• Referenced scripture:
  • 1 Corinthians 7
  • Titus 2:11-14

• Recommended resource:
  • thenewsisgood.com

Ryan: Fair warning upfront. Today we’re talking about a fairly sensitive topic. We’re talking about three lies, three big lies about sex that men tell themselves that I think bring great harm to their own heart, to the hearts of their wives, and to the harmony of their marriage. Listen up. I think this is gonna be helpful episode. This is gonna be challenging for some, I mean that, but I think on the other side of the challenge, it could be very, very positive.

So if you have young ears, we recommend maybe listening through earbuds or some other time. [Selena chuckles] I think this is bound to be a tough but good conversation. So we’ll see you on the side.

[00:00:36]

Ryan: Greetings once again and welcome. My name is Ryan. This is my lovely wife, Selena. We’re the Fredericks. This is the Fierce Marriage Podcast. Thank you so much for giving us your time, your attention, your ears, your hearts, your minds, your everything. Thanks for giving it to us [both laughs] for this limited period of time.

We sincerely do hope that we can use this time to bless you, to help your marriage, to help you grow, to help you grow deeper in your community with Christ, and deeper in your connection with your spouse. I think that might be a good tagline at some point.

Selena: I know. There you go.

Ryan: So thank you for joining us. We are here largely because of our patrons. Obviously, the Lord has given us this task to do. We would’ve never asked for it, but He gave it to us and we love it. And our patrons are one of the means by which He allows us to con continue doing that. If you want to become a patron, we would love that. Go to fiercemarriage.com/partner and you can find the links there. I want to welcome our latest patrons-

Selena: Yes!

Ryan: Jonathan, Maria, Tylee, welcome-

Selena: Woo.

Ryan: …to the fierce force. You know, I keep saying that, but I don’t know-

Selena: He’s just trying different names like Fierce Force and just Fierce…

Ryan: Well, the Fierce friend network. [both laughs]

Selena: Something. Fierce spiders.

Ryan: Oh! That could be it.

Selena: I know.

Ryan: I tend to like the more aggressive ones.

Selena: I do. I understand that. Yes.

Ryan: Because I feel like we’re in a cultural war.

Selena: So anyways-

Ryan: And families are on the forefront.

Selena: It’s true.

Ryan: The fierce forefront.

Selena: The fierce forefront… [Ryan laughs].

Ryan: Okay.

Selena: All right, 30 seconds has been wasted. Go. What are you saying about patrons? We’re not a one-stop shop. Or we are [Ryan laughs]. You are one-stop shop-

Ryan: For all things fierce. [Ryan laughs]. There it is.

Selena: Oh my goodness.

Ryan: Okay. I spend a lot of time in discipleship with other men. I mean, I’m being discipled, I’m assisting in their discipleship. We’re sharpening each other. We’re growing alongside one another. And I’ve had a lot of these conversations to see a theme bubble up and… none of these lies are gonna be a surprise, I think, to anybody who’s watching this, I think particularly the men.

I think it’d be best at this point to start and just kind of give the three big lies that men tell themselves, and we’ll go through and discuss them.

All right, the first one is this. Again, if you have any kids within earshot, I don’t recommend that they be listening. So either use headphones or find another time. But here we go.

Lie number one, porn addiction doesn’t hurt anyone. I hear men say that a lot. Lie number two, I shouldn’t tell my wife about my porn addiction. And there’s a number of reasons why a man would say that—we’ll get into those. And then lie number three is, I can’t ask my wife for sex. I can’t ask my wife to be intimate.

Just as I throw those out there, Selena, how do those land as a wife? Because you saw this beforehand, but you didn’t spend as much time on this episode as I did so far in writing it.

Selena: No, yeah. No. When you told me the lies… I mean, do you want to start with the first one?

Ryan: Yeah. I just want to hear your reaction and then we can start talking through them.

Selena: I mean, the first thing when you said, porn doesn’t hurt anyone, I was like, well, the whole industry is built on hurting people. [chuckles]. So I don’t know how that kind of plays out into that. I think I can see the rationale behind it, but again, it’s a lie from the enemy to say that no one’s getting hurt.

Ryan: Well, you have a very short-sighted view of what pornography is if all you think it involves is you with your computer in dark room. That’s not all pornography is.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: It’s so much more. So that lie is patently false. If you’re believing the lie that porn addiction or porn use doesn’t hurt anyone, friend, that’s a lie. And here’s why it’s a lie. Number one, you might say to yourself, no one has to know. Well, God knows. God knows. We’re gonna read a verse that Jesus said that basically…

Let’s read it now. It says this. “You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with a lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye cause you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it’s better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right-hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better for you to lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell.”

All right, God knows. If you’re looking at a woman lustfully, you’re committing adultery with your heart.

Selena: Well, and do you remember who God is? Because I think we say, yeah, God knows like… I mean, do we understand the holiness of God, the righteousness, the justice, the loving king, creator, and Savior God? He knows. He knows your soul deeper and… not deeper. He knows and cares about your soul I think more than any human ever could. So for the fact that He knows these sinful things that you’re dealing with or engaging in and telling yourself that it doesn’t matter that He knows, I mean, we’re greatly decreasing our understanding and knowledge of God.

Ryan: Well said. We need to know who God is. We need to know that He knows. Number two, you know. Right? A dirty conscience smells, it stinks up everything. Does that make sense?

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: So, you know. And you walk around with that burden. And you’ve gotten so used to bearing that burden that you don’t realize that you can live under a greater degree of freedom than you’ve ever experienced if you just offload the burden. We’re gonna talk about that in a minute.

Number three, your wife also knows on some level. She may not know consciously, she may be in denial about it, but… I mean, you could maybe corroborate this.

Selena: If there’s a lack of intimacy, it’s guaranteed that porn is at some point being used or been used. Women are not ignorant at that fact.

Ryan: Or any life circumstance, like maybe after you’ve had a baby or maybe if there’s some sort of health issue. If you have an otherwise healthy physical marriage and there’s no intimacy, that’s a pretty big red flag. And most wives, I think on some intuitive level will know that. So what is the truth? What is the truth that combats this lie that we think that porn addiction doesn’t hurt anyone? The truth is that porn, actually, like you said, it hurts individuals, it hurts relationships, and it hurts society.

Selena: We’re seeing that now. I mean, you see that everywhere we go.

Ryan: Yes. So it damages the soul as all habitual sin does. It’s extremely addictive. It changes the wiring in the brain and it always escalates. It never de-escalates. It always gets more intense, not less intense. That’s the nature of it.

Selena: You desire for more.

Ryan: So it is damaging you—that’s the individual. It is damaging your relationship. It normalizes abhorrent behavior. And here’s why I say this. It objectify females, it lowers the view and respect for females. Actually, there is a website that I highly recommend, if you’ve not heard of it. It’s called Fightthenewdrug.org. And they basically lay out all the data around pornography and how it’s harmful for individual’s relationships in society.

Just within the first article that you read on their website where it shows the research, it says this, “Despite the incredible complexity of the human brain, at least one thing is clear: as human beings, we are hardwired for connection. On down it says, “To start, dozens of studies have repeatedly shown that porn consumers tend to have a lower relationship satisfaction and lower relationship quality. I mean-

Selena: Is this a Christian site? It doesn’t seem like it’s overtly Christian but-

Ryan: It’s not overtly Christian. It’s purely trying to treat pornography like a drug.

Selena: So interesting. Right?

Ryan: I think there is obviously some worldview at play underneath it, but-

Selena: Not only does it objectify females, it objectify children. I mean, you see even now boys that are being exploited in child trafficking, sex trafficking. This is all because of people thinking that porn doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s related… not direct.

Ryan: So how is it affecting society? I watched the video by a guy by the name of John Foubert. He said this, between 2008 and 2011, teen access to porn went from 14% to 49%. In the three-year period. That’s more than triple. Oh, what was the difference? Smartphones.

So now you have a generation… I’ll say, if you’re in your early 20s, mid-20s, this is you, where you’ve grown up most likely with porn being a big part of your life. And it’s not gonna do you well. In fact, John Foubert, the guy I just referenced, he says it encourages violence. There’s a study from the University of Arkansas and NYU, it says, 88% of scenes in pornography include violence of a man toward a woman. 80%.

Selena: And I see it over and over those are the most watched videos. The Exodus Cry, they do a whole bunch of studies on these things as well. The most watched videos are the ones that have this type of violent behavior around it.

Ryan: So what you have, you have pro-porn groups saying that porn is a form of freedom of speech, and all these claims that it promotes violence they’re unsubstantiated. They’ll say that. Well, there’s over 50 studies that say this. And this guy that I watched the video, he describes it, he says, the odds of what the pro-porn activists are saying, the odds of what they’re saying being true is the same as the odds of… here’s the analogy. Take the Empire State Building, fill it up with pennies. Now do that a billion times. And it’s the odds of what they say being true are as if you, on one chance, picked the right empire State Building, went to the right floor, and grabbed the right penny. One in, what do you say, decillion chances. So it’s objectively bad for society.

The same research also shows that if you do a brain scan of somebody while watching pornography, what lights up is the part of the brain that deals with objects, not the part of the brain that deals with relationships.

Selena: Wow. Interesting.

Ryan: Right?

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: Because you’re completely objectifying a human being. This is very harmful for society. So the lie that pornography doesn’t hurt anyone is a blatant lie.

Selena: Right. Well, I’m just thinking of taking that thought further. God designed parts of our brain to deal with relationships and parts of our brain to deal with objects. If those get mixed up, we’re gonna be mistreating obviously.

Ryan: Exactly. That’s the implication is that it’s easy to harm an object. It’s a lot harder to harm a relationship, somebody you have a relationship with. So that’s lie number one. False.

Lie number two: I shouldn’t tell my wife about my porn addiction. As the thinking goes, they will say… I’ve heard men say this because I’m afraid it’ll hurt her more. It’ll hurt her more if she knows than if she doesn’t. I want you as a wife to react to this. What do you think about that?

Selena: No, it hurts more to know that you went that long not telling me than continuing.

Ryan: So, wrong. [Selena laughs] A lot of men will say, I can’t tell my wife about my porn addiction because I want to get it under control first.

Selena: No, you can’t.

Ryan: If I can conquer this, then I can go to her and say, By the way, six months ago, a year ago, I was dealing with this, but I’m all better now.

Selena: Well, but how many men have conquered it on their own?

Ryan: I don’t know anyone. I don’t know anyone. I know a lot of guys who’ve tried and failed by themselves.

Selena: But I think one of the biggest pieces to actually conquering it though is telling your wife.

Ryan: Telling your wife, being-

Selena: Known.

Ryan: …wide open with other men-

Selena: Transparent.

Ryan: …in terms of them knowing that, you know, your sin and then the accountability, all that kind of stuff. I’ve seen men overcome it. I’ve never seen a man overcome it alone. Obviously, in the power of the Holy Spirit. I don’t want to discount his involvement in this process. As the thinking goes, they will say, I don’t want to tell my wife about my porn addiction because it’s not worth rocking the boat.

Selena: No. You must not care about your marriage. [laughs].

Ryan: There you have it. Or things won’t be better if I do tell her you. So they’re listening to this podcast. They’re saying, Ryan says I should tell my wife about my porn addiction. Well, I can tell him that it’s not gonna be better. And I think that’s a lie.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: It’s gonna be harder upfront. It’s gonna be more difficult. Okay, I’ll give you that. But the chances of your marriage thriving under the weight of your porn addiction are much lower than the chances of your marriage thriving if you get out from under it.

The last one is a lot of men think, my wife won’t forgive me, or she will leave me. She’ll be devastated. We’ll never recover if I tell her.

Selena: Again, it’s a lie. I don’t think that’s true. I do think, you know, if you’ve found yourself in this addiction consistently, that, yeah, there might be more devastation, the resiliency, I think can begin to wear down in a wife if she’s like, well, he repents but he keeps going back. And not just like an oops, but continually. Right?

Ryan: Yeah.

Selena: So recovering and forgiveness, yes, as believers, it needs to be given in grace. But I think the road gets harder and harder when there’s, again, a lack of repentance or this hidden sin. You’re hiding it. I shouldn’t tell my wife because they won’t forgive me. You don’t know that. Like, you really don’t know that. You may think you know that well or you assume that you know that, but-

Ryan: You hit on a really good point. It’s worth teasing out a tiny bit more. It’s not just about telling your wife, it’s about repenting to your wife. So repenting of it. That’s a heart orientation. Telling is saying words. Repenting is acknowledging what I’ve done is I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned against you and I’ve sinned against these women that I’m lusting after and I’ve sinned against, you know, maybe… I’ve sinned.

So repentance is feeling the weight to that, taking it to your wife, taking it to Christ, and asking it to be removed. And the beauty of that is Christ will always take it. He’ll always take your sin and cast it away from you and say, clean. Now, it’s gonna take your wife time. But in a biblical marriage that is surrounded by the covenant, it’s within the covenant that God has designed it to be and you have love, acting as love is designed to act, that’s when that wife over time will cast that sin from you as well. And that’s what your helper’s there for.

So here’s the truth. Well, I guess the assumptions under all of these lies, and the sub-lies is that you don’t need help. Well, you do. The assumption is that you’re not damaging her already. Well, you already are damaging your wife even though you’ve kept a secret from her. And the other assumption is that it’s undetectable by your wife. Chances are she knows. Chances are your wife already knows.

Selena: Right. And she doesn’t want to police you and call you out on it. Right?

Ryan: Or she knows on some level. That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s not like these wives are enabling sin, but on some level, she can tell that the man that she married is not the same—something has changed.

Selena: The lack of desire… There’s just indicators. There’s indicators that you-

Ryan: And glossing over. The sharpness of tone.

Selena: And you can’t-

Ryan: You can sense it when somebody’s walking with that burden, the heaviness of that.

Selena: It’s the dirty conscience that stinks.

Ryan: So here’s the truth, friends. This is the beauty. Here’s the truth. We are called to walk in the light. There is power in a clean conscience. I was meeting with one of our pastors, and we talked about just a lot of men don’t understand the power of a clean conscience. Like how freeing that is, how well you sleep at night when you’ve not sinned against God, when you’ve not sinned against… Granted, we are all sinners. But when you’re living in habitual sin, you are walking knowingly in rebellion.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: And that will turn you inward on yourself. Like Sméagol with the ring.

Selena: Yeah.

Ryan: Right? And you start to shrivel and you start to grow weak and you don’t realize it. But there’s strength in responding to the word of God. There’s power in clean conscience. I’m memorizing this verse right now so I wanted to read it. I just love this verse. It’s from Titus 2 starting in verse 11. Selena, do you want to read that?

Selena: Yeah. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave him himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Mm.

Ryan: Amen.

Selena: Amen. Amen.

Ryan: For the grace of God has appeared. Do you see how it starts with that?

Selena: Mm-hmm.

Ryan: We’re telling you, the good news is that you are saved by grace not by your own behavior, not by your own works. And that’s what Paul is saying here. For the grace of God has appeared, it brought salvation for all. Then what? Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.

So it starts from that place of grace, and it moves into sanctifying the life of the believer. So that’s the first piece of truth, is you are called to walk in the light. That’s why Christ died. That’s why he came unto and into the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. That’s how we’re called to live.

Truth number two. Your wife is a helper and she’s fit for you. Fit for you. Not just a helper. Not just somebody picked off the street. No. God has joined you together and said, you be head, you be helper, work together, love, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and be sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Disciple one another. So your wife is a helper.

The other aspect is she wants to help you. I’m just taken aback by how many times we talk and I’m frustrated and Selena, it comes out you want to help me. And I want to help you. I want nothing more than for you just to be happy. I mean that. I mean, I want to honor the Lord.

Selena: Just be happy, please. [both laughs]. I just don’t want you to be mad. [laughs].

Ryan: But I want to glorify the Lord. But in terms of our marriage, I want to delight my wife. I want to please my wife. And what I hear in return from you is the same, but you want to help.

Selena: We want to bear the weight with you. At least if the Lord is at worked on your own heart and you understand the weight of your own sin, wife, you want to bear that weight with your husband because you know that coming alongside, you know that partnering with him in this battle is only gonna make you stronger. It’s only gonna make your covenant that much more secure. So it’s not stepping aside or relinquishing your role and saying, it’s your battle, it’s your thing, you deal with it. No, this is a marriage covenant. So we are in it together. We are working through this together.

Ryan: So we’re called to walk in the light. Your wife is a helper fit for you to help you walk in the light. And the promise is there is clarity, cleansing, and deep relationship to be had on the other side of repentance and admitting your need for help. We walk in the light, sees in the light, we have fellowship one another with one another. We’ll be cleansed from all in righteousness. That promise rings true. And friends, that’s the promise that you need to cling to as you consider rejecting these lies, that if perhaps you’re believing.

Okay, the third lie. And this one to me is very prevalent. And it’s this, I can’t ask for intimacy. It’s another way of saying if my wife wanted to be intimate, she would initiate. [Selena laughs]. Is that true?

Selena: I mean, yes and no, because I don’t necessarily always want to be intimate, but I want to feel close to you. Does that make sense? I may not always want to have sex, but if having sex with you helps me feel close and us feel connected, then like, yeah, I want that.

Ryan: Sweet.

Selena: I don’t know if it’s secondary or primary what that feels like. But yeah, if I don’t initiate it doesn’t mean I don’t want it.

Ryan: Doesn’t mean you’re not available for it,-

Selena: Yes.

Ryan: …you’re not open to it.

Selena: Yes.

Ryan: Right. That’s helpful for husbands to hear-

Selena: Because you think if I don’t initiate it, you take that as a personal rejection. A deep personal rejection. [laughs] This has been a battle for us.

Ryan: Just to be frank. I don’t think men are sex maniacs. I don’t think that.

Selena: No.

Ryan: But men think about it a lot more.

Selena: Right. And we can’t, as women, just think you’re just physical being that just wants this release. Right?

Ryan: Right.

Selena: It’s not that. You were telling me that husbands are physical beings and they have spiritual… you want to be close with me. You don’t just want-

Ryan: I think it’s a lie that men just want the physical aspects of sex.

Selena: So women can believe some of those same lies that like, well, he just wants it, so whatever.

Ryan: I think that’s a lie. I think men need the emotional connection.

Selena: There’s many reasons for why we have sex.

Ryan: Very much. And it’s very intertwined with the physical aspects of it. There’s a physiological thing happening there.

Selena: Right. And when we talked about I can’t ask for intimacy from a husband saying this to a wife, you asked me that and I said, well, it depends a little bit on the why, the how, and the when. So what’s the reason behind why you’re asking me? Has it been a while? Are you just feeling like you really need me and it’s more of a physical thing? Then let’s talk about it. And, you know, we’ve been okay with that. I still feel close to you, and sometimes it’s more about you than me. So that’s the why. I want to know kind of some of the why if I don’t already. The how… did I say how? [laughs]. What does it mean how?

Ryan: Well, how you ask.

Selena: How you ask. I was like, how we have sex? We already know this.

Ryan: You don’t want to, like… You know, as you’re walking out the door for work for the day, it’s like, Hey, let’s knock boots later. [Selena laughs]. Okay, that’s not really an request.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: It’s also not very… you’re not treating your wife with a lot of respect.

Selena: Right.

Ryan: Now, if you have some sort of rapport where that’s a funny thing and it makes you laugh and it works for you-

Selena: And it works out and it’s great…. yeah. But it’s not a way of asking for it. [laughs]

Ryan: Yeah. Or like send her the emoji. Like this emoji and then this emoji.

Selena: Oh, stop it. So how you ask-

Ryan: If you’re not watching, you’ll have to check that out.

Selena: Yes. How you ask is important. Why you ask is important. And then when you ask… I mean, he’s like, well, you know, when you’re really tired, and it’s like, yeah, but I don’t regret it though. Right? Even if I’m really tired, it’s… [laughs]. I said, it’s like working out. You never regret working out. And he’s like, thank you for saying that. It is just-

Ryan: A very rigorous experience.

Selena: I was like, well, that’s not what I’m saying. [Ryan laughs]

Ryan: Cardio.

Selena: Sometimes you don’t really have the desire to do it. But because I can see it as an opportunity to be selfless, I see it as an opportunity to be generous, to be loving towards my husband, to help my husband, to be kind.

Ryan: Here’s where I want to go a little bit further. Are you saying this because you’re Selena and this is how Selena thinks? Or are you saying this because there’s some spiritual underlying truth that-

Selena: Absolutely.

Ryan: …that you’ve fought into and it’s biblical.

Selena: Well, I think it’s been, over time, the Holy Spirit has transformed my heart and my perspective of seeing my husband not as an adversary or someone to just be like placated, you know, just feed him, just take care of him, whatever. It’s like, no, you’re my husband. We’re in relationship with one another. There are reasons why I love you. There are reasons why I respect you. There are reasons why I need your husbandship [laughs]. You know, I need you to be my husband. And when I see you for more than just, you know, the boxes that you check, that’s where it becomes less-

Ryan: Interesting.

Selena: …as an object. Right? Less objective. It’s more personal. It’s a covenant, not a contract.

Ryan: And of course, we have the passage of Paul writing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 7, where he’s exhorting husbands and wives saying, don’t deprive one another of intimacy, unless it’s for fasting and prayer. And we should take that seriously. Again, people can twist that and a husband could use that as a cudgel to say, like, you have to give me. You know, that’s not what Paul’s talking about.

Selena: No.

Ryan: There is a way to ask. And what you’re saying, and what I think we’re trying to say is that, husband, it’s a lie for you to think that you can’t ask your wife for intimacy. Instead, you can ask. Very practically, here’s what I would recommend. If you’re not connected with your wife, make an effort to connect with her. Frankly, start there. “Listen, I miss you. We haven’t connected. I feel like we’re emotionally distant. I feel like we haven’t talked.” I take whatever responsibility you need to take for that. Start there. Now, don’t just come in and say, I’m gonna ask really nicely for intimacy. Understand-

Selena: I want to… Go ahead.

Ryan: …the playing field and be wise. Now it’s not because you’re buttering her up. It’s because you’re realizing you’re distant. And then as it goes on, as you’re able to ask, simply something like this, “I really miss you. I miss being intimate with you. Can we be intimate soon? Preferably tonight.” Preferably in the next 10 minutes. [both laughs]

Selena: I think another place to start is just try to laugh together too. We have a whole episode on that. Laughing for me really just breaks down any walls, any feelings of just disconnect. Again, you have to be right about the timing and all of that, but it’s just a fast way to kind of…

Ryan: That’s good.

Selena: …get on the same playing field again and come face to face with each other.

Ryan: Good. Again, a pretty sensitive conversation. If you are in the middle of battling an addiction to pornography, and you’re, you’re carrying that weight, whether you’re a husband who’s addicted or a wife who’s addicted, or you’re married to a spouse who’s addicted, you’re carrying that weight, I can understand that. This can feel like there’s something in your gut saying, something needs to change and I’m afraid.

We can’t get rid of the hard thing for you but we can show you the one that can walk alongside you through it. And that’s what Christ promises is that he will never leave you nor forsake you. He will walk alongside you in it, especially as we walk in obedience to God. That there’s a promise that says, if you walk in the light, you’ll have fellowship and you’ll be cleansed. That’s a promise. You cling to those promises. You step out into the light, step outta the darkness into the light. Pray for the grace of God in that process, eyes wide open and cast yourself into His loving hands. Trust your God. That’s the expectation. We can’t trust God for you, but we can show you that He is trustworthy. And friends, we’re here because God is trustworthy.

If you don’t know who God is, you don’t who Christ is, we encourage you to find a friend who can introduce you to Jesus, who can walk alongside you, who can open their Bible with you and show you what the Bible says. Then go with them to church. Find a church that preaches outta the Bible. Start learning. Start becoming a disciple of Christ. We want to call you brother or sister. If you don’t have either of those things, we have a website set up for you to get your foot on that path. It’s just this, thenewsisgood.com. That’s there for you. Check it out.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your promises that we can see. Even if we’re in a dark place, we can see your light shining, calling us out of the darkness into the light. I pray for the husbands and wives who are facing some tough conversations. I pray that you give them grace, give them hope, give them peace. I pray that you give them resolute desire to walk in righteousness, to be courageous, to do the hard thing, knowing full well that you are the God of promises. You have made these promises that it will not be in vain.

Help them to trust you. Help them to cast themselves into your loving hand. Help us to do that, Lord. In Jesus name. Amen.

Selena: Amen.

Ryan: Again, thank you so much for joining us. If you want to partner with us, we would be so grateful. Go to fiercemarriage.com/partner. We ask you pray about that. If the Lord leads you, we’d be honored to have you. Otherwise, we’ll be here again. So this episode of Fierce Marriage is—

Selena: In the can.

Ryan: We’ll see you again in seven days. Until next time—

Selena: Stay fierce.