>> TED CUNNINGHAM: Alright! Good morning, Liberty. I was watching you during those songs, and
you were getting into it. And when your eyes were closed, you were biting
your lower lip. [LAUGHTER] Are you dating anybody? >> STUDENT: No. >> CUNNINGHAM: Or do you have an interest
in dating? >> STUDENT: Uh, yeah. >> CUNNINGHAM: Is there someone on this campus
you’ve been thinking about asking out, but you haven’t done that yet? [CHEERS] Okay, hey stand up real quick. Can we put a camera on him? Stay standing. I don’t have gift cards, but I’m going
to give you 100 dollars- let me find it here- if you will ask a young lady out on a date. You can go to Waffle House or Taco Bell, those
seem to be the picks. >> STUDENT: What’s my timeline? What’s my timeline? >> CUNNINGHAM: Uh, you got to do it right
now. [CHEERS] And flowers. Do we have any flowers up here? No flowers up here. Alright. >> STUDENT: (unintelligible) >> CUNNINGHAM: No. I like that. He says I- he’s got to give it time. But you’re getting cheered on. It can be a fun date. Anybody- is there a girl- is there a girl
that says, “I have a free evening,” that you’d raise your hand? Hey, would you stand up? Would you stand up? I don’t know. I don’t know. [CHEERS] Did he ask you out? Did he ask you out yet? What she say? Yes! She said yes! Alright, you can make plans after Convo. So here you go, my friend. I’ll pay for the first date. Here you go. Enjoy! What’s your name? >> LARRY: Larry! >> CUNNINGHAM: Congratulations. Where are you going? He’s getting her number. Here we go. [CHEERS] >> CUNNINGHAM: I love it. The last time I was here was 2011, and I did
this, and I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but they dated for three months. Well, you don’t have to date for- I’m
just saying see how the night goes. See how the night goes. Don’t- yeah. And I did this in Maryland, a cute couple,
Sam and Elise. Alright you guys, we got to really wrap this
up because I got to move on with what we’re talking about. Alright, there you go. Have a seat, my friend. Congratulations. Alright! [CHEERS] So hey, you never know. I-I met my wife on a blind date at Liberty
University in 1995. The night I met her, I said to my buddy Austin
Deloach, “I’m going to marry this woman.” And he looked at me and said, “You can’t
decide that.” I go, “I just did.” And I’ll never forget walking into the kitchen
of her six-foot-two, full-blooded Norwegian father. He’s pretty much a Viking. You’ve got to see this guy, very intimidating. I said, “I’d like permission to marry
your daughter.” To which he responded in his thick Norwegian
accent, “You betcha.” [LAUGHTER] I said, “But only under one condition.” I had just graduated, Amy had one year left. I wanted to break all the rules. I wanted to get married between her junior
and senior year. So I said, “May I have permission to marry
her now, and if you let me marry her now I will pay for her senior year of college.” To which he said, “You betcha.” And young guys would always ask me at events
and at churches, “Bro, how did you get married at 22 and 21 and afford to pay for a senior
year of college?” I said, “It was this thing called a job!” [CHEERS] I had more than one. And I love it when they say, “I can’t
afford to get married young.” I’m like, “Bro, I would believe that if
you weren’t holding a venti caramel macchiato in your right hand, and an iPhone 7 plus in
your left.” [APPLAUSE] You need to start thinking Folgers and flip-phones,
Bro. You cannot start marriage with a wife AND
unlimited data. You really got to think this through. [LAUGHTER] But you can afford to get married young, I’m
convinced of it. You haven’t started marriage right until
you get your parents’ hand-me-down mattress. I’m just saying. [DISAPPROVAL] The dip already built in. You get- that’s a good way to start marriage. Don’t go to Ethan Allen, don’t go to Ethan
Allen. Buy one-by-twelves and cinderblocks, and that’s
how you have shelving. There’s a lot of ways to get marriage started
right. And I’m encouraging young people to get
married. My son and I, we love watching YouTube clips
together. His favorite YouTube clip is the German Coast
Guard. If you get time, check that out sometime today. Guy’s being trained, day one on the German
Coast Guard, and a Mayday comes in. “Mayday, Mayday, we are sinking, we are
sinking.” *German accent* “Uh, Hello? This is the German Coast Guard.” “Mayday, Mayday, we are sinking, we are
sinking.” *German accent* “Uh, what are you sinking
about?” [LAUGHTER] My son thinks that’s the funniest clip he’s
ever seen, falls over in laughter. A few weeks after we’re driving down the
road, and I start singing a hymn from my childhood that goes like this. (SINGING) “I was sinking deep in sin, far
from the peaceful shore.” And from the backseat I heard, “Hey, what
were you sinking about?” [LAUGHTER] And I looked at my wife, and I said, “They
see everything we do, they hear everything we say, they forget nothing. And then they repeat.” And so I want- my desire 22 years into marriage
is to have a marriage worth repeating. In the Songs of Solomon you see the daughters
of Jerusalem, and they say this about the young budding love of Solomon and the Shulamite
woman. “We rejoice and delight in you. We will praise your love more than wine.” My desire is to praise the love of young people,
to rejoice and delight in what God is doing in young budding love. I have that passion, and I have it for my
children. I don’t want them to be afraid of marriage. I want to model it well for them. And-and so I tell Amy all the time, we- we
are our children’s backup singers. We say this in our country music little town
called Branson, Missouri all the time. [CHEERS] Every marriage is a duet in need of great
backup singers, and we desire to start by being great backup singers to our children. I want them to get married one day. I want them to get married early. I-I-I tell them all the time, you don’t
have to wait to get married. You can get married and grow up together. I used to sit where you’re sitting. Every Wednesday Dr. Falwell would speak at
Convocation, and he constantly told us, “Don’t leave this campus without a wife.” He was always being a great backup singer. He was always challenging us. He even said this, and-and I get in trouble
for sharing this but I’m grateful that he did. He said, “If you have your eye on a young
lady on this campus, and she’s dating someone else, but he doesn’t have enough commitment
to ask her to be his wife, you move in on her.” [SHOCK] I was an obedient student. And so right now there’s some of you going,
“He taught you how to cheat?” No-no-no, Dr. Falwell did not see dating and
sex and synonymous. He didn’t see it that way. He just said, “Go out, have a good time. Just have fun. Get to know each other.” And I’m grateful he did, because I-I-I met
Amy on this campus, and now we’re raising two children that we desire to model marriage
well for. But some of you have many not had the great
models. For Amy and I, uh we-we decided years ago
we want a marriage that’s going to be fun. Because some of- some of you maybe have heard
this message in church growing up and it goes something like this, “God gives you a spouse
to beat you down, and to suck the life out of you so you can be more like Jesus.” [LAUGHTER] And that message comes- a good friend of mine
wrote a book years ago called, uh “Sacred Marriage,” Gary Thomas. Great book, and in this book he asks the question,
“What if God gives you your spouse to make you holy more than happy?” Many people never even read the book and they
now make this statement- and I hear well-known authors even saying this- they go, “God
gives you a spouse to make you Holy, not happy.” And I want to take you to Ecclesiastes this
morning briefly. I love the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s dark, it’s pessimistic. Very much fits my personality. [LAUGHTER] If you need a good winter reader, go to Ecclesiastes. Chapter one, life is hard, chapter 12, then
you die. These are the bookends Ecclesiastes. And in the middle of this book, you get Ecclesiastes
chapter nine verses seven through nine, and it says this. “Go, eat your food with gladness and drink
your [sparkling cider] with a joyful heart.” I cleaned that up for the Liberty Way. Let’s stay focused this morning. “Drink your wine with
A joyful heart, for now, God favors what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint
your head with oil.” It’s speaking there of joys and festivity. And then in verse nine of chapter nine it
says, ‘Endure life with your wife all your miserable days.” [LAUGHTER] It doesn’t say that. I just misquoted. Here’s what it says. “Enjoy life with your wife whom you love
all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life, and in your
toilsome labor under the sun.” Meaning you don’t have to choose between
life and a wife, you can have both at the same time. I meet young guys all the time that tell me,
“I can’t- I can’t get married. I don’t want to get married,” or I meet
guys that have gotten married and they say, “You know, I got married young, but I had
big dreams and plans and goals for the future. But when I got married, that all changed.” God doesn’t give you a spouse to beat you
down and suck the life out of you. He didn’t- He doesn’t give you a spouse
to be the grind of life, he gives you a spouse to go through the grind of life with. And for some of you, marriage is not on your
radar right now, but according to research, you’ve got about a 90% shot of walking down
the aisle one day. And I just want to encourage you. I just want to encourage you this morning. When it comes to love, it doesn’t matter
how you meet. When it comes to enjoying life in marriage,
according to Ecclesiastes it doesn’t matter how you meet, it’s what you do after you
meet. I tell people all the tie I don’t care how
you meet. eHarmony.com, Match.com, Farmersonly.com. [CHEERS] Ancestry.com, I don’t care how you meet. [LAUGHTER] The-The Bachelor. How you meet doesn’t matter, it’s what
you do after you meet. And here’s the bottom line, enjoying life
in marriage, according to Ecclesiastes 9:9, is a decision, it’s not an outcome. It’s something you decide, it’s something
you choose, not something you wait for. Not waiting for a certain season in life. You make the decision. Let’s enjoy life together. And to be honest with you, the first seven
years of marriage, Amy and I we-we did not enjoy it. We got to the point, I mean we-we-we were
in love and we were committed, and we removed the d-word, the divorce word from our marriage. But man, we had the struggles early in marriage
as many young couples do. Until about seven years in we made the decision
that we were going to enjoy life together, and my wife Amy is way better at this than
I am. She said, “You know what? We’re going to have fun with everything. Anything irritating, frustrating, annoying,
pet peeves, we’re just going to choose to find a way to enjoy life together.” And she said, “I’m going to let you pick
the first topic, the issue that we may have, and I’m going to show you how we can have
fun with everything.” So, this is what I told her, this is where
I started. It’s where I was at the time. I said, “Babe, there’s not a lot of adventure
for men in the world anymore, so would you please let me find my own parking space.” [LAUGHTER] “I want to do it all by myself. I want to provide this for my family.” And she-she said, “Alright. Game on.” And I-I-I pulled passed her third-space-from-the-door
spot she picks out, I drive 20 spaces down, and first few years of marriage she just looked
at me with those eyes and said, “You stubborn, stubborn man. Just-just take the help, receive the help.” And I’m, “Nope, I got it. We are going to walk.” Right? I was passionate about this. Now, all these years later, every time we
pull into a parking lot, I find the spot still. And my wife does this, and I love it. She leans over, and she starts massaging my
bicep. And she’ll say, “You did this all by yourself.” [LAUGHTER] “I’m so proud of you.” You know what I caught her doing a couple
years ago? She knows those Andes candies at the end of
an Olive Garden meal are like crack to me. I love Andes candies, I can’t get enough
of the Andes candies. She bought a bag of them, and she keeps them
in her purse now for when I do something good. [LAUGHTER] >> STUDENT: Amen! >> CUNNINGHAM: Ladies, on your date tonight
take a little bag of treats, okay? Because it was in a parking lot that she handed
me my first one, and I ripped that thing out of her hand, I’m opening it up, and I realize,
huh, my wife just gave me a treat. [LAUGHTER] >> CUNNINGHAM: She is rewarding my good behavior. I am a dog! I was alright with it. You got to be good with it and you’ve got
to go with it. Having fun. I love- I just started studying comedy about
the last year-and-a-half. And comedy is very simple. It’s premise, punchline, premise, punchline,
premise, punchline. My favorite thing is the callback. The callback is where you bring a punchline
from earlier in the set, and you bring it off of a different premise 10-15-20 minutes
later. And I-I as I study that I go, why-why don’t
we do that as couples? Why don’t we turn every conflict, like a
parking lot situation, into a callback? And have fun with it instead of always being
irritated with each other, instead of always *nagging noise*. Choose to have fun, because enjoying life
in marriage is about having fun. It’s about choosing to have fun. It flows from the same place, your character,
that commitment flows from. So here’s how I do- now-now some of you
are going to find this early in marriage, or when your dating right now, my wife would
ask me questions when we were first married thinking I had the answers to everything she
asked me. And I’d be like, why do you think I know
it? We drive through a construction zone and she’d
be like, “Hey, Babe, yeah, what are they doing right here?” [LAUGHTER] “I-I ,uh, let’s see. I- I wasn’t involved in any of the meetings
on this project. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on
here.” And I used to drive down the road going, why
does she think I know these? And she’s- you know why? She’s wanting to connect with me. She’s not looking for information. Guys, we make this mistake a lot. We think when she’s asking questions that
she needs answers. No, she needs connection. [CHEERS] She needs us to listen and to talk. So watch, now here’s how I turn that into
a callback. When we drive through a construction zone
to have fun she’ll say, “Hey, Babe, what are they doing right here?” I turn in to the construction foreman, I told
him, “Rip it up, boys!” [LAUGHTER] “We’re going 12 lanes, not six.” You’ve got to have fun with it. Roll down the window, talk to the construction
workers as you go by, like you’re the foreman. [LAUGHTER] Have fun with it. I’ve been- I’ve been asking couples around
the country to send me their callbacks. One of my favorites ones was a guy who- he
said, “My wife’s always frustrated with me because I’m not getting stuff done around
the house, I’m not fixing enough things, and I get to work one day and she calls me
frustrated. The toilet in the master bath is running. And she says, ‘Honey, you know, you left
without fixing the toilet’.” He goes, “Oh, go take the lid off, look
you’ll see the chains wrapped around the ball at the bottom and just go ahead and fix
it and reach in there. And she goes, ‘Ew! Disgusting, I’m not reaching in there!’ Honey, it’s-it’s like water that comes
out of the tap, it’s clean. You don’t have to worry about it.” And right before she reaches in she asked
her husband over the phone, “Am I going to get electrocuted?” [LAUGHTER] And he came up with the best answer. He said, “Honey, you got to unplug the toilet
first. That’s always the first thing you do.” [LAUGHTER] I love that because now they have a callback. Whenever something’s broke that she wants
fixed, all he has to ask is, “Hey, have you unplugged it first?” It’s choosing to have fun. You don’t have to look for greener grass. I want you to think about for just a second
the guy who’s- who’s at home and he turns on an eHarmony, Match.com, or Ourtime.com
commercial, and he sees a couple twirling around on the screen. And he thinks to himself, “Boy, I’d like
to have that right now, but I can never have that because we never took a test. We-we-we don’t- we’ll never have that.” And I always tell the guys at our church,
stop looking for greener grass. Where there’s greener grass there is a septic
leak. Stay home, and water your own lawn. For a good time, call home. But he sees, you know, “If I want to have
fun again in life if I want to enjoy life again, I need to find someone new.” No, here’s the bottom line. You will never find compatibility. You’ll never discover it. There’s not an algorithm in the world that
can put you with someone compatible. Compatibility is something you choose, it’s
something you create, it’s a decision that you make. [APPLAUSE] Now my wife and I we come from two very different
backgrounds. I grew up Independent-Fundamental-Premillennial-King-James-Version-only
Baptist. [CHEERS] I have what is known as a guilt-prone nature. She grew up Assembly of God, set free in Jesus,
right? So she- [CHEERS] I see all signs on the road as laws to be
followed. You- you break one, you go to jail, God stops
loving you. That’s how I view signs. She’s all signs on the road as suggestions
for other people. Very different. I grew up in a home that taught savings was
money you put away for a rainy day, she grew up seeing savings as the difference between
that actual price and the sale price. She has two love languages. If you know what a love language is, it’s
the way we give and receive love. Her- she has two love languages, acts of service
and quality time, which means I serve her for long periods of time. [LAUGHTER] That’s how I show Amy Cunningham love. And we have- we make the choice to enjoy life
together. We’re watching movies- we love watching
movies. For Amy watching a movie means surfing Pinterest
and reading a magazine, which puts all of the burden of watching the movie on me. Something will happen and she’d be like,
“Oh, what just happened?” Oh, this wears me out! I have to pause the movie and say, “Hey,
there was an explosion on the space station. Big piece of metal broke off and hit the space
shuttle. Now they’re stuck in outer space.” And she goes, “Oh, what are they going to
do?” [LAUGHTER] Again this is that question needing information. I’m not an astronaut. I have absolutely no idea. But I bet if we watch the rest of the movie
together we’ll know how to fix a space shuttle the next time we need that information. [LAUGHTER] Choosing to have fun together. There’s another great passage, Genesis 2:24
says, “For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his
wife, and the two become one flesh.” The first half of that verse is a parenting
verse, uh that you should leave home. And you’re already starting on that journey,
but you should leave home. It’s not God’s plan for your life to be
in your parents’ basement at 35 with Star Wars bedsheets on your bed. That’s not his plan. [APPLAUSE] He wants you to leave and to separate, and
it’s a good thing. I-I-my- my kids, 12 and 14, soon to be 13
and 15, I share this verse with them all the time and you can ask my son at 12, “What’s
your dad’s definition of maturity according to Genesis 2:24?” And Carson would go, “Huh, I will not be
with Mom and Dad forever, so plan accordingly.” That’s right. [LAUGHTER] You’re eventually going to go. And I tell my kids all the time, “We love
you. You’re a welcomed addition to this home. But I want you to know we got big plans, your
Mom and I, after you leave.” [LAUGHTER] And he’ll say, “Well what are you going
to do?” “Well, first of all, we’re going to Disney
World, that’s where we’re going to kick this whole thing off.” [CHEERS] “But your Mom and I, we’re preparing you. We want you to leave.” And when my daughter was five years old she
was kind of taking over the house. And I sat her down and I said, “Corynn May,
there’s only one queen in this house, and you ain’t her.” She looked at me with those eyes that said,
“We’ll see.” [LAUGHTER] Big talker. The next week she tells my wife, “There’s
room enough in this house for two queens.” And I put her back down on the breakfast bar,
and when she was five I would put my hand on her heart and that meant what I’m about
to share with you I want to go deep into your heart. Because according to Proverbs 4:23, “Above
all else, guard your heart, it is the wellspring of life.” I said, “Corynn, I want what’s- what I’m
about to share with you I want it to go deep into your heart because I want it to come
out in your life as a young adult.” And I said, “Corynn May Cunningham, one
day I’m going to stand at the back of a church with you, looking down the aisle, at
some pervert.” [SHOCK] No, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that to my daughter. I would never say that to my daughter. I didn’t want that going deep into her heart. I said, “I’m going to stand at the back
of a church with you. I’m not walking you down the aisle until
I know he loves you as much as me.” I said, “Because one day a little boy is
going to say to you, Corynn, ‘I love you’, and I need you to know something. He’s a liar.” [LAUGHTER] No, I didn’t say that. I- these are the things I want to say I didn’t
say. I said, “He’s of a spawn of the Devil
and a child of darkness. I need you to stay away-”
No, I didn’t say that. [LAUGHTER] I said, “Corynn, I’m not walking you down
the aisle until I know he loves you as much as me. Because here- here’s the thing, you are
not my queen, but you’re my princess. And there’s not a guy in here that can sing-” [AUDIENCE: AWWW] Guys, are you picking up tips for tonight? You getting some tips for tonight there, Larry? I just want to make sure. I mean, you see what gets them going “aww”. The whole “queen-princess” thing works. [LAUGHTER] I said, “You’ll never be my queen, but
you’re my princess, and one day I’m going to- I’m going to walk you down the aisle
to give you away, to become another man’s queen.” I said, “And that’s Genesis 2:24, ‘For
this reason a man leaves his father and mother, is united to his wife, and the two become
one flesh.” The bond, according to that passage, the bond
between a husband and a wife is to be stronger than the bond between a parent and a child. Some of the frustration, I know you’re dealing
with it, and I would love to do a whole session on this, but some of you are dealing that-
the separation from Mom and Dad right now is very difficult, it’s very challenging. It-it can- because Mom and Dad, this is- I
mean they start holding on. We’re good at zero to 10 years old, we accelerate
childhood milestones, and then during the teenage and young adult years, we start delaying
adulthood milestones. Zero to 10 we tell our kids, “Go, go, go,
go, go. Run, run, run, run, run. Faster, faster, faster.” And then when those engines inside of you
kick in, individualization and separation, you start taking off, that’s when Mom and
Day start saying, “Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. Slow down. You don’t need a full-time job, you’re
only 27-and-a-half. I need you to bring this thing back down a
bit.” [LAUGHTER] And I said, “Corynn, I’m not walking down
the aisle until I know he loves you as much as me, and here’s my parenting plan. And I don’t know if I’ll be perfect at
this. I don’t think so; I make mistakes. But Corynn, I want to show you to the best
of my ability every day how a queen should be treated. That’s my goal so you know what to look
for.” [APPLAUSE] Because I love it when a mom comes up to me
at a wedding and says, “I don’t feel like I’m losing a son today, I feel like I’m
gaining a daughter.” I say the same thing every time, “Nope,
you’re losing a son. And it’s time for you to back away so these
two can become one.” It’s one of my favorite moments at a wedding. [LAUGHTER] When dad turns to face his daughter, and I
always encourage them at the rehearsal, speak a blessing over your daughter. Don’t-don’t rush. You don’t have a clock, you don’t have
a microphone. We don’t need to create a YouTube moment. Just speak a blessing over your princess as
your princess gets ready to become this man’s queen. And it’s the same, the guy can be 6’8”,
280, when he turns to face his daughter this is all we hear. *Tearful mumbling*. Because we’re watching Genesis 2:24 take
place. A husband and wife, two becoming one. I want to rejoice and delight and praise your
young love today. I want to tell you, you got this. You can do this. And the culture’s telling you, “No you
can’t, you’re too young.” And I-I challenge the unnecessary delay of
marriage, but that doesn’t mean that I encourage the rushing of marriage. But I’m just saying, you can get married
and grow up together. You can pursue marriage and you can- you can
enjoy life together if you make that decision. Include it in your vows. Include it in your vows, because I meet couples
all the time that are walking away. I’ll never forget, uh on the East Coast,
years ago, a lady come up to me after a session I did called, “From Anger to Intimacy”. She was shaking she was so mad. And she walked right up to me and she said. “Pastor!” I was like, “Woah! Alright. Yeah?” She said, “I need to say something to you!” I was like, wow! I said, “What’s that?” “My husband left me! Do you know why he left me?” >> STUDENT: Why? [LAUGHTER] I said- I said, “I’m getting a little
picture of it, but it’s just a real small little picture of it.” [LAUGHTER] She said, “He left me because he couldn’t
handle being married to a successful woman!” I went, “Oh, boy.” Here’s a key relationship truth:
The issue is rarely ever the issue. Don’t sabotage your relationship over issues,
get below the surface of the issue. And I am here, I can say with confidence,
not even knowing this woman: her success did not cause her divorce. There was something else going on. I said, “Ma’am, can I pastor you for five
minutes?” I took her silence as consent. [LAUGHTER] “I noticed it from across the room.” She said, “What’s that?” I said, “The ginormous chip on your shoulder. I don’t know who said what, I don’t know
how long it’s been there. But I got great news for you today.” She goes, “What’s that?” I said, “You’re 100 percent responsible
for it. You can choose today what you are going to
do with it. You can stay angry and sabotage your next
relationship, or you can choose to resolve it. You can do something with it.” I taught her two things that day about anger
that a mentor shared with me 17-18 years ago. And it’s simply this, “Unresolved anger
is like drinking poison, expecting the other person to get sick.” I said, “Ma’am,” and I say this, this
comes from the heart of a pastor who loves you. You’re drinking this poison by the gallons
a day.” I said, “And the second thing about anger
that I’ve learned is you never bury anger dead, you always bury it alive. And it will resurface in another relationship
if you don’t deal with it, if you don’t do something with it.” And she was standing there next to her son. And I said, “If you’re not careful it’ll-
it’ll come out on him. I want to encourage you to resolve this anger.” I want to encourage you to do the same thing. For some of you, maybe you’re realizing
like, “Why-why can’t I keep a relationship? Why am I sabotaging every relationship that
I’m in?” “Above all else, guard your heart, for it
is the wellspring of life.” What do you need to resolve? I view anger like a pet, we just carry it
around with us everywhere we go. Uh, some of you can handle anger like a carnival
goldfish, you got it for a couple of days and then it’s-it’s gone, right? You don’t have it after that. Others carry I around like a guinea pig. I remember when my daughter wanted a guinea
pig we went into the pet store, and my daughter’s looking in the cage excited to get the guinea
pig. I call the sales associate to the side. I said, “Uh, yeah, Ma’am can you tell
me, how long is this thing going to live?” [LAUGHTER] And with enthusiasm, she said, “Five to
seven years.” I was like, “Ugh, uh I was thinking something
more like in the two-to-three-year range. What do you got in the two-to-the-three-year
range?” The smug sales associate looks at me and she
said, “Uh, Sir? Maybe you’re not ready for the responsibility
of a pet.” I said, “I don’t want the dang thing!” I’m trying to teach my daughter without
so much commitment, but that to me is always a picture when I see someone carrying around
unresolved anger. She’s holding this thing, carrying it around. And every day with their thoughts toward that
other person, in her case her ex-husband, who thinks- she thinks left her because of
her success. She’s just feeding this guinea pig. But you know I meet a lot of folks in church
ministry that they don’t even have a guinea pig, they got a parrot. I don’t know if you know this about parrots
but they outlive their owners. They- can you imagine? I mean going to the court, or you’re going
to the lawyer's office after someone dies and, yeah you get the house, you know you
get the accounts, and you get the bird. Like that’s what it feels like I’m getting. This is not good at all. [LAUGHTER] Liberty you shouldn’t laugh at that one,
you should keep that one down. But-but I- that was this lady, and I told
her, “You know what needs to happen to the bird? You need to take the bird down off your shoulder. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Resolve your anger.” Choosing to enjoy life and marriage. It’s a decision that you need to make early. It’s a decision that you need to work through,
and I’m grateful for this university. I’m grateful for what God is doing here. I’m grateful that 22 years later, my wife
and I we celebrate our anniversary this year, 22 years. We met at Liberty University. Many of you meeting today, meeting throughout
the week. I want to encourage you, don’t be afraid
of marriage. Hebrews 13:4 says marriage should be honored
by all, and the marriage bed kept pure. It simply is saying whether you’re young
or old, married or single, we’re all called to esteem marriage as highly valuable. And that is my prayer for you. Thank you Liberty University for having me
today. [APPLAUSE]
