Connected, Week 6

Stan Dennis | May 21, 2023

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Transcription

Hey, let's give it up for our pastor as well. Come on. He referred to a message last week If you haven't had a chance to hear when him and Janese were up here talking about red flags, or even if you did, go back and listen to it again. There's something about a leader that tells you what to do and then one that emulates what they're actually doing. Yeah. That's a transparent leader, and that's one that you can trust and one that you can follow, and that's why we're so healthy. Amen. We have leaders that do their best to be transparent before us. Yes. All right, we're going to jump in, but lemme tell you, my wife is right here, so she's not amening then. I'm probably lying, so I just went off and got a little evangelistic on you something, but hey, I'm telling you, wasn't the worship amazing?

And the reason I'm saying that, I'm not just trying to be cute and say, wasn't the worship great? Good. It's always great, but I'm saying this, we can carry a lot in our arms, but in reality, we can only use what we can grab in our hands, and there may have been something during that worship that was what you needed, and now the rest of the word, maybe we can help kind of water some of that in, but as we go with that same analogy, you can hold a lot in yarn, but you can only use what you can hold in your hands. Do this because we're focused today, is going to be about marriage. Don't grab things that, oh Lord, Mandy needs this. She needs that, and I'm storing up things that I'm going to go after. Mandy, you don't have any right to go after and change anybody else.

You go after the low hanging fruit, which is us. All right? Those are watching online. We're so glad that you're tuning in. There is no time or distance in the spirit, so let this word speak to you. Let the Lord speak to you the same way He's going to be speaking to us this morning. Sir, you ready to get in? Yes. All right. Let's just say a quick word and jump in. Father, we're so thankful, Lord, we wanted to give you all the praise we wanted just to glorify you because nothing means anything if you're not in the center of it. But Lord, right now, we ask you illuminate your word. Yes. Make it so vivid, so real that we go beyond just seeing it and agreeing with it, but yet we see how to apply it, how to live it out. We ask you to do that in Jesus precious name, amen.

Amen. Amen. I'm going to start off with, it's a study that I read by Harvard. I thought he was kind of unique. It's an 85 year old study, and their whole thing was this. They wanted to find out what makes us happy in life. 85 years, it's very in depth. They had a lot of people that were going through the process and they did this. Every two years, they're revisiting these same people and it's very detailed in everything that they're going through, and at the end of that 85 years, and again, their goal was what makes us happy in life, this is the result. Contrary to what you might think, it's not career achievement, money, exercise, or even a healthy diet. The most consistent finding that they learned over their 85 year study was this. What keeps us happier, healthier, and helps us live longer is positive relationships and then that period.

Now, listen, they didn't put the dot period. They literally put the word period. Wow. It's kind of like Harburg, I guess, was looking over to Yale in Princeton. Call me a liar. I don't, but I don't doubt it at all. Positive relationships. Matter of fact, I'm want to take it a little bit a step different. Healthy relationships. We need those as well as we need to be those. Matter of fact, I'll take you to a study that's a little bit older than that. We find it in Genesis two 18. The Lord said, it's not good that man live alone, right? I'll make him a helper who is just right for him. I love that word right there though. Helper, we use the term a lot. Help mate, your spouse is your help mate. They're, I tell couples, especially young couples, but it applies to all of us.

Your spouse is like the icing on the cake. They can make everything better. They can make everything difficult too, but they're the icing on the cake. But then also say this, remember, they are the icing on the cake. Your spouse is never ever the cake. They're not your source of joy, identity, purpose. Now, as a spouse, I can see it and draw it out of you. We need to be each other's biggest cheerleader, right? Let me say it like this. If you're not your spouse's biggest cheerleader, I promise you, the enemy is interviewing people and sending them by you better Make sure that you are cheering your spouse on, man. Okay? I love that. Alright? Yes.

Let's shift gears right here. Rev it up and shift it down. Mandy and I say this, this is not in your notes, but you can write it down. Never, ever stop pursuing or protecting your spouse's heart. Go. You got to protect it. You got to pursue it. Well, this study was very good, but there's another study I like that's about 2000 years old. It's an Ephesians four 16, and I love this verse again, we need healthy relationships. It says this, Ephesians four 16, he speaking of the Lord, he makes the whole body fit together perfectly. Now, we could stop right there except the word verse goes on to say as meaning, this is conditional, or let me say it like this. The Lord is going to do all the heavy lifting. Yes, if we'll do what is followed right here as each part does its own special work.

Now, we got to pause right there because I don't know what's been spoken over you. I don't know if you had parents, grandmother, teacher, coach, friends that said, go for it, man. You can do it. I don't know what was spoken over you if they said you're never going to mount to anything, but I can tell you what the word says. Yes, it says you have a special work inside of you. It doesn't mean that you even know it's there, but I'm telling you, you are made with purpose and you have a special work. Not only that, I need it. It goes on to say it helps the other parts grow so that the whole body, now, remember the study we read. Listen to this. The whole body is healthy, growing and full of love. We need each other. We need each other because we're better together.

Matter of fact, I think you can jot this down and look at it later because I'm going to kind of skim the parts of the entire chapter, but probably the qualities that we need to see in a healthy relationship we find within a healthy church. In Acts chapter two, we know Acts Cha. Acts chapter two is the outpoint of the Holy Spirit. We know it's the age of the church, the dispensation of the church age, which we're still in, but there are four key qualities that are in every healthy church that we see in Acts chapter two. Now, here's the thing. How does the Lord refer to the relationship he has with the church calls it a bride, right? Well, in Acts chapter two, we see these four qualities. Number one, they were full of the spirit. They know how to hear the voice of the Lord.

Number two, they knew who they were in Christ because there's this boldness that came on them, not arrogance, confidence. They knew who they were in Christ. Now, the third one, there are miracles that begin to sign them and number four people were coming to Christ. You see those four qualities right here in Embassy City. That's how it's a healthy church, but those same four qualities need to be seen in us, in our spouse, and especially our friends, if they're all the way up there in our confidants. You need to see somebody that knows how to hear the voice of the Lord. They rightly divide the word of truth. They hear when the Lord speaks, and they also are confident of who they are in Christ. They know their identity. Matter of fact, it's not ironic or by chance that identity is being attacked in the church and in our country and everywhere else.

Right now, two weeks ago, talking with the young professionals here, and I rattled off a stat that I don't know if they knew, but no generation ever before has been attacked with their identity like Gen Z and Gen X, right? 56% of Gen X question their purpose, their identity. 70% of millennials does my life have meaning is what I do of any value. See, if we don't understand, this is a very characteristic trait that was in the church that needs to be within us, which to be in our marriage. Yes. If we're questioning our identity, then it's one of the four key things that already has a tilt. Then you get in and obviously the miracles, there needs to be things that are following us. We're speaking the word and blessings seem to follow us as well as our people with what we do and what we say.

Are they being directed to Christ? Those are the four traits of a healthy individual, a healthy church, but just cause you were healthy doesn't mean you stay healthy, right? It's like, yeah, you should have seen me in college. Well, I'm not in college. What am I doing to stay healthy? The Lord doesn't just leave us alone. He goes on and Acts chapter two, verse 42. He gives us three things, right on how to stay healthy, not only for the church but us as individuals. Now, the first and the third are so easy to understand. We just grabbed those. It says they continued in the apostles doctrine, which is the word of God. We must have, the word faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word God. We must have that word. Well, the third is prayer, right? Nothing dynamic happens without prayer. Matter of fact, it says you sometimes you have not because you ask not, and sometimes you ask ais wrong motives.

We need to line up the word with our prayer, but here's the thing. He also has something about in the middle of that, that's the breaking of bread and fellowship. It's in my opinion that we either the church as a whole doesn't fully value the breaking of bread and fellowship. We must be coming together. Listen, I can find scripture precedent for a healing center or revival center, a worship center, a teaching center, all those you can find within scripture, but none of them are a church until we're in each other's life. But that means we got to get up and close, and now of a sudden you can see, wow, I'm not perfect. Nobody is. And when we say marriages, mainly talk to marriages, we usually have open hands, meaning there's no stones and there are no perfect marriages, but there are some great marriages and they take a great deal of work, but we got to work smart.

How do we do that? Well, we're going to get into this morning, the title of the message is this, another level. Another level. Don't look around at anybody else's marriage. Don't look around about their relationships. You look at yours and let's be in the process of taking it to another level. Good to take it to another level is not just going up, it's also going deeper. Good because we need a strong foundation for what we're building on top of it, so we must be investing, but we got to invest wisely. Anybody ever made a bad investment?

I've invested in some cryptocurrency, but let me give you a clue that it didn't go off in my little radar, but when the first words of the phone call were, Hey, dude, or Hey, bro, that is obviously not your financial advisor. That's a good friend who's all excited, and next thing you know, jump in and you're doing something that it didn't have the return that you thought it would. I'm joking, but sometimes we think we're doing things in our marriage that is an investment, but there is no fruit at all, right? So we need to be wise investors, right? God created man in marriage in a perfect environment, a pleasure and delight. Husbands and wises both have a deep need for intimacy. Intimacy, right is a byproduct directly connected to unity. See, the problem is, Mandy and I have a message we call the danger of drifting.

The very word implies no intentionality. We didn't mean to, we just drifted. I've talked with couples, set in town counseling and say, man, we just grew apart. I said, bull, there's no such thing. You were tore apart either intentionally or unintentionally because you neglected it. But here's the thing, there's a lot of things that are easy to see. We know if sin is entered in, I'm not going to go down that road. I'm going to go after. One of the things that is more subtle when we talk about the danger of drifting, two areas that are high priority areas, high priority. Lemme say it again, high priority areas, but if they get out of proper priority from a season to a lifestyle, you're headed for problems. And those two are this kids and work.

Now, I intentionally kind of let that set for a second because of this. Where did your mind go? I've sat with individuals in counseling with them, and listen, if they're in your mind, well, bless God. I'm not let going to let the world raise my kids. Or somebody said, Hey, I want my kids to have it better than I did, and I'm like, well, who you arguing with? Those are good words, but if you said them because you're trying to defend yourself, then you may have one foot already in air. Oh, wow. You may have put so much attention on a good thing that you've neglected the proper thing, and then we drift, right? And then we say, I don't know you anymore because we haven't been intentional about going after each other. I said, you got to be your biggest cheerleader. You got to know the cheers, right? You got to know them. That's right.

The danger of drifting is one of the biggest scenes that we need to watch out for because marriage is designed to be the most intimate relationship on earth, right? Intimacy is an inner closeness, a depth of relationship, but if we're not careful, we'll allow things to get an in and we will drift from something that is meant to be so precious. Now, what that is, if we're not careful, we can allow past pain or the potential of present pain to cause us to, let's say it this way. We share all the rooms in the house, but we don't share all the rooms in our heart, and we find margin for ministry. We find margin for our marriage. This is just I, I'm okay with just this amount of happiness, and that's all the pain I can deal with anymore. I can't go there, right? Because that was so much pain.

I can't do that again. So I create margin. We're happy. We're not full on, and just union, union is the difference of just coming together. But unity is where there's power. There's purpose, there's passion. That's what we want in our marriage, but if we're not careful, we drift. Sometimes it's intentional. Sometimes Mandy and I, about a year ago, were leading a retreat for a company, and I remember the guy coming up to me in the early morning, the first session of our last morning. He said, pastor Stan said about two in the morning, I wake up, my wife is sitting up in bed over me. She's crying. She has a knife in her hand. No, no knife. No knife. I'm just making sure you're in the story. Hang on, this guy. Not okay. What happened? You back in, Mount you back in? No. She sat in there crying and she said, I'm so sorry.

And on his heart was like, oh, sorry for what? His way, what you about to confess said, I've held something against you that you've never deserved, and she begins to share a heart, and what happened? She was married at 19 to her knight and shining armor that was cheating on her before. While they're engaged in after, and that marriage is over. Within one year with four years later, she meets this gentleman. They have a great marriage, two wonderful kids, but she created margin for her marriage because she opened up a lot of the rooms in the house, found a level of happiness, but I can't deal just in case I can't deal with that much pain. And when Mandy and I were sharing, all of a sudden it sparked her heart and said, I want to be fully transparent. I want to be open with you.

But here's the thing. We say this around here that we're hot, honest, open, and transparent. You can't have full honesty, transparency, and that open. It can't happen without an inner lining of trust. You must have a safe atmosphere as we go after it. So let's jump into this. We're going to talk about four of the best investments you can make in the areas that you need to make them. You must invest in your marriage. Number one, value. Value. Every person has the need to feel valued after your personal relationship with the Lord. Marriage must be valued above all others for it to work. Here's the thing about value. The Lord kind of got onto me. This is years ago, but just cause I love Mandy, I loved him. We had a great marriage, but the Lord just kind of said, Stan, you got a little twist on this value, said you love her, you value her, but you're also kind of flipped over to the point where you valued her more than what she brings to you than who she actually is.

I think my first example, that was early on. Early on, I loved having a Mandy by my side. I took the youth pastor at a very large church, and I was just jazzed, man. I think we had seven high schools within it, and man, I'm pressing the flesh. I'm at Friday night football. We're first quarter over here, second there, halftime. I'm in everybody's life, and man, we're getting at it and I'm dragging Mandy everywhere. And then I got a phone call after about two weeks that I got a phone call from the pastor. He said, Stan, want to see you? And I knew, I didn't know if it was going to be a sash or a metal, but I'm about to this. Yeah. I'm like, well, I should prepare a small speech because I'm be humble. Yeah. I walk in there thinking I'm going to get commended, and he says, what are you doing? And I'm think, oh, he needs my help. He needs to know what I'm doing, so it'll help the church. No, no. He said, what are you doing, Stan? You cannot keep dragging Mandy all these places. I told you I want you to be in their life, but that didn't mean you're living with them.

I'm like, well, so there's no sash. There's no, okay. That was the first thing that I realized. I didn't mean it. I just love my Mandy candy on my arm. I like that man. And we're running here and there and I love it, but all of a sudden, sometimes she wasn't just locking arm. I felt like I was dragging her. I started realizing then, and it didn't just stop. Then there's a few other times that I realized I was valuing Mandy more for what she brought to me than who she really was. But here's the deal. You cannot fully appreciate anything unless you fully understand the value. Have you ever, had you seen any of those shows where somebody, Hey, can I get a hundred dollars for that and say, dude, that's worth a hundred thousand dollars. They're walking around with something that had no idea how valuable it is. Your spouse is the son of the king.

Right?

She's a daughter of the king. I didn't say they're living like it, but that's who they are. Sometimes as a spouse, we got to draw that out of them by lovingly encouraging, but we got to have value. Number two is energy. Your relationship requires daily work. Even if you marry the perfect person, there'll still be emotional and spiritual work that you have to do energy. So let me ask this one like this. Who's getting your best? Who's getting your leftovers? Man, leftovers are good on Thanksgiving afternoon. That's it. You cannot live off leftovers if every day you're going to work and you're giving your best because you have to, and then when you get home, your spouse is just living off. I don't mean having leftovers, I mean living off of it.

Now, there's nothing like being honest. I mean, Mandy and I have learned, it took us a while, but we learned there's some days and to come home and Mandy, I got to talk to you. He said, absolutely, but babe, I just dealt with something. Can you give me, typically I'm an eight or nine, but I tell you what right now, Darlan, I'm a three. Can you give me 30 minutes? Because I want to make sure that I'm valuing you and truly listening to you. That's okay to be that honest, right? But I can't say, you know what? Hey, give me about a year. We don't get to do that, right?

Hey, pastor Tim talked a couple of weeks ago about our friends, those confidants. Yeah. Yeah. That top level. What energy are you bringing to that now? I think when you first establish, man, I need that guy. I need that guy. Oh my gosh, I need them. These guys are leaders. I need them speaking into my life, and then it's like I lock 'em in a door and then I come back whenever I want to. If they're your confidence, what energy are you putting into it? All of a sudden, one day you call him up minute, guy's, not even answering my phone. I just spoke with him nine months ago, the last time I needed something, right? We're talking about investing and all we're doing is making withdrawals. See, sometimes our marriage is very close to insufficient funds, and there's some marriages that are living on a line of credit. We have got to sow. Oh yeah. Come on now. Be careful. Be careful. We've got to be careful. That energy that we bring to the table, is it constant good?

Is it continual? And even the energy, the investment that we bring, we have to make sure it's the right investment. Yes. The reason I say that is it took me a while because I was investing, doing things for our marriage, and I'm thinking, I'm hitting home runs, man. I'm knocking it out of the park. I mean, it's been a rough week. Mandy doesn't know, but she comes in, I got a little backpack. We're going to go up. We're going to go on a couple of nights, get away. We're going to do this. And after it's over. Manny, what'd you think darling said? Oh, that was nice. Nice. Are you out of your mind? Nice. The reason is because I was matching Mandy with my love language.

I think I'm hitting home runs and I'm just slapping singles.

And I realize Mandy would rather, Hey, I just want to go in my backyard. I just want to, to put the umbrellas up. I want to sit in my cushion. I want to just have my little dog and I want to lock the door. Nobody put the phone away, and I'm like, okay. That gets me twitching because I'd rather let you, you're talk about bringing other people as well. We're going to have a hope. No, I had to learn to value her. That required me to know her, and therefore when I start investing into her, I can't invest just what I like. I got to make sure I'm meeting her needs.

So do you know your spouse's need? Do you know what they like? See, the third one is sacrifice. Selfishness is the greatest sin that threatens marriage. Yes. Sacrifice means that I'm going from the me to the we. Yes. I'm trying to think of us now, not just me, and we started thinking of sacrifice. This was something the Lord did probably about 15 years ago. I'm praying, and Mandy, I mean, she's happy, smiling, she's not depressed, she's doing well, but the Lord said, Stan, how long has it been since you talked to Mandy about her dreams? Immediately, I'm equating dreams. I'm like, man, she's happy. She's smiling, she's singing, she's right. I mean, Lord, she's gelling, and it's like the Lord said, you're talking about her giftings. I'm talking about her dreams. So we did one of those hypothetical on a date night, Hey, if money and time are no object, what would you like to do? What would you think about? And she began to share some things and we have a great relationship, but she began to share some things that I didn't have a clue about, and then the Lord said, Stan, Mandy has been supporting your dreams with her gifts, and now it's time for you to start supporting her dreams with your gifts.

Yeah, that sounded good, but it was a, yeah, yeah, yeah. I made a t-shirt and everything, but no, you got to start doing it. You got to start investing it, and it hit me, wow, are we making the right investments? Am I coming alongside cheering you? Because if we're not careful as a spouse, you need to be the one that rips the lids off of your spouse's dreams. Lemme tell you, lids are lies based on facts. I always wanted to, but man, we don't have the money. A lid gets on there. I always wanted to, but man, they were just with the kids. We don't have any more time. You put a lid on, you have to be the one that gets into your spouse and you love on them. I know know, listen to me, faith is not denying the facts. It's putting facts and proper perspective with God's truth, right?

But I'm going to look at that and say, yes, I know we have limited funds, but what can we do? What could be step one toward your dream, right? Because I'm not my dream. Let's go after yours. I love sitting down with young couples and especially early on, and they're talking about their dreams and man, it's so vivid, it's so clear. Wow, hers is so vivid. That is awesome. Hey, which one's going to lay down your dream for the first 10 years? And they look at each other. I'm like, no. That never even crosses their mind. Well, how are you going to blend this if you're not careful? We go into our natural form of communication, which is about convincing, and in that conversation, I will defend an if necessary attack. And there's a difference between being proactive versus just reactive, let alone being radioactive.

We want to make sure that we're proactive in our conversation to start to start. What does that look like? What does that mean? How are we going to go after that? Yeah. Good. Very good. Sacrifice. The last one, trust. It's the biggest one. It just fits in teeth, so it's got to be the last one. It's probably the first one. Mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, we relate to each other in a respectful environment because our feelings are sacred. But how do we get past hearing words to hearing the heart? Hearing words is a lot of the what, but when you hear the heart, you're beginning to hear the why. I sat him with a couple that had a big blow up and they begin to share about, I mean, they're just going at it, and I'm like, okay, tell me what was initially said. The guy said, I come home.

I'm all j. I said, I know, just know you're building it up, but tell me what you said. Said, I came home and I told her, I said, listen, we have a great opportunity, but it's going to require us to move. Okay, and what did she say? She said, I said, no, there's no way we're moving. And boom, it was on. I said, okay, stop. I said, listen, when you came home and said that, what was in your mind? So when she said, no, no, it was like I was talking to my dad, you're a failure. Everything you touch will never, oh, never works. Why aren't you more like your brother? And she immediately, I never said that. I never said that. I said, I know, but that's what he's hearing. But wait a minute, when he came home and said that and you said, no, no, we're not moving.

That was his words, but what did you hear? She said, I know what it's like to see my dad's vehicle repossessed in the middle of the night. I know what it's like to lose our house. I know what it's like to move into a rental home and lose that and then go into an apartment and switch schools and my kids. I'm never going to let that happen to my kids, and he just, I will give my life for my kids. Yeah. See, they both stepped up after they navigated through the watts and realized, wait a minute, we're actually on each other's side, but what we stopped at was just hearing these initial words versus getting into each other's hearts. Can I tell you, if you're ever in a conversation with your spouse and they seem to overreact, typically it's one or two things. Either they're tired and you're dealing with leftovers.

They don't have a lot of energy, or it could be a trigger. Wow. It could be step. Something stepped on and you don't know the picture that just went in their mind from their past, and I don't want that pain again. So that's why I created margin in my life. We're not going there because if we go there, this is what can happen, and I'm not facing that again, but it requires us to have trust to go that right. I'm going to wrap up with giving you two different forms of communication. If we don't find it within scripture, the best is a bandaid, but when we look at scripture and we see this, David said early in the morning, I will sink thing. That's your date night. Can I tell you on your date night, make sure that you keep it your dream night. Just keep it about fun and dreams and go after talking. Here's another statement. Now, this statement alone will probably help you in your marriage business anywhere, and this one didn't come to me on the mountaintop when things are going well in my life and the Lord gives it to me, no, it came in the valley where it was like a rope that helped get me out, and the Lord just burned it on my heart and said, Stan, if you'll ask more questions before you make statements, it'll save you on. Apologies.

Good.

It'll keep us from being lazy listeners and lazy leaders. What I mean by that is sometimes we listen long enough to, I think I've got it, and if I've got, I'm a leader, man, I got a lot of experience and I listen long enough and I'm 80% right. Well, what about that 20%? The thing is, you are a leader. I had the information. If I would just listed longer, I could have helped fully. We got to keep diving into each other's hearts. If we're not careful, we take each other for granted. We go from unity to union. If we want to take it to another level, then we must invest into it. So date night, it's not a luxury. It's a necessity. Take the dollar sign off of it too. It's not about what you do, it's about connecting. It needs to be frequent. Now, man, there's a season of life and it was a date walk.

It was a date set out in the backyard. It was a date. Get the kids down so we have time, but you make sure you keep it. Now, here's the last one. Good, because we call these date night destroyers. If you're not on top of it, if you're not careful with it, you just blow up. Date night, date night's going so good, man, we're laughing. We're having fun, and oh, hey, by the way, I noticed we're almost out of dog food. Instead of getting more, because you know dog's old, why don't I, I'm off tomorrow. I can just put rover down myself. Hey, what time's that movie start, man, you don't interject something heavy on date night. Hey, by the way, are we going to put grandma on a home or what? Listen, hey, we got to go.

You need to set it up properly. Mandy and I call it TPC time, place content, right? Time, place content, and Mandy and I right now, maybe every three weeks, maybe once a month, but it works like this. Hey, when we go get coffee next week, I need to talk about, she brings one thing. I bring one thing, good, and it keeps away from two horrible forms of communication. One is a surprise conversation where you've got facts and you're just catching 'em off guard. The other is the authoritative. I'm the principal, she's a student. If I like what I hear, you get resets. No, no, no. We're equal here, but start putting the tpc. You make sure that's your deeper conversation. I said, well, what's a scriptural reference for that? In the New Testament says, study to show thyself approved under God, a workman that need us not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. There are some deep things that we need to deal with. Just don't do it on date night. Yeah, okay, keep it fresh. I'm going to pray right now.

We've gone over a lot of things pretty quick, but I want to ask you, Mandy says it's a great deal. We both do, but marriage is the union of two quick forgivers. You may be here and realize the very first step is to get down to the foundation. We can't build anything up until we make sure the foundation is strong and there's some things that we need to get clear. I need to ask forgiveness. I need to step up and do this. Don't wait. Do your part. There's some of you that are here that you got a pretty good marriage, but you realize, normally started speaking that in reality, we've drifted. We've created margin for our marriage. We're happy, but there are some things that I just can't go there because I'm afraid of the pain.

Father, I ask you, give comfort, give peace, give insight. Let 'em see how to navigate these waters and that they're not navigating them alone. Yes, you're there with them. You'll step by them. Step with them. Give them the words, father, and if we need help, then we're quick to reach out because we can't navigate everything just by ourselves. Father, we look at all this and real realize it's a mirror of the church, so if our marriages aren't healthy, then the church is not healthy. That means we're hindered on what we can do for you. Father, help us get healthy by taking our marriages and our relationships to another level. In Jesus precious name, amen.