And if I can get my significance and my identity in who I am in Him, I now get to show up and show love and affection to my kids, show love and affection to my wife out of that without trying to find significance anywhere else. And even if Christie's coming at me with her arrows, I know where I'm grounded and rooted and I can say, listen, I can be humble enough to go, I really wasn't the best there. And I'm sorry.
Will you forgive me? Well, that's Dr. Josh Straub describing how to prioritize relationships in your family, even in the midst of a career and busy schedules and everything else you're trying to juggle every day. We're featuring Josh and his wife Christie today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.
Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. John, I don't think anybody wakes up in the morning and decides I'm going to ruin my marriage today, neglect my kids, undermine the stability of my home. It's just not what you're intending to do. But man, out of control, busyness and all the challenges in life.
It kind of looks like sometimes that's the goal. And I get it. I mean, I'm traveling a lot. Thankfully, Jean's able to travel with me a bit more now that our boys are kind of self-sustaining. And, you know, that's a good, good time of life to be. But I can remember all those trips and Jean just grabbed me saying, man, I need more of your time here at home. And I had to hear that and listen to that and slow down a bit. So, you know, this is part of what we want to talk about today, because it's so critical in creating a healthy home, not a perfect home, a healthy home.
Yeah, yeah. And we have great help and insights from Josh and Christie Straub. They're popular authors, speakers and leadership coaches. And they're in the trenches. They've got three children at home and together they've written a book called Famous at Home, Seven Decisions to Put Your Family Center Stage in a World Competing for Your Time, Attention and Identity. And of course, we have details about the Straubs and this great book at our website.
And the link is in the show notes. Here now, Jim is how you began the conversation on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. We live in this competitive world of achievement and success, especially in the West. I mean, we're just built for that. If you're not the A student, if you're not the quarterback, if you're not the gold medal winner and swimming and soccer and then, you know, what's wrong? And it isn't healthy.
And we kind of know why. But what does that look like to lower that stress and really concentrate on being famous at home, not just for the kids, but for the parents too? Yeah, I think, you know, for us, we, the whole context of this message really came out of seeing people are starting with ourselves and you alluded to it in the book, but seeing how easy it is to pursue success outside the home, and that individual pursuit and everything in our culture is designed that way. Since the Industrial Revolution, it's designed for dad to leave the home for the kids to go their separate ways to the point that now we have, you know, individual trainers for our kids and athletics, and I don't want to, you know, I want to be careful because I don't want to make this sound like, oh, you know, we're shaming athletics and that we're both athletes. We love sports. I think sports are really, really healthy.
What I see it not being healthy is where we start to promote all at each individual person at the expense of the family unit. And that's where the heart behind this is, because that's, that's what we hear all the time. We hear this from families constantly of we're too busy. We don't have enough time.
I feel like I'm not getting enough time with my kids. And just really asking the questions, are we prioritizing what matters most to us, especially when we look at end of life surveys, and you see that some of our greatest regrets were that we didn't live the lives that we wish we would have. We did what everybody else was telling us to do. You know, it's an interesting human dynamic. We do go with the flow so easily. And you see that in so many ways. I mean, you can see it in an autocratic dictatorship country, you know, people don't know what to do. So we just kind of herd mentality, and we just kind of move except for a few that 10% that might fight that. And that's at that kind of level, but then down at the family level at the household level, we're very similar. Oh, you know, we look up at the end and go, I mean, Jean and I often have said, you know, be so great to parent over, you know, because we've learned so much, and it made a lot of mistakes. And it just be, it would be so nice to hit the reset.
Yeah, interesting trade back at, you know, two and four. It's okay, how can we do this? But I guess that's the appeal for those watching and listening. If you have kids at home and your marriage, don't wait, don't go with the thing that we're trying to do is say, take permission. Like I feel like culture doesn't give us permission, because we just have to fit the cultural norms. And then when you go out on social media, and you go to Instagram, you get all these other places, and you're seeing that, you know, the Joneses down the street, their kids are in X, Y, and Z, well, then that means I should probably just get my kids in X, Y, and Z.
And we don't think about why, but we don't think about the effects or the ripple effects of that we'll have. We just do it because it's what we, you know, believe we're supposed to do. And I think that's where we're seeing the, you know, that's what this is all about is, is really honing in on being famous at home because your biggest fans live under your roof. Yeah. And that's the, at the end of the day, like, that's what we all want. We want that connection.
Yeah. And, you know, in that regard, I've watched that research over the years. And one of the things that always astounds me because of pop culture today, we have the impression that teenagers particularly are so connected to their friend base and to pop culture and their phones and all those things. But in the research data, teens will say the most important people to me are my mom and dad. The most important influence in my life is my mom and dad. I don't know that we know that as parents anymore because there's just so much competition for their attention.
But in their hearts, these young people are going, no, my mom and dad are so important. Well, and that's the one place where you're irreplaceable, right? Like, and I think that's, I mean, for us, the message of truly what it means to be famous at home is recognizing like, this is the one place that I am irreplaceable.
My role in this family, you can't just sub me out. Whereas all of the things, all of the accolades that the world puts out there. And for mom and dad, too, like we're talking about kids and, you know, activities and such, what about mom and dad, like all of us are chasing something like we're going after something out there in the world.
Because it gives us a sense of if it's significance, if it's a sense of safety, value, dignity, something that gives us worth, and it fills a void that we have, yeah, for some reason. Yes, that's the key. And try to figure that out. Exactly. And what is that message? What is that fear underlying that? Because it's driving us to chase something outside of our home, like outside of this unit that God gave us to steward. And it's really where the are the basis of our identity is formed.
In fact, the example in the book, and I again, appreciate the transparency, Josh, but your dad had heart failure, he went into the hospital. And I so related to this, you tried to begin to fix everything, but it was at the expense of other things. And it's, it is kind of that paradigm where I can do four things.
Pick them. I can't do 10 things. But describe that environment. And then Christy, how you were engaging that?
And what was the issue? Yeah, I think our chase, you know, for me, you know, in the middle of all this, you know, you're, you know, we're doing what we do, you know, we want to help families, we feel called to help family. So I'm in the middle of trying to work and actually also, you know, put food on the table, you know, you got it, you got to have a job. But in the middle of all that we have two infants, we have an infant and a toddler, the toddlers not sleeping, Christy is not doing well. She was really what she called the bottom rung of life during that season. And then my dad has congestive heart failure, and his heart stopped working on its own.
So they had to do a heart pump surgery. And all of this, it was like the perfect storm, it all just came at the at the exact same time. And me, I'm trying to manage my dad, you know, his wife, my mom, my stepdad, you know, I'm trying to manage Christy, I'm trying to, and I was just everywhere. And then also trying to pursue my career, pursue our business, do the things that we need to do. And what I was doing is I was talking about a lot of things that we're doing right now, and then are talking about right now, but then showing up and not doing them at home the way that I was supposed to be doing them.
And and that was a significant moment for me to look at, man, what am I actually chasing here? And what really does matter at the end of the day, because because especially in that season, she wasn't doing well. And so when she's not doing well, I'm getting the brunt of her not doing well. And so that makes me want to so then we get into a dance where I'm not wanting to engage her.
I'm getting defensive, because the way she's, but she's treating me that way, because she's struggling. Yeah. And for me, I've, what Josh said before, I literally called it hitting the bottom rung of life. Like, it was just his dad went into the hospital, I think our daughter was six weeks old. And our son was two. And every postpartum mom knows what those weeks are like, it was just I got to get up, it was awful. It was just, we were living, you know, my in laws, he's back and forth to the hospital. And I realized in that season, it was, I felt so unseen, I felt so insignificant.
He's out there, crushing it and getting the accolades and the successes on because, you know, he'd travel and speak and everyone's like, all the attaboys, you know, he's getting those. And I'm at home, like in a baggy t shirt, college sweatpants, you know, hair back in a ponytail, no makeup on the spackled and pureed banana and sweet potato because I was teaching our baby deep food. And it was like this season of total hiddenness and insignificance. And I realized in those moments, all I what I needed for him to do with see me, I needed someone to say, what you're doing is significant, what you're doing matters. Because at the time, it feels all of culture says, like, this is it's meaningless, you know, it's like, go back to work.
If that's a struggle, put your kids in daycare. And, and that's not even that wasn't the fight for me. It was this. It was this belief that I've been given these children. And the Lord had asked me, I really felt clearly to stay home with them. And it, to me, it felt like I was sacrificing myself to care for these kids. And that search for significance was what the chase was for me.
And that season, Christie, let me ask you this, because I can just feel man that how many moms have been there are there right now that are watching, listening, trying to listen, because they got 14 things going on. But the, you know, understanding the significance, not listening to the culture, that ability to prioritize, because when you think about it, taking care of those littles, it's the most important thing you could do. It's hard to feel that at the time, because you're covered in banana pudding or whatever.
Cherry banana and sweet potato. Yes, exactly. How I just get this image of you, like, dragging your limbs through that kitchen going, Josh, I need you, Josh, and him not responding well. And like, you're withering.
Like you're withering. And so how do you muster that ability to turn to Josh and say, this is what I need from you right now. And Josh's ability to say, oh, rather than backing up, Josh, I'm telling you, with males, men, when we're in a tight jam, we just go compartmentalized, you know, okay, we just back up because we don't know what to do. Right. Or defensive, right, where he would feel defensive, because it's like, and I'm putting words in his mouth, but I've heard him say them. So but he'll say, you know, I'm already giving everything. Like, I feel like I'm crushing it. I'm trying to balance all these things. And then you're telling me, I'm still not doing it well enough. Yeah.
And I needed him to see me. And in that moment, to his credit, he didn't defend himself. He did not lash out or say, like, you know, because and we've, I mean, we've been in those rounds, like, we call it the dance, right, where it's like, you know, then he gets defensive, because it's like, do you not see what I'm doing? Like, do you not see what I've heard? Never?
I've never been. But he just held me in that moment. He just hugged me without knowing what to say. It's because I didn't know what to do. Yeah, it's just like, let me just do the best thing that I and the fact that you were okay to be held, because there's times where you're just like, don't even touch me too. Yeah. For me, I think this is the key. And I think you have said it so many times.
And I just want to clarify it. I think that at the end of the day, we all have a desire to feel seen. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. And when we don't feel seen, we go outside and we chase where we feel seen, whether that's on social media and getting likes and comments, whether that's for board members, whether that's for clients, whether that's for employee, whether, you know, whatever it is, whatever your stage is, if you will, we try to feel seen. And if we're not feeling seen at home, that's where we turn outside the home to feel seen. And the whole point for us and with famous at home, is to say, Listen, your greatest fans live under your roof. And practically speaking, if I can just see what's going on within Christie's heart, get beyond the wall that she's put up, get beyond the way the dance, and just say, even that that example of just holding her and going, tell me what's really going on within your heart. Right.
That's what I want to know. Well, and it's a powerful moment, because if more couples could do that, there'd be really powerful marriages, strong, especially Christian marriages, if we're doing this correctly. But I think even to your point, when Jesus walked the earth, that's what he did with so many people. He saw them.
So I mean, the woman caught in adultery, the woman with the issue of blood, the woman at the well, the Sadducees and Pharisees, he saw them. Yeah, yeah. And call them out. Yeah. I mean, and so the point being there, I think that was one of the great illustrations that God himself was illustrating for us is to see those who are close to you. Yeah. And it's so difficult to see when we're running ragged, and our schedules are so full, and we're so busy, and our kids feel that trickle down effect.
Many people listening and watching are in the church, we have a confession of Christ, we want to pursue the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, goodness, patience, mercy. But doggone it, these other things keep creeping up, like anger, bitterness. Yeah, yeah. Isn't it a pain?
So how do we... Being human. It's the lifelong struggle. Yeah. But I think that awareness and then it's like I could hear it. I remember years when I heard it, I just didn't know how to get it into my heart. Yeah.
And help and make it apply to my life. So for those people that are in that spot, oh, Josh, that sounds great, or Christy, I know right where you're at. But it's like, how do I get that what I'm hearing into my actions?
Yeah. I think one of my really good friends, mentor of mine, Jeremy Pryor, just recently was with him. And one of the things he said, it was very insightful, he said, you come to events, you come to conferences, we were in a mastermind group. And he said, when you hear new information for the first time, like, oh, wow, that's really interesting. And I wish I would... And it's new information that you know you didn't apply, that you learned, but you'd never applied it. He said, our first response should always be repentance. Wow.
It shouldn't be just writing it down and taking a note and then logging, oh, I'll go back to that later. It should always be, Lord, why have I not... And just saying, Lord, I'm sorry that I have not implemented this. My ears and my heart have been closed.
They've been closed. And I'm sorry that I haven't been quick to listen, that I've been quick to speak or I've been quick to anger rather than slow to anger or slow to speak. And I think it always starts with repentance. And so I'm gonna say that first and foremost.
For me, these most significant breakthroughs, any time that Christie and I have an argument or that I'm trying to be famous somewhere else and I'm not being famous to her, the most significant breakthroughs happen when I humble my heart and I'm repentant and I'm seeking her forgiveness every time. And our flesh works so hard to keep us from doing that. Oh, hates it, hates it. It is amazing. Yeah. But can I add one thing to you? Because you said a word, you said awareness. It's awareness. Like what I realized in that, you know, spackled and pureed banana and sweet potato is I had no awareness of what was going on within my heart. And that's where we've talked about what we call... That's what we came up with 15 minutes a day, where I realized I was in such a dark place and such a confusing place, I would say, because I wasn't aware of what was going on. And so when your anger is coming out, like every which way and you're like, I don't even know why am I attacking you?
And I talked to so many women and it's the same story. It's like, we're so bombarded by all of the things. Our mental load is so much that we don't have time to actually process what is happening to us? Where have I gone? What am I even feeling? And so what 15 minutes a day became was this process of just inquiring and asking one another, what did you feel today? And it was one positive emotion, one, what we call uncomfortable emotion. And it allowed us time to seek into the other's heart, but also for each of us individually to process really what we were feeling.
Because otherwise it's all you're getting is the reaction, right? All the anger, all the... Yeah, that surprises me a little bit, because I was frankly kind of impressed that in that dark place you were, you had the ability, which I heard as a mic drop moment to be able to say, I don't feel seen. That is a concise, emotional expression. I mean, that would catch my attention. It obviously caught Josh.
I think any husband that has any well of ability would be able to say, whoa, I've got an issue with her. We need to do something. But what's interesting is it took me so long to say it.
Well, okay, that's fair. If I wish I'd said it a year earlier. It was like a rock bottom moment. That's how you get to that rock bottom moment.
It's time. It's not like that day was the bottom of the earth and you came up with it. And that's where 15 minutes a day, if you're practicing this of sitting down, just devoting, and sometimes it can be five minutes, it didn't have to be, but to sit down and devote time to just go a little bit deeper than the business of the day and just say, give me one positive feeling you felt today. What was one moment you were excited, happy, content, joyful. And then what was one uncomfortable emotion?
What was one moment where you felt jealous or rejected or hurt? And again, in that process, you feel seen and there is a part of you that is filled up because, okay, I'm known, which is our deepest meaning. And it doesn't allow these big underlying things to get so big because they don't.
It's like I was able to say it on a daily basis, not in six months time when I am at the bottom of my rope, I will unleash on you of how unseen. And I think we do that. Like we hold things in thinking that we're helping in the moment. Like I don't want to put more on him right now. And all it does is just caught this swelling storm within.
And that's what 15 minutes a day, just that little process has helped us get to the bottom of and just root things out quicker. And it's good to have that release valve because bigger, worse, more catastrophic things can happen like an affair or something like that. And in that context, Christy, you wrote in the book about your honeymoon experience. I might as well, you know, you wrote it, so I'm going to raise it. But, you know, you had this catastrophic argument.
That's good to date. It's been the biggest argument. Well, you just decided to have the big one right up front.
Last night of our honeymoon, the last night. Okay. So what, what is it?
And then you refer to it as the elephant. Yeah. Well, it's, it's what it was about church.
That's great. It doesn't have to be about bad things. I mean, it was about, yeah, go ahead.
Are you going to defend it? I was going to describe the timeline of that. We get to see it all over again. It was, it was, it was, it was, yeah, it was a very, it was something we haven't even really talked about, I guess.
So here's an example of what we call the elephant. It's like you brush it under the rug and you pretend it doesn't exist until that it comes out and you realize, oh, this is a huge thing. It's taking up a ton of space in our marriage or in our relationship. So we're just avoiding it because we argued about it on the last night of our honeymoon, but we just, we didn't, we never really resolved it.
So we need to know the it. Oh yeah. So basically it was that we had gone to different churches and we were dating and I loved mine. He, I don't even know if he loved his, but he felt a duty to his and he was serving in a role there. And he just assumed that after we were married, I would attend his church and just sort of fold in. And I was like, oh, like that just took me off guard. Like that was not where I felt at peace or joy. And I thought this was something we would do together.
Like we would decide together. Rightfully so. I was not. Yeah. But, but realizing like, this is a great example of a fear that's underneath a chase because for him it was this fear of pleasing, like these authority figures that he'd respected and was served under.
And so for him to walk away from that role, just cause he got married, you know, was like, the fear was that, you know, I would then be sort of blacklisted or deemed irresponsible or betrayal. Yeah. And, but really, yeah. And realizing this was a very new dynamic where it's actually prioritizing, like he's saying the heart of me, my heart. And this is something that we do together as a team and the voices outside, they don't get as much of a say anymore. And it was such, I felt so unseen. I felt so disrespected.
I think I felt so like my voice didn't matter. And it was like such a shock because it wasn't the Josh I knew. And I think that's what often happens.
It's like, you get married and you're like, wait, I knew you. What, what has happened? And this is what happens when fear takes over. We do crazy stuff and it divided us. And it really became what we call the elephant in our marriage because it was the thing we didn't talk about after that. Cause it was like, I don't know how we address this now after this big explosion.
And that's so often what happens with elephants. We're so afraid that if we touch on it again, it's gonna, yeah. And the fear and the insecurity were driving me more than focusing on her heart. I relate to that.
I mean, especially if you have that people pleaser bent, which I can have. And it sounds like you might do. And the thing that I would just really encourage couples to do is look at your opponents. What is, and when we say opponents, we say, what is that one thing that's coming in between the marital intimacy and your connection in your marriage? And, and that could be, it could be a good thing. It could be a new baby, you know, it could be a job loss.
It could be those types of things, but what is that thing? And how do we address it? How do we come together and fight for each other in it?
Cause when we don't name the opponents, when we don't bring them out into the light, that's when the enemy can use things even as good as church to put a wedge between our marital intimacy. Josh Christie, this is so good. I mean, I hope everyone listening and those watching are as riveted as I am. I mean, I'm just right here with you because you're describing us.
And I think it's just not Jean and me. I think it's a lot of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of couples, let's come back next time and apply this a little more to parenting. And there's so much to cover here. So we'll just pick it up with the parenting application of this.
And how do we do this for our children to teach them? Can we do that? Yeah. Sounds great.
Love it. All right. Let's do. What a great conversation we heard today on Focus on the Family with Josh and Christie Straub as they shared ideas and insights about making your marriage a priority in the midst of a busy life. And we know you can't let the relationship with your spouse kind of go on autopilot.
And I think we've all experienced that. We need to be more intentional about connecting and communicating well, and really guarding the heart of our marriage. And Josh and Christie offer a lot of practical ideas about how to do that in their book, Famous at Home. Seven decisions to put your family center stage in a world competing for your time, attention, and identity. Well, I'm a huge fan of Josh and Christie. I love their passion to help couples and families thrive.
And I can't say enough good things about Famous at Home. There's so much good, good, good content here that can literally transform your marriage. And I think every husband and wife should get this book.
If you can send a gift of any amount to the ministry, we'll send the book out to you as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry and helping us rescue marriages and rescue couples who are really struggling. Working together, we can have a huge impact. Over the last 12 months, and we just got this data recently, more than half a million couples say their relationship has been helped by Focus on the Family. And I'm so grateful for friends like you who make that happen. We're doing this together, and the Lord, I believe, is smiling for all the good success we're seeing.
Let's move the needle up to maybe a million or even two million couples who are helped. Yeah, so please continue praying for us in this ministry. And as you can, make a monthly gift of any amount, and we'll send that book to you as our way of saying thanks for joining the support team. A one-time gift certainly is deeply appreciated if you're not in a spot to do that monthly pledge. But either way, stop by the show notes and click on the links there to donate or give us a call, 800-A-FAMILY. And we have a free survey for you online. It's the Focus on Marriage Assessment, and it's going to offer you and your spouse a really good overview of what's working well in your relationship, along with practical tips about ways to improve.
Check out the website or show notes to learn more. And by the way, if you happen to be traveling this summer anywhere near Colorado Springs, plan now to join us here on campus. Our headquarters here in Colorado Springs has a terrific bookstore and welcome center activities for the kids. It's a great, safe place to be, and we'd love to have you here. Well, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daley. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back for part two of the conversation with Josh and Christy Straub, as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.
