Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
Watering Your Marriage Garden
349: Pastor Plek and Pastor Holland unpack Song of Solomon chapter 7 to reveal how affirmation and intentional communication help marriages thrive like well-maintained gardens. If you want your marriage to flourish, be intentional about speaking words of affirmation to your spouse and nurturing even the smallest signs of connection between you.
Got questions? Text us at 737-231-0605!
Like, share, and subscribe! We love seeing and responding to your reviews and comments.
Support the show: https://wbcc.churchcenter.com/giving
and welcome back to pastor plex podcast. I'm your host, pastor plec, along with none other than holland greg, pastor from eastside community church.
Speaker 1:Glad you are joining us this morning thanks, chris, afternoon afternoon so, if you didn't know it, uh, holland preached this past sunday at wells branch community church and it was a delight and an honor to have him and he brought the word and brought some fire, and so I wanted to do a little bit of review on Song of Solomon, chapter 7, and to see if any of our fans out there were listening and caught that he actually started in Chapter 6, even though he didn't have the verse on the screen. Should we talk about that real quick, about the debated verse of verse 13? Let's do it. It says, using the ESV return return O Shulamite, return return that we may look upon you. And then Solomon goes. Why should you look upon the Shulamite as a dance before two armies? Talk to me about your thoughts on that verse.
Speaker 2:So this is where you're on the heels of conflict reconciliation, yep, and you have the others, the members of the community, kind of speaking into the relationship, yep, and saying you know, return, return, as in like you know, let's continue, all of us together, you know, like this, I don't know communal type conversation, whereas the groom is saying, you know, no, it's time for us to have some time alone, the specific like.
Speaker 2:I got the nkjv here where it says what would you see in the shulamite, as it were, the dance of the two camps? There's a lot of ways that verse is translated, interesting, um. So several different interpretations on what exactly that means, I think. In general, it's clear, though, that he is pulling her away from the community, the others, the crowd, and speaking tenderly, one-on-one to her, because in chapter seven he begins speaking directly to her, not about her, you know, but directly to her, and complimenting her, and complimenting her in very, you know, intimate kind of language, and so it's clear that he's saying, hey, it's the time of like, kind of us all together is over now. One on one time with my, with my I totally agree.
Speaker 1:I think that's and I you know there's so much here the the dance before two camps or two armies. Do you think there's any correlation between Jacob jacob wrestling the lord? I know this might be a little bit of a stretch, but I think the two camps uh is referred to as manahayim right uh and manahayim, and I think that's what the same maha naim, maha naim, and I think that's what that was called back in Genesis. I'm going to go with 25-ish, isn't it like 30s.
Speaker 2:I think it's in the 30s.
Speaker 1:Genesis 32?.
Speaker 2:Maybe 25 to 32.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somewhere in that range. Let me see if I can find it. Maybe you're right. Is it Genesis 32? Yeah, 32, verse 2.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Jacob saw them. He said this is God's camp. So he called the name of that place Mahanaim. And so I was like what is that about? Is there any reference there from Solomon back to Jacob, not wrestling with God, perhaps, but seeing God's, jacob's ladder and the camp called Mahanaim? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know. There's no in that passage. There's nothing about a dance. There's no dancing there.
Speaker 1:Except there's the wrestling with God. Hold on, hold on. In chapter seven it starts off with her sandaled feet, so that could be a reference to her dancing skills, okay.
Speaker 2:I was saying in Genesis 32, though. Oh right. Of course there's nothing about a dance going on there, right, right, like make a connection. If it was like you know, a wrestling match, a fight, a you know something, but a dance it's like that's pulling from some something that you know we're not, or maybe there was a dance that happened at the location where jacob's ladder took place.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I don't know. I I just was like I was looking for a, an even greater old testament, deep meaning, and I think I'm just I'm pulling the air and I can't figure out anything yeah, yeah so I do think it's just.
Speaker 1:It's just transitioning from hey, everyone is excited to see that this couple is reconciled and now to further reconcile. They are going to go have intimacy with just those two together, and that's where he showers her with compliments and I think this really resonated with a lot of people. On Sunday, If you weren't there, Holland brought up his garden and he showed two pictures. He didn't take a lot of people on Sunday If you weren't there, Holland brought up his garden and he showed two pictures. He didn't take a picture of a heap of dirt. Yeah, I should have had that. Well, you probably could have gotten any heap of dirt and just showed that.
Speaker 1:And everyone would have believed you. But I think you don't take pictures of dirt, right, because that's not impressive. You only take pictures of your garden that flourishes, and the same way, you probably don't want to show off your marriage as just a heap of dirt. You want to show off a blooming garden or a blooming marriage, right? So talk to us about really where you were going with this idea of watering the garden and then transitioning to marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so use the garden image, because it's the main kind of imagery being used. I almost feel like.
Speaker 1:For those of you who remember Phil Kwan, Phil Kwan went to camp illustrations. Every time You're going to the garden illustration.
Speaker 2:It's springtime, all right. This time of year, every year, every year around the Super Bowl, you're going to get sports illustrations from me. That's fair. It's springtime, you're going to get garden illustrations. Do sports illustrations? Yeah, I went and I was shamed into learning sports specifically for my. My preaching to connect with that's right.
Speaker 1:That's the only way you can, because everybody knows that sports illustrations are the way to a man's heart. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:That's right, um. So yeah, this is springtime, though, and so you got to use the garden stuff and, like jesus, you know, he, he, he talked about farming basically every other story and so I feel like he's slightly justified. Can I? Can I just go with this?
Speaker 1:isn't it odd that jesus talked about farming when he could talk about carpentry? Yeah like, why not talk about boards and planes and plumb lines?
Speaker 2:you know? Um, that's a good question. When we get to heaven, I I'll ask top 10.
Speaker 1:Like why? Why all the illustrations not about your, your craft? Maybe because he didn't want to be limited as just a carpenter?
Speaker 2:There you go. Well, there's something about you know, it's not just um song of Solomon and Jesus's parables. Like, again, I brought this up in the sermon too, from the very beginning, like, the first scene we really see of humanity in the Bible is in the garden, and it's the picture of bliss and perfection before sin entered the world. They're in a garden, things are blooming, flourishing, growing, thriving, and so that image in terms of like, something that is healthy, something that is as it should be, a garden, a vineyard, is often used to depict that, and so I gave a few examples of that from the Old Testament, from the Psalms, and Song of Solomon uses garden imagery a ton. So I showed some pictures of my garden and I was bringing up, though the whole point of it with this passage in chapter seven is saying that you don't get a flourishing, blooming garden, um, you know, automatically or accidentally it takes work to um.
Speaker 2:You gotta prepare the soil, plant the seeds and water it. Yeah, and if you, if you water it, if you do the work, you can expect it to be healthy and grow under normal circumstances, right, um? But if you don't, why should you expect it to be healthy? If you're not doing the work of watering your garden, it's going to dry, it's going to the plants will be wilted.
Speaker 1:Wilted. Is that right Wilted? You said yeah, wilted is fine, but you said wilter, wilter.
Speaker 2:That was hilarious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I knew I said something I remember I was like you know, I'm going to let that one roll and wither. I think I mixed those. Yeah, yeah, but you did wilter, wiltered, maybe it was wiltered. I was. As I was listening to you talk, I looked around to see if anybody else was gone, and nobody.
Speaker 2:They were like yeah, wilter just say it confidently, yeah, yeah, I knew I was like I said something wrong and then right now it just came to mind again. But you know, not thriving not thriving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice wilter. Uh, maybe we're making a word and maybe it'll just all start right here.
Speaker 2:There we go. It's a good word Wilter, wiltering, it's wiltering, it feels like a real word, anyway. So my point was in chapter seven, the husband, his words of affection, his compliments are essentially, you know, in the, the metaphor of the garden. He is watering the garden that god has given him. His words are nourishing and nurturing his relationship with his wife, her heart. And then, you see, you know, starting in verse 10, her response is that she receives and reciprocates. So she receives what he has to say, instead of criticizing it or putting it down or denying it, dismissing it. She receives it. She says my beloved is mine, I am my beloved's and his desire is for me. In verse 10. And then verse 11 through 13, she basically is like let's go, let's go get alone together. I want to give you my love. And so you see that her confidence in his love and her desire for him comes as the result of his words of affection for her. So, essentially, him showering her with affection is like watering this garden that bears the fruit.
Speaker 1:So what I liked about and I think what some might have found difficult was you put a lot of the onus some might have found difficult. Was you put a lot of the onus and I think rightfully so on the men to water the marriage and the relationship and really like it's your job to do that. Now I think maybe women were maybe listening to that and they're like well, I'm screwed, it's never going to happen. I don't know if you don't know who I'm married to, it's hopeless. My husband does not do those things, so I guess I just have to sit here in sorrow. What do you think would be some good insight for a wife who's experiencing that?
Speaker 2:Pray number one, pray for well, number one. One, I'd say, in Christianity there's no such thing as hopeless. You know, like there's always. God is a miracle. That's what I wanted to end the sermon with is reminding everyone who the Lord is, that he raises the dead, he brings light out of darkness, you know, he gives sight to the blind. Like that's who God is.
Speaker 2:And so, if you're like there's no way my husband's ever going to become this kind of like, affectionate, loving, um, tender person, um, first and foremost, you got to understand that you're doubting what God can do, right? So we can all understand doubting, uh, people you know, based on your experience of them, and, uh, you know how, how they've treated you, or you know, based on your experience of them, and you know how they've treated you, or you know what their past is and all that. But we can't doubt God and we've got to know that God is able to. He's mighty to save, he's able to change and transform anyone. And so husbands are called to be tender and affectionate, to nourish and cherish their wives. In Ephesians five, right, I think you taught, think you taught maybe a few Sundays ago, on like rendering affection. That's KJV, right? Yeah, it's New King.
Speaker 1:James New King.
Speaker 2:James, yeah, yeah, there you go, rendering the affection due to your wife. You owe your wife affection, nourishment, cherishing her, washing her with water of the word, right, like that's stuff. That's a husband's obligation and responsibility to his wife before.
Speaker 1:God, even if he's not a Christian, which I think is one of the things that's. I think I was looking at Christian memes and it was, you know, john the Baptist. It was like you know, john the Baptist calling out Herod for you know, taking his brother's wife, and you know it was kind of poking fun at people who are super against Christian nationalism because they would say like hey, here's Herod or here's John the Baptist calling out a non-Christian to live as a Christian.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Anyway and I think you can call it husbands to live as Christian husbands, because that's what you're supposed to. However, I do think the reality is, if you're a believing wife and you're married to a nonbeliever, I think 1 Peter 3, 1 through 6 is a great verse to sort of hold on to Like wives. Wives be subject to your own husbands so that, even if some do not obey the word, be subject to your own husband, so that, even if some do not obey the word and I guess you could say that this even if they're a Christian who doesn't obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden purse of the heart, with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is, in God's sight, is very precious, for this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, and you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening which I appreciated the fear, anything that's frightening. So what I hear from that is women, it's going to be on you. If you have a husband who is either A not a Christian, or B just not living like a Christian, then your role is to kind of go over the top in your obedience and respect for him so that he can be won over by your respect.
Speaker 1:And I think when people hear that, they hear oh so you want me to be a doormat, right? And I think that's a challenge that us, as two men, might have a little difficulty in managing. I think what Adrienne does for me if she feels like I am not one who's obeying the word, she's like she'll say I want to pray for you to change your mind about that, or I really think you should seek God on that and pray about that. I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I think you should be praying about that, and that's kind of her way of saying I think you're out of line, or I think you should, you know, lead me in some way.
Speaker 1:Um, but I think that's a challenge, I think it's a real challenging thing, and what I don't want to happen is women, because here's how I think some women might take this. Chris, I took six months. I will get that output, and so therefore, this is an unconditional promise of God that when I obey my husband, he will treat me right and be won over by my conduct. And I don't think that's what the Scripture is saying or that your hope is there, but because you hope in God so much that it is reflected in your obedience to your husband. Thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there's a lot in the Bible that talks about if you do this, then this will happen in a principle, yeah, a general principle you reap what you sow. It's a biblical principle. So it's not, you know, the karma idea of just like you're putting some kind of energy into the universe and it's going to come around, but it's more of like God has designed the world and human beings and relationships and society to function a certain kind of way. And so you, in the same way that you can expect, if you plant a seed and water it, it will grow Right Now. Does that happen every time?
Speaker 2:No, sometimes a squirrel comes and, you know, plucks it out of the ground, or a bird takes it, or a, you know, a dog comes and takes a dump on your garden and you know, like there's all kinds of stuff that's like okay, doesn't that fertilize? Maybe it does Okay, yeah, not ideal for like herbs and stuff that you want to eat, I don't know, but you know what I mean. Like there's, under normal circumstances, if you plant a seed and water it, it will give you this result. I think you can say with first peter three um, under normal circumstances, if you have a gentle, quiet spirit and you are submissive to your own husband, um, then your conduct, or it says, may win them over. It's not a input, this get you know automatic, like of course we, I'm sure you know, we know stories. Maybe there's even people listening that are like, like you said, I've been doing that, I haven't seen that result, and maybe it's, you know, the Lord's timing versus our timing type thing.
Speaker 2:You've been doing it for six months. It may be six years before you see that change. So yeah, it's not an exactly transactional thing, but there are principles. In the same way that it's like if you disciple your kids and pray for them and read the Bible with them, they're going to grow up knowing and loving the word and the church. But if you have a duplicitous life where you go to church on Sundays and then you never talk about the Lord at home, you can kind of expect them to probably not want anything to do with the church and Christianity.
Speaker 1:One of the things you told me now, from a husband's perspective, like I've been watering and watering and watering and nothing, it's just mud, and I think you I don't know if you want to tell the story, but I'm gonna put you on the spot with it uh, I think you told us the, as you wish, princess bride story. So tell me about that and and how, uh, you've sort of just chosen in your life to respond yeah, uh, I think this was like not even too long ago on the podcast, but um talking, about like here I yeah, it was on, it was on, it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought we were talking about somewhere else. No, it was on. Oh man, this is like this. I'm older now. I sort of dementia.
Speaker 2:I probably sitting in very old yeah, um, what, uh, I can't remember what it was, but it was something about like what our pet peeves were. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Your wife said or no, your pet peeve for your wife was her asking you to go downstairs and get her a drink of water or something.
Speaker 2:Well, not downstairs One-story house.
Speaker 1:But you know same thing.
Speaker 2:Sorry, it was like. So, when I'm all ready for bed and you know I I've brushed my teeth, I've plugged in my phone, I put you know. And then I get in bed and my head hits the pillow and at that point she's like can I have a glass of water?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Also, I don't know where my phone charger is. Can you find it?
Speaker 2:And also, you know, it's like man, I've been up, moving around closing down the house, locking doors. You know, if you would have asked me that any other point, I could have just done it while I was already up, right, but then when I finally hit my head, hits the pillow, I'm ready to crash. Then you ask and it would like frustrate me to no end, um, but I decided one day I was like you know what Cause? Like well, it happened, and she'd asked me. And then I would have this crisis moment of like Jesus would say yes, serve your wife, but I don't want to. And it's annoying. You know that? Why? How? Why does it just like get you know, ask me at a different time, like she needs to change. And I'll get into this war in my head where I'm one. One sense I'd be like serve your wife, be like Jesus, and on the other hand, it'd be like no boundaries.
Speaker 2:She needs to learn. And then I just decided, no matter what, I'm just gonna say yes and this is gonna be one of the ways that I um serve my wife. It's not really that big of a deal at the end of the day. It's very small um, but it feels big when you're like in your flesh, but anyway. So I decided like I'm just gonna say yes, no matter what, and I told her that I said um from now on, because there are times when I said no and she would be like your wife is your love of your life that you made vows to, is asking you, and I'm like you have legs you can't get. You're not even tired. You're like watching a show on your phone right now.
Speaker 1:I'm watching a show simultaneously.
Speaker 2:You know, and, and so then I would get mad, and so, anyway, there would be times when I said no, and you know, and so then I would get mad, and so, anyway, there would be times when I said no, and you know, and felt justified in it, but I was like you know what I'm just gonna? This is gonna be a way that I serve my wife. I told her, I said I'm gonna say yes, no matter what. So if you ask me, I will do it. And um, and I say as you wish, princess bride, and uh, and it's it. Uh, makes me laugh when I do it takes out. You know just like it makes it something when I do it Takes out, you know just like makes it something fun and sweet and cute instead of you know, have you ever run into RUSs?
Speaker 2:Oh, r-o-u-ss Rodents of Unusual Size. I have two of them. One of them's 12 years old, grumpy old dog and has a problem, and then our puppy, molly. They're the main reason I don't sleep at night anymore. All my kids sleep through the night. Now and now my dogs get up and I have to take them out wow, right, you don't resolve that.
Speaker 1:What'd you say, doggy door will solve it yeah, that's my.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm thinking about right now all right, well, that's good, okay.
Speaker 1:So, um, as you were talking on on sunday, I was excited because it made me want to talk about something this sunday and I thought I'd give you a gift. Are you ready for your gift? I'm ready, all right. So you remember the Mr Weenie poster size. Put it on your refrigerator so that you knew how to argue. Of course I do, okay.
Speaker 2:You have updated. I have updated.
Speaker 1:With a new logo. With a new logo, I know I'm like Wow, yeah. I know I'm like wow, yeah, yeah. So I, I, I was pretty motivated and I was like I think I might even talk about this on Sunday. Somehow I'm going to work it in Cause. I was like you talked about negative interpretation, yeah, yeah, and I was like I am going to find a way to put it in there.
Speaker 2:Fastest way to kill the joy in your marriage is mind reading negative interpretation. Yeah, I know what you meant by that and it was bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I kind of I think that's kind of fun. So I've been excited about handing these out. These are refrigerator official magnets. You don't even need a magnet for your paper. This is all one large magnet.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to go home? Yeah, and you can put it up there.
Speaker 1:Put this on my fridge, my fridge, yeah, this is already on my fridge at home, next to my wells branch events calendar magnet.
Speaker 1:That is up there hey, listen, there's only one air on the wells branch events calendar. The volleyball tournament is no longer july 19th, I think it's august 9th. So that's for free, all right, everybody wanted to know that. Um, yeah, so mine. So the first one is mind reading, which is where I assume the worst of you and I'm like no, assume the best. Boom, philippians 4a whatever's noble, whatever is right, whatever's true, whatever's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I brought up because he says your belly is a heap of wheat right and she could have been like turp on that yeah, she could have been like, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:yeah, why do you know? And like gotten offended and that. But her response after all of it is she assumes the best of everything that he said. Instead of being like that's all you want is, you know, all you talk about is this, or what you really meant is this, and you don't really mean that. Like she doesn't go that direction with anything, even though we can understand, maybe, like our wives, maybe feeling those things, having those feelings, like maybe just due to some insecurity. You don't really mean that.
Speaker 2:But she chooses to receive his words and to trust his words, to assume the best of his intent and to receive them as love. And that's actually really important for wives to be able to do that and say I believe you, thank you. That means a lot that you would say to me, say that to me, and so it's not. You know, I was mainly, I think, pressing the men in terms of speaking those words of affection, but because I think that's the main focus of that section. But there is the side of the wives saying to receive that and to nurture. That, like back to your question is like what if your husband doesn't do that, nurture every single shred of it. You know, if he gives something like, let him know. I think you say a lot. What gets rewarded gets repeated right Gets repeated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, if your husband says something complimentary, thank him for that. Let him know how much it means to you when he says those kinds of things, and he'll say them more. You know what gets rewarded gets repeated, and that will actually strengthen your bond as you make that more and more of a norm in your home.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The second one was withdrawal, which I don't know if you've ever experienced this, whenever you're getting I call it emotionally flooded, and if you don't know what that means, like whenever you get triggered by something. I see this with my kids a lot. Maybe it's probably the easiest way, like when they either go into, they're emotionally flooded, they'll either fight my youngest son, paxton, just goes straight up screaming, throwing things. He goes to fight. Or flight, where, like Titus, he runs away and hides in a little under the or behind the chair, so I can't find him because he's angry and has his feelings hurt. He's angry and has his feelings hurt. Or freeze, where you just like check out mentally or get on some sort of device or just escape the moment, but you're actually there, right in front, right there, just checked out. Or fake, where you have a compliance, where I say absolutely I'll do that and you have no intention, but you fake the, you say the right words so that you can kind of get out of the situation and you now move on. So but what people do whenever they withdraw is that they I think what happens is they get so angry or so frustrated. A lot of guys will just shut down. This is a lot of men actually that do this. And so there's three types of couples. There's a couple that's kind of going at it all the time. I call that the italian couple. They're usually yelling each other, fighting each other. There's a victorian couple who are like oriented back to back and they don't talk about their problems or feelings or issues. Uh, they just pretend they have no problems and they're really great at facebook, at faking it. And then you've got uh, like the the american couple, where usually, usually it's the wife who's agitated and she's always trying to go and pick a fight with her husband. Her husband's just like leave me alone, all I want is peace. And so the most healthy couple is the Italian couple. Just take out the screaming and the punching and you're committed to pursuing one another. But if it gets to a point where you're emotionally flooded, where you're not making any forward progress, stopping and then say hey, I need to go pray, for I need to go and pray for 15 minutes hour, I don't know, a couple hours and we're going to meet on this again is so valuable and I think that there's a lot of health there, and I think what happens for a lot of us're like I'm gonna fight this thing out, and one of the couple, one of the people, is like they're all, they're about, all about pursuing it. I want to pursue this relationship and the other person is overwhelmed, crushed, defeated, and they're checked out or they're about you. You've got to a point where they're about to go fisticuffs and I think that's where, ultimately, you need to kind of slow down and having a plan for that of, hey, I'm going to take 15 minutes and I'm going to pray or just get my mind clear and come back when I'm ready to emotionally engage that, I think, has been really helpful for a lot of couples. To have a time and location. You know, like you know, don't text me every two minutes as I'm going to walk around the block because I need to cool off or whatever.
Speaker 1:Next one I have is exaggeration. Don't use words like always or never. You always or never. You always do this, you never do that. What that does is it demonizes the person. It takes the focus off the person, I'm sorry, off the behavior and onto the person, because if you're always doing evil things, then you're the problem, not the action, but if it's the action, that's a problem that you did. Now I can address the behavior and not the fact that I'm a complete, total devil.
Speaker 1:Next one, which you got into a little bit. I call it extrapolation. It's where you take the moment right now and it's going to be like this, where my spouse will never change. That's catastrophizing what you're really saying. If you're saying my spouse will never change, you are so bad that God can't change you and God is not strong enough, powerful enough to change the situation. And so it's like a. It's a double whammy, because you're saying the person is like unchangeable, they're irredeemable, and God is so weak and small that he can't change that. Which is why I say like, listen, the person might be the worst person on the planet, but God can change anyone, yeah, amen.
Speaker 1:And then the negative interpretation which you got into, like where you twist hey, your belly is like a heap of wheat. Well, well, well, what are you thinking about? No, it's like I assume that you're assuming the worst of me, as opposed to just simply receiving the compliment you me, as opposed to just simply receiving the compliment, you're twisting a benign or even a healthy statement and turning it negative. And then invalidation. I think this happens a ton. It's where someone gets hurt and I brought this up the week before A person who's a justice-oriented person will say, oh yeah, you can't say that to me.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say this to you, all right, that doesn't help. But then there's also people that are all about mercy and they'll say like, hey, you just hurt my feelings and I'll absorb it and I'm not going to say anything. And although that's helpful with people you don't know, like, the person you give mercy to is the road raging dude that flips you off on the highway and continues on their way and you go. I am not going to let that affect me. But when you do a mercy type thing with your spouse, you're stuffing emotion because you're still dealing with that person.
Speaker 1:What grace looks like is hey, it's your benefit at my expense. I'm going to go through the pain of explaining to you something that hurt me and then give you a pathway to forgiveness. And that's ultimately what Jesus does, right. He gives us, he lets us know our sins. It's kindness leads us to repentance. It's kindness for him to reveal to us how our darkness and wickedness has affected our relationship with God. He does the work of dying on the cross and being raised from the dead, providing a pathway of reconciliation. In the same way, when I bring up the sin that my spouse has committed against me and I say listen, here's a pathway to forgiveness. Jesus died for you. I've forgiven you, but I want you to know that this hurts me and I want to provide an avenue that we can talk about this in a way that's healthy.
Speaker 1:And so what I always tell couples is like when the person that gets hurt and say I feel hurt because you did this thing, then the person goes I'm sorry, I did that, and they empathize. That would be. If I were you, I would be so upset, I'd be angry. I can totally understand why you got that frustrated. Will you forgive me? And then the spouse, if they feel like they know or the offending spouse understands their pain and hurt, they can go, yeah, I forgive you, or they go, no, I don't think you get it. You're just saying words right now, and here's the real issue. Then the offending spouse tries again to forgive Eventually. Will you forgive me? Yes, when they understand. How can I make it right? Forgiveness is given without. What are you going to do to make this right? Trust is earned, so you can build up trust in the relationship through changing your behavior, and then finally, escalation, which is just simply kind of battling up, battling up.
Speaker 1:So these are the negative things. Are the negative things if, if watering, with compliments in in serving and loving, and gifts and sex and positive things are a way to water, uh, one of the ways that you can not take rocks and litter it, litter, put salt, not salt the uh, the garden is by, um, not using these techniques or these negative techniques and prevent them. And I think this is just a helpful arguing tool to go like oh, I am mind reading, oh, I am negatively interpreting. Anyway, that's why I put these on the fridge to help people understand how to communicate, especially when there's so much anger present. Yeah, that's good, all right. So let's talk about the end of the chapter in Song of Solomon, chapter 7, wraps up with—well, not wraps up. I like this one. This is why I think it's make up sex. By the way and I know that it was not the primary thing you were talking about I will say I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Yeah and uh or oh. May your breasts be like clusters of the vine and your scent of your breath like apples and your mouth like the best wine. So he wants to touch her breasts and kiss her, and then she's like it goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding over lips and teeth, and then he, and then she's like I'm my beloved and his desires for me. Come, my beloved, let's go in the fields, in the countryside, and there I will give you my love.
Speaker 1:This is complete. I want to go get alone with you, have sex with you, enjoy you, and obviously predicated by compliments, predicated by right treatment and really devoting intimacy, which I really appreciate that he takes her away from the Shulamite, or sorry, takes the Shulamite away from the crowd to say, hey, this is how I feel about you. I'm not just doing this for show, this isn't just a Facebook or Instagram or social media post of how much I love you. This is me communicating to you specifically, outside the realm of social media, to let you know how much I love you, and I think that's an important aspect. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean pretty much, we covered it all.
Speaker 2:I think so. I think you know there's, you could. I mean, there's so much to say about this. You could do a whole sermon just on verse 11 through 13 and the wife's role of like give your husband your love. Really, the majority of the chapter, nine verses of it is the husband really initiating and leading with his words. But you could really do a whole, you could do the same passage this Sunday and really focus on the wife's role of like her communicating her desire, her committing to give herself to her husband, like it's not just, it doesn't all fall to the man I think that's important to bring up sometimes is like we really emphasize the man's role in leading, initiating, but the wife's role is here too, to like really nurture the love and intimacy of the marriage.
Speaker 2:And you see a humble, a loving, a healthy, godly, submissive woman here who wants to love her husband and give him her love, and so something great about that too. And you know, if you're like, what do I do if my husband, you know, doesn't show affection and stuff like that? In the same way, in 1 Peter 3, like you can win him over by your godly conduct. You may win him over to being more romantic by you know, you being extra intimate and affectionate with him and really taking you know what you see here in these verses and being like I'm just going to give him, instead of cutting off affection because I'm not getting what I want from him, I'm going to, you know, give more affection. I'm going to pray. The Lord changes his heart.
Speaker 1:So I love that. I feel like that's the part where we, I think, what happens for us. We want quick fixes, yeah, we want, you know, a life hack to relationship and you just can't it's it's you're going to build trust over time. Your even your six months of righteous behavior may not override the nine years of negative behavior, uh, that your spouse is still recovering from, and so you can't go. I've been doing it for since, whatever it's gotta be like, I am being transformed and I'm going to get an, as you wish, mentality to be a servant of my spouse, not just a, not just someone that's looking to transactionally get what I need, which is peace in the house.
Speaker 2:And it's not saying to be a doormat on either side you talked about. It's not the wife being a doormat. It's also not the husband being a doormat. A doormat, it's also not the husband being a doormat. Like you know, with the as you wish thing, it doesn't mean you abdicate your leadership, your influence, your authority in the marriage or anything like that. It means that you look for ways to love and serve and bless.
Speaker 1:I think this becomes hard. How do you do that? How? How do you tell? How do you have healthy conflict? How do you tell your wife no, and you're not going. Happy wife, happy life. You're going.
Speaker 1:I don't know something better than that. You're saying I am going to lead you beyond your emotion of the moment. I know you want to be happy right now. I'm going to lead you to a place where there's greater joy and you're going to have to follow. How do men do that without coming off as controlling, without coming off as I don't know, some sort of jerk in that moment? I think that's the part where I think men are really struggling is they don't know, like they're trying to remain calm, they might be dealing with. Their wife has gotten emotional, she's now crying and you're just like I just want to stop the tears, I just want to stop this moment. How do I engage in a way that kind of leads my family to the direction it's supposed to go? What do you think? And again, there isn't a fix all. But what do you think some of the strategies here are in those moments?
Speaker 2:And yeah, that's a great question. I think that if you don't have the character and history of humility and confidence and godliness and devotion to Christ and being servant-hearted, it's way harder to try to lead your home. You don't have to—author authority in marriage isn't something that you earn. It's just. That is how that's what it is the husband is the head of the wife. Whether he is good head or a bad head, he's the head. So you don't have to earn that.
Speaker 1:But because we've all had bad bosses that we've had to deal with. Yeah, and you could be married to someone that's a bad boss yeah, or and for a bad employee for that matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're, if you're the husband and you are you, you lack integrity and character.
Speaker 2:and then you, you try to um, you know, really, use your, your positional authority to say here's where we're going, like that's not gonna be pleasant experience, right? And so your wife might submit, she might fake, she might submit because she's really godly and she knows that that's the right godly thing to do. Or she might submit just out of fear, like I don't want to rock the boat, I don't want to upset him, but like that's not the desirable ideal situation. The ideal situation is a husband who loves like Jesus and serves like Jesus, who uses authority to bless and build up his family to, you know, um, draw out all that God has for his wife.
Speaker 2:You know, to serve her, but like, uh, I think for a lot of men today in our culture, there is, um, a sense of like, I want to, um, I want to be a good spiritual leader, but I don't necessarily know how, because I was never taught. That, I think, is the huge problem. So, uh, and now you know, and when you, when you realize like, oh man, I think I've been doing it wrong and I want to do it right, but you're 10 years in or something, or five years into your marriage it's, and now you're trying to, and what you've been doing for five or 10 years is essentially being a doormat. And now you try to say, okay, I'm going to like step into this role, I'm going to try to lead my family and your wife's like what is wrong with you?
Speaker 1:What do you think?
Speaker 2:you're doing, you know, like that's a whole. I mean you got to. The main thing, I think, to keep in mind with all of that is to be very patient, to be confident with God's design for marriage and to lean into your role, but to be very patient if it's not going the way you want it to, and to be humble.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one of the things that really has struck me as I've challenged couples is that a husband has to model submission. Well, how can he do that if he's not supposed to be mutually submitting? He is supposed to submit himself to Christ, right? So like in your submission to Jesus. And you might even lead like this and saying like hey, I really feel like the Lord has called me to get up at a certain amount of time to spend time with the Lord. I really feel like the Lord is calling me and you're not just using phrases. It's not here's your phrase, but rather it's you have a genuine heart to serve the Lord. Here's why I feel like the Lord is calling me. Here's why I feel like the Lord is calling me. Here's where God is leading me. This is why I've learned from God's word.
Speaker 1:I need to personally change and I need to do a better job of leading you. One of the ways that the Lord has convicted me that I'm going to lead better is in this thing of serving you. When you lead off with all of that, it's a lot easier to follow. Now you might have a wife or spouse looking at you, going yeah, right, you're not going to change. You talked to somebody, you went to a conference, you heard a sermon, you did something and you're going to be a better guy for all of one week and I'm not preparing my heart and mind for that.
Speaker 1:That should not change how you employ. You stick with it and overcome, because you're more than a conqueror. I think what happens with men when they get rejected by their wives they shut down, they quit, they go back into their passivity, and I think that's where you double down in your love, affection, water the garden even more and then lean into it, or else you are going to ultimately be frustrated on the sideline. You may spend years cultivating before you see fruit, but there is fruit on the other side of it. Principally, I would say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen. And there's something about the way that God has designed men and women too, that, like you know the principle of 1 Peter 3, winning your husband over by your conduct. There's something in a man that, when a wife you know, when your wife comes to you, submissive, um, gentle, wanting to like, honor you and respect you, that does something in you that makes you be like, wow, I want to take care of you. You know, like man that, uh, you would. There's it like, awakens or ignites something inside of you to want to be a better man.
Speaker 1:And so I think so. I think that's important. I think I don't want to say like here's your lever to pull. Yeah, right, here is a seed to sow. Yeah, like the seed you are sowing, woman, wife, is respect your husband and obey him as the saints of old.
Speaker 1:And then I think, on the flip side, husbands this is 1 Peter, 3, 7, live with your wives in an understanding way. I don't know if that means you'll actually ever understand her, but it means that you're going to live with her in an understanding way, like you're not going to mind read, you're not going to invalidate, you're going to kind of go. I'm going to seek first to understand, then to be understood. I'm going to ask lots of questions, I'm going to find your heart, I'm going to get my PhD in my wife and go. I want to learn and that when you start to understand her, when she starts to feel like you get it, then I think it's going to calm the frenetic, anxious, angered heart and then she'll go like he gets me, I can trust him. I think that's usually the reason why there's so much emotive anxiousness from the wife to the husband is like she doesn't feel, like he understands, like I think, if I'm just thinking over all the coaching that I've done and just looking at God's word to your point that this is the seed a husband needs to plan. It's like I want to understand you, even if that means I need to understand the way you feel about me, the way that my actions are coming off to you. And if you sit down and take out the emotion for the moment and go tell me how the way I've been treating you makes you feel you are now transforming the marriage because she feels closer to you, feel you are now transforming the marriage because she feels closer to you even if she's saying the most harshest things she might be like. And when you said that in front of the children and when you said that at whatever the thing was, and you made the joke and you did the thing, I was just deeply hurt by that and you go oh wow, I had had no idea. Thank you for sharing that with me.
Speaker 1:Getting into apologies. It might create a little bit, stir up some anger, but ultimately I think it's going to draw a husband and wife closer and that's the seed that is to be sown for reconciliation. Anyway. I I think that that's that should be the heartbeat of a marriage that's trying to grow closer, uh, together, okay, um, but I think. But I think what we tend to do and I now I'm in first peer three is like of a marriage that's trying to grow closer together, okay, but I think what we tend to do and now I'm in first peer three is like finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and humble mind.
Speaker 1:Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling man, but, on the contrary, bless. For this to this you were called, you may obtain a blessing. If there is one marriage piece of advice, don't fight fire with fire. When your spouse says I'm calling the lawyer, in your head you're like I'm going to get my lawyer too. I think the route is like I love you, I love you. I always say this whenever I coach couples. Whenever you squeeze a grape and you crush it, out comes grape juice, because a grape crushed, produces grape juice, because that's what's inside. Whenever you crush a Christian, out should come Christ. And so whenever you're pressed and whenever the anger comes, whenever the frustration comes out, should come a godly response, because that's what's in you. But that doesn't happen in a microwave, quiet time, an overnight. It takes years of cultivating your own heart and then pouring love and tenderness and cultivating the marriage relationship.
Speaker 2:So there we go, amen yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, I think we nailed it. Yep. Hey, thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time. And, from our house to yours, have an awesome week of worship.