5 Pillars of Intimacy (ft. Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo)

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Tuesday, June the 27th. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm Jon Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shaw, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions for Dr. Shaw or suggestions for new topics, send us a text, 252-582-5028. That's right. You guys can help us keep this conversation going by supporting the show, sharing it online, leaving us a good review on iTunes or Spotify. Absolutely nothing less than five stars. I will come to your house and I will harass you.

Do not test me. We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. And the verse of the day today comes from Mark chapter six, verse 34. And Jesus, when he came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd.

So he began to teach them many things. That's one thing we see constantly in the gospels is the crowds just flocking to Jesus, because they're looking for help. They're looking for miracles and they want attention. They see that he's doing something and they want to be part of it. So there is this desire like, God, whatever you're doing, Lord, let me just be here.

Do this for me. Just keep proving to me that you are who you say you are. And they're expecting him to do miracles and they're expecting him to perform signs. But Jesus knew better. He knew that these people needed shepherd. You know, they needed a teacher, someone to teach them solid, down to earth, practical teaching that comes from God himself. Sometimes I feel like we fall into the trap of mapping human frustration onto Jesus.

And certainly there were moments where, you know, he is both God and man. But Jesus looking out of the crowds, like we would be like, oh my gosh, there's so many people. I got to talk to all these people and somebody's going to get healed. And I got to teach them this.

And they don't understand this. No, Jesus was moved with compassion for them. He looks out and his heart goes out to them like a loving shepherd taking care of his sheep. He's like, these people need someone to lead them. They need God's hope and his love.

Yeah. And it's not the false compassion that we typically see today, like out in the culture on university campuses or on YouTube or Facebook or wherever. We see this false compassion that sort of rises. Oh, sorry. I thought I had to sneeze.

Sorry about that. We see this sort of false compassion that rises up like a sneeze. Yeah, no, but we see this false compassion that rises up out of this, this idea that I can benefit from this. I can get ahead if I capitalize on these people's suffering and put myself in this like morally superior place. That is not at all what Jesus did. Jesus said, listen, I can't be any more superior than I am right now. I want these people to know the truth.

I want them to come to know the father. And it was moved from a place of real genuine compassion for his creation. Dr. Shaw said it best before. If your compassion costs other people and not you, that's right. And it's not actual compassion. Compassion is someone else's expenses, not compassion.

But Jesus' compassion ultimately cost him everything. Amen to that. We're going to get Dr. Shawn in just a minute. We've got a great episode planned for you guys today. But if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028 or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com.

We'll be right back. Hey everyone, my name's Ellie and I'm David. We want to take a minute and let you know how we can actually serve you as you're listening to Clear View Today. The Bible paints an extraordinary picture of who we are as a church body. The mission of Clear View Church is to lead all people into a life-changing, ever-growing relationship with Jesus Christ. A huge part of leading people is praying for them. A big reason that Christians have unanswered prayers in their life is because they're not praying.

You know, 1 John 5 15 says, and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him. If you're listening to the Clear View Today show, we want to know how we can pray for you as well. There's a number of ways that you can get in touch with us at Clear View and share your prayer requests, but the best way is by texting us at 252-582-5028. You can also send us an email at prayer at ClearViewBC.org or you can download the Clear View app on iTunes or Google Play. You know, on that app, there's a dedicated prayer wall that helps us to get to know what's going on in your life, how we can pray for you and how we can take any necessary steps to get you moving in the right direction. Thanks for listening. Now let's get back to into the Clear View Today show. We want to welcome you, let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadan Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's show. You can find all of his work on his website.

That's abbadanshah.com. Why are you on my side? I'm really close to you. I feel like we need to just promote an atmosphere of closeness and bond. No? I like an atmosphere of hearty distance.

A healthy distance. He wants conflict. I want conflict.

You want conflict? You're in luck, because we're going to talk about that today. Dr. Shah, we've got some exciting guests on the show today. Do you want to introduce our special guest?

Absolutely. So, several years ago, we had the opportunity to listen to the podcast, number one marriage podcast, Tony and Lisa DiLorenzo. It was recommended to us by a friend. And at first, I didn't want to listen to it. I was like, no, I have too many things to do.

And I counsel people regularly about marriage. I don't need to listen to that. And so, they said, no, just listen to it. And it was Nicole. And so, we were headed to Virginia, actually, for me to get a marriage license to marry in the Commonwealth. And we listened on the way. And I was like, wow. I was touched.

I was hooked. And before we know it, we had them here several times. So, Tony and Lisa DiLorenzo, welcome to our show. Thank you for having us. We're glad to be here. Thank you. Yeah. Always, always a pleasure and an honor to be up here with you guys.

Absolutely. Is it like a second home now? It kind of feels that way. It definitely feels like we're coming home when we come here to Clearview. Did you ever imagine that would ever happen? I mean, just like on the East Coast.

North Carolina. You're going to make friends for life and be coming out this way and staying and hanging out. No. And you know what? God moves. And I'm so glad He did because, literally, Elisa and I live in San Diego, as you know. And so often, we talk about our Clearview family and those that are here and how blessed we are to know you guys. You, Pastor Shaw and Nicole and everybody here on the team and just having that awesome relationship because we look forward to coming out here.

We really do. And I was telling our guys, we look forward to having you guys here. It's fun. It's exciting.

It's a learning experience. And our church family looks forward to seeing you all again. Amen.

That's right. Do you want to kind of maybe recap us on, because you guys have been on some of our shows before, but never on Clearview today. Do you want to kind of recap how we got started doing the conferences here at Clearview? Yeah. So Jason and Lana, members of our church, we kind of talked amongst ourselves because what you guys were doing was so such a blessing to us.

And we wanted to open that up here. And so I believe it was back in 2020. That was the first time, right? No. 2019.

Yes. 2020 is a whole other story. But 2019, we worked it out where you guys came here and did a marriage conference. We had people from everywhere come.

Yeah. I think we had close to 200 couples at that event. Was that your first live conference or one of your firsts? One of the firsts. One of the firsts. Here on the East Coast. First on the East Coast.

Okay. And I think we actually had 10 states, if I remember correctly, 10 states represented all along the East Coast. And so that was exciting for us to come.

Had never been to Henderson and here we are. And it was such an excellent team and family here that it made it easy for us to want to come back. I remember that. I mean, it was awesome. And it touched lives. And we have couples today who still talk about that 2019.

And then we had them come back in 2020. And so everything is going great. And then right about, I think it was like end of January into February, we're talking about, there's this shutdown maybe happening.

It was like a hiccup almost. It's not happening. We don't know what's happening and all that. And we're like, what did you do?

We're just going to move forward with this. And we did. It was the week before everything shut down and we were here and we gave it our all. And I think, you know, we look back now and I do believe as tough as that was for so many of us and Alisa and I included, I do believe what we poured in that day into those couples, I believe it impacted them definitely throughout the shutdowns and everything that each of us had to address and go through during the pandemic. And so we still went and we still had an amazing time. Literally the world shut down four days later.

That was the last live event that we did before COVID was here. And it was such almost just a real experience. And it's always weird now coming back because I remember those memories are so vivid. Well, I see pictures on my phone sometimes of us because we went and hung out downtown Raleigh. We stayed there for a couple of days and we would take walks and it was like weird.

Nobody on the streets. I mean, people are wearing masks and it's all like, it's like the walking dead out here. What is happening here? You know, is this really going to happen? And then of course, four days later it happened. We were rushing home. We were like on those flights trying to get home because everything was shutting down. And you know, we want to get back to our children. And so just making sure we're getting on flights and getting back to California before everything did. Yeah. Yeah.

Cause nobody knew how it was going to turn out. But yeah, it's been exciting what God is doing. Even through all this craziness, God is still God and Jesus is still changing lives. And so we're so glad to have you guys back.

Thank you. How did you get your start in marriage and family? Because I know that's the focus of your podcast and it's kind of sort of the focus of your whole ministry is like marriage counseling and writing books and producing podcasts and content. Why marriage and family specifically? The short answer, because we were really bad at it and we were really dysfunctional for a long period of time. And you know, when we needed help, when we needed resources, we couldn't find anything that simply spoke to us that sounded like an ordinary couple just dealing with ordinary challenges. You know, Tony likes to joke. He's like, it just felt like they were old white guys saying, you know, go date your wife or have a conversation.

He's like, what do I do with that? And there was no, there was no like in between. And so as we went and had seen freedom and breakthrough in our own marriage, that's where things started to change. We got asked to speak at the time at the church, we were attending to speak at the marriage getaway. And so we, we shared there like this whole experience that we had. And it was after that people were coming up to us going, well, what's next? And I remember looking around cause I, at the time I owned another business, I was just running my own, my other business.

We had younger children. I'm thinking what's next? I'm like, we're good. We're going to get you to grow our marriage and we're going to continue to do that because we believe in that. And then it was a little bit after that where we continue to hear people. And that's when we took that step of faith of just going, you know what, we're going to speak into this. We need to, we need to speak into this because if we're not hearing it and we're not finding it, then there are many, many others who aren't. And so we need to step in. And that's where it all began in 2010. January, 2010 was the first episode we released of the One Extraordinary Marriage Show. Wow.

I was graduating high school. Yeah. So there you go. 2010. That's incredible. Wow.

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. And I mean, you guys have, have recorded tons of episodes since then. You talked about everything under the sun and I mean, there's more content coming. Let's talk for a minute about the, the books, the writing, what, what led you from podcasting and a show like that where people would listen to, to actually putting resources in people's hands. The truth of the matter is, is that couples that are married want books. I mean, it's one thing to be able to consume information.

I mean, obviously everybody's listening to Clear View today and keep listening, but you can only do so much with what you hear. And it's how do we, our mission has always been to equip couples with the tools and strategies that they need and books become one of those strategies where you can go back, you can highlight, you can dog ear, you can hand it to your spouse and be like, I really need you to read this section or even read it out loud to them. But it's that, it's that consumable information that you can take action on instead of just hearing it in your ears. I think that's, I think that's, you know, great advice, even outside the realm of marriage and family, just with any content that you produce. I know that's something that you were talking to me about, Dr. Shah, is that you, you put in all this work to get the PhD, but if you don't produce, you know, if you don't write, if you don't contribute to the field, then what do you, what do you, what did you get it for? That's right. It is to equip people. And I think that's exactly what y'all are doing.

And that's what we're trying to do is to equip people and to help them grow in Christ, to help them make wise decisions. And that's why we even have you on the show because this is also part of, we talk about marriage and family on the show and you guys have written two books. And the first one is, well, you've written many books, but this one is Six Pillars of Intimacy. This came out, when did it come out? That's November.

2021. That's right. And, and then recently another book, Six Pillars, kind of based off of this, of Intimacy Conflict Resolution. Great book. Great book.

Yeah. And that book really came, the second book, Six Pillars of Intimacy Conflict Resolution came out of, you know, thousands of hours of coaching couples and individuals and seeing that virtually every coaching session I have has some form of conflict in it. And recognizing that people don't know what they don't know about conflict. They just know how they react to it and what the dance looks like.

And so we wanted to be able to equip, Hey, here's what it looks like. Here's where some of these patterns started from and came from, and here's what you're doing. But just because you've done it doesn't mean you have to keep doing it that way. Well, I like how you put conflict, you kind of frame it as it's a dance. You know what I mean?

There's steps that you have to take. And it's not that, like, I recently took dance lessons with my wife, I think at your request. And, you know, dance, this is a really ham-handed analogy. But for me, a dance was like something I'm like, I'm just going to avoid this. I don't want to dance.

Dance is not a thing. And I feel like people think that with conflict too. Like, this is not a useful thing in marriage. Conflict is something to just avoid at all costs. But, you know, that's not really conducive to a healthy relationship.

Not at all. Because, you know, there's a quote that I have in the book that says you repeat what you don't repair. And so if you don't repair your marriage, the areas where there are differences and things like that, you're going to keep having those fights over and over again and they'll escalate and they'll become more intense and then you'll just disconnect and nobody gets married to be disconnected from their spouse. Well, the first conflict began with the first couple. And at the root of that was sin, right? I mean, they lost that sense of trust, began to blame each other.

And when God came and confronted them, you know, Adam's response was this woman that you gave me. Yeah. Right. And can you imagine? I mean, they're living. It's not a perfect world.

It's an excellent world. It's without sin. And all of a sudden they're blaming each other.

Imagine that. People who walked with God blaming each other and there's conflict in that home. And then of course, you know, there were other things that happened.

You know, Cain killed Abel. Imagine children bringing conflict in the marriage. So the Bible does not shy away from those subjects. It actually talks about them because this is normal part of life. And I think hearing that is transformative for people because a lot of times you feel like I'm the only one who deals with this. This is only true for my marriage. It's only true for me and my spouse. This is not a struggle for anyone else. Dr. Shah, have you seen that in your interactions with people, even just like in a pastoral counseling role, people feel this sort of isolation, like I'm the only one struggling with this. No one else has a problem. They don't want to get help because they feel like if I say I need help or if I, you know, go to a marriage conference, cause we, we announce it all the time.

Like the recently we did and, and Ryan, I mean, he hits it hard every service. Hey, there is a marriage conference here, a seminar here on Sunday evening, two hours will radically change your lives. It'll help your marriage. And, but people are like, if I go, people think I'll have problems. Everybody has problems. It's how you handle them.

How do you deal with them? And here's, you know, here's some help, especially men. We were just talking about that a few moments ago. Right?

Yeah. And what I have seen over the years is bringing that stuff up, like bringing it to light on the show. Let's talk about these tough topics.

How are we dealing with it? Because for me, when I get behind my microphone, I really go, okay, who's that one couple we're going to impact today. And if they're going through this, how can I help them see that they're not alone? They're not the only ones dealing with this. Maybe Elise and I have even ourselves gone through that, the same struggle.

And if it's not us, maybe it's somebody else in the one family. And so we can show and give perspective so that they go, it's time for us to get it. Like it's time for us to take that step to go, okay, maybe it is just picking up a book. That's a big step for some people. For others, it might mean, Hey, I'm going to get marriage coaching.

For others, you know, it may mean we're going to go on a, on a retreat, a getaway, whatever that is, but helping them to go, you're not the only one. And if you get in this place, you're going to be around people who are going through the exact same thing or similar. I've never seen anybody come to the conference or watch this show or read a book or read one of these books and say, well, that was a total waste of time to work out. Maybe there's some out there, but I haven't because they all walk up and going, yeah, the things I need to work on, you know, and then dilly dally, but, but they never walk away going, yeah, that was not worth it. And you can never blame someone else for your marriage failing. You know, there's only two people. So either it's all her fault or, you know, there's something, I can't blame Ryan because my marriage is disconnecting or Dr. Scott, because me and Ellie aren't connecting.

There's only the two of us. So if I'm truly proud enough to say it's all Ellie and not me, it's like, okay, you've, you've got some other issues you've got to face. Or it's the fact that, hey, we're both sinful people and we both need Jesus Christ first and foremost, but then we need a body of believers around us to strengthen us and encourage us. Well, you know, the Bible says it's not good for man to be alone. And that wasn't just referring to wife, but I really think referring to community. And what does that look like when, when you're in a church community, when you're in that body of Christ and you can say, hey, we're going through this. It really does weaken the enemy's hold over your marriage, over that conflict, because now you're bringing light onto it. And when you step into that, what, what is the freedom that can come in your marriage? Right.

Right. The Bible talks a lot about this. You know, I had a passage open while y'all were talking. It's from second Corinthians five, 17. It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. And the very next verse, which is verse 18 says, now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, powerful ministry of reconciliation. So this is not just optional, but helping people manage conflicts, whether it's in marriage or family or in the church family or the community where we are, people are divided. This is part of what we're supposed to do. That's right.

That's exactly right. He has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Hence you're on the show.

Hence we're talking about conflict, resolution. Well, and the great thing about the newest book is anybody can use it. And Alisa writes the book there.

It is Alisa DiLorenzo with Tony DiLorenzo. I give my insights to it. And I have seen her step into places and speak to corporate individuals, pastors, leaders to go, this is happening in different places. But once you learn this and how you use it, you can do exactly what you say. You can reconcile in those relationships, no matter if it's in the church body, in the office or at home. And this could be between you and a child, because we have conflict with children.

Those of us who have children, all of us do. We know the conflict that can arise from that. And yet if we look at this, it's going, okay, how can I change the dynamic so that I can reconcile with them? So I draw them closer. That's right.

That's right. It's one of those things that I think people don't really take to heart that I'm with this person for the rest of my life. And I made a vow that we're going to be together forever. You know what I mean? Early on in our marriage, I was like, I don't really have anything to fight about.

This is great. But then as you start doing life with this person, I was drawn by something you said, that everybody has such different reactions to conflict. And a lot of times we think that those reactions don't play into the actual conflict themselves. The conflict is all that matters. How we react to it doesn't actually matter. But really, the reactions end up being a bigger deal than their original conflict was. Oh, in a lot of cases.

Absolutely. Because whether you're rolling your eyes or you're huffing and puffing or you're leaving the room or doing whatever, now we get so fixated on your reaction that you forget what the problem was. And that's how it repeats itself.

Because if we don't actually address what the problem is and we're just fixated on the reaction, then it becomes a me versus you type of thing instead of saying, hey, what's drawing us apart from one another? Now, one of the things y'all talk about in the book is the conflict cycle. Yep. Talk a little bit about that. Well, you know, early on when I was working with couples, I would see that they would be able to, you know, I was like, well, tell me what your fights look like.

Right. And it's really interesting when you stop and are asked that question, how many people can take you through, well, if I say this, then my spouse is going to say this and then, well, and then this happens and then here's what happened. And I realized that everyone was describing that. And so, you know, it's a pattern. And what really, as a coach, what I find helps is that if people can diagram their patterns and see it in black and white, if they write it down, then they can take power over their patterns. They become empowered to make different choices and to own the choices that they are making. And that's where the breakthrough and the freedom comes. That's right.

Yeah. Patterns help us in any aspect of life. Once you see a pattern regarding something, whether it's weather or this and that, you're able to then navigate through that and know what you can control, what you can't. And there are things you cannot control and you have to give them over to God and say, God, you handle this. Then there are things you can control, whether it's your mouth or whether it's your, you know, actions or how you non-verbals. I mean, all those things are, you know, controllable. That's in our hands again to the Holy Spirit.

Sure. Well, I'm glad you tacked that on at the end because I do believe it's that grace that the Holy Spirit gives us to take control of it. Cause I'm the type of person to where I'll try to control the things I can't control and then give up control of the things that I actually can change. I'm like, ah, that's just me. I can't do anything about it.

I'm going to fixate on this stuff over here that I can't control. And it's through the Holy Spirit's grace that that pattern can be broken. Well, and I think what you just said there, John, you know, that expression, that's just me. And the reality is that if we believe that God is within us, then we're not just me.

It's not just us. We have the power to become more Christ-like, to take, you know, self-control is there, to use the self-control that we have within us to create change and not to just default to who we think we are or the way that we've been. And I love that because, you know, Dr. Shaw, I like the verse that you read, we're a new creation in Christ. So the just us may have been the old sinful us. But like you said, Alyssa, it's not just us anymore.

We're us plus. Jesus is with us. And you know, we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us and we are able to, you know, like you said, Dr. Shaw, have that ministry of reconciliation.

So important. One of the frustrations that Christian couples have, now this, I believe this book can help anybody, whoever you are, whether you're a believer or not, it has principles in there that will help you. If you know Christ as your savior, I promise you, you have somebody helping you other than just you following the instructions in the book.

But what I'm trying to get to is this. It's a sinful self. When we get saved, of course, God is with us. The Holy Spirit is with us. The truth is before us.

But it doesn't mean that all of a sudden, you know, all your old problems are gone or your selfish behavior is gone or your tendencies are done with. It's a struggle. You have to learn, okay?

You have to learn. Discipleship. This is, in a sense, discipleship.

And so it's a lifelong process. So especially Christian couples don't get discouraged when you have conflicts or you get angry or the old self comes out and the venom comes out. God is dealing with you. He's helping you.

Take the help. And these are one of the tools that will help you. And I would say on the backside of that, because we are, at least I've been married 26 years, so we've gone through a lot in our years. And as we even get older and our kids are leaving, there are still issues that come up.

And so we use what we teach because that's where we are. And then on the other side of that, though, is the ability to forgive. You have to look at, when we look at conflict resolution, especially for believers, are we able to forgive?

Doesn't mean we forget what happened, but we are releasing that to God and allowing God to take care of that issue, the problem that we've gone through and going, it is finished and we're going to move forward. That's right. Amen. That's awesome. Dr.

Shallow, as we close, we have just a little bit of time left. Who could benefit from these books from Tony and Alisa or from the One Extraordinary Marriage podcast? Oh, absolutely.

I would say if you are, if you don't believe in Christ, you can still benefit from the principles, whether in the book or the One Extraordinary Marriage podcast, which is tremendous. There are so many, how many episodes are there now? 760.

760. I promise you, every one of them, just click on it and listen to it. You'll find something that will help you in your marriage and your relationships. So that will help you.

But if you're believers, it will definitely help you because, you know, God wants us to get help. He wants us to find wisdom and you guys operate from that mindset. And I'm grateful for you guys. We are very thankful that God's using you and you're in our prayers. Thank you guys so much for being on the show today. Tony and Alisa DiLorenzo of the One Extraordinary Marriage podcast. If you're not listening already, make sure you go check out their podcast and the resources available to you as well. If you enjoyed today's episode, if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028. If you'd like to know about more resources like we talked about today, text in, let us know. We'd love to resource you in that way. Visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com. And don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Click that donate button. Let us know what's coming from the Clearview Today Show family. Love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clear View Today.