patience.

Another thing in our home, I really think is, is how the kids see our marriage. They know that Brett is my priority. He’s my true love. He’s my delight. I speak highly of him all the time. I flirt audaciously with him all the time. I sing songs about him and they love it. You know, they groan, but they love it For me. As a mom, my kids have no doubt that they’re my number one priority. They are not ever. They don’t feel like an inconvenience to me. Not that they rudely interrupt. There’s honor there, but they know that you know they’re my #1 loves. They’re my most important counselees, the most precious ones I spend my time and talent on. The ones that I want to cook the best food for is them. Not the guests. The ones I want to make the home beautiful for is them. If they’re talking to me, the phone is out of my hand and I speak highly of them to them. You know, I, I tell them how precious they are to me, how much I look forward to seeing them every day when I get up in the morning, You know, it’s it’s hugs and kisses when they’re sin on their parts. It’s not manipulative in front of others. It’s private. It’s firm but gentle. I’m not inviting them to obey. I require it because God requires it of me. And when we need to discipline, it’s done privately and quietly and calmly and predictably. They know every time exactly how it’s going to be done.

Another thing that’s important is, is speaking highly of the siblings to each other. So sometimes a mom will complain about one kid to another kid. No, don’t do that. Speak highly of the siblings to each other so that they notice what the other’s doing. Well, they learn how to praise it and enjoy it and sincerely rejoice with others and and weep with others. And I think just how the kids observe Brett and I, Brett and I love our church body. It’s a priority to serve in fellowship there. And it’s not hard for us to speak lovingly of our people and point out their good examples to the kids because like we have so many good examples. And, and so that, you know, we, I will point out women and, and, and men and look at how they did that. Did you see how humbly they did that? Did you see how good they were at that? And, and maybe sometimes we do need to say some negative things, but it’s always, it’s if if it’s negative, if there’s sin, it’s with grief and it’s with warning. And then Brett again, he had a saying that he brought into the family and that is, we don’t say I have to, but rather I get to. So instead of saying like I’ll have to go clean the church today, Brett has taught us to say, I get to go clean the church today. So, you know, when you have a husband and a wife who are imperfectly, none of us are perfect, but proactively, honestly, pursuing Christ and obeying the scriptures and loving each other, and you’ve got children who are under control. They’re being managed well. This leaves room for all that family culture stuff that you want to do, you know, the camping trips and the painting and, and how you want to spend the holidays and you can go on a road trip and everybody isn’t biting each other’s head off. They’re just enjoying it. They’re so excited to be together and all that beautiful fun stuff. It’s personal to each couple and what they’d like to have in their family culture. It will always be better and blessed and come after the, the ways that we talk to each other, the ways that we talk about God, the ways that, that we honor his word. That is what will form your family culture and that is what will open it up and, and you’ll have the fruit then just to enjoy your family. I enjoy my family more than anything in the world. They are the funnest. I, I just want to do things with them all the time and, and, and they feel the same way. I, I have to say, I’m so blessed. But even our teens, they just want, they love being home with the family and they love doing things with their friends. But if it’s a night home as a family, everybody’s just enjoying it richly.

So special to hear how you guys have worked hard to do that and to set that tone in your home. And I it just makes me think of my own family of seven kids and my parents were really intentional as well and like communicating to us, your siblings are your best lifelong friends and really working hard at those relationships in the home. And then because we had that positive fun environment as a family, we would just attract other people. And we often had other kids. They just just wanted to be with us. They want to be around our family. They wanted to be in our home. So we had all these adopted siblings, like holidays and whatnot. And these were people that came from more hard home situations. So they didn’t have that opportunity, but they got to see it in in our family. And we just welcomed them in and loved on them. But it was a really powerful testimony because like you said, so many families, maybe they’re just not doing this well and, and the tone in their home is strife and criticism and bitterness and all of that. And you can feel that when you walk into that family unit if, if that tone is bad. So you have to work hard to keep it positive and uplifting and encouraging. That’s one word I kept thinking when you were describing your family culture is it just sounds like a culture of encouragement. You’re looking for the best and others you’re highlighting that you’re not nitpicking or criticizing. So just so special to hear how you guys have done that. And a lot of these are attitudes and mindsets that the ladies listening to can be working on now because it doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t get married, then all of a sudden change into this perfect, wonderful, positive wife. You know, it takes that diligent heart work even now. What are you? What are you cultivating in your heart? Are you, are you a person that is thankful and known for your thankfulness and gratefulness to the Lord and to others? Or like you said, you mentioned the word complaining earlier, do you complain about others? So really, really helpful. And like you said, it’s your family culture is going to happen whether you like it or not. So why not be intentional and choose the direction, the path that you’re going to take your, your family down. And the women, I’ve talked about this before, but the women have the ability to set the thermostat, the tone of your home. So that’s where your major influence is going to be. Your attitude, your facial expressions is going to influence the children and they’re going to follow that pattern, so. Yes, and there’s no better way to spend your life. It’s the most rewarding life you can have.

Now, one of the daily habits that we all do, or probably most of us do during the to keep Christ at the center of our day is praying before we eat a meal. But sometimes it can feel just like we’re just doing a ritual. So do you have any helpful wisdom on how do we do this well without letting those types of habits fall into ritual rather than flourishing vibrantly with our love for the Lord? Yes, well, I think the ritualism happens probably when we’re either being lazy or we’re distracted or we’re rushing. You know, like I’m praying because it’s the right thing to do, but I’m, I’m really not putting my heart and effort into it. So I realize this is kind of a simple answer, but I think it’s to pray thoughtfully and sincerely and differently every time. Every time when we pray, whether we’re opening the Bible or we’re praying for a meal, I think it’s so good to start out with thanking the Lord. And every day there’s, there’s fresh new things to thank him for. So keeping that in mind, don’t have a mantra memorized. You know, it’s not now I lay me down to sleep. It’s remembering that we’re speaking to the Almighty God who’s in heaven, who also happens to be our loving Father. He’s a real person and real relationship, and the fact that he’s given us the privilege of prayer is unspeakably precious. So maybe ask yourself, would I pray this common mantra if other people were around? I mean, is this how I pray at church? And if I would put more effort into a prayer sounding godly so that I could impress other people whose opinions of me really matter very little in the in the long run, how much more should I truly put effort into being sincerely godly in my communication with my Heavenly Father?

Yeah, yeah. So, so helpful to keep that in mind. And I was thinking about this just how there was a casting crown song called a slow fade or it’s a slow fade. And that song, I just kept thinking of the lyrics and how if we start neglecting these types of habits, how quickly we can just kind of fade away from our faith and from the Lord. And, and it can happen, you know, relatively quickly if you neglect some of these things. Reading the scriptures, prayer is a big one that can be neglected. Then then we can start to fade away and that love for the Lord can start to wane. And so we have to keep stocking the fire. And it’s another way that praying before a meal is that we are we are being thankful again. We’re being grateful to the Lord. And so and Jesus prayed before he ate. Yes, and sought the Lord in prayer all the time. I yeah, absolutely.

Brett always says with regard to that, that fade. If you’re not growing, you’re drifting. So there’s no, there’s no staying just steady in the water. It’s it’s always going One Direction. And so, but his mercies are new and it’s, it is interesting when you return to the Lord with fervency, he is so he’s there. He’s already ready, His mercy is already available, and and that you can return to that quickly and abundantly. Yes, yeah.

Well, as we’re talking about all of this, and if we’re married someday, we would want a husband to lead in this setting, this tone, this family culture that is centered around Christ. But for someone, maybe a woman is already married and maybe the man isn’t as strong of a spiritual leader as she was hopeful for, maybe a little more passive. So how would you encourage that woman and how can she encourage her husband? Yeah, this is such an important question because frankly, there’s just a lot of ladies that deal with this. And, you know, the female instinct, mine included, is to constantly remind the husband and nag him and be disappointed in him and fret over it and guilt trip him. But not only are none of these effective, they’re just not biblical either. So the good news is that the Bible gives us very clear answers about this question. And the first one that we’re going to talk about comes from first Peter 3. And it starts in verse one. It says in the same way you wives be submissive to your own husband, so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be one without a word by the behavior of their wives as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. And so I appreciate these verses because they answer this common question very specifically. You have a wife who has a husband who’s passive or lazy or maybe disobedient to the word, but her job is to still be submissive and chaste in her behavior so that her husband might be 1 without a word by her behavior. So that impulse to use words to harass him, to be the man that he’s supposed to be is, is an incorrect impulse. But rather Peter saying, you know, let’s be an example, that gentle and quiet spirit that adorns us in obedience to God, that keeps us from fear. But there’s more to it than that. That’s, that’s, that’s one aspect of this. But of course, the Scripture gives us a fuller picture. So I want to elaborate on this. The second thing is that first Timothy 412 says Us, says to us in speech conduct, love, faith and purity. We are to show ourselves an example to those who believe. So another powerful gift that a husband gives her wife, I’m sorry, a wife gives her husband is her example. And this is a godly example that doesn’t nag and prove to be arrogant, but it rather it bears things, it hopes things, it endures things. It’s a joyful spirit. That’s a tremendous help and a conviction to to a husband. He’s not going to be motivated when he comes home and he just sees that familiar look of disappointment and judgement from his wife. Let him come and do a smile and a kiss and a hopeful wife who does him good and not evil all the days of her life and and sets that example.

Now, third, this is so important. It’s not like we’re in this on our own. We want to be women of prayer who take this to the Lord. We don’t want to be also just going to the Lord and say Lord change my husband, change my husband. We want to ask the Lord to work in his heart. We want to see our husbands be men that honor God and and the joy that that will bring him. So pray out of a sincere love and desire for his good, not just a respite from your own challenges. James 516 says, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

And then lastly, in relation to her husband, a wife really does have the ability to confront a Christian husband and sin and to call him to repentance. Second Timothy 225 says with gentleness, correct those who are in opposition if perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses. So you know, if a wife is going to make a humble correction of her husband. Find a good time. Don’t do it when he’s hungry. Don’t do it when he walks in the door. Find a good time. Have scripture that pertained the area so that it’s not just your opinion, it’s the word of God. Be gracious, be appealing, be humble just as we should be when we’re confronting anyone and and try to work with him. But then, you know, at that point, let’s say she’s she’s done those things and there’s not improvement. We kind of come back to the question of, OK, what does she do now? Should should she take the reins? And you know, you kind of mentioned this before, but what is a mother to do in terms of training her children if her husband’s not taking the lead? We’ve got really good answers on that from Deuteronomy 6 and also back to Second Timothy. In Deuteronomy 6, God gives this command to the people of Israel and everybody knows it. And he didn’t just give the command of the fathers. He gave it to every person in the nation and some to specific specifically to parents when he said love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. These words which I’m commanding you today will be on your heart. Now here’s where this comes in. Moms, teach them diligently to your sons and talk of them when you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. So let’s just think about this really practically, these verses are very intentionally describing the daily rhythms and mundundities of life, right? It’s like when you’re in the kitchen, when you go to Walmart, when it’s nap time, when you get up from nap time and, and who’s with a, who’s with their mother more or with who’s, who’s with the child the most? It’s it’s almost always going to be the mother. So the spiritual training of the children, it is the job of the mother in large part as the one who spends the most time with them. And, and that’s the, you know, how we spend that time and what we say to them. God has guided us in that and he’s given us certain things, certain requirements that we’re to teach the kids. But also, and I just think it’s encouraging. In Second Timothy 15, we’re told of Timothy’s mother and his grandmother and that they had the responsibility for his spiritual training. His dad was not a part of the picture. And Paul speaks of Timothy’s sincere faith, which we see in chapter 3, and then like says that he could be, you know, on his mother’s knee, became convinced of the truth. He knew the sacred writings that give wisdom. So I will say, ladies, really think about this when you’re looking at marriage material. Is he going to lead our family? Is he is he the one I want to have disciple our children? Do I hear from him words of life? Do I hear from him words of wisdom? Do I feel that that’s going to to become a part of the children’s life? But if you find yourself eventually in a position where the husband is more passive, maybe he’s in a season of weakness, you have things to be faithful about. You’ve got to study the sacred scriptures. You’ve got to put your children on your knee and give them the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Lead with the Lord through prayer for your husband to be the man that God’s calling him to be. And for your children, pray that they’ll honor and please the Lord all their life. But just remember, we moms don’t get a pass on teaching and training if our husbands are LAX in this area. If he is, I will say that is a true trial. And I can appreciate that. But you know, Hebrews 12/12 when it’s talking about our response to trials, which I would put this in the category of. And Hebrews says strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble and make straight the paths of your feet so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. And I want to say in just applying that if you’re in this situation, don’t keep spiraling in fear or despair or sin and make things worse in your home. But no, set your heart, set your mind straight and commit to doing what is right before the Lord. And for your children. You could be doing this with no one can know your husband. And you say, what do you do if I had a woman say to me, what if you do if your husband’s not doing it and your kids are following his example, You teach the kids the word and you be that example with cheerful, gracious, generous, hopeful energy. I mean, Romans 12/11 is the perfect verse to kind of sum this up. But not lagging behind in diligence, but fervent in spirit serving the Lord. And that’s the best way that you will serve your family too.

Powerful and I love how you’re putting the focus on what you can do rather than on what the other person is not doing. And that’s going to be a way more productive way for you to use your energy. And then you’re going to be, like you said, focused on the word and on training and teaching and praying and being hopeful. I love that because we have the God of all hope. So don’t be discouraged. God is the one who has all power, can change hearts, even the hardest of hearts. And so our hope is in him on his ability to do the changing and the working in the heart. And we’re just called to be the example and the prayer warrior for our spouse. So, so helpful. And I know some of the ladies listening, maybe many of the ladies listening are not in a position where this is maybe practical at this point of singleness, but it’s a way we store up wisdom. And that’s biblical. We want to know these things in advance. And also we know so many people who are married and are in some of these situations that we can encourage and know how to biblically encourage. So if you know someone who’s who needs to hear some of this wisdom that Marie shared, then please share the episode with them and tuck it away for future reference for yourself. But Marie, it’s so practical. It’s so sweet just to hear that when we live the way that God has designed us to live, it works. It brings joy. The fruit of the Spirit, He blesses it. He blesses our obedience and doesn’t mean that we have a life without trial, but we have a life with hope and joy and so much more infusing even in those trials. And so it’s worth it to follow the Lord and to obey him and to love Him and how we live out His commands. So thank you for diligently teaching us this wisdom. And again, excited to share this with the ladies listening. Thank you so much and thank you for having me.