Podcast, Q&A

Q&A: Is Birth Control OK?, S** Addiction, Is a Wife Her Husband’s Property? and More…

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In today’s episode, we answer some of our listener’s questions. These are some challenging ones, but we hope to shine some biblical light on your uncertainties!

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Full Episode Transcript

Selena: Well, we always ask you guys to write in and send us questions. And today, we’re going to answer some of those questions. There’s some good ones on here too. We’re talking about, I don’t know, close little ears, we’re talking about sex, pornography addictions, people who are separated they’re asking questions about what to do, jealousy, anger, you name it. I think it’s going to be in this conversation today. So we’re excited. Excited? Is that the right word?

Ryan: We’re you are anticipating-

Selena: Yes.

Ryan: …a good discussion so we’ll see you on the other side.

[00:00:33]

Ryan: Selena Frederick, this week is history in the making, at least for the Fredericks. It’s history in the making. If you’re not aware, we are… so this episode will release the Tuesday, which is the week of the first-ever Fierce Families Conference.

And I’m, in this moment, a little trepidatious excited. We’ve got our friends John and Becca Lovell flying in from Georgia to present. We’ve got pastors from our church also teaching. We’ve got some ladies from our church teaching in the women’s seminars. We’ve got other men from our community teaching other men. I’m very excited. I’m anticipating. It’s been a lot of work. Sleep is on short supply these days. Are you excited?

Selena: I’m excited. Yeah, there’s a few loose ends that I need to tie up of course, but you know, it’s… we’re doing it at our church, which feels like second home already. It’s so encouraging to just be able to share and bring everything that we’re going to bring.

Ryan: We won’t talk too much about it. But I think it’s an apt time to talk about it, because it’s the only time we’ll ever have a first Fierce Families Conference.

Selena: First. The first first. Yeah.

Ryan: So as we were envisioning this. Now, of course, we’ve envisioned it for years, but never really felt the green light. We felt like God finally said, Yeah, this is the year it’s gonna happen. And we were like, Okay, is it a marriage conference or is it a parenting conference? Or is it a culture conference? And we said, Well, let’s have it be all of those things.

Selena: It’s a family conference.

Ryan: It’s a family conference. We’re talking about biblical manhood, biblical womanhood. And we talk about marriage, in terms of culture, in terms of our own lives, and then also parenting and what it means to shoot our arrows, so to speak, out into society in the future, and to an infinity and beyond.

Selena: Okay.

Ryan: So we’re excited for it. But yeah, just know that we’re doing Q&A here because we got a lot of moving parts in-

Selena: Well, it’s a primetime.

Ryan: It’s a primetime.

Selena: We’ve had some questions back and up in the whole hopper.

Ryan: Yeah. So if you don’t know who we are, my name is Ryan. This is my lovely, beautiful, wonderful, perfect wife Selena. Absolutely. What’s the Mary Poppins thing?

Selena: Practically perfect in every way?

Ryan: Practically perfect in every way.

Selena: You’re so sweet.

Ryan: So we’re the Fredericks. We do the Fierce Marriage Podcast on Tuesdays, Fierce Parenting on most Thursdays. Right now we’re in the rhythm of every other week for that simply because of just time constraints. But we pray that still blesses you. We want to say welcome to our nearest members of the Fierce Fellowship.

Selena: Our newest. Not nearest.

Ryan: Thank you.

Selena: Don’t know where these people live.

Ryan: Newest. It couldn’t be the nearest. Well, you’re part of it. You’re right here. So anyway, Matt, welcome. Paul. M., welcome, welcome, Sir Paul M.. Zack and Maren Barrett?

Selena: Yeah, either Maren or Maren.

Ryan: Yeah. And then also Sherman and Danni with an I. Gardener. Welcome to the Fierce Fellowship. We’re overjoyed to have you with us. At some point we’ll get in there and do another post. It’s been a little while. So much has happened. We’re thankful. Oh, yeah.

So Selena, many of these questions, of course, all of them come from our listeners. By the way, if you have a question, and you’d like to submit that, we would love that, because we might do it in the near future. We might do it later on. It’s fiercemarriage.com/ask. That’s A-S-K. That’s how you can get access to that form. Again, fiercemarriage.com/ask. You can ask your questions there. And that’s where these questions all came from.

Selena: Boom, there’s a baby. [laugh]

Ryan: Yeah. I was gonna read the first question and then our baby started crying. So Sunny’s here with us. I went up to go get her and she was kind of just fussing because she was waking up. And then as soon as she saw that it was me and not you, [both laugh] that’s when the real tears started falling. So she’s happy to have mama. Okay. So I’ve read most of these questions… well, all of them, ahead of time. Selena, you’ve seen many of them.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: Not all of them.

Selena: Well, they’ve come in many shapes and forms and sizes before. But yes. We’re excited to conquer… not conquer them.

Ryan: Here’s the first one.

Selena: I don’t about excited. Again, that’s not the right word here.

Ryan: We’re ready.

Selena: We’re ready.

Ryan: Here’s the first one.

Selena: Because I’m not excited about people having problems in their marriage. But also the Lord uses it to sharpen us. Okay, here’s the first one again.

Ryan: “What does the Bible say…” There goes the screensaver. [both laugh] “What does the Bible say about using contraceptives? Is it biblical to purposefully wait to have kids for a couple years?” This came from someone who didn’t leave a name. So we’ll say Anon.

Selena: Anon.

Ryan: If you’ve listened for a while, it’s Selena’s a good friend.

Selena: You know you know. [laughs]

Ryan: Selena’s a good online friend. Okay. Here’s the thing. Bible doesn’t talk about contraception.

Selena: Mm-Hmm.

Ryan: So it’s up to us to discern what contraception is and line that up with what the Bible says about issues related to contraception.

Selena: Right. Also, what does the Bible say about children? That they are a blessing.

Ryan: Sure.

Selena: So there’re arrows in our quiver. We’re supposed to have faith like a child. There’s a lot of children in the Bible mentioned. [laugh]

Ryan: Yeah, children are good in general. And then that’s part of the big cultural mandate that started way back in the garden. Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. Well, how are you gonna fill the earth? You’re not gonna fill it with some substance. You’re filling it with children, your children’s children. You’re multiplying. So that’s the big question here that we have to have to answer first.

We want you married people to think biblically. We’re not just trying to logic our way through these questions. We wanna look at what God has said. It is the foundational premise. He is the foundation of all of this. So let’s talk about the second part of the question. Is it biblical to purposefully wait to have kids for a couple years?

This is hard to really, I think, draw clear lines on. Because if you wanna be black and white, you can say, well, kids are a blessing. Why would you not want a blessing? Therefore, boom, have as many kids as you can as soon as possible. There’s a thing called the quiver full movement. It’s just quiver full is the idea is like as many babies as you can possibly have, the better.

Selena: As a lord gives you, I think.

Ryan: Yes. And you’re trusting the Lord with that. There’s something very beautiful about that. Now, we waited much to our chagrin. [laugh]

Selena: Much. Much.

Ryan: Nine years into our married. We got married young. We were 20 years old, so we thought we got time. Well, pretty soon you’re in the middle of your mid-20s and you’re thinking, well, we waited this long. Let’s wait another year. Let’s wait another year.

Selena: Well, we just felt like we were in the middle of things and it’s like, you’re always in the middle of things.

Ryan: So on this side of parenting, having been parents for nearly a decade, we now think, man, we should have started much sooner. Then I wonder, well, okay, if we’ve started sooner, then what’s the dominoes fall after that?

Selena: Right. And God-

Ryan: We would’ve made different decisions. God is sovereign through it, and we trust that He is guiding us. Whether we think so or not, He is guiding and using our situation for glory.

Selena: We were just in different circles that were taking a lot more agency, I think, in control in that situ… whether or not they were gonna have children or not. And we had a few friends that were like just always trying to have babies. They just always were. And we were kind of like, Hmm. We didn’t understand, I think, to the depth and the beauty and we didn’t understand the blessing of children.

Ryan: Again, we gotta think biblically about this and put right terms to think. Okay, so why would we wanna wait to have kids? Many times the reasons why couples wanting to wait is because they’ve got careers they’re chasing. A husband and a wife both think they some sort of intrinsic right to a career. Now, I think husbands need to earn. I think there’s a biblical precedent for that.

Selena: And women’s women can earn. But again, I think the orientation, primary orientation is towards the home.

Ryan: That’s it. And there’s a primary secondary kind of way to order these things. But this idea that we have a right to a career, that’s very western, it’s very modern to say, I want to have a career as a means of self-actualization. And a lot of times you’re surrounded by cultural pressures with your friend group, with whatever, maybe your church culture, you know, it lends itself to this sort of thing. That was our experience.

So I just want question the underlying premise that it’s even, you know…

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: Now, if you think, well, we wanna work on our marriage, we wanna be better spouses before we’re parents, I think the idea of being a better spouse is obviously good. But the idea that children are gonna get in the way of that, I think might be worth questioning.

Selena: Absolutely.

Ryan: And in fact, I think our children have made us better at marriage.

Selena: Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan: No, we are-

Selena: It’s a bit of sink or swim, I think. [laugh]

Ryan: We have to get through these questions here. In terms of contraceptives, there’s two types of contraception. Broadly speaking, there’s what are called [inaudible] fashioned, which are effective. They’re killing-

Selena: Chemical.

Ryan: They’re killing a fertilized egg and then there’s those that they don’t allow the egg to be fertilized. Regardless of where you fall in terms of whether or not waiting is okay, scripturally, I think there are versions of contraception that are inherently evil. Anything that kills a fertilized egg is killing a human being. Life begins at conception. We see that precedent in scripture. This isn’t something that Ryan and Selena is coming up with.

And I think it makes sense logically because you have unique DNA, unique blood type, you have a unique soul, you have unique… Just because it’s small and hasn’t taken shape yet doesn’t mean that it’s not a full human being. The full potential is there and therefore it is a full human. We see that precedent in scripture. So I’ll say anything that kills a fertilized egg is off the table.

Selena: Off the table.

Ryan: And I think it should be illegal across the board. That’s a big conversation, but that’s just where I’m gonna sit on it. That’s where we’re gonna sit on it. Now, in terms of things that aren’t [inaudible] fashioned, so condoms is something that is, you know-

Selena: An option.

Ryan: It’s preventing fertilization.

Selena: Right. I think there’s even things for women like cups. I don’t know how to say it. But it just catches everything so that you don’t-

Ryan: What is it called? Diaphragm. Is that what they’re called?

Selena: It’s something like that. It’s like a newer type.

Ryan: And then not to get too personal… And then the… what’s the other one? Just like timing. [both laugh]

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: Okay. So this is a longer question. You wanna read this? Oh, no. It’s written by a man, so I’ll read it. “I’ve been married 16 months and my wife has filed for divorce. I’m living in my car now. She won’t talk to me. So I have to communicate through my father-in-law. I have a few anger problems that I’m getting help for, but she doesn’t believe it will change and has no faith in me to change in a healthy way. I go to therapy once a week, a church group for men once a week. And at church, I lead anger and addiction class once a week. We have been separated for two months, and I feel like I’m losing her. I pray about this a lot and God has kept her centered in my heart. What do I do?” This is from Billy.

First off, Billy, I’m very sorry to hear this. This is a caveat for all these questions, is that without knowing the situation, without knowing you, without having walked alongside you for any period of time, it’s gonna be very hard to give helpful information. So I think what we can maybe do is just ask some questions and hope that questions would unearth something. So as I under… Go ahead.

Selena: Sorry. I love that he’s just saying he’s been praying a lot. He feels like God has just kept her at the center of his heart. I guess just the encouragement is just to keep pursuing her. And yeah, like you said, we don’t know the entire story. We don’t know her side, and we don’t know all of it. But, you know, the Bible tells us what God has brought together, let not man separate. So what are some of the questions that we would ask that might be helpful in this situation?

Ryan: What is your faith like? It seems like you’re pressing into the things of God in terms of praying and going to people who can lead you in church and whatnot. But what is her faith like? Because if she is not reading from the same book, I’m not gonna mince words, you’ve got an uphill battle because what under… on what basis is divorce bad? On what basis is love worth fighting for?

This is why we tell young couples early on, I know, Billy, this is not you any longer. You’re already married. But we tell young couples like, you have to choose very, very carefully because beliefs matter more than you in your age. Most often when you’re young, you don’t realize it. When the rubber meets the road, when you get squeezed, that’s when you see what actually comes out. And when it’s based on scripture, you can say, Okay, it’s hard, but divorce is still not an option.

Selena: Right. Right. And we’re in agreement on this, and so we’re gonna work through this.

Ryan: So what do you do? Well, Billy, I would say keep doing what you’re doing. Keep praying like you’re praying. Pray faith-filled prayers.

Selena: Would it be wise or encouraging to say keep pursuing her?

Ryan: Again, we don’t know the situation.

Selena: Maybe just pursuing her in prayer, pursuing her-

Ryan: Generally, I’d say pursue-

Selena: By whatever means that-

Ryan: It’s gonna come down to why she’s actually moving this direction. Is it because she’s given up on marriage? Or is it because she’s so hurt by you? If she’s hurt by you for whatever reason, and she wants to be reconciled, then that’s always gonna be way better than she’s checked out and she’s just trying to move on to life. But God can do miracles in either situation.

Selena: We’ve seen it.

Ryan: We’ve seen it. So I would just say keep doing what you’re doing. Pursue her. Maybe up the ante in terms of how you’re pursuing her, gifts, gestures, things that you think would speak to her to show her your love. Now, she’s very much so could be walking in sin, and so she’s gonna need the Holy Spirit to lead her to repentance and to turning away from that sin. And you certainly can’t be the Holy Spirit for her. That’s where the prayer comes in. Okay. Hopefully, that was helpful. Number-

Selena: C.

Ryan: C.

Selena: “I’m newly engaged and my fiancé used the term “own” me in regards to being the husband and head of household. And I disagreed about it due to the fact that I don’t feel I’m anyone’s property. So then he goes on to say, “Read the Bible and get back to me”. I have no problem in submitting to my future husband and him being a leader, but I guess I wanna know your opinion in that aspect as maybe I’m wrong, maybe I don’t like the terminology or the attitude behind it. Would love it if you could address this, or if you have a podcast or something, let me know. Thanks.” Another question from Anon.

I think the word own is never used in the Bible in terms of submission. I have been doing a lot of studying on submission lately and that’s not… I don’t know the translations, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what it means.

Ryan: No, it’s not in there.

Selena: I think she kind of answered part of her own question. That I don’t know that it is necessarily, and we can talk about this, a problem of submission. I think it’s the heart attitude and orientation towards her. And using the term “own”, I don’t know that leaving godly husband would use that term with his wife.

Ryan: No. Nor would he say, “Go read your Bible and get back to me.”

Selena: It’s like, maybe he should read his Bible and lead you guys in that. Practice leading that conversation.

Ryan: Yeah. Honestly, here’s what I see. I see some immaturity. I see some immaturity and some lack of wisdom and lack of discernment and frankly just care for his bride. He probably loves you. I mean, you’re getting married.

Selena: Hopefully. Yes. But he’s clearly immature or maybe he caught you in a moment that it sounded worse than he meant it to sound like. This is one of those things you wanna clarify.

Selena: Yeah. Ask questions.

Ryan: I would encourage this couple to really… you. I would encourage you to press into this issue gently together and say, Okay… And say this to your husband, “I want to submit to a godly man.” Like, think about that. The way you phrase that is, I, as a godly wife, have a desire to submit to a godly man in a godly way. You’re gonna have to untangle what that word “submit” means. The beauty of it is is actually, is a beautiful term. It’s not in any way what the feminists would have you think.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: It’s far better. So based on how this is worded, it seems that this woman is very open to just walking alongside her husband biblically and just needs maybe some more care and maturity in how that looks.

Selena: Yes. I would definitely say have that conversation. As her future husband, yeah, there needs to be care in regards to how you talk to one another beginning, especially I think in your engagement. I mean, it feels like sometimes you’re giving yourselves the best of each other in those times. So if this is the best, then we need to pull the reins back or we need to kind of define our terms a little bit more and ask some good questions. Because yes, we’re all called to submit to the Lord and we all belong to Him. But He does not just lord it over us. Christ came not to be served but to serve. Right?

Ryan: Right.

Selena: So look to your model of Christ and submission and you will find all the answers.

Ryan: Now, I will say this. We’ll cap it off with this. As much as your husband could think that he owns you, I think you as a wife could think you own your husband and that there’s conjugal rights that go both ways.

Selena: Mm-Hmm.

Ryan: Mm-Hmm. [both laugh]. And that’s not a gotcha. It’s a “Listen, pal, if you really want to go down this road, let’s talk about what this looks like to be… you know, and by the way, Christ is the one who you’re modeling after as the head. And guess what? Christ went to the cross. He was the one that hung on the cross. He was the one that, you know, drank the cup of God’s wrath.

Selena: For us.

Ryan: For His bride. So there’s no power dynamic here. It’s order. And it’s rights. And they’re God-given rights. They’re not rights that we claim for ourselves.

Selena: It’s not a competition. I’ve heard it’s called a dance between authority and submission.

Ryan: So I just see some immaturity. Thankfully you can grow. Next question. “My husband has struggled with porn for years and I’ve expressed how much it hurts me. I’ve found out he’s looking at provocative women on Instagram. We’re both Christians and saved by God. But this is something that he really struggles with. I pray to God to convince him on this matter and show him what he’s doing is not right. It hurts knowing that my husband is looking at other women to find pleasure. How can we get through this? Should I talk to our pastor as a mentor on this problem? Thanks so much.” The hurt wife.

Selena: Just a correction there on the word. You said, I pray that God would “convince you”. She actually wrote “convict”. I pray to God to convict him-

Ryan: Oh, sorry.

Selena: …on this matter and show him what he’s doing is not right. Yes, we’ve done many an episode on this idea of porn. I think it’s very hurtful and destructive. It’s hard as a wife, I think, to know how to address it when it comes up in your marriage. Right?

Ryan: Mm-hmm.

Selena: So you’re hurt. You want it to end. You don’t want to be the policeman. But at the same time, you know, I’m committed to you, I’m committed to helping you to walk through this. And there’s gotta be a genuine repentance on your side as well. So by all accounts, it’s very messy and it’s very hard to build trust again, but it’s not impossible. Right?

Ryan: Mm-hmm.

Selena: So how do we get through this? I mean, I don’t know the relationship they have with their pastor.

Ryan: Yeah. It’s really tough to speak to specifically.

Selena: There’s a lot of tools and resources out there right now that wives can use and-

Ryan: What is the one… That’s Pure Desire and Beyond Betrayal?

Selena: Beyond Betrayal. There it is.

Ryan: Beyond Betrayal I think is really helpful for ladies. But that is coupled with Pure Desire, which is a men’s program for breaking free of sexual addiction. So here’s the key here. He has to be involved in breaking free from it. And for him to be involved, he needs a change of heart, not just a change of demands. Because of an addict is an addict until he has a change of heart. And that takes a work of God. It takes the man stepping up and seeing the sin for what it is.

This is one big problem that I think we’ve created in our culture over the last 50 years, especially in Christendom, where we have modeled a version of cheap grace that has made us forget the depth and the depravity of our own sin. And when we don’t question our salvation enough… and here’s what I mean by that. Work out your faith with fear and trembling. That’s not work out your faith with nonchalant, disregard for habitual sin.

Selena: It’s true.

Ryan: Now, hear me. Who Christ sets out to save, he saves. Salvation is not dependent on us in any way. It’s on him. I’m passionate about this topic with men because we treat sin so lightly when it is an affront to God. We just read this morning about the golden calf when Moses came down from Sinai. They’re like, “He’s gone for a couple of weeks. And they’re like, what happened to Moses? We need a God right now. Let’s create a calf.” Aaron said, “Okay, well, gimme all your gold. We’ll forge out something together. Now behold, you’re gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” Moses comes down, they’re partying, worshiping this calf. Moses rightly flips out. They had such a light view of this insidious sin.

Selena: Yeah. They were stiff-necked people, as the Bible describes them.

Ryan: And Moses looks at Aaron and says, “What have you done?” Aaron says, “I put the gold in the fire and this calf came out.” Remember that?

Selena: Just spineless. Just absolutely spineless.

Ryan: And what did Moses do? He set the godly men of Israel against the Levites and said, “Go and make this right.” And how do they make it right?

Selena: They Killed 3,000 men.

Ryan: They killed 3000 Israelites over this sin. Okay. This is our God. God hasn’t changed. Now, I’m not saying like… we sit under the grace of Christ, but we have cheapened our salvation by causing sin anything less than in a complete-

Selena: Allowing it.

Ryan: …upfront and rebellion to God. So my prayer for this couple, and for any couple dealing with pornography addiction, whether it’s you or your spouse, is that you would see it for what it is. Because to me, that’s the one antidote to it is you will see the evil for what it is, and you want nothing to do with it because of what it does to your God in terms of the rebellion, it is against Him, what it does to your spouse, what it means for the people involved, not just the people on screen, but the people in the entire industry, the depravity and the abuse that it begets in people’s lives. We gotta see this for what it is. So to help the hurt wife here in this situation, I would say pray. I would hope that your husband comes to his senses.

Selena: And I mean, it sounds like they’ve been dealing with this for a long time. So yeah, get somebody involved if you guys have agreed on that. Get a pastor involved. Get into a group. Get into something that is outside of yourselves. Because typically that’s necessary.

Ryan: Okay. I think we have time for one more question. Here it is. Selena, why don’t you read that one?

Selena: “How do I confront my husband’s lack of spiritual growth in a respectful way? He is spending less time getting to know God and it’s affecting him. He’s less patient, doesn’t seem to care to be intimate, and doesn’t self-reflect. I’ve tried lovingly to bring it to his attention and he tells me I want to control him. I’ve also gotten so frustrated I’ve brought it to his attention in the wrong ways. How do I obey 1 Peter 3 in a way that helps my husband back to his first love of Christ? Is there anything I can do to help other than prayer?”

Ryan: Sandra.

Selena: If we look at 1 Peter 3, I’m assuming she’s talking about the first one to two verses. “Wives in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husband so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.”

Ryan: Okay. So she’s saying, how can her walk with Christ spur her husband on in his spiritual walk as well?

Selena: I mean, if someone’s stepping away from the Lord or not spending much time with the Lord and then resistant to it, those are big red flags to me as a wife. I’m just like, what else is taking your attention? Is there a weight that you’re carrying that you’re not telling me? Is there sin that is not being repented of?

How can I help you in this situation? And maybe that’s one of the questions to begin asking is, this is what I’m seeing, this is what I’m observing. I mean, there are downtimes or like lulls sometimes maybe in your faith. So I guess that would probably be the place that I would start. And I know that she’s probably asked questions. She’s just noticing his behavior and it does bring frustration. It’s hard to not bring it up in a frustrating manner. Right?

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: I get that.

Ryan: It’s really tough because in almost every instance a husband knows his wife is unhappy, he just is struggling to care, or he knows that he’s not the man he needs to be but’s struggling to care.

Selena: For sure. For sure.

Ryan: So I think the wife’s asking the right questions, is what can I do in regards to my behavior and my actions. Because she knows she can’t change him.

Selena: And winning him over, which is what 1 Peter 3 is talking about. I think it just begins with prayer and it begins with serving him I think even when you don’t feel like serving him or when he is… You know, it’s at those pinnacle moments of like, wow, he sure is not being very kind or loving or honorable, but it’s in those moments where you are choosing to love him, be kind to him, to honor him. Those are the things I think that he will notice and win over.

Oftentimes, I’m not trying to compare a husband to a child, but I know that I’ve noticed worse behavior from my children when they aren’t feeling connected or when there’s something going on that I don’t know about that they’re wrestling with on their own. So until that’s brought to light, it’s really hard to get anywhere. So I guess I would just start with questions. Start with prayer. Start with serving, being kind, and doing all the things that you don’t feel like doing in those moments when he’s just being extra ornery, I guess.

Ryan: Speaking of extra ornery, we had this baby and she-

Selena: Oh my goodness.

Ryan: …got some plastic. Don’t worry. She’s safe. She’s got some of those bubble wrap things and she’s going to-

Selena: Bubble things.

Ryan: You mentioned it. Just really quickly, if I’m speaking to your husband man to man, if I’m able to build a relationship and rapport with him, the first thing I’m gonna do is ask about his habits, his daily habits. Like if you don’t care to be intimate with your wife, if you don’t take the time to self-reflect, if you’re not pursuing God, like these are all friendship-ending things between me and other men. I don’t have time. I’ll disciple you if you want to grow.

Selena: Here’s the table. Here’s what’s at the table. If you don’t want it, that’s okay.

Ryan: Then we can’t eat together. Because this is the food of Christians, right? So that’s what I would do. Now, as a wife, it’s hard for you to do that because he already knows all these things. At least he’s not willing to talk about it with you.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: So my prayer is that he’d be convicted of it, that your love for him, as Selena’s described, would maybe lead to that, the Holy Spirit working through you on his heart, and that he would find men in his life that would sharpen him because, yeah, iron needs iron to sharpen. That’s all the time we have for questions today.

I wanna make sure that if you don’t know who Christ is, you’ve somehow made it to the end of this video not thinking that we’re crazy. Maybe there’s something in you that wants more and you’re seeing truth in the God of the Bible. We want you to go all the way and we want you to place your faith in Christ, which means we recommend three things.

Find a friend who believes in Christ and can show you what that means. Find a church that preach outta the Bible, who can show you all that Christ is and all He did for you and what it means for your life. If you can’t find either of those things, we have a website that might help as well. It’s thenewsisgood.com.

Let us pray. Father God, thank You for Your word. Thank you that it is always timely and timeless in our lives. I pray that these answers that we’ve given today would be helpful to the couples who’ve listened to it. I pray that they would find life in it. I pray that they would grow. In Your precious name, amen. Woo. Okay. The baby’s good? [both laugh].

This episode of Fierce Marriage is—

Selena: In the can.

Ryan: See you again in about seven days. Until next time—

Selena: Stay fierce.

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