The sermon, titled 'Q&A with the Browns, Dohms, and Burkes', addresses various aspects of marriage and relationships within a Christian context. It emphasizes the importance of love and patience in dealing with a spouse's imperfections, suggesting that not every sin or weakness requires confrontation. The speaker advises couples to engage in prayer, understanding that God is the ultimate authority and helper. The sermon also touches on the significance of discerning when to address issues and when to let love cover them. Regarding church matters, pastors are counseled to be judicious about what they share with their wives to avoid unnecessary strife or gossip. The speaker highlights the need for communication, trust, and the role of biblical teachings in strengthening relationships. Additionally, the sermon discusses how men and women experience and handle anxiety differently, encouraging understanding and support within the marriage. The importance of unity in marriage, particularly in theological matters, is stressed as crucial for the spiritual well-being of the family.

Okay Questions anybody have anything that we've discussed Throughout our time together Yeah to just let love cover a multitude of sins and overlook it? Always. Well, all sins are not created equal. There are levels of infractions and the seriousness of infractions. So I think that the infraction should be fairly serious for there to be a rebuke.

I think that we should have a godly toleration of the imperfections of our spouses. You know, it was a couple of years ago, I've told this story before. Deborah was talking to me and it was very clear, she, you know, she, This is a girl who really hardly ever gets upset. But She's really, really nice to live with. But she was obviously sinning.

Frustrated. She was frustrated and she was doing what a lot of women do. She was just talking fast and she was snippy kind of thing like that. And I was looking at her and I was watching her and I thought what came to my mind was, you know, that's actually cute. My wife.

I was so convicted. My wife, my wife is dealing with her sins. It just made me love her more actually. Because I, you know, I, we all do that. Yeah, I don't think it's helpful to confront one another for every sin or every weakness that we have I don't I don't think it's helpful at all.

And I'm gonna talk about that the next time I speak here. Because I'm just gonna encourage couples not to be in ruminating counsel, you know, they're counseling and in therapy all the time and talking about all their problems and things like that. I don't think that's helpful. Here, just one second, Debra was pulling at my coat. She's been yanking at my.

No, give it to Kim. Kim has it. Oh no, no. Go ahead, please. Okay, well here's what I was gonna say Just on the get-go if the sin is immoral call your pastor if it's illegal call the police after that have the attitude, like between all of you, between the two of you, you don't want to sin against each other.

You really don't. If you have that perspective, it's really helpful for me to realize he's not purposefully being, you know, harsh or ugly. He's never harsh, but not as sensitive as I want him to be. He's not doing that. It makes it a lot easier.

And then you have, like the last talk, you've got a better perspective for saying how to communicate, wow, that really hurt, and I'm trying to not be hurt. And he would never want to do that. That's really helpful to know when to confront something and when not to. Yeah. I just was thinking that when you start focusing on their weaknesses, your perspective becomes negative.

Even if you think, oh, I'm doing them a favor, I'm gonna, and I feel like that, obviously if it's a major thing like Deborah said, but for most of what happens in a marriage you mentioned making the list of the positive things if I feel that at times I'm focused on these few little things that are bothering me I need to ask the Lord give me compassion for his weaknesses because he's really compassionate towards mine and the Lord's compassionate towards mine. I mean also, my husband is very, overlooks my weaknesses. And even making the list, I think really helps. My husband is faithful. He's just starting to write.

Instead of what can happen even if there is sin. I mean, the Lord is so merciful and gracious to us, and I think at least in my life, I can become too focused on the negative things, and that's where I dwell, while I confronted him, and he hasn't fixed it yet, And then I'm just seeing the sin instead of all the good stuff. I just want to say, honey, I'm sorry I didn't make the bed this morning. Thank you. I just had the thought that something that somebody told me was, first of all, don't gripe about your husband's lesser than qualities to all the world.

It's none of their business. But mainly for the things that are really that you're watching you're thinking that's kind of I'm not as crazy about that. Pray. He's not yours, he's God's and you're not the Holy Spirit women. We like to be it, we think we are sometimes.

We are not the Holy Spirit, so ask the one who owns his soul, and you might be the problem, honestly. You might think it's his problem, it might be yours. So you have to be really careful in correction because The log could be huge in your own eye. So when you go to the Lord and you start asking, well, God, I feel like there's this thing in him. And you find out, oh, there was this thing in me.

So anyway, you have to be really careful in correction. Pray first. Ask God to help you and to help him. And God does the work. He's the one that owns that guy.

You know I was recently, I just finished preaching through Romans in our church and when we were in chapter 14 and 15, I think there's a principle in Romans 14 and 15 that is really helpful. In Romans 14 and 15, you have the Jews and the Gentiles are disagreeing over all kinds of things, and there's all kinds of tumult in this church, and people are confronting one another and over debatable matters. And the apostle Paul is basically saying to both parties, I'm gonna work this out. And there's a phrase in there where Paul says, about the brother that you're disagreeing with, God is able to make him stand. God is able.

And you can trust that God is able. If your spouse is a believer, you know what? God's going to take care of them. Actually, he's going to take care of them all the way to the end. And he's going to carry them like a father carries his children through the wilderness.

And you can trust God that God is able to make him stand. And I think you can trust that in your spouse as well. So it's okay to wait. It's normal to be in a waiting pattern over some imperfection. Okay, great question.

What else? Yeah. Oh yeah, yes, yeah. It's perfect for local churches as well because you have people that come from different perspectives and you know you don't want to blow people out of the water just because you disagree with them God is able to make them stand and You should just continue to keep working with one another. Yes for how to grow in our understanding and knowledge of God's love for the purpose of being able to grow in the area for bearing love and for giving.

Yeah, so what do we learn from God? Is your question, what do we learn from God toward us about how we operate with one another? Am I catching it? How do we grow? If you're wanting to grow, in forgiving, like kind of looking to like God as that example and like his love for us you know that I've been forgiven much I've been loved much therefore I should be you know living this out in my marriage or my family or in the church like what would be your specific advice for how to grow specifically in that area?

Are there specific ways that you would say, this is how God has helped me to grow in this area to understand his love so that therefore I'm able to show that? I'll give you an illustration to start with. I'm sure these have something to say. But you grow and love the same way that you get stronger. You get stronger by lifting weights.

You get stronger by experience. That's how you grow. And so when you encounter those kinds of things, the more you encounter, the stronger you get. That's actually what's really good about trials, because they make you stronger. They make you wiser.

So you grow through the challenge as a result of the challenge. The challenge doesn't, if you're gonna grow, don't expect the challenge to go away. You know how this goes, people say, I prayed for patience and then I stopped because I realized I was gonna have to be, I was gonna have to learn how to be patient, you know. You wanted some magical thing to happen to you but no magic didn't happen, You got a trial that you had to be patient in and that caused you to grow Anybody else want to add to that? Yeah In relationship to communication I'm a pastor and I struggle with sometimes how much to communicate to my wife regarding church matters.

She struggles with me not talking to her about certain things. I struggle with what to bear alone with my elders and how much to communicate to her. She can recognize when I'm gonna challenge and know something's going on. What would you say to me, the pastor, and her husband, and what would you say to her? She's around the corner.

Yeah, that's a really important question and every pastor has to deal with this. He has to decide, you know, what is he going to tell his wife about what is going on? And I think it depends on a number of factors. It depends on the capacities of your wife. Some wives, they just react negatively and they might react negatively toward that person.

And so you don't want to poison your wife toward people in the church. If you have a wife who doesn't get poisoned, I tell her more. But a pastor really has to be judicious about what he tells his wife. And I think the first principle really is what kind of wife do you have? And that would determine a lot of it.

This is a great question. You guys have other thoughts about this? I'm going to pass this to Trent too here. Yeah. The lions, have you struggled with this before?

So it's interesting to be a church officer's wife because there's, as you peel back the onion, they're on the third and fourth layer of the onion and they actually have a view to all sorts of things that most people in the church shouldn't have a view to wouldn't be healthy. I think the key is well here's the nature of the problem. Officers' wives are on the second row. The officers are on the first row. So the officers themselves, these husbands, have direct interactions with the problems and the conflict and the people.

Then the wives get it secondhand, and then the officers, the husbands, get direct interaction for the resolution. And the wives are on the second row and all that second hand. So what can happen is things are totally resolved with the husband because he had direct interaction for the resolution, but the wife didn't. So she heard the problem, and now things are totally resolved with the husband, but still not quite resolved with the wife. So when you say will it poison the wife, that's really what you're talking about.

Will it affect the relationship between the wife and the people she knows things about that the rest of the people in church don't know. I do think that's the critical question. If you think there's a good probability that it's going to poison a relationship, and just make them, make your wife not be able to see those people the same way because you can't unhear the things that you've heard especially when you don't get to have the direct interaction as things are resolved then you hold those things to yourself not because you're reluctant to share but because you actually want to protect her from being changed in ways that are just harmful. There's all only downside no upside. Yeah that's that's really really really helpful And it's legitimate for a pastor to bear certain burdens alone.

Everybody doesn't have to know the burdens that you're bearing. There are occasions where a wife's counsel is really helpful. That happens regularly enough for me and I really, really appreciate Deborah's counsel on particular things and I don't always take it but I'm always improved by it for sure but we shouldn't think that it's unusual or unnatural to bear those things alone. Now hopefully you can bear those things with your fellow elders or other maybe even other pastors outside of your network, you know, that can kind of help you think things through. Trent, do you have anything to add to that?

I totally agree with everything you just said. So I would say, yeah, the big thing is knowing your wife, knowing what she can handle. Something I always think about as well is because when we come to the worship service, we're coming to worship God. And I think through the things of, could this possibly hinder her ability to focus on worshiping God. Women are very relational, and they think about things way more deeply, often than men do, I think, in relationships.

And she loves you very much and wants to protect you. So if you think that it's gonna hinder her ability to worship God and interact in a healthy way, Share it with your elders, with your deacons. But then also ask her, hey, pray for me. This is heavy for me, but I don't think it would be helpful to share it. And that way she knows you're wanting to protect her.

Yeah, amen. So I kind of have two things to say. Consider the laws of gossip. It can occur between a husband and wife, and that can defile your soul. So you talk to somebody who can help you.

That's not gossip. If your wife can't help, if you're just unloading, it might come under that category. The other thing is wives. Don't demand to know everything. Just learn to not have to know.

That's a skill that like this one question that has to be practiced. You just have to be okay with that. As a wife of, like Jason was saying, as an officer's wife, in a very real sense, that husband belongs to that congregation in a different way than you know somebody else's who does is not an officer. We have it's just it's different for us because you guys belong to that congregation. So there's just a different perspective, I think, for wives of men in leadership.

We can't know everything. It's not good for anybody. It's not good for the church, it's not good for us. And so come to grips with that and don't be offended by it. I like, I'm glad you brought up the, okay, would you just please hang on.

Look it, Hey, you know what, just so you understand this, we've been banging around together for over 30 years. Janet and I and some families actually started a church together and I played guitar and she sang and then Jason came around and then I was part of their wedding. So I can tease her. She might whack me upside the head, but I can tease her. Or he might spill his coffee on me.

Thank you very much. So You brought up the matter of gossip between a husband and wife, and I want to underline that. Couples and families often think that they can say anything they want in their family. And you can find families that are insensitive to the gossip that they have around the dinner table. Marriage is not a gossip-free zone.

It's a place where the rules of the tongue should be carefully obeyed. And so a husband and wife just have to be very careful that they're not gossiping to one another about other people. It's a real danger. And somehow, we think that we can say anything we want in our families and that is just not true. The Bible is here to govern our speech.

There you go, Janet. Thanks. Thank you. I want to tack on what Deborah said about that women, not just wives of pastors, but women in general shouldn't think that their husbands have to tell them every single thing that happens. Jason would come home from really intense church meetings, Like I knew kind of what was going on.

He comes home, he gets home at nine o'clock. And we talk about baseball, and we talk about football, and we talk about what the kids did that day, and we go to sleep. We don't talk about that meeting he just went to. And he does that for me, though I do want to know, but if he tells me at nine o'clock, I'm gonna be up all night ruminating on that and thinking about what so-and-so did and how so-and-so shouldn't have said that. And he's gonna be over there snoring away.

He'll be fine. So it is important when you choose to talk about things, and I wanted to say that because that's not just true for pastors and wives, that's true for all of us. It's really important when you talk about the things that you have issues with. Then find your wife at a time when she's not fried to death to tell her something difficult. If you can, sometimes life is hard and you can't wait for that time.

But if you can, pick a really good time to talk about hard things. And that just goes both ways. So. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

I think Al just said timing matters Oh, that was Jason. We'll give him credit for that Okay Yeah just Janet about the the timing of that just for normal things. If it hasn't occurred to anybody else how wired differently we are if Al comes to bed and we begin talking about something heavy within our family or church matter or anything, he is able to feel very romantic after that and then be able to sleep. And meanwhile, I've been emotionally affected by the weight of whatever's going on. And so I just wanted to second that anything, just what the way for, I would say hopefully, probably across the board women, if you're wanting this, we really try to cherish that evening time together.

The kids are in bed, we've got this little window, we try not to talk about heavy things right then. This is not the time to, we're worried about this or something's going on leave that for another time It will be there in the morning the same problem Yeah, that's a lesson. I had to learn is you know as Scott indicated earlier men's brains and women's brains are very different. A man can packetize it. I talked about it, I refiled it, it's gone, I'm going to sleep.

A woman, it's swirling all around and I asked her how'd you sleep the next morning she goes, I didn't for the first four hours. So I learned which topics to bring up and which not. I don't always do it correctly though, but better than I was in the early years, I guess. Now you're giving me an illustration of how the different ways a man and a woman's mind work. Yeah.

Would you like to share that? Oh yeah, this we get. Yeah, I saw a thing years ago. It was a comedian and he was saying that a man's brain is like a tackle box. He pulls out one lure, works on it, puts it back in, it's filed away.

You know, and you're just very packetized whereas the women, you know, they're constantly thinking about everything. And it's completely different. And men, I don't think quite can ever totally understand how that works, but it's good to have a base knowledge, which by God's grace we get with a long time married. Praise God he made us different. Yeah, absolutely.

It's such a good thing. Yeah. Anybody else, is that enough? Good, yeah. Yes.

I feel like Kind of a two-parter. First of all, speaking of differences, I don't tend towards anxiety the same way that my wife does, and I don't always know how to approach her when she is anxious about something, and I don't understand why she is. So any advice there? And then also, how do you speak to your wife when she's anxious about something, and it actually is a big deal and you don't want to just be into it but comfort. Well I think discerning the difference is really important.

You ask a question that's a very difficult question. The reason I say it's difficult is because you know your wife better than anybody else, does or ever will in the world. So there's a personal knowledge that should guide you in that. I think that the principles in Galatians 6 can help. Just making sure that you're, if she's unnecessarily anxious, then You who are spiritual and a spirit of gentleness looking unto yourself, lest you also be tempted, should work with her in a spirit of gentleness in that thing.

I think it's OK to remind a wife that it's your job to stabilize, you know, the emotional atmosphere of the home and to trust God with whatever is going on. And if there is something else serious, you know, to deal with it really is a big deal, then I think you're just gonna have to come together, come alongside to help one another and work through it and talk about it and pray about it and open up your Bibles to try to interpret it. Are there others that want to say I don't feel like I was very adequate in answering that question, but it's very important Also as the wife to think why am I anxious if If I find myself in maybe a habit, I'm wondering what am I neglecting? Am I neglecting the Word of God? And then interesting in other seasons, right now, just the season of life I'm in, I actually can have an anxious feeling and there's nothing wrong.

There's nothing going on. Hormonal. But I still have that feeling. And so I think it's comforting to me is the promises of God. So even just having, I have a little booklet that's just the promises, and so it pulls out those verses and those bring so much comfort.

If I'm laying there missing sleep and you know I'm whatever is you know I don't have a specific thing in mind but just listening the other thing I've done some is just listening to the Psalms my eyes are closed and I'm just hearing Lord teach me to number my days but God's Word for me because I would say I'm definitely more the worrier. He is Mr. Steady. But if I'm in a pattern of anxiety, I have to ask myself, why am I? Where am I neglecting?

Studying the word being with the Lord Laying things at his feet and even sometimes if it is a real problem. I've had to visually like Lord, I'm laying this down at your feet. I can't carry it. So it's almost just, and those have been some things that have helped me. There are hormonal realities.

There are hormonal realities. Many of you are younger wives And you haven't experienced menopause and things like that, which can be pretty difficult to deal with, and that raise anxiety levels often out of thin air. So I don't know if you wanna talk about that, Deborah, or not. It will come. Yes.

Actually, I had an older woman speak into my life about this one time, and it was so massively helpful to recognize it when I got there, that This is okay, I'm not going crazy. You do get more anxious. You will wake up at three o'clock in the morning and wide awake. You will have panic attacks. These are just real honest to goodness, physical ramifications of our fall.

There's other things that happen too. Sexually, it's just the reality that has to be talked through with a husband and wife. And it's, a lot of it is just, and it is all hormonal. It's what happens to your body when you stop producing that much estrogen. You've stopped cycle links, so you're not having children anymore.

And there's a ramification of that. And it's very real. So the more you guys understand about that, like the two of you, the more a woman understands it, it's a lot less, you know what, you guys, most of you probably have had some kind of postpartum emotions and hormones. It would be semi-similar to that. You know, you kind of lose perspective and when you have postpartum you go into these dark places that you're just sure.

Like I had a friend who thought every time she had a baby, she's just assured that her family is falling apart, her kids will go into hell in a handbasket and everything's bad. And so my job in her life was to remind her that this is a postpartum moment. It's really not happening. And she just needed to have someone tell her that if you could remember those things in those times when they come. And I would say probably even when you're anxious, to remember, this is a moment, it's not gonna identify me.

The Lord said, the most oft repeated command is don't be anxious, fear not. I would say that would be the case for anybody, no matter what your age is. If you can recognize it, you won't tear your house down as a woman. If you can recognize those things, and then you have to work against it. All of scripture has to come to bear.

1st Corinthians 13, Galatians, all those lists that we've been talking about in the Bible, about thinking the best of one another and forbearing and loving and respecting, all those things still apply in menopause or in a hormonal state. Practice now, like you guys are young, practice now actually listening to your husbands. Listen to them and practice coming under their headship. And Even maybe sometimes if they're insensitive, try to put yourself underneath that because as you age, that will get either easier or harder. I've watched it happen in a woman who got Alzheimer's.

And you know what? The husband told me later, he said, you know what? She never listened to me. And now she didn't listen to him then, and it got a lot worse. Practice that right now.

All those things in Scripture about how a wife treats a husband It's it's good for any age it's good for when your husband has to correct you You girls in the kitchen hearing this? Jenna had a question. Question. My question is more just about being a homie. What is the right balance between covering over a husband's weaknesses and taking on his goals versus being in anger?

You shouldn't just because you think you can do it better. I guess, if that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. It's legitimate for a wife to just let the ball drop. That's legitimate.

The difficulty in answering that question is that there are various degrees of things that husbands don't see or aren't acting on. So I mean I think it's legitimate for a wife to talk to her husband about balls that might be dropping. I do think that's legitimate. I think that's one of the roles of a helper and of course the way she does it, we've talked a lot about that, how would she do such a thing. I think Galatians 6 is really really critical for understanding how to do that.

But because a wife is a helper, then she does play a role in improving her husband in that sense. But a wife should be very careful in how she does that. And she should be ready to resign and God's own time pick up the ball. At the same time, I would say there are going to be some things that you should cover over as an act of love. And that's where the discernment comes in.

And then you Can talk to an older woman and kind of if you have if if there are questions about is this one of those things or Should I take this on? But I think there's a legitimate we're all we all have gifts and we all have weaknesses and it's kind of a give and take too at some degree. Scott will cover over my weaknesses and I'll do things that he doesn't want to do. When you look at the commands in the Bible about marriage, tenderness, forbearance, nourishing, cherishing, all these kinds of things are always running through. And I think a wife needs to recognize that God is going to take care of them.

I mean after all You know he's taken care of you already for 30 years or whatever is God done taking care of you And I think a wife can have peace in recognizing that. All men are very different. Some are very hard driving. Some are less. It's just the way that God makes us, actually.

But at the same time, God is going to take care of his children whether they're hard-driving or not or whatever whatever the issue is Well, of course, it's God who's doing, it's God who's washing her with the word, but the husband is the intermediary, he's the means for it. But I think that those words are very clear. It is, it's the Word of God as the cleansing agent in the marriage. He's bringing the Word of God to her and guiding her with the Word of God. Not his own thoughts, but with God's thoughts.

And so it's really a saturation of the whole life with the Word of God. We live by the Word of God in the church and we should live by the Word of God in the home as well. Are there other thoughts about that? Is this like a living your life by the Word in front of your wife? Is it like when you counsel her, you're doing it in scripture?

Is it a daily reading of the Word out loud to your wife? Like I guess I'm just trying to get a sense. I think it's all of that. It's just the saturation of your life. The saturation of your your life with the word yeah yeah yeah it's really helpful that that's just a daily part of your life.

When you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. That type of thing. So in our household, we did our family worship. We'd sit around the couches. You know, it was at seven o'clock every morning.

And we just, we read the Bible right here. We read the Bible, we were a super boring family. And so we just read through the scriptures. We used John MacArthur's program and we just read through the scriptures every year and we started again on January 1 and Genesis 1 and what that does is it does wash you every morning those words wash you and every issue you have comes up, especially with your kids. It comes up and you deal with it.

I remember having an issue with one particular passage. And Scott just patiently walked through the scriptures, what does this mean about God? And all of us were grappling with that. And it was a good process. And that happened with everything.

To some degree, I had one that I was really struggling with. But it's that way, everything is that way. And when we talk about it, and it's a very natural thing, it comes up in the text, and it's God's word doing it. And Scott shepherded us all through it. I mean he was the guy with the no, you know.

So that's how it worked in our family. And it was no, he didn't counsel me from the word of God, but those times did. And then when I did need it, he didn't have to go to the scriptures and pull out a verse and say, now honey, here's what the word says. He just says it. It's just lived.

That that's how we worked through whatever problems we had. It came through that grid. Everything came through that grid. Whether it was how to deal with current world events, we're going to look through a biblical worldview. If it came through how I was struggling with a particular household matter, that's how it was dealt with.

But that was the foundation. And so it wasn't like this special moment of counseling, him washing me with the water of the word. It was this all the time. Yeah, and there's another way, you know, beyond just your home life. In 1 Corinthians 14, 34, there's actually a duty that a wife has with her husband.

Paul says, let your women keep silent in the churches, for they're not permitted to speak, for it's shameful for a woman to speak in church. And then he says, and if she has a question, She should ask her husband at home. So what you have there is really an admonition for the husband and wife to be dealing with Scripture. If she has a question, she should go home and ask her husband questions. And often I have found, personally, those are hard questions to answer.

Deborah will ask me a question and I don't know how many times I've said, I'll get back to you later on that honey because I wasn't sure how to answer the question. And there are probably a few questions that are still on the table, OK? Because I don't know the answer. My menopausal brain has forgotten those. Here's a blessing.

That's the beauty of menopause. The blessing of forgetfulness. So it's really good when husbands and wives, They're getting on the same page theologically. I think that's what the Apostle Paul is driving at. A husband and wife should be centering on the scriptures.

And what happens on Sunday through the preaching should be part of their discussion. And here's the problem. Pastors will often say things that are unclear or they didn't say it the way that they actually wanted to say it, but it came out wrong. They turned words around and things like that. And of course, it's mainly Trent that has that problem.

Right, yeah, yeah. When Debra and I are driving home, I'm sitting there silently because she's gonna say, you know Scott, you said I did not say that. It's on tape. So, but it's good for husbands and wives to do a take down on the preaching. I think what Paul is saying is, he says, ask your husband at home.

He's actually prioritizing the theological unity in the husband and wife. I mean the elders may have said something, but it's really important that the husband and wife are unified. I think that's partly what's going on. God wants that union to be so united that they're talking about big issues of the Word of God. So if you what happens when you're not united on the things that you're living life around.

It may be a little thing. When you're newly married. And then it just kind of trickles over the years. And if you've never gotten the unity you needed on different issues, it gets bigger and bigger. And I've seen a couple families where when they never got the union that they should have had over issues, which sometimes means the wife saying, I don't believe the same thing you do, but we're gonna do it your way.

Because somebody's got to make that decision, right? In every corporation and every thing that works, somebody's got to make that decision when you don't agree. And God has said it's ahead of the house, okay? So you have a family and they're going along for years and the wife doesn't quite agree with what he's done and She never really submits to what he said There's always she's really consulting other theologians and thinks a little differently than him. And it's just over the years it happens.

And do you know what happens to that family in about 20 or 30 years? They lose their children because they haven't been united. They haven't represented Christ in the church rightly. I beg you, wives, don't let this happen to your family. I've seen it enough and I don't want to see it anymore.

You may think that this issue you have in your head is a big deal. It's not bigger than losing your family. It's not right. So we have differences about how we do church sometimes. We have differences about how we wear our hair.

We have differences about who sings what. We have a difference about what color the carpet in the church is. That's a stupid one. But you have to sometimes let those differences be differences and present a united front to your family. And as a wife you have to say, I'm with you.

And that means sometimes you have to be an actress for a little while until you can get your heart to come along. You don't, you're not gonna always agree with another human about anything. You're never going to do it. So there has to be a system which God put in place. It's called submission because it's hard.

It's easy to submit when you always agree, right? We just don't always agree. So I beg you on the things that really are disputable matters, if you're not sure if this is one of them, get counsel from a pastor or somebody that can help you. Together. Together.

Thank you. But I've just seen wives have other people be the head theologian of their home. And even if that head theologian is wiser than yours, it doesn't work like that. Somebody can say that better than me. I am not too.

Also, Just from the perspective of we've had a couple times where we've had major decisions to make, I don't know what we're supposed to do. And I can remember in one of them saying, honey, I just need you to get on your knees and find out what we're supposed to do and I'll follow. And with that, actually comes freedom. We multiple times, I have just, maybe I could lean a little bit one way, but I don't know what our family is supposed to do. I don't know if we're to, we've had one time we had a weekend to make a decision on a job, remember?

Told him on Friday, your job is gone, your new job is here, we need to know Monday. And I was spinning, I had no idea. That was one of those moments I just thought, I'll follow. And it was freeing to me to realize he's gonna answer to the Lord and if he gets it wrong I can just trust the Lord but it's I have found many times that it's been it's been a freeing blessing to me and not in a mean way like well you're gonna stand before the Lord but he is the leader and I can rest in that and I think that can really help especially there are gonna be times when you can't figure out what is that answer. How do we come together on this?

And I do think it really helps to know he is the head of our home. And man, if it goes bad, it's your fault. Don't blame your wife man up and take responsibility That's how it works Sorry suck it up Okay. Well, guess what is it inner time? How about that?

Aren't you hungry? Hey great, yeah, aren't you hungry? Yeah. You've been starved all day long. Do we have to eat again?

Yes, you do. There's cheesecake at the end. Sure. What are we doing first? Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh my, hey, great questions. Thank you so much. Okay, so let me pray and give thanks for the food.

And then when they pull those curtains back, then you roll through the line. Lord, thank you. Thank you for feeding us again, this wonderful food that you've given to us and these ladies who have labored so diligently, so beautifully. We really are the beneficiaries of such goodness. We thank you.

Amen.