God is at work and He's calling His people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Coulson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs. truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope.
Visit TruthRising.com today. That's TruthRising.com. The following program is sponsored by Focus on the Family and is supported by the prayers and financial gifts of wonderful friends like you. This is John Fuller, and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website. But I think in the Word of God it just gives us the hope.
In fact We like to say for our marriage that we are pictures of God's grace. That's good. God's grace. in your marriage We should see. God's grace, not because we're perfect.
but because we're still in this ring together. We're still fighting. We're still not fighting each other, but we're trying to fight. Our marriage, we want to fight for our love, we want to fight for our kids' legacy, we want to fight for all those things and.
Well, that's George Gregory, and he's with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, along with his wife Tandra. We'll be talking marriage, and thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. You know, John, if people missed last time, you need to download the app or go to the website and listen to the program. It was fun.
You know, we're talking about their book, The Marriage Game Plan, but we talked about life-you know, what it was like to grow up in the 20s and fall away from the Lord or not even know the Lord at all, and then coming back. It's a good story, especially for parents who may have a prodigal child. And just the hope that George gave us being raised as a pastor's son and then having his dark days in college, but then his dad praying for him for 365 straight days, and then getting that phone call from George saying, Dad, I've accepted Christ. That's what we all want to hear as parents when we have a son or daughter who isn't walking with the Lord. And then Tondra's story simply about.
Being raised by a single-parent mom, I could relate to that, and not having a real spiritual foundation and just trying to do life as best as we can without a lot of. Healthy biblical instruction.
So we connected on that. And then today we're going to pick up their marriage game plan book and talk about what you do to create a marriage game plan. And I'm sure with that application, it's not just for pre-married or newly married, but I'm sure people that have been married 10 years, 20 years, if you're kind of looking for the compass, we've got it for you today. Yeah, George and Tandra have really built this book around their life experiences and their work with football teams, notably the Los Angeles Chargers. They served previously as marriage ministry leaders at Saddleback Church.
And if you'd like to learn more about this delightful couple and this great book, stop by our website, and that's focusonthefamily.com/slash broadcast. George and Tondra, welcome back. Thank you for having us. Another good day. Hey, let's pick up.
You know, if folks are just tuning in to hear this part of it, hopefully they'll go hear the other part, like I said. But we talked about your college years. You kind of knew each other. You ended up in the same classes. You talked about, you know, physical intimacy and aiming that direction before you really had, you know, any desire to marry each other.
Let's pick it up there, where you now are saying, hey, maybe we should get married. What did that look like? And then we'll move it from there.
Okay.
Well, we're human. And there's a scripture that says that the spirit is willing, but the flesh gets weak.
So Tondra and I, after we gave our life to Christ, we still had some things to work out. And we ended up finally connecting, if you understand what I mean. And uh a baby was formed. And so my dad always taught me that when you when you do certain things that you're going to handle your responsibility. And so immediately when she told me she was pregnant, uh I told her, I said, I love you.
I'm not in love with you, but I want to marry you. I want to do right by my kid. I want to make sure that I am there to parent my own kid. Yeah, and I would just even add: like, growing up with a single mom. I didn't have that structural Emphasis on partnership and family.
So I was like, no, George, no, we don't have to get married. I can take care of this baby by myself. She totally did. You know, I just had a total. Just total worldview, not even thinking about what would be best for the child with having.
being raised by two parents.
So we made that decision To just go ahead and get married. Rolling the dice is what we say. We roll the dice. Yeah, we don't suggest anybody do that. But we found ourselves really, after looking back over at like hindsight, it's 2020, we entered our marriage with no game plan.
We were being reactive versus being proactive. And this is what we tell our professional athletes: like, if you don't want to end in that divorce rate of 70% after retirement, you got to be proactive in your marriage. You can't be reactive. And we found ourselves behind the eight ball, if you will. And Not being on the same team, having no game plan, and there was a lot of frustration.
You know, she thought I looked like Denzel Washington, you know, so for her, I was easy on the eyes, but man, I was a piece of work. You know, I was a critical, you know, I brought a hammer to kill a fly in most cases, and it was a tough thing for me to let things go. And so I just wasn't really ready to be married. But what we did was we rebounded from that, and we went to the same marriage conference. Uh for seven years straight.
Yeah. The same content. We could read the fill in the blank before the presenters even said what the blank was, and we knew it. Back and forth, but the reason why we had to is because we knew that if we didn't have a plan, if we didn't do the work that we needed to do to invest in our marriage, we were not going to make it. You know, George, and Tondra, as well, that's really interesting that you say that because we've done some research that's out now, and when we look at Strong marriages, particularly what I'll call convictional Christian marriage.
These are, it's us. It's people that really believe in a commitment to Christ. They read the word regularly. They pray together regularly. They go to church regularly.
That group has the lowest divorce rate of any group. And it should be so. That shouldn't surprise us. But other nominal Christian divorce rates are actually quite a bit higher and the world's higher too. And that's fruit of what it means to live a convictional Christian life.
It doesn't mean you're perfect. It doesn't mean you won't argue from time to time. It doesn't mean you don't have rough edges that the Lord's working out. But it does indicate that people that are... Putting the word into play, putting it into action, first with each other, then with the world around them, including their kids, have far better outcomes.
Now, it's not the reason we're doing it, but it's the benefit of trusting the Lord and walking with the Lord. I just want to go back to those moments where it was rough for you having to go a number of years in your marriage, even though you made a commitment to Christ. It was that, I would assume, that difference between really knowing the word and applying the word in your relationship. Is that accurate? Sure, yeah.
Listen, it's not easy to be a Christian, meaning that when you read the word, then it says, Do what it says.
So, how I love my wife is really my reflection of my relationship with who God is in my life. And that's what we had to have these hard conversations, right? Like, are we reflecting? Christ image in our marriage. And when we got real and we said, no, we're not.
And we talked about instances of being on the same team. But the thing that I realized is that. I couldn't throw in the towel because marriage is a, so our marriage ministry is called Journey for Life. We believe marriage is a journey and it should be for life. And in sports, they always talk about that the season is a long season and you might not be winning in the first quarter or the first half, but that doesn't mean you give up.
Or you might not be winning in the first half of the season, but you keep grinding. You keep doing what you can and you keep having what we call discipline and practice. That's what it is.
So, elite athletes know this, and that's what we had to do. We had to get into a rhythm of really, if you want to go to scripture, we had to practice the fruit of the Holy Spirit, right? We love with each other, that's right, of course. Gentleness, kindness, two of those, it says long-suffering. We like to throw those out most of the time, right?
Because we don't want to suffer long. And then it talks about self-control. But all of those are fruits of the Spirit in which we have to practice and have discipline in our energy. You know, one of the things I loved about the book, The Marriage Game Plan, is the highlighting of the vows. You know, we do go through that very fast.
We're kind of young and intoxicated with love, and you're standing up there on that day saying, Did I get this done? Did I get this done? I don't know how to check this out. My brother married us, so I was actually whispering the process to him. The rings.
Now, the candle, do the candle. You know, he was so, he was like, just be quiet, I got it. I'm a pastor. This is Mike, my brother. But that's how, you know, that's where my.
My mind was, keep the thing organized, let's go. But you really emphasize the vows and going back to the vows and remembering what it is you said. Why was that important to you? Yes, because I feel like after the dust settles, you know, and the romantic fairy tale is over, Sometimes when that happens, a lot of couples lose sight of that bigger picture, right? And so it's not just enough to say I do, but you have to say, I still do.
And Covenant communication is one of the ways we do that. How we work on our communication that aligns with those vows and the commitment that you made.
So it's that covenant communication is keeping those vows before you and reminding you and not losing sight of what you have just committed your life to. Yeah, about that, when you do find yourself realizing, oh, I have lost sight of what's really valuable here. What are some good things to do? Yeah. Yeah, well, you you gotta go back sometimes pull those wedding vows back out, right?
And those are promises, solemn promises, or what we call covenants, right? God is a covenantal God. And so we can't just break away from those covenants when we get mad. And so we like to pull those covenants out. And just remember, you know, Tandra talked about that covenant language.
It's not just saying I do, it's about how you continue to talk to each other, how you honor one another, how you prioritize one another. Those are the biblical principles that in contemporary marriages, sometimes they get lost because we want everything to be our way. And we like to tell people that if you want it your way, you got to go to Burger King. You can't always have it your way in marriage. But when you say, How can I honor my wife or my husband, or how can I prioritize them or show them?
And those are the things that I think helps reflect God's image in our marriage. Yeah, and I would just add. you know, if there are listeners out there who didn't grow up with a good representation or don't have a framework for that type of covenant communication. That's where you have to roll up your sleeves and you have to get help. Go to these conferences, get counseling.
You know, you can learn how to communicate and resolve conflict in a way that does honor and align with your values and the vows that you made. That's good. And we've got a marriage mentor program that Greg Smalley started. Dr. Greg Smalley runs our marriage department, and we'll have a link for that, as well as the book by George and Tondra Gregory, The Marriage Game Plan at focusonthefamily.com/slash broadcast.
Or give us a call, 800, the letter A and the word family.
Well, let's crack it open. What exactly is a marriage game plan and what does it do for our relationship? We've been hinting at it, but let's just hit it right between the eyes. Yeah, well, we believe a game plan, like no couple. Signs up for marriage to lose, right?
So we all want to win, right? But a game plan is a strategy where you, number one, is you define the win. Define how you want to win. That means when it's all said and done, 50, 60 years later, what do you want your marriage to look like? And then start working back from there.
Can you give me an example of that statement, what that might sound like?
So for us, we want to always honor each other. We want people to say they honored one another. We want people to say, oh, they stayed faithful to each other, right? No infidelity. We want people to say, like our kids, we want to leave a legacy, right?
And so if we just go over those three things, if that's what you want, then you set goals. Number two is that you would set goals and how you're going to accomplish those things. I mean, business people, we know these things, right? You have strategies and things of that nature. You say, here's what we want to do.
We set goals. And then somehow in marriage, we throw that all out the window, right? And so a part of that also is knowing your team. Right in marriage, this is number three: is that we've got to know our team. You know, we like to say that we're on the same team because sometimes in arguments, you just don't really feel like, or intense fellowship, you don't feel like you're on the same team.
But to keep that before each other, that we're on the same team, we know our differences, but yet we know how we're in common, what we want to do together. And then, fourth, fourth, is you got to know your enemies or your opponents, right? Know what's going to happen, know what opposition could come against your marriage, whether it's health issues, whether it's, we just had to take my mother into our home a few years ago who has dementia. You never know when things that you have no control of will impact your marriage. But having a game plan, talking about those things early can help.
And then, lastly, we like to say, and the fifth one is you just devise your strategy, which our book helps couples to devise their strategy. Yeah. That they're working on together. And there's a lot that goes into that. But we feel like those five things will help couples win in their marriage.
Yeah, Tondra, let me ask you this as the woman. Yes. You're the woman at the table. You represent all wives right now. This is going to be for all humanity.
You know, I'm sure some wives that are feeling like there's no hope here. My husband doesn't have The capability of throwing the touchdown pass. And we all know what that means: it's whatever that wife is looking for, and he just stumbles and can't deliver. Maybe chooses not to. It's just too much work.
And I don't know that I want to put the work into that. I mean, speak to that heartbroken woman, I guess, is what I'm describing, that doesn't have the hope that this can turn around. What does she do? to nudge, to not Ripe, but to pray and to say, Lord, can you change our relationship? Yeah, yeah.
What I would say is that. There is hope. It doesn't matter where you're at. or where you started. But You get to decide where you are going.
as a couple.
Now you do need a willing teammate. You know, 'cause I'm sure they're Situations out there where you don't feel like you have a winning teammate. But the more you grow, the more you pray, the more you are putting in the principles. That is a seed. We have gardens, you know, our hearts are gardens, and the more of God's seeds you put in there, it just transforms your heart and it transforms your mind.
And if you are focusing on growing and letting God flourish in your life, it's so powerful. The overflow that can also draw your husband in.
Now, hopefully, you have a husband that. Maybe he does want to work on this and be a teammate. He just doesn't know how.
Well, and I like the concept, and of course, we had focus on the family, believe in counseling. We have hope restored for couples that are really in trouble. And the biggest thing there is how to reconnect, how to. Commit to trusting each other, loving each other, creating an environment of safety for one another. kind of basic concepts, which I think is what we all struggle with when we're struggling in our marriage.
These things are kind of basic to your point. This is what we got to do. And then we struggle to do them. And that, I think, George, to follow up on that question, that deep resentment that has festered for five years, 10 years, whatever it might be, now on the husband's side, you know, it's just not working the way I wanted it to. And it's typically through the lens of selfishness.
You know, she's not meeting some needs or she's not filling in the gaps where Rocky Balbola, right? We got gaps. She's got gaps. I got gaps. We got gaps.
And she's not meeting the needs of my gaps. And then you start to think about: okay, maybe. I missed it. I need a different reset, a different wife. How do you say, wait a minute, Lord, especially for Christians.
That's not it. That's a reflection on me and my sel selfishness.
So what do you what do you do with that as the husband that doesn't feel like your needs are getting met? Yeah, well uh one is I would ask have you clearly articulated your needs, right? And have you also addressed the things that you've overlooked with her needs, right? And we call that vulnerability and authenticity, right? There's this thing uh about men sometimes we don't want to be vulnerable.
We don't want to say this hurts or to go without sometimes is very hurtful and yet In our marriage of over 30 years, there's been some times where I've had to go to Tantra and say, hey, this season is just not fun. You know, it could have been right after a baby. It could have been, you know, when we were busy in New York planning churches. And then even coming out here has been extremely busy. But yet, if I can find a way to articulate it.
It's not just what you say, it's how you say it. Yeah. Right. And I learned that if I can articulate things to my wife, she has shown me, at least over the years, that she will at least go back and ponder that. Yeah.
And that's what. You know, in in football language, There's always teams that You're down, you start resenting. You start looking at your teammates saying, Are you giving your all? Or are you running the plays that you're supposed to run? And it's the coach's job to get you to say, If you messed up in that past season, or it hasn't been the best in that past season, you can't focus on that if you want to win.
If you mess a play up, you got to say, Look, let's turn the page. You turn the page. You know, in sports, they watch film on Mondays. From the Sunday loss or the Sunday win. And once they watch the film, guess what they do?
They learn the things they're supposed to learn, but then they flush it. Yeah. Because it's gone. And I think sometimes resentment, we stay stuck on the past and we don't see our way forward. But I think in the Word of God, it just gives us the hope.
In fact, We like to say for our marriage that we are pictures of God's grace. That's good. We should see God's grace, not because we're perfect, but because we're still in this ring together. We're still fighting. We're still not fighting each other, but we're trying to fight for our marriage.
We want to fight for our love. We want to fight for our kids' legacy. We want to fight for all those things. Which raises that question where we tend to be. More graceless.
For those closest. To us, our family, our spouses, maybe our kids. And then with friends, that's why people go, wow. He was so nice at church. That's crazy that they divorced.
But it is like this thing where we can't extend. the kindness that we would extend a friend. To our own spouse. Sure. That's backward.
That's why we talk about, you know, in the home, we call it winning the home game. It's not enough to win just the away game or in your career or in your hobbies or in your life. That's traditionality. You've got to say, I want to win. In my home game.
And that's one thing that we, when we're traveling, we constantly talk about. How can you win your home game? And doing those things of reflecting Christ's image, even when it hurts. Helps, right? And so there have been plenty of times where I've had to go back to time.
In fact, This week. You know, anytime we do something good for God, we already know that the enemy of our soul wants to throw a wrench in our game.
So we found ourselves, you know, giving each other a little hard time. And we had to come back to each other and say, I asked her this morning, I said, do you feel like that was a true representation of our reflection of who Christ is in our marriage?
Now, was that more about you or more about her? That was about us. That was about both. Both of us had to. Listen, that's the teammate mentality is: no, like one wins, we both win.
One loses, we both lose.
So if there is a conflict or intense fellowship going on, each one of you have to reflect on your contribution to that because it. It can't continue to go on if Two people aren't helping sustain that entity's fellowship down. That's really good. You mentioned those core five steps: define your win, set your goals, know your team, obviously your spouse, know the opponents. To your team's success, and then design your plan of action.
Again, the book covers that. I'm thinking of. Kind of the big victories, the bolder victories that seem pretty obvious. But for Gene and I, you know, one of the things that she will say to me is, I feel like we don't talk deeply about things, and she's yearning for that. And I mean, you confessed your weekly, this week's problem.
So just last night, I'm thinking to myself, and this is so, I don't know why. You know, we had a great discussion, partly about family, extended family, but pretty deep. And, you know, I was like, whoo, finally scored that touchdown. And she even said, this has been a great conversation. Thank you for going deep with me.
I don't know why. I mean, it's just like news weather and sports is fine with me, but it doesn't make it happen for her. She wants a deeper intimacy. And it's not like I'm trying to fumble the ball. But you've got to even know what those boulders are or even those little pebbles of victory when you're looking at that game plan.
What does your mate need? Not what you need. What does she need to feel close and to feel intimate? Discuss identifying that and then executing the game plan to get there. Like in this case, I feel inadequate about that.
And men, when we feel inadequate, man, we run. We don't want to hang out there and learn to be adequate. Speak to that dynamic.
Well, again, sometimes we just, we don't have a clue, right? And so I think to your example, when your wife says, hey, I like to go deep here, that's the moment for you now to sort of say, oh, I wasn't planning to go deep. But if that's what you need, dear, then I'm ready to go to it. Or can you help me do that? Yeah.
Because I don't really know what that means. Exactly. Like we tell wives, well, I tell wives, I say, you think wives say, they should just get me. He should just know. And I say, wives, we don't know.
We don't get you guys all the time. Right. So to understand your heart. Mm-hmm. In every season, right?
So there's some seasons that Tantra's cool, and in another season, I might need to ask her, Hey, how are you doing in this season? Yeah. Where's your greatest fears at during this season? And it's really In our marriage, for over 30 years, we've been creating certain zones like work zones. And free zones.
So free zone is don't ask me big questions when I'm, you know, might be watching TV or if I'm wanna go cycling or something. But then there are work zones where we schedule time during a week. Where we know we're going to get deep. And you can't. Flake out on those moments where it's time to go deep.
And so, have margin built into your week. That's what I love to tell people: have margin built into your week where you're going to go deep, where you're going to ask the hard questions, and you're going to set a strategy for, hey, if we need to do something as a result of this conversation, and that's what we're going to do. That's really good. And this has been a great discussion, and we've really just scratched the surface, but we can't cover it all. And I love the idea of the marriage game plan.
It's the first time I've really thought about that. Let me turn to our listener. Focus on the family is here for you. We understand the challenges you're facing day to day. And if you have questions, I think over 48 years now, I think we've got, if not all, most of those answers.
That's why we're here. Yeah, we have an entire library of resources designed to help you. And a good starting point is our marriage assessment. It's a quick online quiz. When you and your spouse take it, it's going to give you.
Personalized results, highlighting your strengths, and maybe give you an area or two that you can grow in and talk about in the coming days. We also have George and Tondra's outstanding book, The Marriage Game Plan: Developing a Winning Strategy for Marital Success. And it's full of helpful, practical information to get you and your spouse on the same page and moving forward in your marriage together. Everybody who's married needs a copy of this book. And we need your help.
Your financial support allows us to provide resources to hurting families, broadcasts, podcasts, books, online articles, and assessments, counseling help, and so much more. We hear from people every day who tell us the impact God has made through the ministry that we do together. In fact, here's a note from Rebecca. She writes, My husband and I had been married for 25 years when I became very dissatisfied with our marriage. I contemplated leaving.
I opened my mailbox and found the Focus on the Family magazine and read it from cover to cover. Then I spent the next three days listening to your podcast. God has performed a great work in my marriage, and He chose to use Focus on the Family as my main source of help. Thank you so much for the work that you do there. You have no idea the impact that you're making on the world.
Wow, don't you want to be part of that kind of ministry? I hope so. When you give a gift of any amount to Focus on the Family today, we'll send you a copy of the Marriage Game Plan as our way of saying thank you for joining us in ministry. Yeah, donate today and request your copy of the Mirror. Marriage game plan, and then we can tell you more about that free marriage assessment when you call 800, the letter A and the word family.
That's 800-232-6459. Or online, stop by FocusontheFamily.com/slash broadcast. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your marriage can be healed.
A hope-restored marriage-intensive from focus on the family can transform you and your spouse's relationship. in just a few days. We'll go to this thing, but this is it. If this doesn't work, we're done. what we have now.
It's way more than we ever had before and that I ever even dreamed of in the marriage. Discover more at hoperestored dot com. That's hoperestored.com. God is at work, and He's calling His people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Coulson Center.
See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs. truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope. Visit TruthRising.com today. That's TruthRising.com.
Yeah.
