As we travel, meet people, and interact with so many of you on social media, we get a variation of this question constantly. Well today on Conversations with John and Lisa, we’re diving into this!

[Music]

hey everyone welcome to

conversations with john and i’m joined

by my beautiful wife lisa it’s been a

while

it has been awesome we talk but we don’t

record our talks yeah

yeah so um yeah we’ve been really busy

lately with this new app that’s just

come out that we’ll tell you about at

the end but

i want to tell you this first of all

messenger um international does have

several podcasts and so conversations

just one

of them we’ve got let’s talk about it

with sons and daughters and then we’ve

got the godmothers with you

you know the godmother the godmother

yeah i mean there can be plural but

it’s just me interviewing people i love

that so with lisa bevere and then we

have the messenger podcast which is

right now being redesigned reformatted

and we’re really excited to share that

with you here in

a short amount of time so today i’m just

so excited that we’re going to talk

about something that both lisa and i are

very passionate about and that’s

marriage but before we jump in

i just want to encourage everybody to

please rate and subscribe

to conversations because it really helps

get the message out and if you’re

getting benefited

don’t you want to see others get

benefited it’s just a united effort so

it’s cool at least

it is cool so and you know john we are

passionate about marriage because we are

married

and so you can have 30 years nine years

this year

yes thank you i almost said 38. you can

be happily married one

week and unhappily married the next

week and uh we reached out while we were

doing

a marriage conference recently we

reached out through our

amazing daughter-in-law and she asked a

bunch of questions

about what you know what can we answer

now these are questions from our

daughter-in-law or from friends

you know what that was very confusing i

get that no she posted on

my social media okay hey what are some

of the

things or questions or struggles or

challenges

that you’re having in your marriage now

you and i know that a lot of these are

common struggles but kovit has like it

just oh my gosh so strong marriages

are getting stronger but marriages that

maybe were avoiding

conversations they need to have or

avoiding resolving

some issues those issues sometimes have

just come to the forefront and taken

their marriages

hostage so i wanted to just kind of do a

q a because we love hearing from our

audience

and interacting instead of us just

saying what we think you want to hear

we we really are excited that people

actually uh

reached out so i’m going to do the

hardest one first okay okay

here it is who is supposed

to lead who is supposed to lead that’s

the hardest one

well okay it seems to be a struggle

question

so and maybe you could begin by just

you’re kind of talking a little bit

about it again yeah yeah

whoever has the wisdom of god should be

leading right

but now but when you’re talking about

the head of a household

where there’s a difference between the

head of a household and who’s leading

okay okay wait i hope everybody just

heard that there is a

difference between being the head of the

household

and the leader lisa if i’m leading and

what we’re cooking for dinner tonight we

may not have as good a dinner

than if you lead now that’s a very

superficial

response but if you apply this deeper

uh lisa you know if you look at if

you’ve got a lady in

a home and she’s absolutely amazing with

accounting amazing with numbers

why should she be lead why shouldn’t she

be leading in the finances now

don’t get me wrong the head of the

home’s the husband she can sit down and

share with them they can talk things

through

if they have a disagreement you know

they can look at each other and say well

let’s just agree to go with what we

believe the best wisdom in now if i’m a

wise husband

and i know my wife’s better with numbers

and accounting and finances than i am

you know what i’m going to do i’m going

to listen to my wife because i realize

this is her area of gifting that god has

given now that’s a good leader because

or excuse me a good head of the home

because the head of the home doesn’t say

i got the answer for everything and i’m

the boss of the world i’m the boss of

the world

the head of the home says i’m going to

discern

who has the proper wisdom in moving

forward

and lisa there’s been many times in our

marriage your wisdom has been

so much greater and more sound than mine

and it’s been proven because when we

were younger in our marriage i was

insecure

and i would go no no no i’m the head of

the household i’m supposed to make all

the decisions

and we’d suffer from it so a leader is

somebody

who actually understands and recognizes

the gifting

of their wife and says okay this is a

gifting i

see on your life and i see that god has

anointed you

in this area so i want you to take the

lead when it comes to

doing our finances or i want you to take

the lead when it comes to

doing homework with the kids or i want

you to take the lead when it comes to

our social interactions with other

people

um i want you to feel free a leader

would say i want you to feel free to be

whoever god created you to be

and and that wouldn’t mean there wasn’t

a conversation because i think sometimes

um we get the idea that leaders

operate independent of the wife right

or the wife if so she’s strong in

leading she’s independent of the husband

let’s keep our terminology easy to

dissect for everybody listening to us

yes you keep saying the leader like

why we what lisa meant to say is the

head the head the head

the head of the home recognizes who is

stronger in leadership in a certain area

because

the quest question was who should lead

the answer is he or she who has the

wisdom of god in that area i love that

for the gift of god in that area

absolutely okay so so good question

here’s a practical application

you know john you minister i minister

you’re

the head of our household but you don’t

tell me what to preach on

no you say i trust you with the gifting

of god

yeah and and i even though i’m anointed

to preach

i don’t tell you what to preach but both

of us do

give one another input so that we’re

better at doing what we do

you have helped me a lot before yeah

because i was saying things that were

hard for people to hear and you helped

me to say it better

but i didn’t compromise the truth of it

right right okay so here’s another great

question and i love it it says

how do you work through differences

you can’t seem to align on

easily well that’s easy

that is yeah your wife’s always right no

no i’m joking if guys you better listen

to what i just said

uh no i mean you better listen that the

wife is on no i’m i’m i’m i’m joking

right now but lisa

when we have differences we need to

rumble

and that’s a that’s a common term in our

household all right wrestling and

rumbling

and there is nothing wrong with rumbling

if you look at the disciples in acts

chapter 15 they rumbled

they all said what they really felt in

their heart

and then the head who was james stood up

and

after listening to what everybody said

said i can see and i believe i have the

spirit of god’s

counsel in this that this is the way we

should go

so if there’s no rumbling i’m going to

miss out on some of the wisdom in you

you’re going to miss out on some of the

wisdom of me and sometimes wisdom is

like

a puzzle piece when you have all the

puzzle pieces on the table and you begin

to rumble you know what you do

you’re putting that puzzle together so

you see a clear picture of what god

wants you to see

so the problem is is that we don’t

rumble

and i i just lisa you and i remember we

were first married there was this couple

they never rumbled

okay now rumbled rumbling is intense

fellowship or

or just uh the freedom to speak freely

right

right right and not you know and not be

uh not be

controlling if you don’t like what

somebody says like we always say

uh everything is a good idea for a

minute so

people get to hear it not people are

listening not just thinking what they’re

gonna say back

at that moment so yeah so there was a

couple go ahead

never found they never fought and we

felt like utter failures

because we did rumble and we did uh get

intense on

our disagreements and you know three

years later this couple all of a sudden

divorce and both were

very very hurt and wounded and what

happened is

is they never allowed themselves to

really discuss things so

they’re constantly making decisions in

their home with just a piece of the

puzzle or two pieces that aren’t even

connected together

or resentment building up because they

don’t feel heard

right um or didn’t feel respected so

here’s the rules of rumbling you never

attack the person’s character

never listen to me i’m going to be

really strong and be a really strong dad

with all of you right now

never ever attack your spouse’s

character don’t say

you’re lazy you can say

isn’t this behavior kind of exemplifying

laziness in front of our children let’s

say you know if you’re sitting

or your husband’s sitting watching the

tv while children are doing homework and

the mom’s friendly helping them

there needs to be a rumble and the

rumble is it isn’t that the wife looks

at the husband and says

you’re lazy that attacks his character

she says

honey we’ve got to be examples to our

children on how we work together

how you are involved with their lives it

would appear to them that you’re

that this is lazy behavior or you’re

disengaged and don’t care yeah you’re

so so now this rumbling goes on

and so the husband can’t feel personally

attacked

so then the wife can can hear that

that’s another piece that just came out

and can she can say but but honey could

we get the kids to bed by 7 30 and then

you unwind

so what’s going on is a dialogue instead

of attacking each other instead of her

saying

you are a lazy bum and him going no

i work so hard and you don’t care about

what i do for this family

that’s illegal fighting right there

illegal illegal

that that’s you do yellow flag foul yes

personal foul yes

okay and and i i do want to acknowledge

that a lot of people don’t have

a stereotypical family where the wife

stays home with the kids and the husband

works full-time

that’s my example no but i do want to i

would do think it’s important that we

acknowledge sometimes it’s both spouses

working

and still the husband thinks that all

the all of that falls on the wife

and that actually leads us into this

next question which i think is really

good

which it says how do you voice your

needs to your partner

i’m gonna let you answer that oh i’m so

glad okay so first of all

timing is everything so using your

example

about a why feeling incredibly

frustrated she’s working with the kids

her husband is sitting there disengaged

watching the television saying something

to him

in that moment is probably not going to

be the best

approach you know she could ask him to

like hey can you step on the room with

me and then say something

so saying it so that a person

has uh the timing and the environment to

hear it so

i remember when you and i had young kids

the only time for me to offload

all of my problems was right when we

were going to bed at night

remember that i do remember that i’d be

like listen

there’s two things i want to do at night

i either want to go to sleep

or i want to have sex i do not want to

have these long

drawn out drama conversations but to me

that was my first time to have time with

you

alone and so it wasn’t that i was having

the wrong conversation i was having the

right conversation at the wrong time so

the right conversation at the wrong time

usually gets the wrong results

other thing is and this is just so

simple

you know i felt like you weren’t hearing

me you know

early on in our marriage so what i would

do is i would say it louder i would say

with threats i would say it repeatedly

and i would think all right i’m going to

nag it i’m going to threaten it i’m

going to and and i was thinking adding

all these layer

layers of angst was going to

punctuate the importance but instead it

frustrated me

it made you feel like i was just a nag

and not not feel like what i was saying

was valid

and i remember the holy spirit arresting

me and say

lisa if you want to be heard say it

say it the way you’d want to hear it you

don’t do well with threats

you don’t do well with people yelling so

say it the way

you would want to hear it so super

simple

yeah hey if you’re out there and you

feel

like you’re having a challenge you’re

not being heard

be very strategic about how you say it

and be very intentional about when

you say it and that might even mean in a

moment

of frustration you’ve got to delay the

conversation to the next day

when people aren’t tired you and i both

know we make horrible decisions when

we’re exhausted and tired and so i think

a lot of people

um don’t realize the importance of

opportunity

with the timing and do you want to add

anything to that no but i do want to say

that right now because i thought that

answer was

outstanding um right now with the covid

in the last 10 months boy things have

amplified

yeah and tensions are tight because

there’s there’s fear

and i think this is a real wake-up call

to the church and we’re speaking to the

church right now right

that the most important thing we do is

make time

to spend with god that means we’re

reading our bibles

and we are praying because what happens

it keeps us in a place to where we will

not now just fly off the handle

say something cruel say something mean

now with all the pressures

and the fears that will mount

with marriage problems so much quicker

yeah so

the thing is i find that the word of god

arrests

fear yeah truth will eliminate it

and if we love the truth and we’re

putting the truth in our heart

we will walk it as people of faith

because our confidence will not be in

what’s happening in our economy

in our society but in god himself i love

that

you know one thing there is just man

there’s so many questions in john

i’m so glad we’re doing a two-part on

this yeah we can always do something

next time

you know somebody just was saying

something that i thought was

you know really really important i need

to i need to get this okay

how do you handle differences

differences in personality styles

so one person outspoken and the other

more reserved okay i i do want to answer

this one quickly

the outspoken person needs to learn to

be quiet a little more

he or she needs to realize that if i’m

always being the one that’s outspoken

i’m never going to hear the heart

yeah or the thoughts or the wisdom of my

spouse

okay so the quiet one also needs to not

bottle everything up and hold it inside

because that

creates real problems because eventually

it comes to the point

where now there is an explosion and a

lot of times

with seemingly which that never happens

because with god all things are possible

but

seemingly with no solution so i actually

think somebody that’s reserved and

somebody outspoken

in my opinion has a better dynamic

than too outspoken or too reserved

because the two reserved are never gonna

say anything

and the two outspoken are never gonna

stop saying

something so i kind of feel like these

people have a reserve spouse and an

outspoken spout

they kind of can grow into the middle

so i just you know for that person out

there that says i’ve got the reserve

spouse and i’m outspoken

you need to say hallelujah because we

are too outspoken

and it can get loud i thought you were

the reserved one in our marriage

what i’m joking hey listen there might

have been times that i was

the insecure one or the shy one

but i don’t know if i was ever reserved

our great our greatest challenge and you

said it right is

that we have both had to learn how to

hear each other

yeah because we’re always both so

outspoken

and uh we are two leaders lisa i mean

you are definitely a leader you used to

say that to me all the time i’m not a

leader you’re a leader and

i’d be like oh no that’s not true you’re

a little okay but what was my motive

behind that what was i saying i don’t

know

i think i was trying to escape

responsibility oh okay

i’m pretty sure i don’t want to be a

leader there’s too much

but in our maturity i want to bring it

back to this again

i had to learn and you had to learn yeah

what were lisa’s strengths

and what were john’s strengths and we

learned

how to get become the quieter one

although still outs

still speaking out our heart in those

areas where we weren’t as strong

yeah i agree uh something that someone

said that i feel like is a really quick

answer and maybe i’m maybe i’m diving

into the deep here

somebody said how do you guys feel about

pre-nup

like prenuptial agreements where like

hey we’re writing everything out

if you get you asked that when you’re

answering this one okay

so you know i okay so i don’t know this

situation

but hopefully hopefully if i’m entering

into a covenant with somebody

everything that is theirs is mine

and everything that is mine is theirs

and contracts are the things that

actually like

most to me a prenup is a pre-marital

contract i don’t know maybe you’re like

a super wealthy model

and you’re worried that you’ve got some

gangster boyfriend who’s going to rip

you off so i don’t i don’t know

i don’t know what your case is but as a

general rule

if you can’t trust somebody to enter

into a covenant where everything

that you have is theirs and everything

that they have as yours i wouldn’t marry

them

well lisa we are actually uh coming to a

close here

and you know what’s really cool is we’ve

got a couple courses

on messenger x now everyone listen to me

carefully because this is such great

news

we have the messenger x app that just

came out in january of 2021.

we have over 35 courses on that app and

it’s completely

no charge to you you can sign up within

30 seconds by just going to google play

and type in messenger x if you have an

android if you’ve got an

iphone just go to the app store and type

in messenger x if you want to do it on

your computer

type in messengerx.com and you’re in

in 30 seconds you’ve got 35 courses two

of which

one is done by chip judd on

relationships

it is one of our most popular courses he

is absolutely amazing

and he has been lisa’s and my marriage

counselor the last

five six years of our life the other one

we have on there is the story of

marriage lisa and i wrote an

entire book the book the audiobook the

book and the course are

all on messenger x app now the other

thing i want you to remember now that

i’m talking about this messenger x

is to share don’t just allow

this beautiful gift that god has given

to all of us to just be in your

possession

share it with your friends yeah somebody

might be going through

some troubled season in their marriage

and you don’t have answers and you can

actually just share this and say

hey i’m walking through this let’s walk

through this together all they have to

do is hit one button lisa and they can

text it

airdrop it or email it to one of their

friends it’s so easy to do

and so the other thing we want to say is

again

please rate and review and even

subscribe to the show

because this helps others to be able to

get the word of god

and i just want to say to all of you

marriage

is precious to god he is the one that

authored it

and he said he is the author and

finisher of our faith

don’t give up because nothing is

impossible

with god i don’t care how hopeless your

situation seems

through prayer through crying out to god

through reading his word

anything anything can be

mended and not only mended but made

stronger than it’s ever been before

till next time this is john and lisa for

conversations thanks for listening to

conversations with john and lisa

let us know your thoughts by leaving a

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and while you’re there be sure to check

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podcast network

including the godmother with lisa bevere

let’s talk about it with sons and

daughters and the messenger podcast

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download the messenger x app today

in the app store until next time