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For the Family-Praying for your Spouse · The Father's Business Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I am Kimberly Roddy.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: We are so glad that you've joined us.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us today.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: We are walking through the resource through the Father's Business called For the Family, uh, just some excerpts of prayers and things that we can work through to be in a position to pray well for our families.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so today we are going to be walking through um praying for your husband and praying for your wife.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna let Elizabeth start off with this one since you get to pray for your husband a lot.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I I do.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I I should pray for him more, but um I do have the honor and the privilege of doing that.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um this book came out when I was 16, and I remember um as soon as it came out, I was reading through it and I started praying for my future husband, not knowing who he was going to be.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I do agree that there is no greater way to love a person um than to pray for them, that that is a selfless thing we do for another person.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I take that back.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: It can be a selfless thing we do for that person.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: If what we're praying is God, you need to fix them, then that is not that is selfish prayers.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: But to to give your time and your uh energy to pray that God would come and meet uh someone else is a is a true act of love.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of times though, it gets neglected because again, it's this idea that we talked about in our last podcast.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: We forget that we're in a war.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if we are waking up every morning in a war, our marriage is also happening in the middle of a war.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's we are by no way marriage experts and do not claim to be.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: There are multi, multiple books written out about how do you love your spouse and how do you, you know, how do you understand men, how do you understand women, all of that.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what in my reading of those books, what it all boils down to is we all have selfish desires and what we want when we want it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you get married to someone else who also has those desires, and it is this process of trying to figure out how both of you can die to self so that you can then become more like Christ-like together.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just want to be encouraging to anyone out there who maybe you are never been married, um, or you've been married and divorced, um, that this podcast is also for you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be talking about praying for husband, wife, and also for uh spirit of separation.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I, as I said, started praying for my husband when I was 16.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in my mind, I thought I would get married in college, didn't.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, whenever C's came back, went to seminary, where there was for every female at seminary, there were eight men, and they were all men that wanted to go into full-time ministry.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, surely I'm gonna get married here.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so long after uh I started praying, I started praying when I was 16 and I was 34 before I got married, um, and had lots of prophetic words about the the man that I married and a lot of my own confirmations from God's.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could fill several podcasts with all the stuff um that was said and things that were done and the ways that God used us together as a couple.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it was very disillusioning to me after praying for this man from 16 to 34, and also after we got married, that several years into our marriage, um, one day he tells me that he has uh taken a job in another state um and that I am not going to come with him and our marriage is over.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was just thrown by that.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a lot to that story that I don't feel uh I need to share because there's a lot of families involved in all this, but um I had done everything I could.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I had prayed like crazy.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: We had taken him to counselors to help him with some issues that he was having.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was had fought for him like nobody's business.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I just knew that God was gonna heal and God didn't.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so, where does that leave me with uh, you know, 15 or so years of praying for something, getting it, and then it disappears in several years.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So for those of you that have been through divorce, I I understand you.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I get you.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you that are living in places now where your marriage is not great, I get it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the fast-forwarding the story a little bit um through my own healing and and and time, God has been gracious to give me a second husband who is wonderful.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and obviously everyone has challenges, so do we, but there's so many ways I can see that this is God restoring what the locust has eaten and some very specific things that God has done that no one even fully understands, except for me, just how deeply healing that is.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so who was I praying for since I was 16?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Husband one, husband two.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Was it a third guy that was supposed to uh supposedly be my husband and and he chose not to?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea, but that there is this deepening that was happening in me as I was praying for a husband not known, and then as I prayed for a husband that was there.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that was an enriching time for me.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's something that I get convicted often that I look to my husband to provide a need for me, to be something to me, to be able to fight off a temptation.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: To I expect a lot out of him.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look at how much time I'm spending praying for him, and it's not as much time spent praying for him as I spend expecting things from him.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so for both husbands and wives, I think husbands can lean on their wives a lot um and do.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and how much are you pouring back in to her to strengthen her for God to speak to her, to nurture her, um, or and versus how much are we asking of our spouse to fill our needs, to fill in holes and our gaps in our own life?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's a very critical thing.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think you also, as a spouse, have a very uh unique role and place of authority.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen that, you know, in the natural.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just try taking uh someone to the hospital.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this happened while I was dating my husband before we got married.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: He separated his shoulder and I took him to the hospital, and they're like, and who are you?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm the girlfriend.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I had no power, I had no authority.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the minute we got married, you walk in there and you say, I'm his wife.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, all the doctors and nurses listen to what you have to say, and you have the right to make the call on certain things.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so, just as that is in the natural, so much more in the spiritual.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I do believe that God created the union of marriage.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: I take it very seriously.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a role that I get to play praying over my husband that no one else gets to do because that's my position in Christ to be able to do that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, it is an honor, but I will be honest, it's a neglected honor sometimes.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: So again, um, my mom had mentioned this in the introduction about taking some of these prayers and writing them down on cards.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't write this whole thing out, uh, the whole prayer that she has um on a card, but basically I love how it starts from his head and goes all the way down to his toes.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes just mentally, I'll just sit there and pray over my husband and start with his head and his mind and his eyes and just just use different scriptures that are listed in this prayer to pray for him from his head to his toes.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, Kimberly, what's the most amazing thing is when I pray for him consistently like this, I don't get as irritated.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how spending time praying for your husband um also reconditions your own heart and and helps you have a heart of gratitude towards towards him, and I believe strengthens him because it's real easy for me to say I'm in a war.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so is he.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when he goes off to work or wherever he is, the enemy is also out after him.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so what an honor and a privilege to be able to pray for him.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I do want to ask you, you know, your thoughts on this.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you are not married, but that doesn't mean that you don't have thoughts about uh praying for husbands and praying for wives.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I know a lot of your ministry that you do is ministering to families and ministering to couples.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So uh what's your perspective?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, whether it was this prayer or other prayers, I also was encouraged um as a young girl, young adult woman, to be praying for my future husband.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so there were um seasons in my life where I did that and I would I would pray for whoever God was gonna bring into my life.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I never got married.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have a husband or future husband at this point.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, there's been a wrestling with that over the years at at this point in my life.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: I really believe that God is, I'm content in the sense that God is using me as he is using me.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't make a source of my identity my singleness.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I seek to make the source of my identity the fact that I am a daughter of Christ um and I'm his beloved.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't um, I know many people struggle with the lack of a spouse, the absence of a spouse.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as a fellow single adult, um, I can, you know, I encourage you to to continue praying and seeking what the Lord would have for you.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're all on a different journey with that.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And even in my singleness, um, God has given me the privilege of working with many couples, um, husbands and wives.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the the enemy can come in and he can lie to me and he can say, What do you know?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: You've never been married.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I cling to the fact that God has called me to understand relationships and to um serve vocationally as a mediator.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I have the privilege and the opportunity, as difficult as it is at times, to help couples.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I help couples who are just beginning the process of thinking about marriage and premarital kind of stuff, or also have the opportunity to help couples who are struggling and having conflict and aren't sure what to do in their marriages.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this resource for the family booklet has been one of the most used resources for me in my ministry and in my vocation because of the nature of the family work that I do.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Rather, I'm working with teenagers or students.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when I do work with teenagers and students, I typically work have worked with their parents as well.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so there's the relational component there.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's the opportunity to work with couples and with husbands and wives.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so this resource gives me the opportunity to encourage and challenge um the people that I'm working with to really pray for one another.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's really hard to do when you're in conflict.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think the premarital people don't mind it as much, those that are believers.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when you're in conflict, it's really hard to do.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I think it is what softens your heart towards one another and toward the work of the Lord, right?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you said that it's hard to be upset and angry and irritable as easily when you're actively praying for the for your for your husband or your wife.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think because I do think again, it helps get the focus outward and giving life to someone else versus inward, and what is what what are you going to do for me?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or you didn't meet my need that I may not have even expressed to you was a need, but you didn't meet it.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you tried to meet it, you didn't meet it the right way.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's just all of that stuff that goes into conflict between us.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I also I know there's a lot of women, men too, who are in tough marriages and they've been praying for a while.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they're not seeing change.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I just want to encourage part of my story with my first husband because I mean there were so many different people that I mean you would have thought Jesus Himself came down and said, This is the man you were supposed to marry.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it ended, I was like, What in the world was that?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And God took me to uh Genesis 24 and the story of when um they're trying to find a wife for Isaac, they're looking for Rebecca, and they're like, and you'll go here and you'll watch and you'll see who waits to offer you water and you know, all these types of things.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there was there's just this one little phrase in there that you know, Rebecca's the one, she gives the water, they bring her home, they present her to Isaac.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: At the very tail end of that chapter, it says uh that Isaac married her, and so she became his wife, and he loved her, and that hit me like a ton of bricks, and and it it was just God so sweetly saying to me that it doesn't matter how much ever you know, you the yes, I do believe first husband that that was for that season, that is who you were supposed to be with.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your husband still had a choice, and he chose not to love you.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's not, God, did I miss you?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: God, why aren't you doing anything?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And all of these things were not praying, these prayers aren't things that we pray as formulas, and voila, all of a sudden everything is better.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: It really is, as you're saying here, more about a rotune retuning of our own hearts towards our spouse, and also giving them the space.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: You are praying to open up an opportunity for your spouse to respond to what God wants to say to them, but your spouse still has a choice, and your spouse can choose to respond to that invitation and that opportunity, or they can choose not to, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was a very sweet way of God saying to me, Elizabeth, it it was it's not that you, you know, it's because I was like, Well, I should have prayed more, I should have done this, I should have, and God's like, You were faithful, but he still had a choice, and his choice was to leave.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: So as we're thinking through this, um, and kind of moving into the the portion that goes along with praying, I love how mom set up the book.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: She has praying for your husband, then she puts spirit of separation in the middle and then praying for his wife, just as symbolically as the thing that's gonna keep us from being able to pray for husband or our wife, is when there are times when we are choosing to be the spirit of separation as she calls it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, I call it selfishness, but you know, we we choose our own way versus looking for ways to bring unity.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so for those of us that are praying for husbands and our wives, for those of us that have prayed for a long time and he's still not a believer or he hasn't changed, God is moving and God is hearing you.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And your job is just to open up the space to give the opportunity for that your husband or your wife to meet with God and let God do the work.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's super easy.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know for me, I'm a fixer.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is super easy every time I see my husband in emotional distress, I want to swoop in and help him get better because I don't want to watch him struggle.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to watch him in pain.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I have had to learn that there are times that even when he is asking me, will you please comfort me?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be able to step back and go, you know what?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: What you need right now is Jesus.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Would you please just sit and spend some time with Jesus and see what Jesus wants to say to you about this?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I in my own power can't fix anything, but I can continue to pray to open up an opportunity for God to do what God needs to do.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: As you say that, I'm thinking of a professor that I had in seminary.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the class was on worship.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that he talked about was how often, I don't remember the number, we could look it up, but how often in scripture the the phrase love one another is used, the love one another passages.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a lot.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, him comparing that to there's more love one another passages than other commands and other passages.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's, you know, that'd be interesting to go and look up if you're curious.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea there is that the I think of the the word Hesed in the Hebrew, right?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: The the love, like like wrapping up all the positive attributes of God.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like that word wraps up all the positive attributes of God.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's the love, the covenant faithfulness, the mercy, the grace, the kindness, the loyalty.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's the acts of devotion and loving-kindness that go beyond those requirements of duty and obligation, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just I have a duty and an obligation as a wife or as a husband.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is putting on the attributes of God, the love, the faithfulness, the mercy, the grace, the kindness, the loyalty in that devotion.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the opposite of the spirit of separation.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: As a mediator, I am often working with both husband and wife.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And my general encouragement is always to both parties to choose love, to choose faithfulness, to choose forgiveness, to choose mercy and grace and kindness.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be the first to say as a mediator, we live in a broken world.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it is hard and it is difficult.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we we make choices and we have to live with those choices, and there are consequences to choices and all of that.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: But at the heart of it all, we live in a very me centered generation.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: I carry around in my pocket every day an iPhone, iPhone.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: What's the central part of my iPhone, my iPad?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's I, it's me.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we have to choose as believers, as covenant, blood bought sons and daughters of the most high God, that we are going to choose to put off self-centeredness.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Narcissism is a huge word in our culture.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: We have to put that off.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: We have to put off the inflated view of ourselves.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: We have to put off our self-protective nature and allow the Lord to be our protector, our defender.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so words that describe the spirit of separation, it's pride, self-centeredness, deception, not having a fear of God versus God's spirit, humility instead of pride, sacrifice instead of self-centeredness, truth rather than deception, fear of the Lord rather than no fear of God in rebellion or disobedience, or fear of man, fulfilling of the spirit versus control, seeking to manipulate, a spirit of acceptance rather than rejection, grace rather than accusation, forgiveness rather than unforgiveness, looking to the cross rather than the sins of the fathers, submission versus a perversion of God's intended roles, godly wisdom rather than confusion, love rather than apathy, because hate is not the opposite of love, apathy is mercy and truth, choosing to walk in mercy and truth rather than ignorance.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: We don't get to ignore things, we don't get to pretend it doesn't exist, we don't get to be ignorant.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: We have to walk in mercy and truth.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Waiting on God rather than choosing busyness, walking in holiness rather than lust, walking in the extravagant generosity of God rather than materialism, putting on the unity of the Trinity rather than withdrawal and pulling away, having death to self rather than angry, anger, having reconciliation and restoration rather than prejudice or racism, and choosing life and repenting of death and the ways of death, the tactics and the things that we do that lead to death, death of a relationship, death of love.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: The spirit of separation is death.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it leads to, rather than the spirit of God, which leads to life.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to ask the Holy Spirit to come in and restore these places that are separated, divided, and broken.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I will be the among the first to understand, like I said, that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: We live in a fallen world and that this is hard.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I think my encouragement at the end of the day is just to each person listening and to myself, can you choose to submit yourself to the Lord?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And can you choose to work on your own heart, repent of your pride, and seek to be humble and ask the Lord to fill you with the fullness of the Spirit of Christ?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, Kibba, I think a really important step in doing this is as you're reading down those list of things that come are fruits of the spirit of separation versus the fruit of who God is, um, is kind of understanding your own story.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like not all of us are going to struggle with all 20 of those, but okay, when you've been in conflict or when you have been hurt, what's your go-to?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, you know, some people withdraw.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so that would that they they just want to, they they choose unforgiveness and they just want to sit in their unforgiveness, and they don't ever want it to uh you know choose to forgive because choosing to forgive means that I'm condoning your actions, which it's not, but that's what they think, and so I'm just gonna cut you off and or I'm just gonna withdraw.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, other people, myself included, oftentimes I'm gonna fight with you until you agree with me that I'm right.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because I think I'm right, and therefore we're going to sit here and keep arguing about this until you see my perspective and agree with me that I'm right, and that is pride, and that is self-centered, and that is not having uh love for anyone, and it's I mean, it is anger.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's all of these things, and that's kind of my fighting style.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the fun thing is is that God often puts people with different fighting styles in the same marriage.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what's really good for us to understand is okay, what's my style?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, which which of these 20 that you just listed off for us, where are the ones that I'm gonna gravitate to?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Am I do I gravitate to anger?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do I gravitate towards accusation?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or do I maybe I gravitate towards rejection and I'm just gonna cut you off and we're done, and you don't get a second chance with me?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we we each have we bring a conflict style either based on how we were raised or wanting to be the opposite of how we were raised.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding that then allows us to go, okay, God, why?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I have this need to feel like I'm gonna fight with you till you understand that I'm right and you understand, and then allow Him to come in and heal those things in me so that I then can respond in humility and grace and understanding and and start to slowly, it takes a while, slowly change the process of how I communicate with those that I love the most.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not, I mean, we're talking about it because we're talking about marriage, and it is a huge part of marriage, is understanding this, but any kind of relationship that you're you have, any your your relationship amongst your church body, amongst your school, if you're in school, your friend groups, all there's there's chances for separation and a disconnect or a hurt or a conflict in any type of human relationship.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's just really important to take a minute to kind of understand how you tick, not so that it can be focused on you and you just need to understand that you need I need to be right, but no, this is where I this is my weakness.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: I need to work on me and let God work on them, and then we can come back together.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I totally agree with that.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just rereading on page 24 on the spirit of separation, if you if people want to look it up, um, in that second paragraph, it says, Therefore, separation is Satan's foundational tool to divide and conquer.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: His first act toward man was to separate him from God in the Garden of Eden.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was also remembering when Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from God.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that is our go-to.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Our go-to is to hide.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that we hide in different ways.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's helpful to look at this through the lens of our own story, right?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And to recognize why is this a problem for me?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: What am I really looking for?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Dig a little bit deeper under the surface.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know, you know, it's been said of me my entire life that I have a problem with my temper.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: It started when I had colic and I was crying all the time.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a doctor that said to my mom, I think she's just got a temper.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom was like, I don't, I think there's more going on here.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I do have a temper, and I anger is kind of my go-to emotion.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: As I've dug a little deeper into that, rather than just sitting in the shame of you should put off your anger and it's sin and it's wrong, which is, I'm not saying that's not true.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm just trying to dig a little deeper.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And as I dig under that, I recognize, okay, one, I have a strong desire for justice.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: So when you desire to see things done in a just way, the emotion to that is anger when it's not done in a just way.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: But then that gets real tricky, right?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because whose justice needs to be enacted?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's the definition of justice.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so it starts getting real tricky there.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that has to take me back to God's justice.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and in a daily battle, I have to flesh that out.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also a key word for me in my journey with relation just relationally with a lot of people in my life, was I wanted to be understood.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And when I wasn't understood, that made me angry.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: That made me stand in a broken relationship with them because they weren't understanding me.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: But again, what's the focus there?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's on me being understood by them rather than understanding and recognizing what trumps my relationship with this person, my relationship with the Lord.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if my vertical relationship defines me, then I can play that out in my horizontal relationships.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's a battle.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a daily minute-by-minute battle to remember that, but that has to be the framework.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: If the framework is I am validated because of my position in Christ, then I don't need others to validate me.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about that as well when we've talked about broken cisterns and other things, but with regard to praying for your spouse, man, if we could just pause, like you said, and continue to say, what's the log in my eye?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: How do I humble myself?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: How do I recognize my story and what I'm doing here and my tendencies here, and specifically pray toward that end.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that's where there's a lot of tools out there that you can use to help you understand what's really going on underneath the surface for you and understanding your story.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when you start to utilize some of those tools, the purpose of those tools is to really get at how do I confess this and deal with it specifically?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And grow from it rather than say, well, you just you just have to understand that I have a problem with it.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't get to do that.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Dang it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Don't get to demand those things of others.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: We have to choose to look at ourselves and and present ourselves before the Lord first.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I going back to what you were talking about in the Garden of Eden, I know scripture records part of that incident, but it's like, you know, there were other conversations between Adam and Eve during all of this, and then they get kicked out of the garden.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure those conversations continued.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And but even in the little that we do have recorded in scripture of that, it wasn't just there, the devil separating them from God and them hiding, they also turned on each other.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Adam was like, It's the woman you gave me that did this.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: So Adam's mad at God about the woman that, you know, so it's Eve's fault and God's fault.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not Adam's fault, even though he was standing right there and didn't say, Hey, Eve, God told us not to do that.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, so when we get ourselves in these places of of separation, just like you're saying, it we're so focused in on how it's everyone else's fault rather than looking internally and going, What was my part?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and and honestly, your part is the only part you can do anything about, right?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I I believe me, I know it is so much easier for me to list off the five things that my husband did wrong in that conversation versus stopping and going, and but my part was this, and even if he said something hurtful, I had a choice in how I was going to respond, and I chose anger.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And none of us are going to be perfect, we're going to blow it.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's why spirit of separation is in here, just to give us a guidepost of how do we get back to that place of God.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I need you, God, I need you to heal me.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to help me live from your fruit of the spirit rather than the fruit of the spirit of separation.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: And as we wrap up this conversation, I would encourage all of you to read through these prayers.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Praying for your husband, praying for your wife, and then read through this piece and reflect a lot on this piece of the spirit of separation and evaluate your own hearts.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not marriage experts.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way we can cover every nuance of every relationship.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: And wherever you find yourself in your marriage or struggling in your singleness or you've just lost a spouse, there's there's so many different places that we can find ourselves.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: The news that we need to hear is that God is there, He is in the midst of it, He is in the trenches with you as you fight for your marriage, and He is for you and for your healing.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you would like to know uh a little bit deeper dive on this idea of spirit of separation, there is more about this in prayer portions.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can check that out uh by going to our website at www.thefathersbusiness.com.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I also just wanted to remind y'all again, we are collecting questions and hope to soon have a question-answer session um as we go through all of these kind of towards the end.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll take your questions um and have a time of just answering some of your thoughts about um praying for your husband and your wife or spirit of separation or any of the other topics that we have covered in our podcast.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you can reach out to us on our website, you can send us a message uh through Instagram or on Facebook.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: We hope you will join us next week.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: We will be talking with my friend Janelle.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: She has been a dear friend of mine for years.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: She is also an author and a trauma-informed life coach.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she is a wife, she is a mom, she is now a grandmother, and she has a lot of wisdom.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really look forward to talking with her and hearing from her more about praying for your spouse and praying for your children and your family.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I think you will glean a lot from our conversation with her.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So join us back next week for that.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: See you then.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Check us out at thefathersbusiness.com or follow us at the Fathers Biz on Instagram and Facebook.