Making Your Spouse Your Safe Place | Marriage Today | Jimmy Evans

friends talk friends are open my friends are people that I can say anything around I mean though you know the level of a friendship by how comfortable you are talking to a person if your new friends with a person you're pretty cordial and you're pretty careful but the more the friendship develops you get to a point where you can pretty much say anything but your very best friend is the person where you could say anything and you know that you're safe and that you know that you're comfortable well first of all it means being real being real but the second thing is creating a safe atmosphere for your spouse to be real and that is I want you to know that first of all I'll respect what you say even if I don't understand it I'll respect it I won't make quick judgments of what you're saying I won't punish it or tell people what you said I'm not going to take what you've said outside this house if I get mad I'm not going to tell my mother I'm not going to tell my best friend I am your safe place and you can be completely real around me and listen this one I'm not going to be religious with you okay thing I like about God as God is not religious God's very spiritual but religion is plastic religion is just you know putting on a face that isn't real jesus said the Pharisees were religious but Jesus was real he was born in an animal feeding trough you know he lived just like we lived his family was just like our families he came and lived on the earth you know just the way we do and when Jesus has something to say he didn't say it in religious terms he just said it and he turned to his disciples and he says you know you're my friends he said servants don't know the thoughts of their master but you're not just my servants you're my friends I've told you everything that's on my heart and so in marriage it means that we're friends with our spouse let me talk about being religious for just a minute being insensitive you know women's struggle with things that men don't struggle with and men struggle with things that women don't struggle with now when you if you have a man friend or a woman friend when you get together you can completely understand each other typically but still the same dynamic doesn't occur that occurs in marriage where you're married to your best friend but we're different so when we're sharing with each other openheartedly we're talking about frailties and weaknesses and the way we feel in an anger in invulnerability and lust and sexual temptation and I'm not talking about sin I'm not talking about being graphic or inappropriate I'm just saying being real means being real it means being human in exposing the inner sanctum to another person not to every person but in marriage you're only going to be intimate to the degree that you're able to be real around each other being religious means this is acting as though you've never experienced that or acting like somehow that you're above them is that I don't like religious people I'm just telling right now I don't like them I'm uncomfortable around them I don't trust them and religious people are always trying to put on a pretense as though they don't get angry they don't experience those problems they're not tempted sexually or things like that I'm just saying this we are human beings and we are all more frail than we would want to admit what keeps me from committing sin is having a safe place to go where I can talk about my problems you need to be the safest place that your spouse can come to talk I don't want you to call your friends first I don't want you to have to go to someone else to talk to them because you can't come talk to me I want to be your safe place remember proverbs 17:17 friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity but here's Hebrews 4 we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need Jesus is my very best friend period period he's my best friend you know what I love about Jesus he's not religious he's gracious his throne is a throne of grace and never have I gone to pray before Jesus and said something to Jesus and he says back to me I don't want to hear that anymore I don't want you to talk to me about that I've never thought that thought before he was tempted in all manner like us yet without sin you know what that means when we go to Jesus and we tell him what we're really thinking and feeling that's what prayer ought to be prayer shouldn't be this religious thing that we do with God prayer should be opening our heart and talking about truthful things to God many times when I'm praying here's the way I pray I wake up and I sit before God and I say Lord I want to say some things to you this morning that I just I know you know they're on my heart but I I want you to know that I know that they're on my heart and I'm gonna talk to you about how I really feel and I tell him everything everything I'm tempted with everything I'm feeling the insecurities the concerns I have about him every every everything is there anyway and never have I done that where Jesus comes back and says oh I just I've never thought that before I can't believe you say that oh my gosh when I pray to Jesus here's what I hear back I totally understand it's a throne of mercy aren't you glad we have that kind of God he's my safest place and when Karen when Karen comes to talk to me sometimes she didn't want to get fixed you know men sometimes we want to fix it or give it a solution or give it an answer and and I learned the hard way not to do that not because I was smart I just learned the hard way and so Karen sometimes will sit down and talk to me and she'll say I don't want a solution I just want you to listen so here's what she wants for me she wants me to be attentive she doesn't want me to make judgments on what she's saying sometimes we get awkward when people are sharing and we try to solve things too quickly when people die you know and you go into a grief situation which I've been many times being a pastor in people many times say I feel so awkward when I go into a circumstance where people have died or or they're suffering I don't know what to say did you know in most cases there really is nothing to say except I love you and I'm here for you is there anything dude there's no you don't have to give them a theology lesson you don't have to give some solution to take away their grief because they're gonna grieve for a long time anyway but what matters most in it time of need is just having someone say to you I love you and I'm here and if I can do anything at all I want you to know I'm here and it's the companionship that matters when your spouse is going through a difficult time in their and you become their safe place you become the place they're coming to talk to a place of refuge what makes you a safe place is the fact that you care I don't have all the solutions sweetheart I want to but I want you to know I'm here if there's anything that I can do I care very much that's what I love about Jesus that's what I love about Karen is they're my safe place we hope that you're being blessed by this program but we're able to come to you because we have a group of people that support us financially every month and they're called our rock solid partners they literally are the financial backbone of this ministry thousands of people across America who give to us every month and we have several different several different levels that you can give at and for that you get a special resource that we only give to our partners and it's called our dream marriage library we produce it specially every month Karen and I produced this it's the best of my teachings it's the best of our seminars it's the best of what we have that comes first of all to our rock solid partners and so we want you to be a 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Channel: MarriageToday

Views: 24,936

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Keywords: MT, tv, OSP14, 03, 20, 12

Id: FsphWoJfQkI

Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 14 2012