Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E184: The Secrets to a Happy and Holy Family Life w/John & Lisa Bevere

Transcript

E184: The Secrets to a Happy and Holy Family Life w/John & Lisa Bevere · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  At the end of the day, your children are not going to follow
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  what you say, they're going to follow what you model.
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  I look at our hardship ears and our hardship ears made us even
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  closer right now because we determined they would.
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  We determined we are going to stay in love.
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  You have to know the ebb and the flow of your child, and you have
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  to discipline, not punished in a way that causes them to grow.
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  Correctly, I was in Singapore and they asked how did you get
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  for boys that love God? And I said.
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  What has been, in your experience, the number one enemy
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  of that falling in love with each other?
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  Selfishness. Love their husbands and train
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  their children. Most women are trying to train
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  their husbands and they are loving their children.
• 0:39
  We have it wrong. I want to say this so loud.
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  A wife has no idea how much confidence it instills in her
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  husband when she believes in it. And it doesn't matter if
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  everybody else thinks he's amazing.
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  The one that really counts as his wife.
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  John and Lisa Bevere, thank you for joining the podcast.
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  Oh, it's so much fun. We love you.
• 0:58
  We're honored to be on. Thank you I.
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  Love love love love love live action and I love what you guys
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  do. Thank you.
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  You're going to make me cry. I I have so much respect and
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  admiration for both of you and your ministry.
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  So thank you for sitting down with me and Lisa.
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  You're my dear friend and I love you and respect you so much.
• 1:17
  So thank you for being you Mama Lisa, I'll.
• 1:20
  Take it she's. Mama Lisa to so many women of
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  all ages. And Grandmama too, Lisa.
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  But he'll always be Mama Lisa to me.
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  That's true. Love language.
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  He wants to be a mother. And I loved how God just caused
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  our paths to cross. It felt so like divinely
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  inspired. And when we met each other,
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  there was just immediately a connection.
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  And I just have loved watching you stay courageous and strong,
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  but never unkind. Thank you, Lisa.
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  Absolutely. That was a special time getting
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  to meet you because we were, my husband and I were just moving
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  to this high rise in downtown Los Angeles.
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  Yes, nobody wants to live but it was like fun at the time.
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  It was before COVID and a girlfriend invited me literally
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  2 blocks away to the Hillsong color conference, which is where
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  I met. Women's conference, Yeah, Yes.
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  And that was such AI just felt like the Lord was I was supposed
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  to walk there and get to meet you and.
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  And I went with all the daughter in laws that we had at the time.
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  I wasn't speaking. I just brought my daughter in Do
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  you remember that? I do remember that, yeah.
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  And when we were social media friends and then so I'm so
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  excited about this conversation because I have gotten specific
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  requests and shout out to some of the listeners who know who
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  I'm talking about right now to sit down with married couples in
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  ministry who have forged a long path together, you know, raise
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  their children who are walking with God and have been through
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  the highs and lows together. And all the things about how
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  they how they do that, how they've done that.
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  So that's my hope with you both to do that conversation because,
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  yeah, I just, I mean, I'm only 6-6 years into my marriage now.
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  Oh, congratulations. But I, I just admire you being
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  in ministry together and having raised the family you've raised.
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  And I think many other young women and men will benefit from
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  listening to those who've gone before.
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  So thank you. Absolutely.
• 3:01
  Yeah. Well, we are getting ready to
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  celebrate 43 years in October and you know, I would say our
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  first eight years was the hardest, wouldn't you?
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  Without a doubt. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was hard.
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  And you know, we love that, that that is your heart because we do
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  believe that family is the strongest form of governance.
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  And when you have healthy families, you have healthy
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  cities, you have healthy countries.
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  And and so often ministry families are not healthy.
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  And that scared us. And I, I know that John and I,
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  and I want you to speak into this.
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  We, we definitely watched different things.
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  And we both came from very different backgrounds.
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  John came from normal people. I came from crazy people.
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  Italians. Yeah, Italians.
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  But my mother was not Italian, but just very broken.
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  Her mother was divorced and remarried and divorced again and
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  then married somebody else, then married somebody else.
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  So my grandmother's married four times and so my my mother was
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  kind of the unwanted child from the first husband and then my
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  grandmother had children by the second husband.
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  And it was just like, I knew what I didn't want.
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  I just didn't know how to build what I wanted.
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  And so there's a lot of trial and error and and John's parents
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  were super sweet, but they didn't really talk to each
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  other. Well my dad was a World War 2
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  vet, so very quiet and he showed you he loved you by taking care
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  of you. They were married 66 1/2 years
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  and so. Loved each other.
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  I always knew he loved me, he just didn't know how to
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  communicate it like we do today. But I never doubted how much he
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  loved our family. And so, so the, the ministry
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  you're running now together just quickly for people who haven't
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  encountered you yet, Messenger International, now you're
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  reaching millions of people through books, podcasts, Bible
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  deliveries and foreign nations. And then I want to zoom
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  backwards because you guys started this together years back
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  and also developed, grew your family through it and built your
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  marriage through it. So there's like a lot of things,
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  well. I dreamed as an engaged couple
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  what life would look like if we ministered together.
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  We didn't want to do it alone. We didn't want it to be a
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  situation where I'm the minister and she's the wife staying at
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  home doing not involved. And so we always dreamed of
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  doing it together. We felt like God put couples
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  together to be a power team, not a power struggle as Lisa would
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  always say. And so Messenger our our pastor
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  launched us and Messenger was birth in 1990.
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  That's kind of funny. My worst subject in high school
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  was English and creative writing and.
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  New York Times bestselling author That is Funny.
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  But it and in 1991 I was in prayer and I felt so strongly
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  the Lord said I want you to write.
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  I'm like you got the wrong guy. I scored 370 on the SAT in
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  English. I was an engineer because I
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  didn't want to take English. And ten months later I, I
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  thought God would just be fine with that response.
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  But ten months later, two women came to me from two different
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  states within two weeks of each other.
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  And they said, if you don't write what God's giving you to
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  write, he'll give the message to somebody else and one day you'll
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  stand in judgement for it. Well, when the second lady from
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  Texas said it, two weeks after the first lady in Florida, fear
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  of God hit me. And I, I wrote a contract with
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  God. I actually did that.
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  I took a Sharpie. I put contract and I said, I
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  think you're making a mistake. I don't know how to write.
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  I need grace. Yeah.
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  And now I look, today the books are in the 10s of millions.
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  They're in 133 languages and. How many have we given away
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  right now? Well, that's that's our great
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  10s of. Millions, it's our sales.
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  We've, we've sold probably right around 10 million, but it's 10s
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  of millions because God has given us the grace to be able to
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  give away 74,000,000 resources. Wow to believers and leaders all
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  over the world and 242 nations of the world to 20,000 cities
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  and 133 languages. So that's our greatest joy.
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  And that happened in 2011 about a about a million of our
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  curriculums because we put up curriculum with every book.
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  We're in churches all over America, about 25,000 churches.
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  And one day I came in from golf and in the spirit of God came on
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  me and said I want you to get your resource in the hands of
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  every pastor in the world that can't afford them.
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  And I was like what? So it started out with 120 or
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  250,000 the first year 2011, then it went up to 1.3 million,
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  then it went to 1.7 million, then it went above 4 million and
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  stayed there. And now we're at 74,000,000.
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  Now 54 millionaire physical resources, 20 millionaire are
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  digital download because we developed a basically a $20
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  million app. It's the number one app in the
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  world in languages, Youtubes, 80 something we're 133 and so it's
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  being downloaded by 16 to 24,000 people every week.
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  I look on it pretty regularly. The the, the, and usually a
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  typical day is 170 nations are on the app.
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  Well, The thing is the app is totally free.
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  We had a big, big discussion in our group and I felt like God
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  said give it away because we spent millions of dollars on it.
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  We thought we would just do it by subscription and I felt like
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  the Lord said, take care of my bride, I'll take care of you.
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  And so we gave it away and I'm so glad we did because a third
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  of the 8th Africa speaks English.
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  How are they? How are they supposed to give an
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  offering? You know, if they get the
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  English, we were going to give away all the tough languages
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  free, but the English language is.
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  The Western languages we were going.
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  To make so that would be the main thrust.
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  Now I look at Lisa and and Lisa has a very parallel of what I'm
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  talking about that I'd love for her to speak into because Lisa,
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  I believe is really impacting women and men all over the world
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  in a very profound way. And she's also a best selling
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  New York Times best selling author.
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  I'm actually a Wall Street Journal bestseller.
• 9:00
  New York Times didn't put it in because it had the off guard in
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• 10:18
  Well, and you know, I want to go back to the beginning, you know,
• 10:20
  Lila, I am just in awe of what God will do with obedience.
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  I mean, we sat, I remember we were so poor and we would go to
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  the Chinese restaurant because it felt really exotic.
• 10:32
  And we would split an order at a food and we would write things
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  out on a napkin and we'd say one day we want to be able to do
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  this. And what are we?
• 10:42
  What will how we raise our children?
• 10:44
  How will we, how will we love each other?
• 10:46
  What kind of house do we want and how old?
• 10:48
  Were you in your marriage? We I was 22. 22 So you got
• 10:52
  married at. 22 and 22 so. Early 20s and you're dreaming
• 10:57
  about what the future could look could hold for the two of you
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  and your family and your ministry.
• 11:02
  And what kind of parents we wanted to be.
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  And yeah, I think too many people don't actually write
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  things forward. They don't.
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  They just kind of let life happen to.
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  Them we're afraid. I think a lot of people are
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  afraid of dreaming. They feel like it's wrong to to
• 11:16
  have big dreams or big goals or big visions.
• 11:18
  They feel like it might be too ambitious or they're afraid of
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  failure, or they feel like it's greedy to like have a big vision
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  or they feel like they don't they're not up to the task.
• 11:27
  I mean, there's a lot of. Or they're, they're going to
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  fail. Well, for us, for me especially,
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  having an alcoholic father meant that I couldn't bring my friends
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  home because I didn't know what I was coming home to.
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  My mom was either going to be volatile or my dad was going to
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  be drunk and inappropriate. And so it meant the world to me
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  to say I don't care about furniture.
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  I don't care about fancy. I want comfortable.
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  I want a ping pong table. We I want to invest where my
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  children will bring their friends.
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  We'll always have pasta. You know, pasta doesn't cost a
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  lot of money to feed, but but I wanted a generous atmosphere.
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  And one of the promises that was so pivotal for me was that those
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  that fear the Lord is said they their children are like columns
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  and fruitful vines and they're around the dinner table and
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  there's laughter and there's hope.
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  And I thought the fear of the Lord is not a grumpy thing.
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  It's a healthy thing. It's a family thing.
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  And so we wanted to build differently, but it was very
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  important for us to to actually say, this is what it's going to
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  look like. You know, are we going to give
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  our kids money for cleaning the room?
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  No, we're paying for the house. We're not.
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  I mean, these weren't just our ideas.
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  It just have to be right. But but, you know, I, I didn't
• 12:40
  necessarily ever want to. Like John talks about being in
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  the ministry together. That meant background for me.
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  That meant support. I did not want to be in the
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  public. I did.
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  Writing books, Speaking. That was great with editing his
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  books. I did not want to write my own
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  books or. To speak, I snuck in with the
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  publisher. Beta Satan had become a best
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  selling book in 1995. So I went to the publisher and I
• 13:05
  used the leverage and I said, look, my wife has messages in
• 13:08
  her and they need to get out. Please do not tell her I told
• 13:12
  you to call her, but will you please call her?
• 13:15
  And he he did. And she said yes.
• 13:18
  I told him. I said there's a big difference
• 13:20
  between editing your husbands books and writing your own.
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  I said every wife thinks they know how their husband should
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  say something. So I'm like, let me help you
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  well. Listen, me, I mean, you and I
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  have talked about this like you write your, you write your
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  books. Let's not like throw shade on
• 13:34
  people, but in ministry, I think it's a pretty common thing,
• 13:36
  especially if someone to have a maybe to have a clever or a
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  ghostwriter who just does, you know, the heavy lifting for you
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  and I, I, it's very tempting, like I have a second book that
• 13:44
  I'm supposed to be writing right now.
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  And it's like, it would be, you know, can I just download my
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  ideas and someone else and have them do that?
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  But I think when you and I have talked about it and it's been
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  very impressive to me, like you're really retreating.
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  And really, these are words that you feel that the Lord is giving
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  you. Please do.
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  Yeah. So that was what I wanted to do.
• 14:02
  I tried to get my my messages transcribed.
• 14:04
  I tried to get a collaborator and the Holy Spirit, I just felt
• 14:07
  him so sad whenever I did Wow. And so I said OK, I just sat
• 14:12
  down. I bought a computer.
• 14:14
  Now this is 1991 and I just. Imagine what it looks like.
• 14:17
  I started and what I didn't realize would happen is about
• 14:21
  1/3 of these books, at least every single one, because that's
• 14:25
  my 25th book. 1/3 comes as I'm sitting in front of that
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  computer. I've never thought of it, never
• 14:32
  heard it, never spoke it in my life.
• 14:34
  It is such a unique way of meeting with the Holy Spirit.
• 14:38
  And so you think, oh gosh, this is going to be so much time.
• 14:42
  But what you don't realize is how great of a intimate
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  connection you have with the Holy Spirit while you're writing
• 14:50
  to glorify Jesus. So you know, my prayer is
• 14:53
  always, Lord, I want every sentence to be straight from
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  your heart. I tell people all the time my
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  name's on that book because I was the first guy to get to read
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  it. I really believe that.
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  I believe that there's because there how could I ever even
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  write? It took me 4 hours to write a
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  one page paper in high school, so how can I be a writer?
• 15:10
  So tell me more about what that looks like.
• 15:11
  So you're sitting down and you're, you know, have a blank
• 15:15
  page open on your laptop or whatever.
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  You have a theme like fear of the Lord.
• 15:18
  This is about fear of the Lord. And so you're saying like Lord,
• 15:21
  maybe you're meditating on Scripture about that.
• 15:22
  And you're saying, Lord, tell me what you want me to say here.
• 15:25
  And then you just feel like it comes to you as an inspiration.
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  So individually, I spend a lot of time every morning in prayer
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  and in Scripture. Every single.
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  Morning before he even writes. Yeah.
• 15:36
  Because. Has that been your practice?
• 15:39
  Yes. Yes, if you.
• 15:40
  I'll be 30. Five years, the first thing they
• 15:43
  saw when I got up at 5:30 was light on in my office and I'm
• 15:46
  reading the Bible or I'm outside praying in the in the golf
• 15:49
  course that was in our backyard. Because I, I feel like the
• 15:52
  reason a lot of times ministers fall is they stop they stop
• 15:56
  spending time with God. OK, so if I spend time.
• 15:59
  They read to get a sign. Spend time with Lisa.
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  I get closer, right? If Lisa and I are apart from
• 16:04
  each other and I'm not doing much interaction, I'm not
• 16:08
  Facetiming, I'm not on the phone with her.
• 16:10
  When we get together, we've we've, we've grown apart.
• 16:14
  OK, That's just what happens. And it takes a few days to
• 16:18
  reconnect. Well, how much more with our
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  master? And that's why I believe David
• 16:24
  said my voice, you'll hear in the morning, it talks about the
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  morning sacrifice in the book of Psalms.
• 16:30
  I believe that, you know, Lisa and I are very protective.
• 16:33
  We're always in bed before 10:00.
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  So 930 to 10 is our sweet spot because I learned something.
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  If I go to bed late, then I lose my time with God in the morning.
• 16:43
  So I want, I want to be up and I want, I want the first thing
• 16:48
  going into my mind every morning is to be his word.
• 16:51
  So it it directs my day. And I don't like the Jamba veer
• 16:56
  that comes out of or comes into the day.
• 16:59
  Who hasn't spent time alone with God first.
• 17:02
  You know, if you look at David, David, he's got these 450 guys
• 17:08
  that come out to him in the desert.
• 17:10
  They are angry, they're bitter, they're in debt.
• 17:15
  They're, they're, they're the scoundrels.
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  But he, because of his relationship, being so close to
• 17:22
  the Lord, influences all of them.
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  And they become men of renown. So if you, if you look at it,
• 17:30
  psychologists will tell you the person you spend the most time
• 17:32
  with is, is, is the person that's going to shape your
• 17:35
  personality in five years. So whoever your closest friends
• 17:37
  are in five years, that's what you're going to be like.
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  So don't I want my personality to be like Jesus?
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  How does it become like that if I don't spend time with him?
• 17:47
  So that's why, you know, I would sit there and go, God, this is
• 17:52
  your message. And I'm like, I'm writing a book
• 17:55
  right now and I'm, I'm, I was, I was, I was awake last night from
• 17:58
  like 1:30 or 3:30 and I was like, Lord, I am asking, let
• 18:02
  every word. I'm, I'm so even more so on this
• 18:06
  book because of the topic I'm addressing.
• 18:08
  But I'm, I, I need your voice on this, please.
• 18:12
  And I just by faith, get sit down and start.
• 18:14
  And all of a sudden I start going, I've literally in a hotel
• 18:17
  room, jumped up and go, Oh my gosh, that's so good.
• 18:20
  And you think that's? Arrogant.
• 18:22
  No it's not. I for the first time in my life
• 18:24
  I just saw that and it's a revelation that will change my
• 18:26
  life 1st and then it other people's lives next.
• 18:30
  Does that make sense? It does and what I think the
• 18:32
  thing that resounds listening to what you say, and it's something
• 18:35
  my husband were just talking about this past weekend is that
• 18:38
  meeting with God and like, do we prioritize that time reading his
• 18:44
  word, you know, mental prayer, spending time in prayer with
• 18:48
  him. How important is that?
• 18:49
  Because when that becomes pushed back, as with all the and you
• 18:52
  know, I'm a young mom and my husband's working.
• 18:54
  We have all these things and we were just like very convicted of
• 18:57
  like we have to put First things first.
• 18:59
  And the Lord's so generous and merciful that when you slip a
• 19:01
  little bit, it's not like, you know your life goes upended and
• 19:03
  everything is a disaster, but you lose.
• 19:06
  It's an opportunity. You lose the opportunity.
• 19:08
  What opportunities are you losing?
• 19:10
  Yeah. It's it's, it's like, it's like
• 19:11
  Lisa, I don't sit there and beat myself up if I didn't have time
• 19:15
  with her in the morning, OK, I realized this is an opportunity,
• 19:19
  so I don't want anybody to ever feel like.
• 19:22
  It's an obligation. I was obligated.
• 19:26
  No, it's just why would you want to miss the opportunity?
• 19:29
  You're literally sitting with the king of the entire universe.
• 19:33
  OK, so so. He writes really good books too,
• 19:36
  right? I mean, the best book ever
• 19:38
  tonight, Angel. Goes when I consider the
• 19:40
  universe and I look at all this creation and then I look at man
• 19:43
  and I believe this is one of the Seraphin that said this.
• 19:46
  What is that? That.
• 19:48
  You are so mindful that that has all of your attention.
• 19:54
  I think it was the Seraphin just like an awe he just watched God
• 19:57
  make the entire universe, then the earth and then he creates
• 20:00
  this, this, this man and woman. And God's full attention is on
• 20:04
  this man and woman. And so I think that's why John
• 20:07
  says what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us,
• 20:11
  that we should be actually called sons and daughters of God
• 20:14
  because he is so much mightier and greatier, greater.
• 20:18
  And here's these massive angels that would terrify any of us if
• 20:22
  they appear to us literally terrifies.
• 20:25
  I mean, men would worship them when an Angel would appear.
• 20:27
  And the angels are like looking at God who is so awesome.
• 20:31
  And they go, OK, you're, you're going to call him.
• 20:35
  That's your sons and daughters. And, and, and, and you went
• 20:40
  through all this suffering, the beating, 10 hours, 12 hours of
• 20:42
  brutality from 4 different regiments of soldiers being
• 20:45
  beaten so bad you don't even appear as a human being when
• 20:48
  they're done with you and they plucked out your beard, they've
• 20:50
  shoved things into your head. They have made your back into a
• 20:53
  pulp and then you go to a cross where he gets the nails driven
• 20:57
  into the median nerve. That creates excruciating pain
• 21:00
  just pulling up to just to be able to breathe.
• 21:02
  You would do that for that. You would become that and do
• 21:06
  that for that. The the, the seraphim were just
• 21:08
  like, that's all, mate. They're just like, I can't
• 21:10
  believe this. Isn't isn't that the Some of the
• 21:12
  church fathers say that that's why Satan fell, because he
• 21:15
  didn't want to serve a God who would do that?
• 21:18
  Yeah, I have heard I've. Never heard that but I love.
• 21:20
  That yeah, no, I, I, I've heard I've heard some of that He.
• 21:23
  Was jealous. He was jealous.
• 21:24
  That God would do. That and so he he hates us
• 21:27
  because God loves us. Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:30
  Yeah, I believe that. Yeah.
• 21:31
  No. And I I I want to say I do feel
• 21:35
  like right now what you said, what you and Joe were talking
• 21:38
  about, what John is saying. This is not the time to not have
• 21:42
  sacred space in your life. This is not the time to be
• 21:46
  casual with the presence of God, that God actually invites us
• 21:50
  into his throne room, that we can bring petitions, that we can
• 21:54
  worship, that we can have peace in the middle of a storm.
• 21:56
  This is not the time to be careless with that.
• 21:59
  And I think right now we have people that are playing around
• 22:03
  with things that are very dangerous and they are careless
• 22:06
  with the sacred. And we need to flip those
• 22:08
  things. We need to lean into the
• 22:09
  presence of God. I also, I mean, John and I both
• 22:12
  we, we believe when John's talking about saying that so
• 22:16
  much of it is things that he had never thought of when you
• 22:20
  actually say Holy Spirit, I, I am, I am trying to be obedient.
• 22:25
  I'm you know, I'm this book I'm going to write on the awe of
• 22:27
  God. I know, I only know apart, but
• 22:30
  you are the great counselor and you are the great teacher.
• 22:32
  And then you dive into John always grabs all of the
• 22:35
  scripture. He prints out all the
• 22:36
  scriptures. He's got all those research and
• 22:38
  then the Holy Spirit like send you on a treasure hunt where you
• 22:42
  begin to see how things are connected.
• 22:44
  And all of a sudden you're like, wait, I see that now in this
• 22:48
  life, I see that now in my life, I see where and you can put the
• 22:52
  pieces together. Whereas if you, if you don't
• 22:55
  have the time, and I understand some people just don't have the
• 22:57
  time, but if you don't have the time, you miss actually bringing
• 23:01
  the word and making it practical, making it flesh for
• 23:04
  other people. And so they can say, Oh, it's
• 23:07
  not just a principle. This is how I walk it out.
• 23:10
  And and so I love that you were like, I remember talking to you
• 23:14
  and you're like, OK, this is I'm writing my book Fighting for
• 23:17
  Life. And I said, you have to do it.
• 23:20
  People have to hear your voice. It was hard.
• 23:23
  I should have welcomed the spirit more than I did.
• 23:26
  It was. It was harder than probably it
• 23:28
  needed to be, but it was. Hard.
• 23:29
  Well, I think all of us. I mean, I don't know.
• 23:32
  I mean John and I, every time I write a book, I'm like, I'm
• 23:34
  done. Like I'm never.
• 23:35
  I'm never doing that. I think it was hard in part
• 23:38
  because the publisher really wanted a certain book and like
• 23:41
  no offense to them, like I had like my agent had given some
• 23:44
  different book proposals and my heart was in a different topic
• 23:48
  initially not telling the story of live action and stuff.
• 23:50
  Not that I don't care about that story.
• 23:52
  And so I think that was part of the cross wires with it and some
• 23:54
  of the the spiritual angst with it.
• 23:56
  It was like I had this other, the message I, I truly cared
• 24:00
  about, of course, in fighting for life, but there was this
• 24:01
  other connected message about what it means to, you know, be a
• 24:06
  woman, be alive, fight for family, like beyond the fight of
• 24:09
  the story of this activism. And so I think that was part of
• 24:12
  the a little bit of a, part of the angst.
• 24:14
  But I think that's what you're saying is so beautiful, which is
• 24:17
  that at the end of the day, whether if you're going to
• 24:19
  minister, especially if you're in ministry and you're trying to
• 24:22
  share the good news, which we're all trying to do, how can you do
• 24:26
  that when you're not connected to the source and making time
• 24:30
  for the source? Every once in a while, I find a
• 24:32
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• 24:35
  And that's why I'm so excited to share WE Heart Nutrition with
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  What I also love about We Heart Nutrition is that this is a
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  Natal Plus I'm very excited to share this with my husband.
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  to store your vitamins in. That's we Heart nutrition.com.
• 25:53
  So it was really simple and you know, one of my jobs or my first
• 25:57
  job in ministry was to drive the guest speakers of our church and
• 25:59
  we had every guest speaker in the world coming to our church
• 26:02
  because it was a very well known way.
• 26:03
  Back in the day. Yeah, yeah, back in the early
• 26:05
  30s and I, I noticed. 30s or early 80s?
• 26:08
  Wait a minute, we're not alive in the 30s.
• 26:11
  That's funny. And I noticed there were
• 26:14
  speakers that came in who knew about God and there were people
• 26:17
  that came in and who knew God like I, I would sit and all and
• 26:20
  I'd go, this person knows God. So I started thinking humble,
• 26:25
  humble. So I thought, what makes the
• 26:28
  difference? So Lila, if I read a book about
• 26:31
  Lisa, I could tell you some things about her.
• 26:35
  But if I've spent 42 years walking with this beautiful
• 26:38
  lady, I can tell you a whole lot more than somebody reads a book
• 26:41
  about her. So you know when I'm when I'm
• 26:44
  sitting with the scripture, the reason the scripture is still my
• 26:47
  favorite book to read in the planet is because I always say
• 26:50
  Holy Holy Spirit, you have been sent to reveal Jesus to me.
• 26:55
  Show me and ask show me up. I want to see Jesus in a light
• 26:59
  like I've never seen him before. And it's just so amazing how the
• 27:03
  how the scripture comes alive when you pray that simple prayer
• 27:06
  and you know, if you look at Psalm 1/19/89 open my eyes that
• 27:10
  I might behold beautiful treat the truth from your law.
• 27:13
  Beautiful. And he's got to open our eyes.
• 27:17
  What has it looked like in your marriage to do this practice of
• 27:22
  really putting the relationship with God first in terms of
• 27:25
  physical time in prayer, because you have to.
• 27:27
  It's like physical time where we're applying.
• 27:29
  I mean, you can pray throughout the day as you go, but it's like
• 27:31
  setting aside this sacred time, time to read and meditate on His
• 27:35
  word on Scripture. You've had four kids, you have 4
• 27:39
  boys, you've raised them, you've traveled a lot.
• 27:41
  I think my understanding and you started early traveling, right?
• 27:45
  It was a lot of preaching and on the road.
• 27:47
  So what was your how did you, how did you approach lifestyle
• 27:51
  as a married couple connected to prayer and the ministry, if
• 27:55
  that? So I'm going to, I'm going to
• 27:57
  speak for me. Guys need 2 hours less sleep
• 28:00
  than girls per night. I'm up at 5:00 in the morning,
• 28:03
  Lisa's up at 7:00. There's my 2 hours to really get
• 28:06
  quality time. Secondly.
• 28:08
  When I had kids, feet. Lisa and she can expound on
• 28:12
  this. I remember one day I was like,
• 28:14
  Lord, I spent hours with you in the morning.
• 28:17
  She's she doesn't she? She prays in the shower.
• 28:21
  What I didn't realize is Lisa learned how to walk in communion
• 28:24
  with God better than I did it in the beginning.
• 28:27
  So Lisa, it would be like, so, so think guys, we're
• 28:31
  compartmentalized, right? So I got to compartmentalize my
• 28:34
  time. OK, here's my time with Lisa,
• 28:36
  right? Whereas Lisa, you know, she's a,
• 28:39
  she flows. She, she's she, she's learning
• 28:42
  more about me every moment of the day, right?
• 28:44
  So and. She's multitasking the
• 28:46
  relationship too. And she learned how to do that
• 28:50
  better than me early on, how to really walk with Jesus during
• 28:54
  the day. And that's how I, I, I would say
• 28:57
  that's why I saw the difference in US.
• 28:59
  Yeah. And I think I was the John was
• 29:01
  the major example. And then I was more the disciple
• 29:04
  of our kids because he was gone a lot.
• 29:06
  And so it, it was the commands of the father, instruction of
• 29:10
  the mother. And I knew John's heart.
• 29:12
  And I never made John feel bad for spending time in the word or
• 29:16
  spending time in prayer. Matter of fact, I didn't.
• 29:18
  I celebrated that. And that was important.
• 29:20
  So if it meant he wasn't with the kids first thing in the
• 29:24
  morning, that was all right. Because that was that was
• 29:27
  crucial. That was sacred, that was
• 29:29
  important. And he was there.
• 29:31
  Like, if we had a crisis or something, they could, they
• 29:33
  could knock on the door. But we we tried to do devotions
• 29:38
  as a family and it was a nightmare.
• 29:40
  I mean, like I got in trouble for talking during devotions.
• 29:43
  I think, you know, he was leading it.
• 29:44
  John did. He's an engineer.
• 29:46
  At my notebook all out and they had.
• 29:47
  Sheets and. It was a colossal failure, it
• 29:50
  was. But we, we learned that you can
• 29:54
  be devoted. And so it became a normal
• 29:57
  conversation to talk about the things of God at dinner, at
• 30:01
  breakfast, after school. I mean, we always looped our
• 30:05
  children back into the House of God, back into the Scriptures,
• 30:10
  back into what? What do you feel?
• 30:12
  What do you feel Scripture? How does this say to you?
• 30:14
  And we were very present. Now there's a lot of people that
• 30:18
  have very different lifestyles than us.
• 30:21
  We were not, we didn't go out with friends.
• 30:24
  We didn't, we didn't do a lot social because we were out doing
• 30:28
  other things when we were home, we are home.
• 30:30
  Somebody asked our third son, how did your, how did your
• 30:33
  parents raise 4 kids that love them and love God and want to be
• 30:39
  with them? So how did they do that?
• 30:41
  And my son said, our parents played cards with us and they
• 30:45
  spanked us. And that was and I was like,
• 30:48
  that's, that's all you remember. But but the truth is we did
• 30:52
  dinner as a family every night. I made dinner, we sat down and.
• 30:58
  Can I add something? The boys helped her prep and the
• 31:01
  boys helped her clean up the kitchen.
• 31:02
  They're more clean up if. If our four sons came to your
• 31:05
  house for dinner before you got up, they would get up and grab
• 31:08
  all the dishes and start rinsing them off and get them in the
• 31:10
  dishwasher. They would, they would clean
• 31:12
  everything because I believe that my call as a mother is to
• 31:16
  train my children. And you know, there's so much
• 31:18
  about DID. You spank them or John, that's
• 31:20
  what I. They prefer John to spank
• 31:23
  because I guess I wasn't very. Very accurate.
• 31:25
  I mean, even, I'm just going to like, I want to just even ask
• 31:28
  about that because that, I mean, we've talked about discipline on
• 31:31
  the show before. We had different parenting
• 31:32
  experts on and doing different things.
• 31:34
  And there's a school of thought of like, you know, don't spank
• 31:36
  at all. Gentle parenting, like
• 31:38
  authoritative parenting, like all these different views.
• 31:41
  And you know I'm not here. We didn't spank for everything,
• 31:45
  but yeah, but there was, there was.
• 31:47
  There's four areas. We determined the areas and I, I
• 31:50
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• 33:00
  subscribe. I find that there is no greater
• 33:04
  wisdom than God's wisdom, and it is so clear in the book of
• 33:08
  Proverbs especially You spare the rod, you hate your child.
• 33:13
  And the Bible also says in Proverbs, the rod of correction
• 33:17
  will drive foolishness far from the heart of a child.
• 33:20
  Lila, I was so fortunate because when our first child was born,
• 33:24
  my position in church was youth pastor of one of the fastest
• 33:27
  growing churches in America. We did all the counseling and it
• 33:31
  never failed. I never saw, I never saw an
• 33:34
  exception to this. We had families who believed in
• 33:37
  spanking and loved their kids. OK.
• 33:39
  They never run my office. We had families that believed in
• 33:43
  loving their kids, gentle parenting them out of their
• 33:47
  problems. They were in my office
• 33:48
  constantly. I'll never forget the time and,
• 33:51
  and I noticed something. Those kids hated their parents.
• 33:54
  I remember the 16 year old girl in my in my my youth group, she
• 33:58
  comes in and the mom and dad are sitting there.
• 34:01
  She talked to her mom like she was trash.
• 34:03
  And I went to the dad and I said, are you going to correct
• 34:06
  her or am I? And the mother interrupted and
• 34:10
  said, Oh no, no, no. We believe in loving our
• 34:12
  children, a lot of their problems.
• 34:14
  My thought when the mother said that is how can I, how can I
• 34:19
  help this couple? You know, Lila, I, I had to make
• 34:23
  a decision one day. Either God's word is really true
• 34:27
  or it's not. And I found that in my problem
• 34:32
  years. It's when I thought my wisdom
• 34:35
  was better than God's. And if you look at it, that's
• 34:38
  the difference between the tree of life and the tree of the
• 34:40
  knowledge of good and evil. Eve thought she could choose
• 34:43
  what was best for her outside of what God said.
• 34:46
  And when I look at all the scriptures in the Bible about
• 34:48
  it, there's obviously a right way of doing it.
• 34:50
  So this is what we had to do. We would have to make sure that
• 34:56
  we would look at our child and say we are doing this for your
• 34:59
  good. We want to make sure because we
• 35:02
  want to make sure this gets out of your heart.
• 35:04
  This is protection for you. And then we would spank him, and
• 35:08
  I remember you. Know you said just for four
• 35:10
  things, though they were just no sorry to interrupt, but no, no
• 35:13
  curious what you're no. Yeah, and I mean for, for again,
• 35:15
  I wouldn't, I want to be really clear that it's discipline, not
• 35:19
  punishment. Yes, I grew up with punishment.
• 35:22
  I didn't grow up with parents that said, we love you and we,
• 35:26
  there's consequences for these kind of choices that either we
• 35:29
  get to teach you when you're young or you're going to have to
• 35:32
  learn this the hard way when you're older.
• 35:34
  And so discipline is, is part of the growth.
• 35:38
  I mean, God says if you despise discipline, you know, you're,
• 35:42
  you're, you're a fool. Like you should love correction.
• 35:45
  And God corrects and disciplines his children.
• 35:48
  So it wasn't just spankings, but it was spankings for sure for
• 35:52
  certain things. Lying, hitting a younger
• 35:56
  brother. We had four boys, they were
• 35:57
  crazy hitting a younger brother. And I only remember three
• 36:01
  things. So blatant, blatant disrespect
• 36:04
  and and. No.
• 36:05
  Well, we. I didn't spank for.
• 36:06
  We trained them. I didn't spank for that.
• 36:08
  We trained them. We said complaining if God, if
• 36:11
  it cost the Israel their promised land.
• 36:14
  That is like saying to God, I don't like what you're doing in
• 36:16
  my life. And if I were you, I'd do it
• 36:18
  differently. It's it's a form of rebellion.
• 36:20
  So we actually trained our boys not to complain.
• 36:24
  And that was that was one of them that I took very seriously
• 36:29
  and. I don't think we because.
• 36:30
  Men. Men should be men, not
• 36:33
  complainers, not whiners. Men.
• 36:36
  Men should be strong. Men should face challenges.
• 36:39
  Men should embrace the hardship that's before them.
• 36:44
  And I didn't want, I didn't want wimps.
• 36:46
  I wanted men. And I wanted men that would
• 36:48
  respect women. And I'm going to tell you those
• 36:50
  those four boys have the most gorgeous wives and the they all
• 36:54
  treat them like princesses because I believe men should be
• 36:58
  men. So you have to understand, Lila,
• 37:01
  God gave us a mother and father for a reason.
• 37:03
  A father sees things differently than a mother does.
• 37:07
  And that doesn't make the father right or the mother right.
• 37:10
  It just means that they have two different angles and you put
• 37:12
  those two different angles together and you get the right
• 37:14
  healthy balance. So there were actually times
• 37:17
  that Lisa kind of shivered. I mean I'll never forget the
• 37:20
  time my son broke a kids nose, OK?
• 37:23
  Broke his nose, OK. It was he broke 2 noses.
• 37:27
  Yeah, this was broken nose #2. And, and I remember Lisa was
• 37:31
  like you, you got to go up and discipline him.
• 37:33
  And I was. Like like a punch in the face.
• 37:35
  Yes, he took a ball and he. Took a softball and and.
• 37:39
  Out of anger like he. Was yes out of anger it.
• 37:41
  Wasn't like an accident. No, like we don't spank for him.
• 37:43
  I'm leaving on a week long trip the next morning and Lisa's like
• 37:46
  you got to go up and and spank him and I said yeah I know.
• 37:49
  So I go up and he's sound asleep and I thought gosh, I did not
• 37:54
  want to wake him up so and the. Last, I got to stop him.
• 37:56
  Wait. I got to stop you.
• 37:57
  That is not how it happened. Yeah.
• 38:00
  He he needed to be disciplined. It's all right.
• 38:03
  And no, women have better men. No, no.
• 38:05
  OK, so so John, so how? Old was the son he.
• 38:09
  Was. Wait, but 9?
• 38:10
  I would say 9 or 10. So what happened was what
• 38:15
  happened was you, he had done something and you were you were
• 38:18
  going to spank him and he was asleep, yes.
• 38:21
  And then you didn't spank him and then.
• 38:23
  On the trip, the next. Morning.
• 38:24
  And then he broke someone's nose.
• 38:25
  So you're saying, OK, so that's what happened.
• 38:29
  He did. Something really really wrong
• 38:31
  and I went to spank him. He was sound asleep.
• 38:34
  We found out later he was thinking and he.
• 38:35
  Was thinking. We found out later he was
• 38:37
  thinking he was. Like I'm not going to wake.
• 38:39
  Him up on this week long trip tomorrow and the last thing my
• 38:41
  precious son remembers is I just woke him up and spanked him and
• 38:44
  then put him back to bed. I couldn't do it.
• 38:46
  So now so. I leave on the week long trip
• 38:48
  then. Yeah, so this is where I entered
• 38:51
  the story. So we, so I my one time was in
• 38:54
  soccer. This is my second son's in
• 38:56
  soccer. My first son is getting an
• 38:58
  award. You know, this is the thing.
• 38:59
  And so I'm getting ready to pack up my 2 youngest sons to take
• 39:03
  them so I can take go take Addison to his award.
• 39:06
  And one of his mothers said, oh, just leave her boys here, I'll
• 39:09
  watch him. And they said, well, you've got
• 39:11
  to really watch this one. And she was like, Oh yeah, you
• 39:14
  know, I've got. Two boys.
• 39:15
  How old is? He maybe 8 or 9 and she was
• 39:17
  like, I totally got him. So I was maybe gone round trip
• 39:20
  20 minutes and I come back and there is a group of people
• 39:25
  encircling a child and their child's on the ground.
• 39:28
  And I just have this sick feeling that my son is somehow
• 39:31
  involved in that. And I walk up and, and I I see
• 39:35
  this child with his nose bleeding and I look at my son
• 39:39
  and my son's like what? I just flicked him.
• 39:41
  I just flicked him with a softball and I was like, OK.
• 39:46
  And I don't. Remember, I'm going to flick
• 39:47
  you. Yeah, I was like, wow, this just
• 39:49
  happened. So, you know, I apologize.
• 39:51
  I'm like, I'm so sorry. And we all go home.
• 39:55
  And I I, you know, I tried to never be reactionary with a
• 39:58
  discipline. So we had dinner and then I came
• 40:01
  up to Alex's room and I put him on my lap and he said Alec.
• 40:05
  Today was the first day that I thought, I don't know if I want
• 40:09
  to say that's my son. Like this was a moment where I'm
• 40:12
  seeing the kids. He was like, mom, I know exactly
• 40:15
  how you feel. I was ashamed of myself.
• 40:18
  And I said, OK. And he said when Dad didn't
• 40:20
  spank me, it was like a wolf came in my heart.
• 40:24
  And I said, OK, you know what? I'm going to take care of that
• 40:28
  wolf right now. So, so we need a pain stir and
• 40:32
  you know, and John and I believe it was sting not, not bruises,
• 40:36
  not. Pain.
• 40:37
  He's one of the most remarkable men you'll ever meet.
• 40:39
  I mean, he's one of the most socially graceful men.
• 40:42
  I mean, everybody laughs. About it.
• 40:45
  I mean, this is now a 30 year old man.
• 40:47
  And so, you know, I, I, I have seen, seen it right before my
• 40:52
  eyes. I see, I see the kids.
• 40:55
  Here's all these kids that they try to do nice parenting, love
• 40:58
  their kids out of it, and their kids end up in drugs,
• 41:02
  Alcoholics, they end up in jail. Is it possible to go too hard on
• 41:07
  that? And then also, can you do
• 41:09
  discipline? Because I know a lot of our
• 41:11
  podcast listeners have been wrestling with this, especially
• 41:14
  parents or their aspiring parents.
• 41:15
  And there's so much stuff out there that's conflicting about
• 41:18
  it. I don't know if we've addressed
• 41:19
  it head on the show. Maybe we have in the in the past
• 41:21
  spanking, but is there a way to do like a timeouts or other
• 41:25
  restrictions have the same effect as spanking?
• 41:28
  And is there a way to do like what's the best way to do
• 41:31
  spanking in your view? It's also.
• 41:32
  Dependent on the age. I mean, if you've got a child
• 41:36
  that is running into the street, you can't have like a long
• 41:39
  conversation with them because they don't understand what it's
• 41:42
  going to look like to be hit by a car, you know, So there's, and
• 41:46
  I, you know, I, I really feel that consequence is what's
• 41:50
  missing. We have a lot of people that
• 41:54
  they don't believe that they think discipline doesn't require
• 41:58
  consequence. And like my boys, you know, they
• 42:00
  were throwing a ball in the house, I remember, and it hit a
• 42:04
  vase and the vase hit our window.
• 42:06
  And we were in sub zero weather in Colorado and the window
• 42:10
  shattered. So John's on a trip.
• 42:12
  I have AI have a huge window that is now a gaping hole.
• 42:17
  I'm putting plastic over it. My boys knew they weren't
• 42:20
  supposed to throw balls in the house, but yeah, yeah.
• 42:22
  But they were like, Oh no, you know, we threw and they were
• 42:25
  like, mom, mom, I'm so sorry. And you know, and I totally
• 42:28
  forgive you, but here's what's going to happen.
• 42:31
  You guys are, I'm not doing insurance claim.
• 42:34
  You guys are going to pay for the window or pay for the
• 42:37
  deduction, I think is what I did.
• 42:38
  You pay for the deduction for the window and you guys are
• 42:41
  going to replace the face. And they said you don't even
• 42:43
  like that face. That's why it's in the basement.
• 42:45
  I said, no, no, this is the thing.
• 42:48
  You broke somebody, something a possession of somebody.
• 42:51
  And whenever that happens, you have to restore what you broke
• 42:56
  My you know, and we just you. Know I.
• 43:00
  Didn't spank anybody. And on the kid, it was a.
• 43:02
  Consequence, yes. And some children, I mean every
• 43:05
  single child is different. You have two boys.
• 43:08
  You know my one son, he's my oldest.
• 43:10
  If I said don't touch that outlet, he would look at the
• 43:13
  outlet and say, and I said that's right, don't touch it.
• 43:15
  My second son, if I said don't touch that outlet, he would look
• 43:18
  at me just like maybe he didn't even want to touch the outlet.
• 43:22
  But now that I said don't do, he's like, I must stick my
• 43:25
  fingers in the outlet. So they're very different
• 43:27
  children. So I had to set him up for a
• 43:29
  win, not set him up for a failure.
• 43:31
  My oldest son, I could put his clothes out.
• 43:33
  He was happy with that, put him on.
• 43:34
  My second son, I had to be like, what outfit do you want to wear?
• 43:37
  He didn't want his choices taken away.
• 43:39
  And so you have to know the ebb and the flow of your child, and
• 43:43
  you have to discipline, not punish.
• 43:45
  Discipline in a way that causes them to grow correctly.
• 43:51
  Alec was our most, most bank son.
• 43:52
  He was our third son and. He's the best friend.
• 43:57
  We have a four one day, you know, he did something so bad to
• 44:01
  his brothers and he was getting so many spankings.
• 44:04
  I looked him. I said Alec, I walked him up and
• 44:06
  he knew it was coming. I said Jesus took our punishment
• 44:09
  for us. I said I'm going to pull up my
• 44:12
  shorts and I said, you take this ping pong paddle and I'm going
• 44:15
  to take your, your 3 swats. And I said now if you don't hit
• 44:18
  me hard, I'm going to end up because it won't be, it won't
• 44:20
  be, it won't be enough. I'll have to spank you.
• 44:24
  I really want you to hit me hard and I want you to do it three
• 44:28
  times. And he's crying like a baby.
• 44:32
  No dad, it's my, it's me, it's me.
• 44:34
  I said no, I'm taking your punishment for you.
• 44:37
  And sure enough, he hit me pretty hard and but that was.
• 44:40
  Pretty much the end. Of it and that ended up that
• 44:42
  ended up cycle it it it broke that cycle like the next couple
• 44:46
  months was really good and so yes Lila you got to be creative.
• 44:50
  But when God says with in in regard to children and children,
• 44:55
  you know adult adulthood begins when you're 13 that's when you
• 44:59
  go through adolescence. Harry a Jewish man goes to bar
• 45:02
  mitzvah. He's a young man, right?
• 45:04
  So you better have them train before they hit 12.
• 45:07
  OK. So in regard to children, God
• 45:11
  knew these the he set something up that I literally witness as a
• 45:16
  youth pastor for two years because the parents that over
• 45:20
  disciplined and didn't love their kids, they resented their
• 45:23
  parents and they were kids who weren't disciplined at all who
• 45:27
  the parents thought it was. Let me be wiser than God and
• 45:31
  I'll love my kids out of problems.
• 45:33
  Their kids hated their parents. So neither one was good.
• 45:37
  It was just the families that love their kids and discipline
• 45:41
  their kids. They were never in my office.
• 45:43
  And I saw that and I said, OK, we're not going to make this
• 45:47
  mistake. And I remember I was in Brazil
• 45:49
  and I was getting ready to speak to a lot of people.
• 45:52
  It was a national conference. And the guy who is my
• 45:55
  translator, he was he was raised in a Christian home.
• 46:00
  His neighbors, he said, John, it's interesting.
• 46:03
  He, he, he was a missionary down there.
• 46:06
  He said, my neighbors, I was always so mad at my parents.
• 46:09
  They got the mini bikes. They got to do whatever they
• 46:12
  want. They got to stay out as late as
• 46:14
  they want. My parents were strict.
• 46:16
  My parents spanked me. He said, Do you know, every one
• 46:19
  of those kids divorced on drugs, one's in jail.
• 46:24
  And he said, here I am, I'm down here and I'm, you know, able to
• 46:28
  touch a nation because he worked for a big organization that was
• 46:32
  was was really impacting Brazil. And so I've seen it time and
• 46:37
  time again. So I definitely don't advocate
• 46:41
  spanking your children in anger, but I do advocate on obeying the
• 46:45
  word of God and figuring out how to do it.
• 46:47
  And the thing that we always did is we're done spanking.
• 46:51
  We would grab our kids and hold them and say we love you so much
• 46:53
  and. Pray over them sometimes, you
• 46:55
  know, sometimes they didn't want to before they're like, no, we
• 46:56
  don't want to. Don't pray over us.
• 46:58
  You know, they're like well, come around back to that.
• 47:00
  But again, I think because we are more engaged with our
• 47:04
  children other than just discipline like we were we.
• 47:07
  Played street hockey every day we were playing.
• 47:09
  Baseball engaged that that you can do things when you have a
• 47:14
  relationship that and that has a weight to it that you don't have
• 47:19
  if you're only disciplined and don't spend time and too many
• 47:23
  parents are trying to be their children's friend and not their
• 47:26
  parents to help me with this. They talk about when you talk,
• 47:29
  when you have the different stages you know of, of children
• 47:32
  what what is the thing about coach and counselor?
• 47:34
  And JH Ranch came up with this, that your caretaker when they're
• 47:39
  a certain age, then you go to cop, then you go to coach, then
• 47:43
  you go to consultant. So the day you become consultant
• 47:46
  is the day they get married. So the difference between coach
• 47:49
  and consultant is a coach can give you, he can give you
• 47:52
  correction verbally. You want to correct your 20 or
• 47:56
  thank your 20 year old, He can give you correction verbally
• 47:59
  without you asking. A consultant can only address
• 48:02
  anything unless you ask. So I told all four of my boys, I
• 48:05
  said the Bible says you leave your father and mother the day
• 48:08
  you get married. That means you're leaving my
• 48:10
  authority. That means from this day
• 48:12
  forward, you guys have always been so gracious.
• 48:15
  You've honored us as parents. You're going to continue to
• 48:17
  honor us, but you don't obey us. So that means I'm not, I'm not
• 48:20
  speaking into your family unless you ask me.
• 48:23
  And I remember my first born son said, dad, please, if you see me
• 48:26
  doing something stupid, will you please?
• 48:28
  I said, no, I won't. I said, I hope I've trained you
• 48:32
  well enough to where you'll know what to do.
• 48:34
  But you can ask me anything. And if you ask me, I'll, I'll,
• 48:37
  I'll tell you. All four of our sons have worked
• 48:40
  for our ministry for at least nine years.
• 48:42
  We actually encourage them not to.
• 48:44
  And yet they were like, we want to work with you.
• 48:46
  So I, I can say from experience as a 65 year old man that it
• 48:52
  really, really obey. It really pays to listen to what
• 48:56
  Scripture says. Yeah.
• 48:59
  Yeah, I mean, and, and agree, you know, like we tried, like if
• 49:02
  we were in a situation where John thought it should be
• 49:05
  approached one way and I thought it should be approached another
• 49:08
  way, we would step out of the room and have the conversation
• 49:12
  and not disagree in front of the kids, you know, and we, we made
• 49:16
  that mistake. It it doesn't work.
• 49:17
  And we, we even, I mean, I wish, I wish I could say we never did
• 49:21
  this, but going to marriage now, not so much parenting, but now I
• 49:26
  would go to modeling in marriage.
• 49:29
  If we had a disagreement, John and I would do it in front of
• 49:32
  the kids sometime. I mean, we would just like be at
• 49:34
  the dinner. He might be like, what are you
• 49:35
  saying? And he'd be like, well, this.
• 49:36
  And then I'd be like, I disagree.
• 49:38
  And then we'd be like, excuse us.
• 49:39
  And then we'd go off off floor and then sit down, work it out.
• 49:44
  During dinner. During dinner step step.
• 49:46
  Well, we're we'd like. To prevent the disagreement in
• 49:49
  front of the kids. I wish we had, you know, I I'm
• 49:51
  not, I'm not suggesting I think people have more.
• 49:54
  We should have dealt more self-control, but we would step
• 49:57
  aside and then we'd come back. And if we if we had a conflict
• 50:01
  in front of our children, then we brought the resolution.
• 50:04
  So they didn't think what? What's going?
• 50:06
  Yeah. What's going on with our with
• 50:08
  our parents? And then if I had been
• 50:10
  disrespectful or if John had been harsh, we said that to our
• 50:13
  children. We said, you know what?
• 50:14
  The way I talk to your dad is completely out of line.
• 50:17
  We know they go. We know and.
• 50:20
  They would say, I was harsh with your mom and we modeled things
• 50:24
  for them because at the end of the day, your children are not
• 50:26
  going to follow what you say, they're going to follow what you
• 50:29
  model. And so we, we tried to be very
• 50:32
  intentional. You know, if we did that and,
• 50:35
  and again, like we, we don't recommend fighting in front of
• 50:38
  your children, but if you do, make sure they have a way to see
• 50:43
  resolution come in and then don't make excuses.
• 50:47
  Don't, you know, just own it and be vulnerable with your kids.
• 50:52
  But don't, you know, don't, don't think that you can't
• 50:55
  apologize because a lot of times parents think apologizing
• 50:58
  actually means you lose your authority.
• 51:00
  But actually it makes them feel safe when you own your mistakes.
• 51:05
  They don't own you anymore. And now your children can look
• 51:08
  at you like this is a safe person who is modeled repentance
• 51:12
  and a contrite heart and humility.
• 51:15
  We're asking our kids to do those things.
• 51:17
  Then we better do them. And, and I will say that that
• 51:22
  was what I was going to say next.
• 51:25
  I think the single most important thing in in parenting
• 51:29
  is all leaders make mistakes. There's not one of us that
• 51:33
  doesn't accept Jesus. So be quick to apologize.
• 51:37
  I'll never forget I was in Singapore and I, they were doing
• 51:41
  AQ and a with me and they asked how did you get for boys that
• 51:46
  love God? And I said, well, we, we believe
• 51:49
  what we, we believe what we preached, we lived what we
• 51:52
  preached and we apologize. That's what I said.
• 51:55
  That was my answer. Then I didn't talk about Spanx.
• 51:57
  I very rarely even talk about Spanx's SO.
• 51:59
  Thank you for doing it though. It's a it's one of those touchy
• 52:02
  ones, but I think it's really important to talk about.
• 52:05
  I think it, I think it is, but I I rarely do.
• 52:08
  But one of the pastors came up to me afterwards and he said,
• 52:12
  yeah. And he said, Naja, honor is so
• 52:14
  big. He said my dad, all of us knew
• 52:17
  he made a mistake and he wouldn't apologize.
• 52:20
  And we just forget about it three days later.
• 52:22
  And I looked at him and I said, did you forget about it?
• 52:25
  And he dropped his head. He said no.
• 52:28
  And what my boys said to Lisa and I is the fact that you would
• 52:32
  apologize and on your mistakes made us feel safe.
• 52:35
  And I do the same thing with my staff.
• 52:37
  So I figure I don't have a boss. My board doesn't watch my daily
• 52:41
  behavior with with our 50. Staff members, right, But they
• 52:43
  just don't. See us.
• 52:45
  So I, I asked the Holy Spirit, I said, don't let me sleep at
• 52:48
  night if I handle something wrong.
• 52:51
  And so if you want to get my staff laughing, talk about
• 52:55
  John's 3:00 AM emails that he sends.
• 52:57
  Hey, guys, wise, huh? Yes, guys, what I said was true,
• 53:01
  but the way I said it was harsh and I'm so sorry.
• 53:03
  And one of my team members who's one of our, he's not a director,
• 53:08
  he's a, he's a manager. He said he's been with us for
• 53:11
  almost 20 years. He said, I feel so safe because
• 53:15
  I have a leader who will apologize.
• 53:17
  My actual assistant was actually floored.
• 53:20
  She was in ministry all of her life.
• 53:22
  And she's she's up there in age. And I mean, in the sense of
• 53:25
  she's in her late 40s. And she said, wow, I remember
• 53:28
  the first time, one of the first times that happened, she said, a
• 53:30
  leader who apologizes. And I was surprised by that.
• 53:34
  And I said, of course I'm apologizing.
• 53:36
  I was totally wrong. I assumed something and I was
• 53:38
  wrong. I owe you an apology.
• 53:40
  Do you sometimes just do the apology right in the moment?
• 53:42
  You're just saying occasionally you'll remember something, you
• 53:45
  know what I'm saying? Like maybe like you assume
• 53:47
  things wrong like. Yeah, if he yeah, if he
• 53:49
  recognizes it in the moment. But you're just saying.
• 53:51
  Later on if you can't sleep. No, I jumped on.
• 53:54
  I jumped on my assistant for I felt like she made a mistake, a
• 53:58
  big mistake. And then I started investigating
• 54:01
  more and I realized, Oh my gosh, Bevere.
• 54:03
  We we we do have a tendency to. Overreact.
• 54:06
  You definitely. You definitely just blamed your
• 54:08
  assistant. It was this person.
• 54:10
  I called her back and I'm. I'm so sorry.
• 54:12
  I'm so sorry you had to endure me correcting you verbally like
• 54:16
  I did and and you weren't at fault.
• 54:19
  And she said, Oh my gosh, a leader who actually apologized.
• 54:22
  I said, of course, you know, So. Yeah, so Jesus, Jesus is the
• 54:28
  only one that doesn't have to apologize, right?
• 54:30
  All of us do. So I don't care if I'm 80 years
• 54:32
  old. If I make a mistake, I better
• 54:35
  apologize. That's that's humility, right?
• 54:38
  Yeah. And we going back to a marriage
• 54:40
  thing, we believe that marriage is 2 people committed to
• 54:45
  bringing out the best in one another.
• 54:47
  And I think sometimes marriages become a competition where
• 54:50
  people are trying to best one another.
• 54:52
  Like I get my way or I get my opinion or.
• 54:55
  And, and when we look at scripture and again, you know, I
• 54:57
  know that you and me and Ali Beth have a little bit of a
• 54:59
  conversation. Submission is not control.
• 55:02
  It's not less than it's actually we have two people who are on an
• 55:08
  assignment to love each other, love God, build a family that
• 55:11
  honors God, love their children and and every aspect of that we
• 55:17
  have the grounding of Scripture in So we submit to the word of
• 55:21
  God. But when you look at Scripture,
• 55:23
  there is so much more that God says about the husband than he
• 55:27
  even does about the wife. And, and sometimes I feel like
• 55:31
  it's very skewed where you hear a lot of submit, submit, submit
• 55:34
  to the women and you don't hear love your wife like Christ loves
• 55:38
  the church, how he gave his life for the bride, how he washes her
• 55:43
  with the water of the word. And so, you know, we, we had
• 55:47
  those conflicts at the early part of our, our marriage and
• 55:50
  then we had to work out, what does this look like?
• 55:53
  You know, working with your husband is an, our family period
• 55:57
  is one of the most amazing things, but it has some of the
• 56:02
  most unique challenges that you're not going to have
• 56:05
  anywhere else because you can take things personal when it's
• 56:08
  just work. You can, you can be very
• 56:11
  confused about how you walk things out.
• 56:13
  You can have a role in one setting that's a different role
• 56:16
  in a different setting. And so we, you know, there's
• 56:19
  been times I've wanted to quit. There's been times I wanted to
• 56:21
  fire myself. The John.
• 56:24
  Like separate, like you just keep doing this and I'll do this
• 56:28
  and and it's too. Hard to work.
• 56:29
  Because it's hard and John would say, Lisa, we need to do this,
• 56:35
  we need to work, we need to do this together.
• 56:39
  Because a lot of my friends, Lila, they're they're very much
• 56:42
  they're doing it and then their husband is kind of not
• 56:45
  disengaged, but maybe doing something else or he's their
• 56:48
  handler. And when you have two people
• 56:51
  that are passionate and strong and Italian and opinionated and
• 56:55
  both authors you have to, it is a different dynamic where you
• 57:00
  have to remember a win for him is a win for me.
• 57:03
  A win for me is a win. For him, you don't.
• 57:06
  You don't. You don't speak against your
• 57:10
  spouse's character. You address, you don't.
• 57:14
  So we have a saying in our family.
• 57:16
  We fight for fierce unity. So in other words, we don't
• 57:19
  shove things under the carpet. If there's something our family
• 57:23
  will have an intervention, we'll all come together and we'll,
• 57:25
  we'll, we'll knock it out and we'll make sure everybody's all
• 57:30
  healed up, all in agreement by the time we leave that
• 57:33
  intervention. Sometimes it takes a couple
• 57:34
  hours seriously when you've got. With the kids even, even if it's
• 57:38
  like a family, one thing. Why are my daughter in laws Yeah
• 57:41
  she she she just like she was like Oh my gosh.
• 57:46
  So she's ready to in the Deep South and she saw how that I 22
• 57:52
  boys at each other over her and it wasn't.
• 57:57
  Not fighting to date her. You're not fighting to date her,
• 58:00
  right? But but it revolved and we sat
• 58:03
  him down and made him talk it out.
• 58:05
  And she just looked at me and she said, I've never seen this.
• 58:08
  She said what we do is we just cut the person off and say,
• 58:11
  bless your heart. She said you guys actually work
• 58:15
  it out. You, you, you actually, it goes
• 58:18
  worse and then gets better. But she said it gets better and
• 58:21
  I said yes, because when you've been in the trenches and you
• 58:25
  fight for fierce unity, you come out with even a stronger
• 58:28
  relationship. I look at our hardship years and
• 58:31
  our hardship years made us even closer right now because we
• 58:34
  determined they would. We determined we are going to
• 58:38
  stay in love. My number one marriage goal,
• 58:40
  this is number 1, is the day Lisa leaves this earth.
• 58:45
  She will be more in love with me than the day we married.
• 58:48
  Wow. OK my number two marriage goal
• 58:51
  is the day I leave this earth I will be more in love with her
• 58:54
  than the day we married and then we work from there so you know
• 58:58
  we. I feel like we need new goals.
• 59:00
  No, no, because I already love you more now.
• 59:02
  No, no, you need to hear me. I already love you more now.
• 59:05
  But we're not. Done the day we got married.
• 59:07
  A long time to go, but yeah, see, we need new goals.
• 59:09
  We need new. Goals.
• 59:11
  Meaning meaning you're you've already already surpassed the
• 59:14
  first days, but you you're this is like existentially there
• 59:18
  could. Be a whole other dying, yet
• 59:19
  she's not. Dying yet saying that's why we
• 59:21
  need a new goal, we need a new goal, we need a new.
• 59:24
  Goal but he's saying there's like a new a new love that
• 59:27
  you're never you're just so So what what has been OK, we could
• 59:31
  talk about this for hours and hours and it's all amazing
• 59:34
  stuff. What has been, let's say, what
• 59:37
  has been in your experience, the number one enemy of that falling
• 59:40
  in love with each other? Selfishness, especially on my
• 59:44
  part. OK, so here's here's where guys
• 59:47
  do they look at that husband wives, submit to your husbands.
• 59:50
  I'm the big MOC, B MOC. I'm the big man on campus.
• 59:53
  I'm the big man here in the family, right?
• 59:56
  But yet the realization hit me one day, and this is when my
• 59:59
  life began to be transformed as a husband is what Jesus did in
• 1:00:03
  the Last Supper. So OK.
• 1:00:06
  Let's think about it. I'm, I'm a preacher, I'm a
• 1:00:09
  minister, right? Illustrated sermons are so good,
• 1:00:12
  right? Like I use video and, and some
• 1:00:15
  of my messages, my team makes a, a brilliant video.
• 1:00:18
  It's 3 minutes long and I'll use it.
• 1:00:21
  Jesus is like this. I'm about to leave this earth.
• 1:00:23
  I'm about to be crucified. So my last illustrated sermon,
• 1:00:27
  I'm going to make it really clear.
• 1:00:29
  So he washes their feet. Now we don't get it.
• 1:00:34
  I remember when college when they did a foot washing, I
• 1:00:37
  conveniently had to study for a test.
• 1:00:39
  I was like, I there's no man touching my feet and it and and
• 1:00:43
  we made a religion out of it. But then when I understood the
• 1:00:47
  context of the day, they're dirt roads.
• 1:00:51
  People have sandals on, not Nike shoes.
• 1:00:53
  OK, Horses don't have pit stops. Donkeys don't have pit stops.
• 1:00:59
  Camels don't have pit stops. Your feet are walking in this,
• 1:01:03
  OK, either open toed sandals or barefoot.
• 1:01:07
  So when a guy was really wealthy, think about it, where
• 1:01:09
  Jesus has the Last Supper, he's got 12 staff members and they're
• 1:01:12
  totally away from the family. So this guy's obviously rich.
• 1:01:15
  He's got a big house. In those homes, you had 20
• 1:01:19
  servants. You had people that drove the
• 1:01:21
  chariot, you had people that took care of the laundry, people
• 1:01:24
  that took care of the kitchen. Then the lowest servant of the
• 1:01:29
  20, the newest and lowest, usually a female job was
• 1:01:34
  whenever the family came in or guests came in, she washed their
• 1:01:37
  feet. So Jesus, these guys all just go
• 1:01:41
  through this two hours earlier and Jesus disrobes, takes this
• 1:01:44
  thing and starts washing their feet.
• 1:01:46
  This is why Peter freaked out. No, you're not doing this.
• 1:01:50
  He washes all their feet just like that little servant girl
• 1:01:53
  did, right? And he said, you call me Lord
• 1:01:56
  and master and you, you say it right.
• 1:01:59
  But if I, your Lord and master, have done this, you were to do
• 1:02:03
  this to one another. In other words, you know what he
• 1:02:05
  was saying. I'm the number one servant like
• 1:02:10
  in the Kingdom, yet you call me Lord and master.
• 1:02:13
  So if you translate this over to marriage, what does that make
• 1:02:18
  the husband and father? He's the chief servant.
• 1:02:21
  So what does that mean? That means if the wife wants to
• 1:02:26
  go to the beach and the husband wants to go to the mountains,
• 1:02:28
  we're going to the beach. And that's the husband's
• 1:02:31
  decision. So yes, he's the one that
• 1:02:33
  decides, but he's always deciding in a manner of serving,
• 1:02:37
  not in a manner of lording. Does that make sense?
• 1:02:40
  When I got that through this thick skull?
• 1:02:44
  OK, Basically, when you, when you sign up, when you sign up
• 1:02:47
  for marriage, you sign up to be a servant to this person the
• 1:02:50
  rest of your life. Things started changing in our
• 1:02:52
  marriage. In a good way.
• 1:02:56
  Yeah, and he's always been a good husband.
• 1:02:58
  I mean, I feel like the first few years were the harder years.
• 1:03:01
  But again, we we don't see certain things modeled.
• 1:03:06
  And I think so many people are given so many reasons to quit
• 1:03:11
  and so few reasons to stay. And, and I don't want to shame
• 1:03:15
  people that feel like they have no choice.
• 1:03:19
  I don't think divorce is the unpardonable sin, but I find
• 1:03:22
  that there's so many people that they they leave one marriage and
• 1:03:27
  they bring the same payment of problems into the next one.
• 1:03:30
  And and then they find themselves in a a similar
• 1:03:33
  situation. Divorces in second marriages are
• 1:03:36
  at a higher rate than the first marriages.
• 1:03:39
  And, and I just wonder, you know, we want to encourage
• 1:03:43
  people to fight for their marriage, not just fight, but
• 1:03:46
  fight for their marriage, not just fight for their rights, not
• 1:03:49
  just fight for their opinions, but to fight for their marriage.
• 1:03:51
  And so for us, we've always tried to be very transparent and
• 1:03:55
  say this is what we've learned. We we had to stop being experts
• 1:03:59
  in one another's weaknesses. We had to start being experts in
• 1:04:02
  one another's strengths. We had to speak to one another
• 1:04:06
  like we would speak to an ally, not an enemy.
• 1:04:08
  We need to to speak with respect and honor to my husband.
• 1:04:11
  And he treats me with respect and honor.
• 1:04:14
  And everybody grows in the light of the love they're shown.
• 1:04:18
  And you know, women here love differently than men here love.
• 1:04:21
  And so I had to realize that I wanted John to love me a certain
• 1:04:27
  way and he wanted me to respect and love him a certain way.
• 1:04:30
  But we never even had that communication.
• 1:04:32
  So we're always feeling and when we actually stopped and said,
• 1:04:37
  and this sounds scary because we usually do how I'm going to tell
• 1:04:41
  you how to love me better, but actually say how can I love you
• 1:04:43
  better? And I think too many people are
• 1:04:46
  so self focused, like John said, the selfish, so self focused.
• 1:04:51
  And when you get married, you should be other person focused.
• 1:04:54
  And I'm not saying you don't take care of yourself.
• 1:04:57
  I'm not saying you've become a doormat.
• 1:04:58
  And hopefully people look at you.
• 1:05:00
  And I know that we are women who believe in voice and and value
• 1:05:03
  that is feminine, but we don't have to strip the men of their
• 1:05:07
  voice or their value in God's eyes or in culture to have voice
• 1:05:12
  and value as women. What are?
• 1:05:14
  What are like the top two or three things you've done as a
• 1:05:17
  wife? And you mentioned submission
• 1:05:20
  earlier. And I, I know that's like can be
• 1:05:22
  as controversial, but I think because of modern feminism, not
• 1:05:26
  the good feminism, the bad feminism, we are so wired to not
• 1:05:30
  submit as women. Like everything you can do, I
• 1:05:32
  can do better kind of attitude women have.
• 1:05:35
  And we're so demeaning. I think there's a cultural
• 1:05:37
  mentality that is really demeaning of men today.
• 1:05:39
  And it does seep in, I think into Christian circles.
• 1:05:42
  It definitely can seep into Christian circles.
• 1:05:44
  So obviously it can go different extremes, but what have been the
• 1:05:46
  things that you have found the most helpful in how to show
• 1:05:52
  submission, biblical submission to John and then John, I know
• 1:05:56
  this is like another huge topic we're getting into, but it's so
• 1:05:58
  good. What?
• 1:05:59
  How has that? How has it affected you?
• 1:06:03
  Yeah, well, I say, I think the gift of having sons was a big
• 1:06:09
  turning point for me. I realized, you know, exactly
• 1:06:12
  what you were saying. I realized you have to train men
• 1:06:15
  not to love women, not to protect them.
• 1:06:17
  My boys were so protective and so loving of me from the very
• 1:06:22
  start. And and I had to realize that I
• 1:06:25
  was so engaged and so loving and so nurturing of my sons, but not
• 1:06:31
  of my husband. And John would, like, watch me
• 1:06:34
  with the boys and say, OK, well, she knows how to be nice.
• 1:06:36
  She's just not being nice with me.
• 1:06:39
  And I think it's that mindset where the older women are
• 1:06:42
  supposed to teach and train the younger woman how to do what?
• 1:06:45
  Love their husbands and train their children.
• 1:06:49
  Most women are trying to train their husbands and they are
• 1:06:51
  loving their children. We have it wrong.
• 1:06:54
  And so I know for me, when I came to this place where I
• 1:06:57
  realized my job is to love and respect him.
• 1:07:01
  My job is to speak strength to his strengths and not to shame
• 1:07:05
  him because he looked at things differently.
• 1:07:08
  So I remember, remember it actually, everything really
• 1:07:10
  shifted #1 when I I let go of control and fear, that was that
• 1:07:16
  was the thing. Another big turning point for
• 1:07:19
  me, Lila, was I always kind of held back.
• 1:07:23
  I think we were married. We'd already had Arden, so I
• 1:07:26
  don't. Know, I think we're married.
• 1:07:28
  No, the one that's not the one I'm thinking of.
• 1:07:31
  I just remember John saying to me, I'm not your dad.
• 1:07:36
  And he said I don't know how long we have to be together
• 1:07:40
  before you realize I'm not leaving.
• 1:07:43
  He said whenever we hug, you're always the first one to pull
• 1:07:45
  away. You always start patting me, you
• 1:07:46
  know you. And he said I.
• 1:07:49
  And I realized, I thought. I actually said, I said, are we
• 1:07:52
  going to have to be 70 before you realize I'm not going to
• 1:07:55
  leave you? I said, what age?
• 1:07:56
  I said if you do that, we're going to miss a lot of fun years
• 1:07:58
  together. Wow.
• 1:07:59
  Yeah, because you. Were raised by divorced.
• 1:08:02
  Divorced parents, divorced parents, men always leave.
• 1:08:04
  They can't be trusted. And I do think that's where a
• 1:08:06
  lot of the feminism gets the value.
• 1:08:09
  Don't trust men. Be your own woman.
• 1:08:11
  My mom was sending those messages to me and and I real I
• 1:08:15
  had to really get with God and say this is this is not fair to
• 1:08:18
  my husband. He's paying for pain that he did
• 1:08:22
  not cause and I want to actually love him.
• 1:08:25
  And I had to come to the place where I said I'm going to risk
• 1:08:28
  everything because I kind of thought, well, what I'm doing is
• 1:08:31
  I'm loving him part way, saving part of my heart.
• 1:08:34
  So if he breaks it and it only breaks 2/3 of my heart and I've
• 1:08:37
  kept a third. But then I realized, what if,
• 1:08:41
  what if everything would have been different if I was all the
• 1:08:43
  way in? What if everything would have
• 1:08:45
  been different if I didn't? I just surrendered and said, I'm
• 1:08:48
  going to love John. I'm not going to be driven and
• 1:08:52
  counseled by fear because there is No Fear in love.
• 1:08:55
  I'm going to, I'm going to love him.
• 1:08:57
  I'm going to believe the best 1st.
• 1:08:58
  I'm going to, I'm going to begin to ask him questions that are
• 1:09:02
  going to locate me. And, and like one of the the
• 1:09:04
  major things, as I said to John, how do you hear love?
• 1:09:08
  How do you hear love? Because I heard love, quality
• 1:09:10
  time and acts of service. And he heard love as words of
• 1:09:15
  affirmation and physical touch. And I was like, those are
• 1:09:17
  stupid. You need to like it this way.
• 1:09:20
  You need to like, you know, like we need to do projects together,
• 1:09:23
  quality time, acts of service. And I realized I, I was wrong to
• 1:09:26
  shame him for how he heard love. And so I had to start speaking a
• 1:09:32
  language that he understood. And so at first, I remember it
• 1:09:37
  would be kind of awkward. And he'd be like, hey, I'm, I'm
• 1:09:40
  putting on this outfit for this trip.
• 1:09:41
  What do you think? And I'd be like, it's that's
• 1:09:43
  nice. And he'd say, I say, you look
• 1:09:45
  good. And he'd be like, you're just
• 1:09:46
  saying that, aren't you? And I said, yeah, I am because
• 1:09:48
  you want to hear that. You said you like to hear this
• 1:09:50
  thing. So yes, I'm just saying it.
• 1:09:51
  But then I started having fun with it and I started to be
• 1:09:54
  like, I don't even think you should wear that because you are
• 1:09:56
  just so cute. And I need to get in the bedroom
• 1:09:58
  and take off all your clothes. And he'd be like, no, no,
• 1:10:00
  they're picking me up in 15 minutes.
• 1:10:01
  I was like, OK, I'll. Let you.
• 1:10:03
  I'll let you slide. I'll let you slide this time.
• 1:10:06
  And in front of my boys, I would say things like look at your
• 1:10:09
  dad. Oh my goodness.
• 1:10:10
  He just gets better looking at every single year.
• 1:10:12
  I don't know how I haven't been pregnant 8 times.
• 1:10:14
  So I'm just like, dad, mom, you guys are so weird.
• 1:10:17
  But then they got married and they brought me their wives and
• 1:10:20
  they're like, hey, teach them the thing.
• 1:10:23
  I was like, teach them what thing they're like.
• 1:10:25
  Teach them to compliment me, teach them to compliment me in
• 1:10:28
  front of other people. And so I realized, I thought, I
• 1:10:31
  thought you didn't like that. And they're like, it was
• 1:10:33
  awkward, but we liked it made them feel.
• 1:10:36
  And you know what that did that safeguard, safeguarded John's
• 1:10:40
  heart, who is traveling. If I withhold admiration,
• 1:10:45
  affection, you know, confidence from him, then he's going to be
• 1:10:50
  vulnerable. He's going to be out somewhere
• 1:10:53
  on the road and some lady could knock on the door and, and he,
• 1:10:57
  his little heart has been left vulnerable.
• 1:11:00
  But I really believe that if someone knocked on John's door
• 1:11:03
  and said, Hey, John Bevier, you're a sexy hunk of man, he
• 1:11:06
  would say, I know my wife tells me that all the time.
• 1:11:08
  And he just shut the door. So he would not, he would not be
• 1:11:11
  vulnerable. He would not be at risk.
• 1:11:14
  But it wasn't just him. I was actually protecting my
• 1:11:17
  boys. I was protecting my sons where
• 1:11:19
  they would have women who would love and respect them, not try
• 1:11:23
  to manipulate them by being condescending and critical.
• 1:11:28
  And, and you know, I, I, I'm all about like, if I get done
• 1:11:32
  speaking, the first thing I want to ask somebody is, did that
• 1:11:34
  make sense? What was what was not clear?
• 1:11:36
  How could I have done that better?
• 1:11:37
  I actually like people to give me critiques, but a critique is
• 1:11:41
  different than a critic. And so I think a lot of wives
• 1:11:45
  end up being their husbands critic.
• 1:11:48
  And just like our boys, John and I are not going to jump into
• 1:11:50
  something unless they ask us. If they ask us, we'll we'll,
• 1:11:55
  we'll speak into it. And we're very close with our
• 1:11:58
  boys. And it isn't this weird thing.
• 1:11:59
  We're like, oh, don't talk. I mean, it's just, it's just,
• 1:12:02
  you know, they'll come to us when they want something.
• 1:12:04
  But I feel like that was a major shifting point and it came in
• 1:12:08
  different stages. And and I feel like right now we
• 1:12:13
  just enjoy each other and we do stuff together that we couldn't
• 1:12:18
  do when we had kids. Like we cooked together.
• 1:12:20
  We go for walks, we laugh together.
• 1:12:23
  We watch stupid mystery things and try to guess who the
• 1:12:26
  murderer was. That are clean.
• 1:12:28
  That are clean. But yeah, I want, I want you to
• 1:12:30
  speak to what you're thinking on that.
• 1:12:32
  It affected me profoundly. I don't.
• 1:12:35
  I don't. I want to say this so loud.
• 1:12:39
  My wife has no idea how much confidence it instills in her
• 1:12:43
  husband when she believes in him.
• 1:12:46
  And it doesn't matter if everybody else thinks he's
• 1:12:49
  amazing, the one that really counts as his wife.
• 1:12:53
  And I would say that to Lisa. I would say I don't care what
• 1:12:55
  they say. I care what you say.
• 1:12:57
  And I, I just, I just need your affirmation.
• 1:13:01
  OK, I have to ask one more question.
• 1:13:02
  Well, I've got maybe two more. You can ask.
• 1:13:05
  What is the? What are some like back of the
• 1:13:08
  hand shortcuts, top tips for how to communicate to the other
• 1:13:13
  person when you're struggling with not having the intimacy,
• 1:13:19
  the respect, the love, the affection.
• 1:13:20
  There's some issue you see character issue or just a habit
• 1:13:24
  that you see basically things of conflict that are causing angst
• 1:13:28
  in one or the other. And how do you bring that to the
• 1:13:30
  spouse in a way that's being the champion, not the critic, in a
• 1:13:34
  way that's showing the affection, not the, you know,
• 1:13:37
  not harshness would have been the trick.
• 1:13:39
  The big thing is there's a lot of times people wait until the
• 1:13:43
  spouse does something and then they'll say something about it
• 1:13:46
  right there. That's not the time to do it.
• 1:13:49
  The time to do it is when you're having coffee together, you're
• 1:13:52
  happy, you're having dinner together, you're happy and bring
• 1:13:55
  it up and say, you know, I deeply care for you.
• 1:13:57
  I've been noticing you've been doing this and the big key is as
• 1:14:03
  the recipient of that critique, not to go immediately to
• 1:14:09
  self-defense mode, but actually listen to it.
• 1:14:12
  You know, Jesus said, agree with your adversary for the reason of
• 1:14:15
  your adversary might be seeing something that can help you,
• 1:14:18
  right? So that takes maturity.
• 1:14:21
  I will say that I, I think the greatest enemy of a man is
• 1:14:25
  insecurity. And that's why I, that's why I
• 1:14:30
  wrote that book, that book right there.
• 1:14:32
  What delivers us from the fear of man is the fear of God.
• 1:14:35
  That's the only thing that can deliver us from the fear of man.
• 1:14:37
  The church has taught that for centuries.
• 1:14:39
  We stopped teaching it in this century in, in this, in this
• 1:14:42
  generation. So what, what was Saul's
• 1:14:45
  downfall? His insecurity?
• 1:14:47
  If you look at any man, what's his downfall?
• 1:14:49
  It's his insecurity. So is a man's security supposed
• 1:14:53
  to be found and what his spouse says to him fully If if he is,
• 1:14:57
  he's in big trouble because Lisa may be really just not feeling
• 1:15:01
  it during a day or she might be actually upset with me.
• 1:15:06
  All right. And it's a little harder.
• 1:15:08
  So a man's security has got to come first, first from his
• 1:15:13
  relationship with God. If it doesn't, he's really going
• 1:15:18
  to be vulnerable a lot. And I find that when a wife, you
• 1:15:24
  know, looks for opportunities to speak, her confidence in her
• 1:15:29
  husband, it in her respect for her husband, it really makes
• 1:15:34
  living easier. But I better not be dependent on
• 1:15:37
  it. Does that make sense?
• 1:15:39
  Yeah. So I want to do whatever it is
• 1:15:41
  that's going to cause Lisa to flourish and be nourished and
• 1:15:44
  grow, But she better not be dependent on it.
• 1:15:47
  Yeah, yeah. And that's the other thing.
• 1:15:49
  I mean, I am responsible for my own spiritual disciplines.
• 1:15:52
  John is not responsible for that.
• 1:15:53
  I mean, he can lead, but he can't force.
• 1:15:55
  Going back to making it really simple, I remember thinking I
• 1:15:59
  don't know how to say things and it was just super simple.
• 1:16:02
  I felt like the Holy Spirit said, if you want to be heard,
• 1:16:07
  say it the way you'd want to hear it.
• 1:16:10
  I don't like to be nagged. I don't like to be threatened.
• 1:16:13
  I don't like to be demeaned. I love it when John's like, hey,
• 1:16:18
  Lisa, I know you, I know you, I know your heart.
• 1:16:23
  But what you said in that moment, it came across very
• 1:16:26
  different than who you really are.
• 1:16:28
  And I, I know you didn't. I didn't mean or give me a
• 1:16:31
  chance to clarify something like, Hey, were you just maybe
• 1:16:34
  like in a, an off space or or whatever.
• 1:16:37
  And then we had two chairs in our bedroom.
• 1:16:39
  And we don't have to do this anymore because we don't have
• 1:16:41
  children running around. But we had two chairs in our
• 1:16:43
  bedroom. When we sat in those chairs
• 1:16:45
  there was because it was in our bedroom.
• 1:16:47
  No strife, no attacking one another.
• 1:16:50
  We we used our words to only build one another up.
• 1:16:54
  We and and we we also. We would talk it out until it
• 1:16:58
  was talked. And we're also both like we had
• 1:17:00
  a habit before of the whole time the other persons talking, we're
• 1:17:04
  thinking of the answer. And so we're like, oh, just
• 1:17:07
  wait, I've got an answer for that.
• 1:17:08
  So we had, we had a counselor tell us you, you guys are both
• 1:17:12
  acting like lawyers. You don't get to do that.
• 1:17:14
  You, you have to listen to be able to repeat what the person
• 1:17:19
  said. And one of the, the biggest
• 1:17:21
  tools for me was to hear what John said and then rephrase it
• 1:17:26
  how I heard it so that I gave him a chance.
• 1:17:29
  If he was like you always, I'm like, so wait, always.
• 1:17:33
  OK, no, it's not always, but it feel, you know, it's so give him
• 1:17:36
  a chance to rephrase it. And then I would acknowledge
• 1:17:38
  what he said and then I would say and at the same time,
• 1:17:41
  meaning I, I'm honoring this, but I need to let you know this
• 1:17:45
  is over here. So biggest key for me was say it
• 1:17:49
  the way you want to hear it. I I don't like being attacked.
• 1:17:52
  I don't like people demeaning me.
• 1:17:54
  I I want to hear, I want to grow and I don't grow well with
• 1:18:01
  judgement and attacking. I think another thing is, and
• 1:18:04
  again, this is just been my social media survival mantra was
• 1:18:08
  let your critics refine you, never define you.
• 1:18:11
  You don't allow people who don't care about you to define you.
• 1:18:15
  But I do love when my husband comes to me and and speaks
• 1:18:20
  better of me and and challenges me to be higher.
• 1:18:25
  So many gems. So I mean, so much good stuff
• 1:18:29
  here and there's a lot more to go, but where can people find?
• 1:18:34
  I know you actually do courses on these things, and obviously
• 1:18:37
  I've written how many books total between the two of you?
• 1:18:40
  So you're about 19 and I'm at 25.
• 1:18:42
  I'm on my 25th now. That's #24.
• 1:18:44
  Incredible. Where can people find all of
• 1:18:47
  your work and thank? You so much they All of our
• 1:18:50
  books are on Amazon, so that's the easiest place to go because
• 1:18:53
  most people are Prime members we have a website called messenger
• 1:18:57
  international Messenger international we also have John
• 1:19:01
  bavier.com and Lisa bavier.com so we've made it easy for.
• 1:19:04
  Gosh, we got a lot and Messenger X and.
• 1:19:07
  But the thing that I think is most beneficial is like I said,
• 1:19:10
  we've spent over $20 million on this app and it's free.
• 1:19:15
  So we actually have full audiobooks on the app.
• 1:19:18
  We have courses by other leaders.
• 1:19:20
  We have, we have like there's over 40 courses in English.
• 1:19:23
  There's all kinds of there's podcast, there's daily, we have
• 1:19:27
  daily component where devotionals are 2-3 minutes and
• 1:19:30
  gives you something to really pray about for the day.
• 1:19:32
  So it's called if you got an iPhone, it's Messenger X and you
• 1:19:37
  don't put a space between the R and the X.
• 1:19:39
  And if you're have an Android, it's on Google Play, it's
• 1:19:42
  Messenger X. And if you don't have either, if
• 1:19:44
  all you have is a computer, it's Messenger x.com.
• 1:19:48
  That'd be a good place to go. Yeah.
• 1:19:49
  And I wanted to say the reason we even have this app is because
• 1:19:52
  the generosity of our partners when we say it costs this much
• 1:19:55
  money, it's like, you understand, there's people that
• 1:19:59
  are so much a part of that story that don't get to sit at this
• 1:20:02
  table, but they've been so generous.
• 1:20:05
  They have a heart to see marriages strengthens families
• 1:20:08
  strengthen people's discipleship, you know purposes
• 1:20:12
  strengthen people be able to forgive one another people to
• 1:20:15
  adopt the awe of God and people to learn what it means to be a
• 1:20:18
  woman of valor, a woman of you know a noble woman, a woman of I
• 1:20:25
  just love the whole idea that this Proverbs 31 woman.
• 1:20:30
  Is actually a woman of virtue, and a virtuous woman is a woman
• 1:20:33
  who is a force for good. And that is how I see you.
• 1:20:36
  Thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you, John.
• 1:20:38
  This has been truly beautiful. So many gems and I know folks
• 1:20:41
  listening are going to be very inspired and edified.
• 1:20:44
  Thank you for your ministry. Thank you, a huge thank you to
• 1:20:47
  our partner. EWTNEWTN is the largest
• 1:20:51
  religious network, reaching millions of people with the
• 1:20:54
  truth of the faith, entertainment and news.
• 1:20:57
  Check them out at ewtn.com.