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