The Healing Journey of Marriage

coming up on marriage today with Jimmy and Karen in marriage there are rejected differences there are tolerated differences and there are celebrated differences the healing takes place when you start celebrating your differences our whole book is about differences right and strengths so we're different by God's design that's what our book is about is we're different by God's design and it's respecting that difference that turns a dangerous difference into a dynamic event [Music] this message is called the healing journey of marriage and it surprises some people to hear that God designed marriage to heal us an oxymoron is a self contradictory statement and so the healing journey of marriage sounds like an oxymoron to some people because marriage has damaged so many people so deeply and sometimes it may not be their marriage but it may be their parents marriage or you know someone that's an environment that they grew up with in the damaged them or it could have been a previous marriage or two or three that deeply damaged them so to hear that marriage is a healing journey is is a shocking thing let me say Canon I began in marriage hurting each other deeply damaging each other to the brink of divorce then we healed each other and our marriage today we live in a healed happy marriage because we found God's Way miraculously and by the grace of God we found God's wife and so I want to begin with four simple but profoundly important facts related to marriage in marriage being a healing journey number one is God created marriage the government did not create marriage lawyers did not create marriage lonely Neanderthals did not create marriage okay marriage was created in Genesis chapter one by God himself it came from God number two God created marriage to bless us marriage was created in a place called Eden it was a paradise and the name eden means pleasure and delight God made marriage to give us pleasure and delight not to hurt us from it number four rebellion to God's Word caused the pall of marriage and the destruction of society in Genesis chapter three when God had created Adam and Eve created marriage Satan intruded into the Garden of Eden in the form of a serpent and he began to tempt Eve with these words has God surely said the first thing he did was to question the integrity of God's words and Eve said we can't eat that fruit because we'll die and the devil said to Eve you will not die but they did die but dibbles a liar and he always lies he comes to tell us that the Word of God isn't true and if we rebel against it there won't be consequences look around ladies and gentlemen in America today there are consequences to rebelling against the Word of God marriage doesn't work today because we've thrown away the Word of God and when you throw away the word nothing works but when you come back and this is statement number four returning to God's Word heals us and restores us to God's plan for marriage and for life and this is the scripture that I ask you to turn to Psalm 107 verse 20 he sent His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions it is coming back to the Word of God that heals us heals our marriages heals our families the way that God designed so bad marriages it's not God's fault what's happening in our culture related to marriage it's not God's fault it is because we have rejected the Word of God and returning to the Word of God will bring us healing and so it's a very special scripture to Karen and me in our marriage but Ken and I work grew up in non-christian homes and dysfunctional you know there was our parents were wonderful and they did a lot of good things but we both came out of childhood wounded and we married and and I describes sometimes trying to love each other was like two porcupines trying to get close is it was very painful we both had wounds from our past and we all do we had wounds from our past and we touched each other's wounds and that's what happens when you get married you marry a person who is wounded and it's inevitable that we are going to touch each other's wounds is so we fought and we fought and we fought and Karen did something very very important for our marriage that changed our marriage we fighting with me was not a good thing to do because Karen would engage me and she would begin to fight with me Karen doesn't think is fast talking as I do I'm a very fast talker think on my feet because that's what God told me to do it takes Karen longer to process you know thoughts and feelings than me so wasn't a fair fight I mean I could just drill her with words and overwhelm her and she would go off crying and I bought I won I didn't ever win any of those kinds of advice but one day Karen did something very smart and she stopped fighting with me and she got along with God and said to the Lord this is not about Jimmy you heal me the best thing ever happened with our marriage and I've never known a day in our marriage in 43 years that karen has not woken up and read God's Word and when I say read God's Word I'm talking about ours Karen Karen is in the Word of God every single morning and so she spends time in the Word of God well the Word of God heal Karen psalm 107:20 says God sent His Word to heal them and deliver them from their destructions as Karen began to get healed it just highlighted how sick I was and ultimately it's what changed me we had a huge fight the Lord broke through my heart I began to see you know how bad I had been and that began the the healing journey of our marriage and so I want to begin with the premise in this message and this is a very important premise in this message we seek marriage for many reasons but one of the most important is that we are all in complete and unhealed and we're looking for a spouse to fix that why do we choose the spouse that we choose it's because we're in complete and unhealed and we're looking for a spouse to change that Karen and I dated and I think like most people date we fell in love we were I met Karen when we were sophomores at tennis coast of high school and we were in sophomore biology class together and I thought that she was very beautiful and I asked her out in May of that year I asked her out to a three dog night concert how many of you remember three dog night raise your hands encouraged me yeah it's not the younger people that raised their hand it's the mature people like me but we went to a three orgonite concert and we loved each other and so we dated for a while and but as soon as I secured the relationship with Karen I began to take her and I think that's very common and we began to find I call it the performance phase of the relationship we were performing for each other and putting our best foot forward but as soon as we had secured each other that's when we began to act normal which for me was not good and we began to fight like cats and dogs which led us to you know the brink of divorce now I've written a new book HarperCollins is the publisher and my co-author is Alan Kelsey and our book is called strengths-based marriage and the strength finders for those of you who are in business strength finders is the number one business book in the world 12 million people have taken the Clifton strengths finder assessment and the Clifton strengths finder is there are 34 strengths and we all have certain strengths and weaknesses but there are 34 strengths these are really really brilliantly done in Allen my co-author he is he's an expert and so I wrote it from the marriage perspective he wrote it from the strength perspective but there are 34 strengths and so all of us have certain strengths and certain weaknesses so Alan did tested Karen and me and so my number one strength is called achiever an achiever just means get it done I wake up in the morning I'm gonna get it done I'm gonna Cheever my number 34 strength is empathy empathy means just feeling feeling other people's pain and being in touch with the emotions around you okay so I'm number one achiever number 34 empathy Karen is number one empathy and number 34 achiever we are exact opposites Alan Alan said I don't know that I've ever tested two people who are more opposite than you and Karen you're upside down it for many years you're upset so so I'm an achiever I wake up I get it done Karen is empathy she feels Karen lives and I feel she's very healthy by the way I'm not talking this isn't a bad thing it's a good thing but Karen feels okay I don't feel I mean I guess I feel things you know what but an example of how don't feel is sometimes I'll have a toothache and my teeth start hurting well when my teeth start hurting I know I have a headache and so when my teeth start hurting I'll think to myself I better have a headache and I'll think about it for a minute or two and I realize I have a terrible headache and I've had it for several days and people say and people say well you just don't feel headaches I don't feel like other people I just don't why I don't know I just don't feel but my wife feels for me she she lives in a constant feeling when I'm talking to Karen on the phone when she's in the car I'm getting a rundown on everybody in her life that she's passing every bump in the road all the traffic all the people who pull in front of her and sometimes when we're talking on the phone when she's driving on his head say focus focus I just want to talk about what we're having for supper I don't want to hear about everybody on the road okay we were eating dinner one night we were eating at a restaurant and we had a bad waitress she's she was just a bad waitress and she's slow we couldn't find her she got the order wrong all that kind of stuff and so I realized about halfway through dinner that Karen was focused on that waitress and I knew what was about to happen I believe with the sister of many years I knew was about to happen and I said leave it alone and she said no there's something wrong with that waitress I'm gonna find out what it is this is leave it alone we're we're gonna eat and go we're not here to fix anybody tonight okay we're just gonna eat leave okay and we will feel like we've achieved something it wasn't two seconds that waitress was over and Karen had all of her personal history and ministered to her and you know and and when it was over I just thought well that was real touching you know that was just that was great but but her emotions make me nervous to this day they just make me nervous you know cuz I just don't feel but so we're different we're different well here's what happened early in our marriage I would just say you're weird what's wrong with you you feel too much you don't you're not supposed to feel everything you know and I would just shame her and she did the same with me we just sit rejected each other and when we were hurting each other that's what we did and then as our marriage matured I remember the conversation that we had one day and Karen said to me she said Jimmy I am sorry I am so sorry for how I feel I know it bothers you I know that you you think that I feel too much and I'm gonna try I'm gonna try not to I'm sorry and here's what I said to Karen I'm in it from the bottom of my heart Karen I'm I need someone like you in my life please don't stop feeling see in marriage there are rejected differences there are tolerated differences and there are celebrated differences the healing takes place when you start celebrating your differences Karen and I are a great team we really are a great team it's a family unit what I do really well Karen doesn't care much about what Karen does really well I don't care that much about we do some things together obviously and we enjoy being together but we make such a good team see a good team is not made up of people who do the same things there's only one quarterback you know there's there's only one person who plays each position but you have to have all the positions to make a team I don't need someone like me I need someone different but the problem is we're looking for someone who is our compatible opposite more dating as soon as we get them we begin to shame them and reject them because they're not like us because we don't understand what God is doing in my case emotions Karen is supplying in my life what's lacking so when Karen feels after 43 years of marriage when Karen feels today I don't shame her reject her I listen to it in fact I go to Karen sometimes say let me tell me how I'm feeling and I don't know I'll say how am I feeling about this and Karen's like well you're feeling this I'll think really yeah think about it for a little while I think that's what I'm feeling she's an expert theater she's just a great Peter Jimmy Evans do you want to get it done I'm your guy I'm an achiever I'm gonna get it done I'll kill some people in the meanwhile but I'll get it done thank God for Karen she's getting me out of so much trouble you are wired to find your opposite celebrate it don't reject it well hope that teaching blesses you it's called the healing journey of marriage and God designed a marriage to heal us now that's hard for a lot of people to believe early in our marriage ken and i wounded each other and that's many people experience that but when you do it correctly marriage heals you that's the way God designed it that's the purpose of this teaching has helped us to understand that so hope it blesses you you know we're a ministry we're a mission we go across America around the world helping people understand God's design for marriage and how they can thrive in marriage and we also want to keep little children's parents together to keep families together that's what we do and we need your financial help right now for your gift of any amount to help us with the mission and ministry of marriage today we want to send you this message right here the full message you just heard part of it today the CD single or the mp3 download we'll get that to you for your gift of any amount to help us here at marriage today also for your gift of $55 or more we'll send you the strength based marriage book tremendous resource and it also has over two hours a video resource footage as a part of the book it comes with the book Allen Kelsey and I have written this book to help people understand their strengths and how we differ in marriage but when you understand it how it really builds a strong marriage and also with your gift of $55 or more we're gonna send you the lifelong love affair CDs series it's a another seminar that I do just more blessing more understanding in marriage and for your gift of $90 or more we're gonna send you the strength based marriage book along with lifelong love affair but it's the DVD series four-part gonna bless you gonna help your marriage and maybe you know someone that they're struggling in their marriage maybe someones single or divorced or just struggling in their marriage and you want to get these resources for yourself and maybe pass them on to somebody else or even give them as a gift right now as you give to marriage today you're helping us to take this message back to you also around the world is we also want to bless you here's how you can get these resources discover you and your spouse's unique strengths and how they affect every part of your relationship strengths based marriage a new book from Jimmy Evans and Gallup certified strengths coach Alan Kelsey takes the concepts from the popular Clifton strengths finder assessment and applies them to marriage there are 34 strengths that describe the way that you are motivated to behave in any given situation understanding your strengths and how they were like the marriage is life changing support marriage today with your best online gift of any amount and we'll send you the healing journey of marriage get the book strengths-based marriage for your gift of $55 or more over two hours of video footage from the authors is included with the book purchase will also include Jimmy's popular CD series of lifelong love affair for your gift of $90 or more you'll receive the strengths-based marriage book with video footage plus the entire lifelong love affair series on DVD build a stronger relationship by understanding each other's gifts get your copy today [Music] I'm Jimmy Evans this is my co-author Alan Kelsey and we have written the book strengths-based marriage we want to kind of go more in depth on these teachings to help you and the the chapter that I chose is the secret of successful communication and in the secret of successful communication Alan the thing I like about my part in the chapter and you wrote a phenomenal part in the chapter related to strengths but the most important need of a man is the need for respect and the most important need of a woman is the need for security I know that when a woman feels secure she's she's at ease she feels happy when a man is respected he's happy if you take security away from a woman and honour away from a man you can give them just about anything else they're not happy why so a sacrificial sensitive man makes his wife feel secure and by sacrificial insensitive it means I'm connected and and no one else is more important than you yeah and I'll sacrifice I'll say no to work I'll say no to friends to say yes to you and so when a man is communicating with his wife the words don't matter if you're not speaking her language of security you say anything you want to say and so early in our marriage I was golfed all the time worked all the time my heart was not at home and Karen would have come and talked to me and she was fishing for my heart you know she was trying to get me to reconnect to her the kids just the well-being of the home and I saw it hurt as being a nag unhappy just in just being disrespectful yeah so I completely rejected that well we spent years in our marriage frustrated until I learned what I said wasn't the issue is I was not making her feel secure that's why I couldn't communicate with her I know where's it you could be a masterful communicator yeah but if you're an idiot it doesn't matter I was not a matchbook vehicle but I wasn't so until I realized that when I'm talking with Karen regardless of what the issue is yeah I have to encrypt my words with a spirit with an attitude that says you come first so that had to be an intentional action you had to just decide you were gonna do that well but it's part of realizing the difference in your spouse so we this our whole book is about difference that's right and strengths so we're different by God's design that's what our book is about is we're different by God's design and it's respecting that difference that turns a dangerous difference into a dynamic difference right I'll talk about your part of the show well you know you did such a great job setting up the front half of the chapter talking about these two mega needs and I picked up on this this idea of what you say and how you say it and I felt like from a strength perspective some of the greatest value we can bring is to identify these two very natural things that we do as people whether we're even aware of it or not and one of them is to kind of play down the strong parts of who we are because we get told you know that's too sharp you need to just soften that a little bit for the sake of everybody else but you know very well as an ice skater if you round off the sharp edge of the blade on your ice skates you're useless you're gonna fall all over the place you're gonna end up with a you know wet behind but I mean you put a clean sharp edge on the blade of that on that skate and people can do miraculous things on a slippery surface that you are never to be able to do they can leap off the ice they can land on one leg they can spin in twirl these things shouldn't be able to happen but it's because there's an edge there but the world says your edge is scary you need to shave it off and so we we wish we shrink back we minimize our strengths and that's one of the tendencies that we have that we do and I think it's bad for us it's bad for our marriages and the other idea that I talked about in our in the book is that we tend to project our strengths now projecting our strengths is probably worse than minimizing minimizing hurts me projecting hurts you and I basically say that you're not okay until you see the world the way I see a vest very common and boy we just do that to each other all the time we do it to our kids we do to our co-workers we certainly do it to our spouse and I just wanted to point those teeth to two things out from a strength perspective to help folks understand men I'm doing this and I don't even know I'm doing it well I believe you're getting the best of Allen Kelsie Jimmy Evans in this book strengths based marriage along with all the expertise of the Clifton strengths finder to help you to understand your strengths your spouse's strengths and to have a stronger marriage thank you for joining us god bless you [Music] [Music] well Alan Kelsey is the strength expert we've written the book strength-based marriage and I wrote it from the perspective of marriage he wrote it from the perspective of taking our strengths 34 strengths Karen and I are very different and we're different by God's design see a lot of people have the misconception of believing that compatibility means that we're the same in marriage that's not what compatibility means we are different by God's design god wired us to find our compatible opposite and compatibility means we have the same basic beliefs beliefs in God we have the same basic values in life we have the same basic character and we believe in the same basic things and we want the same things for our future and for our children and things like that that's what makes you compatible but regardless of how compatible you are and I hope you're compatible you're very different we have different strengths Karen's number-one strength is mine number 34 and my number one strength is Karen's number 34 and early in our marriage we fought like cats and dogs we rejected each other we just each other we didn't realize that we were a team that you know when you put a team together you don't want one person playing every position of the words you don't want 11 quarterbacks on the football field you have one quarterback and then you have tackles and guards and ends everybody else but somehow in marriage we think that a good team means we're both just a life well that's not it at all when God created Adam and Genesis chapter 2 God said it's not good for that man to be alone I'm gonna create a helper means aids or it means someone to supply what's lacking Eve wasn't another Adam like this she complimented him she was equal but she complimented him that's the way God designed marriage we hope that this program has been a blessing to you there's gonna be a reminder in just a minute about the resources that we're offering today the strength based marriage book I hope you you'll get that it will really bless you let me also say that the heart of this ministry the backbone of our ministry financially our pressure partners that stand with us every month they give to us every single month we have different levels they're gonna find out in just a minute how you can become a partner with us if you're not a partner already but I just want to say thank you for the to those of you who do support us financially we can't do what we do without you there's a world in need marriages are under attack like never before but we're here to give hope and encouragement to couples to singles to young people that you can make it in marriage you have a 100% chance of success of marriage when you do it God's Way become a partner with us and here's how you can do it going through divorce is a lot to ask of children and often results in years of emotional pain it's a violent ripping a part of their parents and a sense of abandonment what sometimes we see as a quick way out can mean complete loss for a child you have a 100% chance of success in marriage you were made for marriage marriage today exists to protect children from the pain of divorce antisera couples away from marital failure by telling them the truth when you stand with marriage today your individual effort multiplies with other like-minded partners and together we can rebuild a legacy of strong families around the world choose your level of partnership today and receive immediate access to the video streaming library become a rock solid partner today thank you for watching marriage today with Jimmy & Karen subscribe to marriage today's YouTube channel for more marriage building videos and updates you

Channel: XO Marriage

Views: 61,851

Rating: 4.900208 out of 5

Keywords: marriage, marriage counseling, marriage help, marriage advice, relationships, relationship help, counseling, Christian counseling, divorce, husband, wife, issues, fixing your marriage, love, marriagetoday, Jimmy Evans, wedding, wedding planning

Id: Rofjg80Bl3I

Length: 26min 44sec (1604 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 12 2018