Heavenward Union | Norman & Joelle McNulty

well good evening everyone good evening it's been quite the evening huh you know it's interesting how storms can pop up out of nowhere right earlier in the day things were just going smoothly along nice gatherings meetings social fellowship spiritual encouragement and then out of nowhere this storm just hits us and you know that's what life is like and sometimes in marriage things are just going along smoothly and a storm will hit out of nowhere does it not and so as we were sitting here during this storm i was thinking about that that you know this storm that were that we just went through and it may not be totally over yet is a bit of an application for the way life can be and the way marriage can be sometimes and god allows these storms to hit to test us and to refine us and to develop us and i know that you know you're going to remember from this national family retreat the storm that came but don't allow that to distract you from the message that the lord wants for you to hear this evening and the rest of the weekend and don't allow it to distract you from convictions that you've felt already because what happens in real life is when the storm comes we can either focus more intently on the lord through that storm or we can focus on the storm right and so let's not allow the devil to distract us from what the lord wants to do tonight amen so we're going to start our title the title of our talk is a heavenward union and i wanted to mention at the beginning of this i didn't tell this to joelle but you know today is a special weekend in our family because today is my mother's birthday and tomorrow's joelle's birthday and it's kind of an interesting story so tomorrow april 10 is joelle's birthday and april 10 interestingly enough happens to be the birthday of both of my grandfathers who have long since passed away but when i first met joelle and i heard that her birthday was april 10 i was like that's pretty neat and it's a day after my mom's birthday it's the same birthday as both of my grandfathers so you know we don't make decisions based on coincidences like that but i was like that's a nice coincidence and so the lord has been good and so i just wanted to mention um so happy birthday honey and thank you for being here at national family retreat during your birthday weekend we're going to start by reading a statement from early writings page 14 which is a familiar statement with with respect to the advent people but we see some applications as it relates to marriage and i'll read that and then joel's going to talk about some of the applications so here's the statement this is ellen white's first vision she says while i was praying at the family altar the holy ghost fell upon me and i seemed to be rising higher and higher far above the dark world i turned to look for the advent people in the world but could not find them when a voice said to me look again and look a little higher at this i raised my eyes and saw a straight and narrow path cast up high above the world on this path the advent people were traveling to the city which was at the farther end of the path they had a bright light set behind them at the beginning of the path which an angel told me was the midnight cry this light shone all along the path and gave light for their feet so that they might not stumble if they kept their eyes fixed on jesus who was just before them leading them to the city they were safe but soon some grew weary and said the city was a great way off and they expected to have entered it before then jesus would encourage them by raising his glorious right arm and from his arm came a light which waved over the advent band and they shouted alleluia others rashly denied the light behind them and said that it was not god that had led them out so far the light behind them went out leaving their feet in perfect darkness and you know sometimes um you look around you and i know i've seen this sometimes we see marriages you know as soon as the novelty wears off tensions and stresses arise um and we see people grow weary with their marriages and others when the when the hard storms hit they deny that god led them together um they kind of leave that first love experience and like oh that must have just been um hormones or something you know and you know that their specific providential leadings have let them together but we we've seen where people are like i'm out i'm going i'm done you know when when the when the hard situations come um you hear of people who say you know i don't think i ever really loved you which is obviously a lie because you go to anybody's wedding and when you see them at the altar they're obviously very much in love with each other but then when these trials have come then they question their past experience and so you see that with the application with people in the advent movement but you also see it in married life uh in the book adventist home it says satan is ever ready to take advantage when any matter of variance arises and by moving on the objectionable hereditary traits of character and husband or wife he will try to cause the alienation of those who have united their interests in a solemn covenant before god and don't we find this to be true i know for myself sometimes just the little stuff will get under your skin and then you start yourself starts rising up um but that's not what god wants for us in the um and our theme this week is beyond belief and he wants us to lead us to a different sort of experience he doesn't want us to go with the experience that satan wants to capitalize on our tendencies in the marriage vows they have promised to be as one the wife covenanting to love and obey her husband the husband promising to love and cherish his wife if the law of god is obeyed the demon of strife will be kept out of the family and no separation of interest will take place no alienation of affection will be permitted can you hear us there we go you know it's very easy i think we can all attest to the fact of how easy it is to allow strife to enter the home over very little things they should be little but we allow them to become bigger things and it's interesting ellen white actually refers to this as the demon of strife we don't want to allow the devil to gain a foothold in our homes and the lord can give us the grace so that his presence and his peace can be felt in our homes rather than the demon of strife now we wanted to mention that some people have taken their eyes off jesus in their lives um and the light of god is no longer shining on the pathway of their own lives let alone their marriage um you know maybe worldly influences have come in maybe they're not having worships together as couples maybe they're um looking at tv or movies getting just getting too busy with the job or the career um i don't know you all remember the 90s homeschool culture thing uh i kiss dating goodbye and joshua harris anybody was i alone and remember all right a lot of us remember that um well i was pretty shocked a few years ago to see that marriage totally completely fall apart i don't know if y'all had seen that but i saw in christian news well first of all josh harris he totally backed off the whole um thing of you know purity culture that's the way they coined it it stays first of all he kind of retracts that whole thing and then secondly he and shannon their marriage totally split up um and then thirdly and this is only within the last few months to a year he's actually uh kissed christianity goodbye and it's tragic you know um the you know this guy he was clearly on fire for the lord at one point and clearly in love with his wife at one point and then who knows the devil brings in the demon of strife or whatever um situation happened in their marriage and that whole thing just fell apart and it's really tragic just because you know and i didn't like everything i read of josh harris as a as a young teen um but i think it had an influence that was helpful for some folks i know it was helpful for me in some ways i didn't go along with everything he wrote about i thought it was a little formulaic but i it's still the tragedy and the irony of how that um whole thing um fell apart and another one of my favorite uh relationship authors from that time eric ludy he he did a whole blog series about josh harris and that whole situation because they were speakers and such at the same time he says the devil this is eric ludy and i'm quoting the devil is guilty of first degree marriage murder and that's true you know the devil wants nothing more than to see you know these christian couples um suffer and to lose their footing with their marriages and to have it totally fall apart and you know the harrises they were not the first couple to be hit um it's happened with many others and one of the common themes that you see here is that when we take our eyes off of jesus and jesus fails to be the center of our home all of these other influences will rush into the home and create opportunities for the devil to start working so it's so important to have couples worship every day and to keep christ at the center of the home now i know this is seems obvious and basic but i would dare to mention and say that there are probably some of you here this evening in your own homes who are struggling with this very thing and you're wondering why is there so much strife why is there so much tension where are we going off the path and i would say get back to the basics and say is christ at the center of your home are both of you as a couple keeping your eyes on jesus and allowing him to guide your home on a daily basis now i'm going to read the statement from adventist home i'm going to read the statement from adventist tome that forms the the basis for the title of our talk and we're going to spend some time on this this is from adventist home page 45. now can you hear me you can hear i'll speak as loud as i can you can't and we're back i'm just going to say a word of prayer as we start just so we can get back into the the spirit of our talk so let's pray father in heaven we just want to pray that you will place your hand upon the weather you're the god of the universe you are the same god who calmed the storm on the sea of galilee and we believe you can do that here so just be with us as we go through the rest of our presentation i pray in jesus name amen so just briefly to summarize we've talked about how the advent people some fell away because they took their eyes off jesus they denied their past experience they said they have been led out too far and there are some who do the same in marriage they take their eyes off jesus they deny past experiences and then that's when all sorts of troubles come in now we're going to read a statement from adventist home page 45 and again the title of our talk is a heavenward union and this is the quote where we really put some ideas together based on what we want to share and i would encourage all of you as couples to think about this statement and to reflect on this this is adonis home page 45 examine carefully to see if your married life would be happy or inharmonious and wretched now this is a question that is asked before you get married we're looking at this quote now that we've been married 14 years to say where are we 14 years into our marriage how have we fulfilled by god's grace these questions now that we're 14 years in so examine carefully to see if your married life would be happy or inharmonious and wretched let the questions be raised will this union help me heavenward will it increase my love for god and will it enlarge my sphere of usefulness in this life if these reflections present no drawback then in the fear of god move forward now a lot of times that statement is used in the dating courtship scene but we're not here to talk about the stages of our pre-married life we're taught we're going to be talking about what married life has been like for us and we're looking back on this quote to say where are we 14 years and how have we by god's grace helped each other heavenward and i certainly hope and pray that each one of you as you reflect on this could say have we helped each other heavenward now if you're not helping each other heavenward it's a huge blessing that you're here this weekend because this is the opportunity to say what are changes that we can make in our home that will allow us to help each other on the pathway to heaven and so we're going to talk about some experiences that we've had in our married life that are reflective of some of the uniquenesses and foibles that we bring to the table and we all know that we both any married couple can attest to the reality that we each bring some issues into the marriage that are not so good and so we can either allow those things to drag each other as a couple down or we can help each other to overcome these things and to move past them so we're going to start by i'm going to be talking about how joelle has been so helpful to me so how has this union helped us heavenward 14 years in so i'm going to start by telling a story that happened at our wedding reception so day one of marriage and you know some of you might listen to this story and say man come on norm and you really let that get to you but it really did annoy me and this is what happened we were sitting together for the slideshow that had been put together by our friends and they had worked very hard to make a nice slideshow and we're sitting there and everything's going nicely and all of a sudden you get this tap on your back and someone who i don't know hardly at all can we get a picture with you oh okay sure so we just stepped back a couple of steps to get a picture so we can sit down again to watch the slideshow they're like no we need you to step over here that background's not very good and before long we were way on the other side of the room and before long everybody else who wanted to head to the airport wanted to get pictures with us too so that we hardly even saw the slideshow now in the big picture of things that's i realize is not a big deal but and we did get a copy of the slideshow somewhere but you know here was my response to the incident man this is our wedding i don't even hardly know them why are they pulling away me from our slideshow for a picture that i'll never see and i've never seen it and i didn't get to see the slideshow that my friends worked so hard on and then i didn't you know and so every so often over the years that would come and it's not like now look we had a great wedding day i wasn't mad on a about it right in that moment then enjoyed the rest of the reception we had a great honeymoon but as time would go on i'd be like i can't believe we got pulled away from our slideshow at our reception who would do that i would never do that to someone at their wedding and every time we would talk about our reception this would come up and i don't know how many years this went on every time but it finally reached a point where the holy spirit finally reached me and said norman it's time to let it go and i made it pretty clear i'm like look we need to forg the bible talks about forgetting those things which are behind and forgiving people and all these things and that's from philippians 3 13 and 14. you know that's one example but obviously if that incident was bothersome to me there's other things that have bothered me too and let me just say this guy has a fantastic memory like he has the single most perfect memory i have ever seen i mean which is amazing i mean i'm just saying he you know he he has the book of hebrews memorized he he's worked on a number of other memory projects and so his memory is amazing for on a number of different levels but it also works against them sometimes it's not good to remember negative things but here's the thing and i can tell you this is a neurologist memory and emotions are connected in the temporal lobe so negative and positive experiences are more easily remembered when there's emotions connected with it because the amygdala where your emotions are in the temporal lobe are connected to the memories that you have and so positive and negative emotions are more easily remembered so i especially remember those things but anyway so one of the things that joel has been very helpful for with me in helping me heavenward is you know i didn't realize i had that tendency before we got married you know you hang out with the guy friends and you know you just don't process your emotions but when you get married you start processing your emotions and i did not realize that i had this tendency within me to stew over negative experiences and not let them go and joel is very good about letting things go it's like that's over that's done with we can move on from it and i haven't been so good with that and that's something that she's really helped me with and so you know if you're we're not helping each other with those kinds of tendencies then we're missing out on the opportunities that god has placed before us to help each other heavenward because we understand there's obviously all the wonderful things that come with marriage but there are the challenges there are the trials and so do we help each other with our negative tendencies and so joel has definitely been very helpful for me with that you know the other thing i was going to mention is that um you know tom mentioned in his talk on wednesday evening about praying the prayer god do whatever it takes to refine me into so that i can be fitted for the kingdom and i actually have been praying that prayer over the last few years and the lord has been answering that prayer and he has been answering that prayer in ways that i wouldn't have picked now i it has to do with things that have happened at work and because of the nature of my work i cannot go into a more specific story the way i did with a wedding reception but i will say that there have been a couple of incidents that have been very very difficult to to face and joel has been extremely helpful at reminding me of bible and spirit of spirit of prophecy promises about how god helps us through these difficulties and of course i know these things and you know i will often be sharing from up front and one of the things i'll often say to congregations is a trial is not a trial if it's easy if you're going through something that you call a trial but it's really not that hard that's not a trial a trial is actually difficult and i can say that yeah some of these things that have been happening more recently have been real trials and i wanted to share with you a statement joel sent to me not that long ago when one of these things one of these issues had popped up and she shared me with me a statement from desire of ages and i just i'm going to read the statement but i just want to say you know if you can encourage one another as spouses with spiritual encouragement bible verses spirit of prophecy quotes rather than if there's a difficult situation just joining in and saying oh let's just wallow in self-pity or whatever it is but instead encourage each other and so this statement is from desire of ages 3 28 3 29 take my yoke upon you and learn to me for i am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your souls that's according matthew 11. in these words christ is speaking to every human being whether they know it or not all are weary and heavy laden all are weighed down with burdens that only christ can remove now i'm going to skip down to the end of the statement which really touched my heart and the lord used joel to send this statement to me just at the right time and this it closes by saying whatever your anxieties and trials spread out your case before the lord your spirit will be braced for endurance now you know i i want to say this revelation 14 12 says here is the patience or in the endurance of the saints don't think that you're going to get through the last crisis of earth's history without the lord helping you to develop some endurance now and so the quote goes on to say the weaker and more helpless you know excuse me your spirit will be braced for endurance the weight will be opened for you to disentangle yourself from embarrassment and difficulty the weaker and more helpless you know yourself to be the stronger will you become and his strength and you know what there are times when we need the lord's help to become disentangled from embarrassment and difficulty sometimes things happen that you don't anticipate and that quote was sent to me just at the right time and i just can't say how much it means to have a godly wife who readily reminds me of god's promises when things are hard and so you want to find someone that you know for those of you who are still single you know don't go for the flash in the pan go for someone who is beautiful but also has the strength of character that will stand with you through the difficult times in life so i'm going to talk now about some what ways that norman has helped me heavenward one of my hereditary i suppose tendencies inherited from my lovely grandmother who died a couple months ago is the tendency to worry about everything um if if there is a situation well so case in point i'm going to go way back and then i'll come forward but when we were in trinidad we spent two years in trinidad after we left loma linda california and before we moved to tennessee but um so we were in trinidad in the caribbean and i was in you know i i i tended to worry about everything like i said and so i would mentally plan out strategies to escape from tsunamis and stuff like that um now i didn't always voice these things but that's just kind of you know ladies sometimes you just kind of map out and and worry about everything um so that was that's like one example but um moving forward now um i didn't actually have any panic full out panic attacks at that point but um later on during some of my pregnancies i had a lot more anxiety over various issues one is a kind of a stupid one but um hear me out um so later so the first two of my births were all natural but like both with midwives and one was in a hospital birth center and one was a home birth and then for our third trial we decided to have her with the obstetrician in our town at the hospital and for whatever reason with my first two pregnancies i had never had to have the glucola test that sugar drink that my all moms know that you have to drink you know to test for gestational diabetes anyway i had read so much stuff on the internet from all the natural parenting sites that i was scared to death of this test the night before i took the test i woke up in the middle of the night freaking out i was like i took a bath i could i still couldn't calm myself down then i went back in to bed and i was like crying and and norman's like what is wrong with you that's just a test he's like we ordered us but he he talked me down he called me down he prayed for me he rubbed my back and eventually i was actually able to go to sleep and you know he he quoted promises to me and stuff like that that i could latch onto because i'm like a very promise oriented person sure enough the next day i showed up i took the test there was nothing that these crunchy people online ever talk about i mean i had no issues i didn't feel like throwing up i might i passed my test with flying colors there was no problem i need not have worried about this but it was a worry and i did have my first panic attack ever over that but you know what in the moment he was there to calm me down talk me down pray with me rub my back and just really help me through the anxiety and with my last pregnancy i had an actual high-risk pregnancy because i ended up with a condition that um well i'll just say it's cholestasis and if any of you are pregnant ladies ever end up with itchy hands see your doctor because it's it can be hurtful to the baby and because it was it had the risk of stillbirth and i was on medications and having to go in for testing twice a week during the last trimester that put me really on edge if you can imagine a person that worries i was worrying like a lot and so norman he was very helpful to me through this experience we prayed about the baby all the time he he was there for me when i was super sick after my steroid shots and he just really helped me point me to the lord through all this because um yeah it was it was a big big trial for me um and she arrived and she was safe and i was and she's back there on diane's back and you've probably heard her some sometimes during these meetings and we are so grateful for our little baby that was just fine uh but it it was a toll on me during that time and he was very helpful with praying me through it and talking me and you know he's like we're going through the treatment she's going to be okay your levels are going to stay where there should be and just really calm me down and was a stable rock there for me yeah for those kind of circumstances my tendency is to be more optimistic so that does help to balance things out if we're worried about worst case scenarios and tsunamis in trinidad which by the way our friends from trinidad the sandovals are here this weekend too and we're so happy to spend some time with them too but yeah there's definitely interesting dynamics that we can help balance each other out with now you know the quote that we read says will this union help me heavenward and i think we can both attest to the fact that with some of these foibles that we bring to the table god has used each other to help each other with some of these challenges so that we've learned a lot of helpful things and we've grown in god's grace so that i'm not fixated on things that happened five years ago and and joel's not so wound up about things that may not have such worst-case scenario situations we still have those tendencies but god has helped us to to work on those things so the the the quote goes on to say will it increase our love for god and again that's something that is certainly worth reflecting upon have we through our married life increased our love for god because you know if you are if you become married for selfish reasons it's not no it's not just automatically going to cause you to love god more those who are selfish in a married relationship will sometimes grow apart from god in addition to growing apart for each other so i can certainly say that by god's grace we have strengthened our walk with the lord as time has gone on and and i'll say it's um in part because we make a priority every day to have a couple's worship in the evening you know after the kids are all down we and lately we've been going through the testimonies and it's been good and before that i don't remember what we did but it you know we try to we put we put the time to get um together so that we can um you know because sometimes when the kids are there there's always interruptions and this that and the other thing and it's really important to be able to connect on a spiritual level together often and you know there is a difference between loving god and being busy for him now if you love the lord you're probably going to be busy doing the lord's work and that starts with what you do in your home being busy for the lord starts with raising your children and keeping the home unit connected to the lord but sometimes in adventist homes people become so busy for god that the love of god gets squeezed out and so we've really tried to be mindful of not allowing that to happen because the demands of family and work life can if we allow it to crowd god out of the picture even if you're doing good things those things can crowd god out and so i'm thankful that you know joel is definitely on board with me and making sure that god and his love and our focus on him is at the center of our home right and you know and the quote goes on to say will this union enlarge my sphere of usefulness in this life and we have to look back each one of us take index of our marriages you know is this enlarging my sphere of usefulness and i'll say you know norman does a lot of preaching writing he's coming out with a second book that he used the lockdown year to write and and it was a kind of a team effort because you know um he he wrote and wrote joel encouraged me to be writing when it was time to write which was very helpful so yes i have a book on daniel and now a book on revelation is coming out in the next few months and you know with church work and ministry and then i have my own set of uh ministry with the kids in our home um joel does so much with the kids i mean she pours her whole life in into theirs and i'm sure you know so many of you can give the same testimony and there's really nothing more rewarding as a husband for me to see my wife pouring her life into the hearts of of our children of course when i can be at home too i'm doing the same thing but well and and he actually helps out from the office you know if i'm having an issue with one of them or whatever like can you facetime when you're able and he'll actually facetime in to help me out with the um whatever issue and so we kind of um balance each other out and help each other out on these things so and this is something that we should all be taking index of so yeah it's definitely a team effort with raising the children and you know raising children in marriage is such a big part of your married life of course it's not something that you want to just become so well let me rephrase this our marriage as a couple is still something that we work on and then we have our children as well but obviously the way we are parenting is a huge part of of our married life and so we're just grateful that through the years that we've been married we can see how god is helping us to grow and to give us greater opportunities and you know i have seen some couples and some homes where people who had gifts for the lord where they could have been out there doing ministry and and doing the lord's work have not been able to do so because their spouse is not connected to the lord they're needy they have issues whatever it is and so that drags the other person down from doing the work that god would have them to do and so for us we're thankful that we can look back on that and if you are looking at your your current married life and you're saying you know what we're not really encouraging each other to enlarge our sphere of influence we're being selfish and we're keeping one another from doing the work that god would have us to do just to take some stock of that and to say how would god help us to grow in our union so that our sphere of influence will expand now we're going to look briefly at ephesians 6 and just make a an application to marriage this is ephesians 6 11 which says put on the whole armor of god that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil you know we need to put on that whole armor of god not just for our personal lives but for our marriages as well because you may think that things are going along great but just like we saw at the beginning of our meeting storms can just hit out of nowhere and we need that armor because we're not just dealing with our fallen human natures we're wrestling as scripture says we're wrestling against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world and the devil tries to target godly hums but god is more powerful so yes he allows the trials to come but when we have on the armor of god we can withstand whatever the devil throws at us um there's a statement in avenis home page 106. though difficulties perplexities and discouragements arise let neither husband nor wife harbor the thought that their union is a mistake or a disappointment determined to be all that it is possible to be to each other continue the early attentions in every way encourage each other in fighting the battles of life study to advance the happiness of each other let there be mutual love mutual forbearance then marriage instead of being the end of love will be as it were the very beginning of love the warmth of true friendship the love that binds heart to heart is a foretaste of the joys of heaven and i like that there are actually so many sentences in there that you could stop and pause and think about and say are we doing this is this true for us that sort of thing um and what i really like and which really struck home to me in every way encourage each other in fighting the battles of life i don't know about you but for us 2020 was a lot of trials a lot an unusual amount and it doesn't seem like 2021 is eased up a whole lot but you know if we can encourage each other while it is today like the apostle paul says you know encourage each other there is a ministry of encouragement for spouses to do for each other and if you don't have anything to encourage the other one with spend some time you know that we have yeah it's we have bibles and spirit prophecy apps on our phones these days find some good quotes that you can encourage your spouse with it's worth it to have those things tucked away even if you're sharing a devotional thought i mean that's when i sent that one to that from desire of ages to norman that was one of the things i had read in my devotions and i just like oh that's nice let's at this and it sounds applicable for this so i sent it on um share and encourage each other in fighting the battles of life you know i really like the last sentence of that quote where it says the warmth of true friendship the love that binds heart to heart is a foretaste of the joys of heaven and you know i can say this truly and honestly that these trials that we've had in the last year or so have strengthened the warmth of true friendship in our home and it's caused our hearts to to have the love of god to bind heart to heart in a deeper way than it has as time has gone on and i can t it's like this foretaste of heaven where even in these difficult circumstances we have this warmth of true friendship and godly love and that's there's nothing better in the world than that to know that you have that with your spouse and you know 14 years in now you know you hear all the cliches about how your love grows with time if the lord is leading but it's it's so true and the the fulfillment that comes from knowing that god has brought you together that he's kept you together that he's keeping you together and that he's strengthening you as a couple it's obviously not just an experience for a few couples this is the experience that god would have for each one of us here that are married this can be all of our experiences so that's really our our testimony but i just you know want to and we're going to have our meditation music here in just a moment here but you know i just want to encourage all of you continue to win each other's hearts continue the early attentions continue to do whatever you can to make each other happy and to strengthen your friendship and god will bless those efforts look when you become married it is god's will for your home to be a happy home and he will by his grace make it possible for your home to be a happy place and so this is our story of where we are now we truly believe that god has given us a heavenward union that is taking us on the pathway to heaven and we believe that that is god's purpose for each one of the homes in this room this evening so may we be faithful to that calling and you know as great as things are now they're going to continue to get better all the way till we get to the kingdom where they'll get even infinitely better and so we don't want to become complacent and just accept where we are right now we can be thankful that god will continue to lead us higher into a better place so we're going to have a moment of meditation here and then we'll have our closing prayer and as we're having this moment of meditation i just want to encourage you think about what we've talked about and ask yourself is our home a place where god is leading us heavenward are we helping each other heavenward our is our love for god increasing and is our sphere of usefulness in this life enlarging for the lord so as we have this time of meditation let's think on those things [Music] so [Music] our father in heaven we just thank you that you preserved us during the storm that blew through this evening and we thank you that whatever storms may come to our homes that you are the same god who calmed the sea of galilee those thousands of years ago and that you will protect us through the storms of life and sustain us and lord i just want to thank you for the testimony that you've given to myself and to joel about our marriage we thank you for how you've sustained us and i thank you for the testimony of so many marriages that are represented here this evening of how you are leading in their lives certainly we are not the only couple that can testify of your goodness and of how you have helped us and lord i just pray that if there are any couples here tonight that are struggling with these issues that you would come to their homes in a special way and bring healing and restoration and i just pray that you will strengthen their homes and i just pray for each one of us that we will allow the holy spirit to touch our hearts and to help us with whatever weaknesses we may have may we allow the holy spirit to help us may we allow our spouses by god's grace to help us and may we grow in the grace of the lord to be fitted for the heavenly kingdom that is surely coming soon so thank you for being with us this evening and thank you for pouring out your spirit and may we carry this blessing with us the remainder of these sabbath hours i pray in jesus name amen

Channel: Restoration International

Views: 193

Rating: 4.3333335 out of 5

Keywords: RI, Restoration International, NFR, National Family Retreat, 2021, Family, Marriage

Id: jkoTxCu3G0A

Length: 48min 12sec (2892 seconds)

Published: Thu May 06 2021