Latest / The Salty Pastor / Marriage, Dating & Friendships [Ep. 134]
Transcript
- [00:00:00] Uh, emotional chemistry, value chemistry, intellectual chemistry, behavioral chemistry is what will keep you in love with that person. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you learn to think for yourself and grow your beliefs. You are the one that has to put the work in. We are here to be your guides, but ultimately you're the one that has to decide what you believe, why you believe it and how you got to that point, right? Understanding and having confidence and knowing that you have a well-thought-out opinion about your beliefs and what you think is key to having that confidence. So. We will be your guides along this journey. My name is Jesse Maher. I am your host and we cannot have the Salty Pastor Podcast without the Salty Pastor himself, Dr. Douglas Peake. Well, I thank you. And we're here to help you discover the power of thinking for yourself because the more, you [00:01:00] know, who you are and what you need, the stronger you become, as a person. You're not manipulated, you're not easily deceived, you're not taken advantage of, or let astray. You may be a sheep in the kingdom of God, but you are a lion in the world. Love that. It also reminds me of the old GI. Joe slogan of knowing is half the battle. Half the battle. Know who you are. So we are in a new series titled storybook, endings. What relationship story are you writing? I like to think about it this way. I am writing a story of a strong, or am I writing a story of, strong influential friendships? Am I being a good friend? Am I seeking to build friendships with people who are good for me? I'm part of a family. I'm a, I have a brother in two twin sisters. One sister is married. The other one's dating. Am I writing a relationship story where I am the source of strength and health for my family, and for my siblings? Uh, I would like to fall in [00:02:00] love someday and get married. Um, am I healthy enough to build a relationship that is healthy with a woman and start a family? What kind of relationship story am I writing right now that determines the outcome for my future family. These are all questions I have. And that's what this series is all about. Right? It's all, it's very important. It talks about the downstream practical implications of what it means to see relationships and their significance in our own lives and what the Bible teaches us on how to treat them with their proper care and feeding, so to speak. Uh, so we're going to focus on the downstream quite a bit. Uh, we can never forget the upstream principles, that make the biggest difference in the downstream of where we, lea, live each and every day, but we're going to try to focus as much as possible on practical application. Well, it's good to mix it up too. Right. You know, understanding why we have these upstream values, but then having some downstream practical [00:03:00] applications of how to deal with that. We started this series off with a bang on Tuesday, we discovered the upstream, biblical principles that we are created in the image of God, right? Like that's one of the most important things we need to know about ourselves. And this principle is key to all of our relationships. It's the foundation of how we perceive our relationships. It's how we build healthy relationships and how the experience of building healthy relationships influences us. Yes. Yes. It is a very powerful biblical principle. Yeah, I can't iterate enough, how important or powerful this principle really is? It's the key to all of your personal goals in regards to your relationships, the success of your relationships each and every day flow out of this principle. So the more you, you affirm it, and the more you let it seep into your soul, then the better your relationships will get. Um, it's the most [00:04:00] influential principle of all when it comes to to, gosh, this is how I approach relationship conflict, or approach building healthy relationships, or what I do when I don't have any relationships. And the reason why this upstream principle is so important is you can't understand the downstream teaching unless you start from this premise. Because if you start from the world's premise, the teaching about relationships don't make sense to you. But if you start with this premise, it makes a hundred percent accurate sense to you. So that's kind of where I want to spend our time today. Um, if this is such a powerful principle, then why do we struggle so much with grasping it or developing it within our lives? Well, I think this is what, uh, Paul discusses, when he talks about the spiritual battle. So much. And I believe that the reason why it's so [00:05:00] hard for human beings to grasp this notion, even Christians to live out of this principle, is because the number one goal of the world is to keep you away from it. You see if you're created in the image of God, right? And relationships that are healthy, caused you to thrive and be strong and to be healthy and grow spiritually and to become, you know, what God is doing. It says that God is to will and to work in you for his good pleasure. So he's got this pleasurable and wonderful vision of, of what you can become. You know, we say in a nutshell, the best version of yourself and well, who wants to stop all this. Well, Satan does. Satan doesn't want to have any of that happening in the life of, anybody. Now I could read the Bible. I can read gazillions of research studies, but we all know the facts that this is so true over and over again. Family of origin has a major impact on your life. Children who grow up in a healthy [00:06:00] relation ships are healthy relational environment at home. They thrive. They thrive as kids. If your family is toxic or it gets off on the wrong foot, all this does is create more things. You have to get over. If you want to have a normal and healthy family. The biggest challenge, uh, today for so many people is that they have no good mentors. Over half the adults today have been raised in unhealthy family situations. They don't know, well, how are a husband and wife supposed to communicate well, how are you supposed to actually, you know, parent your kids, you know, how do you do that? What are realistic expectations? The research, um, Shows us that a marriages are struggling. That's why so many people are growing up and, uh, without mentors, uh, people don't know how to be married. They just don't know, the image of God within them, drives them to want to be married. It pushes them towards intimate relationships. My goodness, 97% of all human beings across the entire [00:07:00] globe get married at some point in their life. Yet marriages are struggling because so many people grew up without good role models on actually how to be married. They just don't have the skillset for it. A strong and healthy marriage is critical to a healthy environment in which to raise children. And this is all connected. If marriage is unhealthy, then it's really hard to have a healthy environment to raise your kids in. So your family of origin and a healthy family is so important, but our society's desire today is to undermine the family unit. Because the definition of human nature is flawed. Th the definition of human nature, according to the world is flawed. They're playing with fire and the idea is the state or the institution can raise a child in what they want. You see that? Well, we can turn these kids into what we want. However, this is false due to the fact that the definition of human nature is flawed. The state does a horrible [00:08:00] job of raising kids. I mean, just look at our foster care system and then look at the state run orphanages before that. Look at, look at what, uh, I mean, our state does a horrible, horrible job of it. Uh, you look at what our public educational system is doing today. And I'm not trying to say that teachers are bad. We've got all these teachers who have great intentions, but every time I talk to a teacher, they're like, you know, I spent so little time teaching, you know, I'm filling out IEPs and I have to do all of this stuff and all of this, you know, I just want to teach math, you know, but you can't do that in your, their classes are overcrowded. They're doing all this. Why? Because institutions do a really bad job of raising kids. This is a fact, everybody knows this. Our society's desire is to undermanned the undermine the family unit, because they believe that we can dictate what kind of adults they will be, but this is a pipe dream and it never happens.[00:09:00] So, so you're saying that the world is intentionally doing everything it can to undermine healthy families. Yes, I am. 100%. Salty salty takes. It's been a hot man. And since we've had a big salty reaction. People forget that there's a God of this world. They forget that and he's seeking to destroy anything that God's great that God wants to create. And first thing is that he wants to do is he wants to undermine marriage and he does this by redefining human nature. The second thing he wants to do is he wants to redefine what marriage is. So the first way that he undermines a family is saying is that, you know, the purpose of, of marriage is not what you think it is because who you think you are is not what you think you are. So I know that sounds weird, you know, but basically what they're trying to say is that, you know what human nature is, it's this. It's, you're not a [00:10:00] spiritual being there isn't a soul mate connection. You can't build that or find that you don't need to work through your own bad habits and learn how to be a better husband or wife. Uh, you know, marriages are disposable because human beings are incapable in their nature of developing and finding soulmates. Number two, the second way, our world, uh, undermines marriages and families is they diff redefine what marriage actually is. Okay. So first they redefine the individuals nature that make up marriage, and then they redefine the institution of marriage. You see the purpose according to being created in the image of God and what the Bible teaches. The first purpose of marriage is to bond a male and a female together. As one, in order to express the image of God within humanity, more fully. That's the point. Okay. So the reason why it says for this reason, a [00:11:00] man shall leave his mother and father, he shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Well, why do men and women, why are we created for each other? Right. It's because we were created in the image of God, in the image of God, male and female, he created them. So when, when a male and a female come together and bond together in marriage, they express more fully the image of God. Hmm. So, so that's the purpose of marriage, right? Um, that's the first and primary purpose. The secondary purpose is that when that bonding takes place, right, it says, and the two shall become the second purpose. One flesh. Now the purpose of marriage is to become a co-creator of life with God. A lot of people don't think this through, but this is very important to understand. Souls are not preexistent in the Bible. Okay. There is no reincarnation taught in the scriptures. All right. So if you were created [00:12:00] in the image of God and you have a soul you're right. You're a living soul that will be in eternity. It says, well, where does that soul come from? Well, it comes when of a man and a woman. Bond together. And what, what does it require to bring life into this world? It requires what a male and a female and a female, right. Which is the expressed what image of God. So now what we're doing is we are participating in God's sovereign creative act of creating life and new souls, right? New human beings. And so th so the first purpose is to take, uh, a man and a woman to bond together, express the image of God. The second purpose is that to be co-creators with God. You see it. That's why human beings are pretty special in the eyes of God. Finally, the purpose of marriage was to create the third. The third purpose is to create a healthy [00:13:00] environment order for children to grow and thrive and can children grow and thrive without a healthy family environment? Well, yeah. But this isn't a denigration of the family unit. It's a testimony of the power of the human spirit and its capacity to overcome obstacles. However, if the truth is told, it's a whole lot harder for a kid to thrive in a toxic situation than a healthy one. So the more healthy families are, the more healthy family units are. Guess what? The more. Uh, uh, thriving children become, so the world has a vested interest in undermining your family of origin. God's interest is building a healthy family in order to have healthy, thriving outcomes. And that's important. So sorry, I'm going to interject for a second. We, uh, we're talking a lot about marriage and, and all of these things as a single guy who would like to meet someone and fall in love, at some point you get married and start a family. How does what you just said apply to me. [00:14:00] So you'd like some dating advice from the Salty Pastor? Live, live on camera. Well, first and foremost, here's my desire. And I think that you will support this. And everybody who works with me and Isabel is that pastor Doug love seeing people fall in love and get married. I would say yes, this is a fact. That's kind of a hobby of mine is trying to get people to date and fall in love. I love that it's pri, it's priority for me. Why? Well, because I feel that number one, since you created in the image of God, this is a drive deep within your soul. And even though it can be complicated and difficult and stuff in the aggregate, the end of your life, you're gonna look back. You're gonna be happy. You're gonna be happier, more fulfilled. And I want that for you. Okay. I want you to experience that. So, so that's why I'm encouraging that. Um, so what I do though, is I think it's really important to understand how the world is messed up dating and they've romanticized it so much, and then they [00:15:00] sexualized it. So. Finding somebody for you to marry is so hard today because the w everybody is listening to the world. And what I mean by that is you don't, you know, send a text in and they text you, oh, you should date this person, dah, dah, dah, it's that the world is taught women and guys a way of thinking about love and attraction, and they don't ever step back and go, Hmm. Is the way I'm thinking about this, screwing me up or not. Right. And since they never asked that, guess what their love life is what? Totally screwed up all the time and they're like, what's wrong? Well, you just can't find a good guy. I can't find a good girl. Well, maybe it's the way you're approaching it. So this is what I try to encourage people particularly I'd encourage you as number one, is that, uh, what I call is there's three factors that you can bank on. Number one is criteria. I don't think sequel single people ever really think through their criteria for attraction. And so you really need to evaluate attraction. So they [00:16:00] leave it up to chance, which today we know has less than 50% success rate. Right. It's like, I'm going to go out, I'm going to be in a room. Okay. So I can put a guy, a bunch of guys that are single and a bunch of girls in a room. Right. And say, well, what are you attracted to? You know, and they've done research on this. Invariably, all the girls, the majority of the girls will be attracted to only one guy in that group of 30 guys. Right. Right. All in you, all these, you know, you were telling me about Tinder and Bumble and all these things like this. And that is, is that all their algorithms and all their data analytics all come out and say the exact same thing. All the women are attracted to the top 10% of guys. Okay. What does that tell me? If you're, if you're a rational analyst, what does that tell me? Is that all of you women have had your attraction radar [00:17:00] messed up because what you're doing is you are basing it on the least attractional criteria, you know. And that comes out of what our society is done. But so what I tell people is that is if you think through your criteria for attraction and you focus on that and you begin praying for what is really attractive, guess what happens? You start to become attracted to different types of people, because. I can tell you what right now, what girls think that they're attracted to has zero to do with whether they're going to be happy in a marriage or not. What guys think that they're attracted to has zero to do with what makes you happy and fulfilled in a marriage or not? You see, because if we sexualize relationships so much, it's like, well, does this person turn me on or not. You know, and if I don't have that, what I call chemistry, which is physical, turn me on attraction. Guess what then? Oh, well it's not real love. [00:18:00] Well, that is a falsehood. And cause I can tell you what, if you base your. Your, uh, attraction and love on sexual attraction. That'll give you about two to two and a half years of happiness in your marriage and that's about it because then it's, and then it's done. It's gone. And so the, what, what your criteria for attraction needs to be, uh, things that are more important. I'll try to talk about those a little bit more in a second, cause I want to get through this list of three. So the first one is. The criteria, uh, I need to know what that is. The second thing is, is you need to have standards. And a standard is, uh, is, well, first of all, you have to have a standard and then you have to calibrate your standard. So if your criteria might be, are they a Christian? That's why I'm going to be attracted. I'm only going to be attracted to Christians. You say if one of your criteria is to be a Christian, that they have to be a Christian, then your standard would be not a new Christian. Okay. And [00:19:00] one who tries to practice what they believe. So your criteria might be okay. I want to date a Christian then what I would say. Okay. Now think about your standards. All right. You're going to say, well, I want someone who just doesn't say show up and say, yeah, I'm a Christian. You know, I remember there was this, uh, uh, I think it was a phone commercial or something where, this guy asked this girl out and she goes, no, I have a date. Well with her with a French model and this real creepy guy walks up and says, well, how do you know he's a French model what's said on the internet. He says, you believe everything on the internet. You know, I thought that was kind of funny. And that is, you know, so the guy says, Hey, I'm a Christian. Or the girl says, yeah, I'm a Christian. And you're like, yeah, I don't want to date a standard then comes into play. At that point. You say, are you a brand new Christian? Are you doing anything in your life to practice what you believe? I mean, you don't have to show up five times a week at the church. Or what, but are you trying to practice anything at all that you believe, do you take it seriously or not? You see, so that's what a standard does. Now. What some people do is [00:20:00] then what you have a standard you need to calibrate it. Because the standard is, uh, is, uh, is a range and you can have two lowest standards, right. And, or two highest standards. Cause some people use too high of standards for the sole purpose of keep protecting themselves. It's a defense mechanism. Right? Right. And so what they do is they're like, well, I want to date a Christian, but I will only date a Christian that has a doctorate from a theory in theology from this particular seminary, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, that might be a really, that's a unicorn, you know? So, so some people use standards to do what? To Elim you know, you want to eliminate on the bottom, but you don't want it so high that you eliminate either. See what I'm saying is that you want to the range. So number one, have a criteria set your standards and then really understand the whole point of chemistry. What is chemistry? Most people mistake sexuality with chemistry. And as I said earlier, sexual [00:21:00] chemistry gives you about two to two and a half years of life to your relationship. Emotional chemistry, value chemistry, intellectual chemistry, behavioral chemistry is what will keep you in love with that person. That's friendship. That's intimate friendship, because you have chemistry with your values. You have chemistry emotionally, you have chemistry intellectually, you have chemistry behaviorally. Okay. These things are critical to chemistry, but because of the world, in which we live the difficulty with you, is that the situation you're in is that guys, your age are picking girls based on sexual chemistry, right. And women in particular are picking guys based on sexual chemistry. Without even knowing it, you know? And, and so that's, that's really [00:22:00] interesting in that regard. I think that's something that, that people from your, that are going through or, you know, or in this stage of life that you're in, is that I would say is that realize that the world is trying to interfere with your love life. And so set criteria, calibrate your standards and then evaluate what real chemistry is for a lifelong relationship. And I think that's how you think from God's perspective. And you're going to be much happier. You're going to be, have much greater marriages than ever before. So. Dating advice from the Salty Pastor. Right here. Well, let's, let's pivot into a different category of relationships. I'm I'm good. Uh, let's talk about friendships. Um, how is the world making it more difficult to find and build healthy friendships? And why is the world interested in stopping people from developing, good, healthy, deep friendships. Well, I think the reason [00:23:00] why is because communities are built around friendships, right. You know, if everyone's getting along and everyone's at peace with everyone, then guess what? Government isn't needed. That's fair. So, so if you want a government that is in control and is there, what it is is that you're not interested in people getting along. You're interested in P and people being divided. Our media does not our journalism media or news media has zero interest. Let me take that back. They have a profitable interest in dividing people and creating hatred. Because that's how they make money. Because you know what? People watch videos and watch the news when there's riots and people are hating and killing each other. You know, how often do you see the news where the guy goes down to the park and says, look at all these lovely families sitting around having a picnic and throwing the ball, right? Yeah. It's not going to, nobody's interested. Yeah. It's not profitable. And [00:24:00] what are they driven to do? Is that the people who click and the people who watch eyeballs on the screen is how we sell advertisers and they pay us. And if no, one's watching, they're not going to pay. So they now go out intentionally. And this has been around for a couple generations now. So they go out and they intentionally create conflict on purpose. Right. Uh, there was a movie with Jake Glynn hall in it, where he went out and, you know, he started, um, uh, making money by taking pictures of crashes. You know, he was kinda like a photo journalist and he made a lot of money. So then he started crashing people on purpose. But that that's our media it's, uh, you know, his movie was an indictment, I think on all media, because that's what they are doing. And this is called the conscience versus control theory at play. It's a, it's a theory out there that says basically when people all agree on how to behave and then act according to their conscience and there's less need for cops. You don't need cops out there. Because everybody is D you know, [00:25:00] I, I drive the speed limit or I drive safely because my conscience tells me to do that. I'm not going to steal people's stuff because my conscience says, it's wrong to steal. I'm not going to do this because it's, my conscience says it's wrong. Well, what happens when people lose their conscience? What do you need? More enforcement? That's right. You need a whole lot more cops. And unfortunately that makes a cops job so much more difficult. So that that's something that has to be taken into account, you know? So if you're, if you're a culture, elite, then what is in your best interest? Having everyone become friends. So they don't need you, or is your incentive subconsciously to create people and put them in different groups and pit them against each other so that you always to do what? Solve the problem. The belief that anyone can become friends, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status is a uniquely Christian value. But the current social movements being pushed by cultural leads today, things like critical [00:26:00] race theory, being an anti-racist. Uh, the, uh, making wealthy people pay their fair share share and how you're getting the shaft. These are social movements that are designed to do one thing and destroy, remove the possibility of friendship between different groups of people. Well, that is a lot of really, I have a lot to think about. A lot, to think about a lot to think about that. And now we are viewing relationships in our current generation and through this lens and maybe needing to recalibrate some of that stuff. Um, but I did before we signed off today, we do have some comments from our YouTube channel, um, from last week, our Thursday episode. Alex says, um, her new favorite quote is we laugh because it's sad. That was in relationship to some of this stuff we were talking about on how people are basing their theories on sinking or like, uh, uneven foundations, not the Bible. And then Jen frisky [00:27:00] loved our talk about the emotional support peacock. Um, so appreciate you guys leaving some comments that you're listening and that you're enjoying the episodes we love when you get. Um, send us feedback on YouTube or I'm leaving reviews on apple podcasts, things like that. It just helps us know what you're enjoying and what you're not, and that you're listening. So we really enjoy that. The other thing I want to do is, um, we are going to be recording our new Salty Pastor Parenting focused podcast. Here in the near future. And so we will be letting you guys know when that's dropping and where you can get it. But if you are a parent, if you're thinking about becoming a parent and want to get a headstart, um, these are going to be very specifically focused, um, conversations about, um, different age groups and how to do that. We're going to be inviting Kim Cross with rethink parenting, um, as part of that. Um, so you two will be sitting down to talk about what you can do to be the best parent you can be. And some practical tips, um, um, a little bit higher tips as well. [00:28:00] Um, yeah, but ultimately just how to be the best parent you can be in the crazy world we're in today. And you two, both have significant, um, Experience as being, being parents, uh, yourself, but then obviously, um, you as a pastor have a lot of influence and, and insight on, um, different parenting structures and what has worked for other parents in your congregation. Kim, obviously she's a coach, um, and has done tons of studying and has tons of background in how to parent and, um, works for different situations. Cause not everybody's situation is the same. And so I think that's, what's going to be great is you guys both have personal experience as well as a lot of experience, um, in the academic sense as well on how to best help people be the best parents they can be. So be looking forward to that. We're going to let you guys know I'm on social media as well as on the podcast when those are dropping so that you can start learning to be the best parent you can be. So I'm excited about it. It's going to be fun. It's going to be great. I'm going to be listening and [00:29:00] learning how to be a good parent when I eventually get to that stage. And you will be before, you know, today I've got the dad jokes on lock. So I don't think I need to listen to that episode on. But, um, I got that all squared away, but we appreciate you guys joining us. Obviously, Pastor, Doug's gonna be kicking off our brand new series on Sunday here at foothills. We hopefully you guys turn in because that is part of the Salty Pastor experiences, Tuesdays and Thursdays, you're listening to the podcast and then Sundays we're wrapping up the whole subject, on campus here at Foothills, or if you're watching online. But, um, that, that message he shares on Sunday is part of the essential Salty Pastor experience. So please tune in for that. And we will see you on Sunday here in beautiful Boise, Idaho at foot Hills Christian Church. And God's blessing on everyone.