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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
Hey guys. Welcome back to Dad Tired. If you are listening to this on the week of August 21st, 2023, and you are thinking about going to our dad tired annual retreat, you must sign up today. We have very few spots left and you have very few days left to sign up before we close out registration. So if you've been procrastinating, you're like, I think I wanna go.
Maybe I wanna go. Maybe I don't wanna go. Listen, go. Be encouraged. Meet a bunch of other like-minded guys. Spend some time just getting rest so that you can go back and be the husband, father disciple that God is calling you to be. We want you there, but again, we have very few spots left and you have very little time left to register.
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Aaron and Jennifer, it is so good to see you guys for multiple reasons. One 'cause I just love you guys and love what you're doing.
Seeing your faces reminds me a little bit of Oregon, which is how Layla and I spent the last 13 years before we moved here and I. I just remember when I was starting Dad Tired, you guys, and Aaron, you specifically reaching out and just being one of the very first like encouraging voices for me as a man trying to get into this space and felt really daunting and like I didn't know what I was doing.
And you, you've been crushing it in this world of just encouraging men toward Jesus for a long time and um, you really were an encouragement to me. So it's just always good to see your face, see your guys' faces, and watch you guys continue to be used by God to point. People closer to him. So anyway, it's great to see you guys.
I'm super glad that you're back here.
Yeah, we're, we're on it too. And, uh, it has been a long time. I, I always forget how I connect with people. Yeah. But that's good to remember those, those old days. You've come so far, man.
Oh man. Proud of you. Yeah. Thank you, bro. Well, you guys, like I said, you guys have been encouraging people, husbands, wives, men, women.
Toward Jesus to, in many ways, like just from an objective perspective, like radical honesty and vulnerability and getting after the real things of life so that they can have the most abundant relationship with each other and with Jesus. Like I, you guys are just, you're doing that so, so well. You've been on the show a couple times, but I'd love for somebody that maybe just stumbled upon Dad tired and they're just hearing you about you guys for the first time.
Maybe just give us like a quick backstory of your marriage and how you got started into this whole space.
Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer. And I'm Erin. We, uh, married 16 and a half years ago and have been on a wild adventure ever since. We have, uh, five kids ranging from three to 10. And about 12 years ago we started sharing our marriage story online and.
Like you already mentioned, Jared, just our whole goal was to share from a vulnerable and honest perspective of marriage and what we were going through. Not saying, Hey, we've learned it. We've come all this way and here we are and we wanna share our expertise with you. That was not, yeah,
never that our
approach, it's always been this place of like, uh, we really messed up and this is how we got through it.
And from there we started just. Being able to encourage other couples and share a few resources that have impacted marriages along the way. So we're just super stoked to be able to still be doing it after all this time. And is there anything that you wanted to add?
Yeah, we, so our ministry marriage after God, which.
It evolved into over the, over the years started from us coming out of a really rough time in our, our marriage and really me encouraging my wife who loves to write and, and I was doing social media stuff and, and marketing and I was like, why don't we start a little blog and why don't you tell people about what we're going through?
Again, never is like, Hey, we're marriage experts. 'cause we weren't. And we aren't. But let's encourage others with what God's teaching us and maybe us. By us opening up people will be encouraged by that and which
was, which came from us joining a marriage group where other couples were sharing honestly about where they're at.
We got to experience that and we realized that when you step out. And encouraged to be able to share vulnerably like, Hey, like this is what we're struggling with. It's amazing how that encourages other couples to then be able to be transparent and honest.
Yeah. So we did that. We started the Unveiled Wife, which is what it was for many years.
And then, um, I started husband revolution.com to start talking to husbands. And then over the years we're like, why don't we make marriage after God? Mm-hmm. And so we made Marriage After God, which is now, uh, it's a website, it's a store, it's a podcast. It's a book. It's a book. Uh, and so. That's been our ministry for years and a, a big part of it's been us sending out daily prayer emails, which is where a lot of our prayer resources came from, our prayer books, and then this newest book, the Marriage Gift, which is 365 Prayers for Marriage.
And so we. Our ministry has been just being, like you said, vulnerable, transparent, never coming at work. Our heart is never to be marriage experts. I don't think really anyone can be, maybe, maybe better than us, but our heart is to be honest, and just to share like, Hey, we're, here's where we're at. We know that God has the answers, so we try and chase after Jesus.
Mm-hmm. And so that's what we try and share with people and at the same time like, Hey, we wanna encourage you to do the same chase after Jesus. And guess what? Fruit will come from that in your life in a marriage.
Yeah, I know it was a while for you guys, but what was that? You talked about you guys were going through a hard season at that point, and I know it wasn't just like, oh, you leave your laundry on the floor and that's frustrating.
Like you guys were going through some real stuff.
Yeah, I think all those little things, definitely, like we have some intense feelings about them. Mm. And I think that comes from after time of not dealing with some of those root problems and, and causes in marriage where you're not addressing things or you're not willing to go to those heart places of man.
These things are really getting to me and, and talking through them and working through them. And for us, I would say the first four years of our marriage. It started with intimacy issues and we had this ideal when we got married of like what life would be like and it was nothing like that. And so we felt kind of crushed in that, that area of our marriage.
And we prayed and then we didn't get immediate answers. And so that was the beginning of kind of my downward spiral in faith, like wrestling with God and trying to understand how is this all gonna work itself out because it felt like it wasn't working at all. I experienced a lot of pain every time that we tried to be physically intimate, and so that became kind of that, that root of of problem that led into other areas of marriage.
Becoming problems
and looking back on, on those first four years and also just every year of our, our marriage
has, its up, its and downs for sure, but
recognizing, you know, hindsight's always 2020. We look back and we're like, man, like God was using that really difficult thing I. That we were bitter about, that we were angry at him about that.
We were, we're like fighting. We're like, we don't want this. This is not what we deserve.
Didn't understand it, you know? Yeah. As if
God owes us anything.
Right.
But he was using it to refine us. Mm-hmm. He was taking us to the ends of our ourself for our sake and for his sake. It wasn't until we surrendered to that and recognized like, oh.
Even if these things don't change, this is a revelation that I, that I believe God gave me is even if nothing changes, am I going to love my wife as Christ loves the church?
Wow.
Even if she doesn't change,
like accepting the hardship, accepting circumstances that are unwanted and being able to remain steadfast in the decision that we made, which was get married and become one.
Well, and in reality it's a, it was a, are you gonna still. Honor me, Aaron, are you gonna still follow me, Aaron, like, or is that contingent on all of these things in your life being perfect?
Mm-hmm.
And so that journey kind of led us into like, well, other people are having these same, maybe not the exact same issue as us, but it comes in on every, every single form you can imagine of, of us ending up.
Putting God on trial for our hardships and our struggles and why my spouse is the way they are. And God's like, no, I want you to surrender to me. And that's what we did. And we, so we started sharing about it. Mm-hmm.
Dude, I think if every husband listening, I mean, obviously we're a podcast for dads, but if every guy listening just ask himself that question, like, if your spouse never changed.
What does your commitment to me look like? If every husband was bold enough to ask, that probably would be convicted and, and also encounter Jesus in deeper ways that they've never encountered him before. Because you're starting to move into a level of. Relationship with Jesus that is way deeper than just like you said, God, you owe me something.
Which is never, there's nowhere in scripture ever that would, we could ever make that kind of argument that God owes us something. In fact, he, the scriptures, Jesus himself is made the opposite point pretty clear. You know, like, I don't owe you anything. This world will be filled, filled with trials on. I thought what you said, Jennifer, was really interesting like, 'cause I kinda was making a joke about the dirty laundry, but you said that stuff usually.
Is pointing to, you didn't say these words exactly, but it's like pointing to something bigger. I'd love for you both to kind of unpack that. 'cause the, there's a lot of marriages who are dealing with surface level things. Lela and I actually were just talking about this. We have, we know somebody who ended up getting a divorce and like one of the final straws of their, like the last thing that they could deal with was the way that their spouse, I'm trying not to go into too many details for the sake of like confidentiality here, probably already blown it, but that one of the final straws was how their spouse did the laundry.
Mm-hmm. And I'm like, wait, what? Like you, you divorced, you broke covenant because of. How they were doing the laundry. And I think what you just said is probably really what's happening. It's like, yeah, it's the laundry, but that's surface level stuff, but there's like way deeper stuff happening that we're never gonna address.
And so we'll just stay up here and keep fighting on that stuff. Like I'd love for you guys to kind of talk about that. 'cause I think there are a lot of couples in that space right now.
I think what I think of is being easily offended and things like the laundry or the little things that can really get to you.
I think when we are easily offended by our spouse, usually is the alarm for, Hey, there's something else. There's something deeper here that's bothering one of us, or both of us that hasn't been addressed or maybe it has been tried to be addressed to, but you know, we haven't worked through it and found resolve.
And that's when we come to a place where like you're now weeks going into talking to each other, you know, short or you're irritable. Yeah. Because of how they are. And then you start to see that that is who they are. And perceiving your spouse in that light can be really destructive.
Again, those little things, they're not little things in reality.
You know, the, in some translations of the Bible, the definition of love, one of them is love is not easily offended. Mm-hmm. Or it's not irritable is the, is another way it's translated when we're easily offended. We're not loving. So I, what I'm saying is, is that you're getting in my way, you're not doing things that way.
I want, we also have this, these lenses on our, on ourselves of I can see your sin and I don't have any. Is another way we, we put it. And so you, you messed up, you did this and because you did that, you, you're not loving me, you're not showing me love. But in reality, we're not loving them. And I, a lot of this stems from going back to the revelation that I believe God gave me that, that one morning at church when everything changed from my wife and I, he presented to me.
The true reality of marriage, which is one of it's non-transactional. And often, and this was our struggle and we still deal with this, it's like it's a natural thing. We have conditions on our love. This is another topic, but one of the rubs I have with the five love languages is, is when it's used in a way of like, you're not loving me the way I want to be loved.
Rather than using it in a way of like, I'm going to love you the way you want to be loved 'cause I love you.
Right. Interesting.
What we do is we, we look at our relationships in a very transactional way. Unless you do this, I won't do this. If you do that, I'll do this. I'm not doing this because you haven't done that.
That's transaction based. Really love. God was asking me, he's like, are you gonna love your wife? Regardless of the bills, your bills that you believe your owe ever paid? Which is, I believe what God's calling us to do. When you read in Ephesians the, the, the famous marriage chapter in Ephesians chapter five, it's not saying Husbands tell your wives to do this, and if they do that, then you do this.
It says, wives do this, husbands do this. Neither of them are contingent on the other. Now they're both required, but neither of them are contingent. So those, all those little things we get rubbed about are often just, they're rubbing against our own flesh and our own, our own level of love for each other, which is normal because we're human.
Yeah. And we're not Jesus. Yeah. But we need Jesus to be able to do that.
Yeah. Better. You guys, like one of the, I think, again, I'm, I'm, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but like, one of the things you guys, it seems like you're so passionate about is really building true intimacy. In marriage and you wanna see other couples really find that true intimacy.
And in order to do that, I guess even something as silly as laundry I'm using, I keep using that as an example. We can think of a million examples of things that like are causing friction within a relationship, but that's broken intimacy. At its core, right? Like there we're not feeling a sense of oneness and connected to each other.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
How does a couple, in your opinion, or like how do you guys, when you get to that spot where you start to sense like, okay, there's been some kind of break in our oneness, in our intimacy. Even for somebody who's listening to this right now, would feel like, okay, we're arguing about this silly thing, but I don't even know how to bring that up.
Because if I bring that up, it's gonna lead to some of those deeper issues, and I'm afraid I'm just gonna open up a whole can of worms that I'm not really prepared. To open up, like how do you fight for intimacy when you're dealing with these kinds of things?
The first thing that I just wanna address is back in the day when I first got married, I thought of intimacy.
Whenever I heard that word as just physical. And over the years, just understanding that intimacy is a lot deeper than that. There's mental and spiritual intimacy where you can connect with each other. In talking about scripture or praying together, there's the intimacy you experience when you do go to those.
Places and talk and just communicate. And so just understanding that there's a lot of different, like, ways of experiencing intimacy as a couple. Mm-hmm. And how important all of those different areas are. Um, it's not that one's more important than the other. And to have a healthy marriage, you really need to pursue and initiate with your spouse, those areas.
And so. When an issue comes up, like we've dealt with this before where it seems like a non-issue, but my reaction to it is a little intense. You've recognized this and have come to me and said, Hey, what you're doing doesn't match what I did. What's really going on? Is there something in your heart? Is there something frustrating you?
Do you wanna talk about it because you don't know? And so that gave me an opportunity to share what I was dealing with and even evaluate, is there anything else? Because sometimes we respond and we don't recognize that things have been building up. And so just giving your spouse that opportunity to stop and say, Hey, how we're operating right now isn't a team.
It's not. Peaceful. It's not, we're not being kind to each other. What else is there? What can we look at? Try and look at it together.
Yeah. The, the analogy I keep thinking of is, 'cause we were talking about the, you know, the, the issues, the little things. I imagine that being like the sand in your shorts at the beach, but really what's It's, so the sand's, but bugging, like if you have like a rash or something, the sand's not the problem, it's the rash and that other stuff gets in there and starts bugging you.
And that lack of intimacy, that lack of recognizing that there's, there's injury, there's, there's something broken at a de more core level. Mm-hmm. Often it comes from a lack of closeness with the Lord, a lack of intimacy with God, which is something that we've, we've walked in that we're like, man, I've been in the word, I haven't been praying like my, I feel distant from God, which then makes it easier for me to walk in the flesh rather than walk in the spirit.
Because as the Bible tells us, says, if you're gonna walk in the spirit, then keep in step with the spirit. 'cause the spirit's a person, he's going somewhere. If, if he's just moved on and we're like, kind of sticking around over here, um, it starts affecting every aspect of our life. I start getting, I'm more irritable.
I'm more easily offended. I'm more, I'm looking at things from a fleshy perspective rather than a spiritual one.
Self-focused.
Yeah. Selfish. Literally going against all the fruits of the spirit, literally going against the definition of biblical love and that usually then there's like a, a cycle that happens.
Mm-hmm. And a back and forth. And I offended you then. You offended me. And that's one of the reasons we, we wrote this, this prayer book, the marriage gift, is we want to show that bringing people back to if, if we can get to this place a habit of prayer, something that we've recognized in our life is anytime, no matter what's going on, if we're like in a, in something happen in between us.
When we pray, when one of us suggests prayer, you either have to be so stubborn and say, I don't wanna do that. And you're literally saying, God, I don't wanna come before you 'cause I wanna hold onto this thing. And you kind of like the spirit shows you that. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm literally saying that right now.
Or you submit to it and you immediately feel like you're small. You're like, oh, I'm stepping before Almighty God with my whatever this thing is. I'm holding onto that. I think I have the right to hold onto. And having a prayer life with your spouse, or at least for your spouse, does begin to draw you closer together in intimacy as you draw closer together in intimacy with God.
'cause he starts softening. He starts changing. We, our minds change. He puts our focuses on different things. So I would say all those things happen. They rub against our flesh, but how we respond to it, it's gonna be directly related to our belief and our intimacy with the Lord.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, man. Such good wisdom.
Jennifer, I appreciate what you were saying about like the levels of intimacy 'cause that's so true and I, I think that's a really good clarification. Like I wrote in, in the newest sta tired book that like. The physical intimacy is a culmination of all those other layers of intimacy that we're striving for.
Like if I'm not connecting with my wife and spiritual intimacy, emotional intimacy, relational intimacy, then it's really selfish and foolish for me to think that we're gonna have some kind of deep physical, I. Intimacy. Like it's a, the culmination of all of who we are holistically coming together. Um, so I really appreciate that distinction.
Do you guys have the prayer book your guys' book in front of you? I don't mean to put you on the spot. No, I do because I wanna talk about that a little bit. The, it's really, I think what you said, Aaron is so good, dude. Like. When I pray, it brings up stuff in like the spirit of God is bringing stuff up in me that I probably, if we were just to sit face to face with my wife and like, Hey, let's talk about these things or address these things, it might be harder for me, but if I just sit and I hold her hands or I sit next to her in bed or whatever, and we pray together, the spirit has a way of just like bringing that stuff up before the Lord and like you, I love what you said, it puts things in perspective in front of Almighty God.
This is ultimately the story here, and this is about us together serving King Jesus and not ourselves. It's really hard to be selfish in prayer. Like if we just like summed it all down, it's really, really hard to be selfish
in
prayer.
When you do pray like that, Lord, change them. Lord, they, as you're saying, the words out loud, talking to God, holy spirit's, like, did you hear what you just said?
Yeah,
totally.
That thing you wanna change in her, like you kind of did the same thing. Totally. And, uh, he's, he's really good about convicting us when we. Are honestly coming before him and not faking our, we're just saying words but not speaking to God. Yeah. Some. So, and that, and that's our, our heart on that.
Yeah. Sometimes I have to, one thing that Layla and I try to do when there is that, that that sense of conflict or break in that relational intimacy, we have to ate the goal. And so before we like talk about the issue, so the goal is like, I am on your team and I want nothing more than to be completely connected with you.
I want you to know all of me, and I wanna know all of you, and I'm with you for life. We're gonna grow old. Like we're just restating all the goal here. Mm-hmm. And our marriage is for the glory of God. You know, we want to become more like him. So when you said this or when I said this, you know, it's like, but we're like, as opposed to the goal is, well, I want to be really happy and you didn't make me happy.
You know, it's like, well, of course. 'cause you're super sinful and flesh and filled, you know, and it's like, of course that you're not always gonna make me happy. We're we're two sinful, broken people trying to live under the same roof together. Of course we're gonna get it under each other's skin, but
Aaron's been really good about being that voice of reason.
Sometimes even just kind of like walking by each other. If I say something a certain way, he'll say, remember, we're on the same team. Mm-hmm. And it's like that, just remember like, we're doing this together. It's really good.
Yeah. I mean something. So I'm for you. Yeah, I'm for you. You know,
that was a good thing, you know, re restating the goal.
I think a lot of men, especially I, I would imagine we have a harder time recognizing that, saying that, but I would put some challenge out there to anyone listening that to actually vocalize what they believe their goal is. Hmm. Because you said like, we're on the same team. We wanted this and that, and. I would imagine there's probably a lot of men out there, a lot of women out there also that they don't have that goal.
Yeah.
Like you said, their goal is you were supposed to serve me, you were supposed to help me, you were supposed to make me feel not lonely and love and like lots of things that are not around the heavenly perspective. I. Of what our marriages are for. And you're
saying if we're willing to acknowledge it, then God can transform.
Well,
yeah. What the reason we have this, a gift of confession, of being able to speak out loud things that we're admitting to is for the process of healing. Mm. Not for just, I need forgiveness, like we're forgiven at the cross. Mm-hmm. The confession comes from actually acknowledging what the truth is.
Rather than acknowledging the consequences of the truth. Mm. Which is often what we do when we confess our sins. It's like, oh, I'm confessing that I feel guilty. Mm-hmm. X, Y, z rather than I'm confessing that I love that thing that I keep doing over and over again. Mm-hmm. So if we can confess, truly be like, wow.
I'm actually recognizing that I don't have a goal of a godly marriage. Mm-hmm. I don't have a goal of loving my wife as Christ loves the church. I don't have a goal of being on your team. I'm just bothered that you're not doing things for me, or that you're not serving me in this way. Way, you're not fulfill way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, if you can get to that point, it's okay to recognize that that's actually recognizing the truth. They're gonna actually be healing and transformation at that point. And then you can move to the goal, like you said, of, Hey, I actually do wanna be on your team.
Mm-hmm.
And I wanna do this for God and I wanna please him in my marriage to you.
Hey guys, just wanted to pause for a minute and say thank you to the guys who are donating to this ministry. Every month we are funded by our listeners. You guys, if you believe in this ministry, and you're like, man, this is actually helpful for me on my journey of becoming more like Jesus and helping my family do the same, would you consider chipping in a few bucks every month to help us keep moving forward?
We have less than 200 guys who are doing that, and yet the reach is over. We have tens of thousands of guys over 150,000 downloads of just this podcast every month. That's not even including social media and books and all the resource free resources, the community that we have, all that, just on this podcast, tens of thousands of guys every week.
Are being equipped with the gospel to lead their family well, if you believe in that, if you're like, man, that's cool. I want to give to that, we'd love to have you partner with us. You can do that by going to dad tire.com/give and you can chip in and be a monthly partner with us. I love you guys again, I hope this is helpful for you.
Let's jump back in. That's so good. I think the truth is there are probably, most of people and I, we've been in this category where you've never stated an explicit goal and so you have a lot of subconscious goals. That are ruled by your flesh. Yep. Yep. I don't really know what our goal is for marriage and, but my flesh knows what it wants.
Mm-hmm. And whenever, and even though I've never said it out loud, you just rubbed against it. You just went against what my flesh wants and now I'm mad. Mm-hmm. Now I know. I didn't realize that was a goal, but you've gone against it. And so I think you're right. Being able to articulate, even if it is that confession.
Man, my flesh really desires to be selfish in this relationship, to get whatever I want and I need to confess that to you. I want us to be on the same page. I want to die to my flesh and serve you in the same way that Christ serves his church. That's where healing's found. Wow. Really, really, really good stuff.
How long are the chapters? Because I know it's a daily prayer for that couple. It's a daily prayer. Yeah. And that the, ideally it would be couples read this together. Is that how that would work?
That would be ideal. If, you know, there's some marriages where one's probably gonna pick it up easier. Yep. Um, so you can read it individually or together.
Okay. Let's read, let's, can you just flip through, are they done by date? Can we read today's date?
Yeah. We didn't do it by date specifically because we wanted it to be something that someone could pick up at any point and they can jump through whatever they want. There are 365, so you could go. January 1st.
Yeah. To the end year.
Let's do it like a magic trick. You just start shuffling those pages and I'll tell you when to stop. We'll, we'll pick one. Yeah.
Because we were talking about in, uh, intimacy.
Oh yeah. If you got one. Let's read it.
I thought. Yeah. It's called our extraordinary intimacy.
Mm.
So you just want me to read it?
Yeah, please. Okay. Dear Lord, you give us life abundantly. We specifically thank you for the intimacy we experience in having a personal relationship with you. Prayer has changed our life for the better. Thank you for letting us come to you and offer our hearts to you in this special way. Please help us recognize the gifts in our lives and be grateful for all of them.
Encourage us to express our thankfulness to you and to each other every day. Help us to be transparent with one another, whether we are struggling or doing well. Make us brave in sharing exactly where we are and exposing the areas where we need to be encouraged. We desire to continue to experience extraordinary intimacy with each other that we may know each other fully.
Will you keep us from holding back anything from one another? Will you teach us how to confidently initiate intimacy in romance in our relationship? Please inspire us to consider one another's needs and help us to find ways to fulfill and satisfy each other completely. May our choices to cultivate more love and trust in our marriage bring you joy, we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen,
man. How do you not grow closer to each other and to Jesus when you like, start off your day or end your day like in prayers like that, you know what I mean? It's so good. You, it would be really cool. You, I was picturing too, it'd just be really cool, like, I'm gonna get a copy of that, by the way. 'cause I love that.
But I, I think it would be really cool to, for Layla and I to like, take turns, you know? Like today you read this one today? Yeah. The, the next day I read that one. Yeah. Just, it's such an easy way for a husband. To lead his wife spiritually without having to really think through, like if he doesn't feel like he's the greatest theologian or whatever, but he's like, just pick up the Bible and read this prayer over your wife and for your marriage.
It's so, so beautiful.
Yeah, and if you notice, I mean, you can imagine someone can read this and maybe think, I don't think these things, or I don't feel these things, like they're saying something that may not currently be true in the moment. Yeah. But the point is, is one of the things that we desired with this is.
As they're reading it, they're recognizing like, wow, like there is a direction to go. And a hope. And a hope. Yeah. This, this. I do want this. Lord, I want this. I want what this just said. I want for my marriage, for my life. I. That I could be thankful for these things that I can be pursuing this way of being.
Mm-hmm. And so we wanted it to be not just a, Hey, read this prayer and it's all true. It's like, no, well this is a direction we want to go. This is something we can look forward to.
And also a catalyst to make it your own and to add things to it that, yeah. Was gonna say that maybe it inspires you to go kind of.
And it, you know, to add things to it that are meaningful specifically to your marriage, that this is just kind of like a prompt to get you there. We've been doing, you know, this marriage ministry thing for over 12 years now, and I. Prayer has always been essential to it. It's always been something that we've been motivated to share and encourage with people because it has made such an impact in our life.
Yeah. And over the years we've heard from others, even close people in our proximity, not online, say like, I want to pray with my spouse, but I don't have the words, or I feel embarrassed, or I don't know how to get started. And so our hearts, or they, or
they've even said that, you know, they feel redundant or like they don't ha they don't know what to say.
Yeah. And so our heart's desire with this book was just to give people something that would. Show them what to pray or how to pray specifically for marriage, and so we're really excited about this. Yeah,
it's a great resource, you guys. I'm really excited about it too. Just like legitimately, personally, just for Layla and I, it's a high value of ours.
We pray often as a couple. It's something we've tried to grow in more over the years, but I love the idea of having something to keep us accountable to praying daily. Together. Yeah. Yeah. And what we find ourselves often doing is praying and desperation, or when we're desperate. Mm-hmm. So a child is out of control in whatever way that means they're sick.
We don't know how to manage their behavior, whatever the thing is, Jesus, we need your help. Or whether it's a financial thing or whatever the thing is. But I don't want to just pray when I'm desperate. I want my soul to recognize how desperate I am every day, and that that would lead me to prayer. You know,
that, like I was saying earlier, we forget.
We think we can do things on our own. We think we can manage and do it all in our flesh. Mm-hmm. And we forget that we actually. You know, we need God totally like moment by moment.
Also how you mentioned like a resource and something for you and Layla to be able to go through daily and together. An aspect I love of this book is IF we found verses to go with each one.
Yeah. And so it's not a lot, but even just diving into the word and, and hopefully will encourage couples to go even further to look up the verse and to really like dive in and talk about the scriptures with mm-hmm. Each other I think will be a really cool. Layer to all of this.
Yeah, that's a really good note as always.
Our heart is that people dive into the word of God and are. In God's word and his truth and then applying it their lives. And often I, I think people don't realize that the Bible speaks to almost everything. Yeah. In one form or fashion. Maybe not modern day, like specific things, but like every aspect of human nature.
Yeah,
that's a good word. Speaks to it. And it has direction for us, so.
Yeah. Well, I love you guys. I'm grateful to just be your friend and get to journey alongside of you. I'll give you final words. Any last things you'd wanna say to a couple or a guy listening to this who wants that level of relationship and intimacy with his wife and with Jesus?
Any final things you'd you'd want to say to him?
Yeah, I would say. Your wife may not say it. She may not vocalize it. She may not even like it when you start,
but
they desire you to spiritually protect spiritually love, spiritually, be intimate, that if you were praying for your wife, if you were willing to do that, like I said, even if they are hesitant in the beginning, because it's so awkward, so uncomfortable, so weird, so out of place.
And you keep doing it, it'll become something that they will cherish you for and they will feel more trust, more honor, more love, and more safety with you. Yeah. If you're coming to them and wanting to pray for them and with them and over them.
Yeah,
I totally agree with that. And in fact, during those first four years and me just struggling in my faith, there came a point where I was kind of resistant to God and to prayer and to meeting him in those intimate places.
And Aaron really stood in the gap for us and. Didn't do it perfectly and not every day, but would cover our marriage in prayer. And sometimes, I know he was doing it a lot by himself, but he would also do it out loud, you know, at night before bed. And I just see that as a testament to us being carried through that time by the hand of the Lord and the work that he was doing in Aaron's life.
And so I just wanted to affirm you in that and thank you. I appreciated that. Yeah.
That was a cool moment to watch. That's awesome. I always tell guys too, like, dude, you start praying for your wife and over your wife and leading her in prayer. Like, just be careful. You guys might have a lot more babies.
You know, like we're talking about like the spiritual intimacy thing. You know, you start to connect with her intimately on other areas. It might lead to intimacy in, uh, in other areas as well. But anyway, that's true. Yeah. The marriage gift.
We have five kids by the
way. Yeah, exactly. You guys have been praying a lot.
Yeah. The marriage gift 365 per, hold it up for me again so we can see it. We'll put it, yeah, the marriage gift. So cool. Encourage all of our listeners go pick up a copy of that. But so good to see you guys. Thank you for taking the time to hang out with me today and, uh, we'll talk soon.
Thank you.
Hey guys, as always, I hope that episode was helpful for you on your journey of becoming more like Jesus and helping your family do the same. We've got a totally free community. It's off of all social media. One guy said, no ads, just dads, which is really cheesy dad joke and perfectly fits what we're trying to do over there.
Thousands of guys from all over the world who are like-minded, humble guys. They're not trying to size each other up. They're just like, man, I want to be the man God's calling me to be. Will you guys help me get there? We've got free Bible studies over there, all kinds of groups where guys are encouraging each other.
Everything from woodworking groups to guys. Dads in ministry to that farmer, dads to guys who are struggling with addiction, like all kinds of stuff. And by the way, that's all free. You can just like go over there, sign up for a free account and just start meeting and interacting with these like-minded guys.
So I hope that that's helpful for you too. I just wanna keep giving you guys as many resources as possible to be the spiritual leader of your home because I love you. I'm on your side. That being said, I'll see you next week.